Saturday, October 20, 2012

Review This Box Of 2012 Panini Rookies & Stars And You Could Win Prizes In Our NFL Player Of The Day Contest




As a new contest idea I thought it might be fun to provide you with an opportunity to help me write a review.  Well... at the very least, part of one.  I will compensate you handsomely with some of the prizes from our 2012 Panini America NFL Player of the Day promotion if I use your comments.

One of the grand prizes from our prize pool is a box of 2012 Panini Rookies & Stars Football cards.  That box is still sealed, but I did open a different box of R&S that I got just after the release date.  Of course, you can pick up you own box of Rookies & Stars from your local card shop.  Use this link to go to the Panini Player of the Day website and use the Hobby Shop Locator to find the store nearest you.  

Below you will find some basic information about the product and scans of some of the cards I pulled along with all of the hits.

To enter this contest you should look at all the information and make your own comments/review about the product.  Use these questions as guidelines:


1 - What did you think about the design and look of the base, insert and hit cards?

2 - Are there enough quality players to be found in this product, both regular cards and hits?

3 - Even though Rookies & Stars is intended for set collectors, are most of the hits strong?

4 - Do you think set builders would want to put in the effort to collect all of the cards?

5 - To provide balance to the review, are the cards that were pulled from this box typical for most boxes or was this a box that falls into an extreme, good or bad?  With that knowledge, does that make these cards more desirable, less desirable or have no effect on your opinion?

I will look over the comments and if you make well-stated, valid points that I can incorporate into my review of R&S, you win.  As a hint, make sure your comments are specific.  If you like something, tell me exactly what it is that you like and why.  The same applies if you feel the opposite way about something.

There is a good chance that a few of you might say essentially the same thing.  In that case I will either random all the names to determine one winner or I might just award each of you a prize. Prizes will come from the first three groups of our Main Prize Pool.  They include packs of NFLPOD cards, individual NFL Player of the Day cards of players like Cam Newton, Andrew Luck, Peyton Manning, RG3, Tim Tebow, Trent Richardson and others, packs from our Group Two prizes, which include Peyton Manning Career Highlights, Super Bowl XLVI, Panini National VIP Exclusives and Hall of Fame Class of 2012 and some cool Panini T-Shirts.

To be eligible to win any of these prizes you must be following us either here on the blog, or on our Facebook page or on Twitter, or as many of those places as you please. As a bonus, anyone who follows All About Cards on one of our sites and leaves comments on Rookies & Stars will receive 1 entry to win something from our Main Prize Pool for each of the questions above you cover for a total of up to 5 bonus entries.   You will get these entries regardless of whether or not your comments are used in the final review.  Write as little or as much as you want.

Want to see more about our prizes, which include an Andy Dalton Autograph and gain additional bonus entries?  Use this link to see the post.

So before I reveal the cards, here are a few tips to help you write your comments/review.

When I write a review, things like design are easy to assess based on one box alone.  For some of the other questions like overall quality of the players included and whether I opened a typical box I need to do some research. 

The first place I go, every time, is Sports Card Radio to look at their checklists.  If you are not familiar with their site, they have checklists for almost every product released.  Information I find there includes number of base cards, players included, hit ratios, etc.  They provide an invaluable service to collectors and are a great resource.  Here is a link to their checklist for Rookies & Stars to help you with your review.

If I am reviewing a Panini product, I also head over to The Knight’s Lance.  They provide a wealth of information on all things Panini.  I usually look at their videos, called Panini Unwrapped, which are full box breaks.  By looking at other box breaks; I get a good idea of how my particular box stands up.  They also will have pre-release information with tons of photos, which help me understand the product better.  Here is a link to the box break video and an addition link to a listing of all the posts that covered 2012 Rookies & Stars.

We would classify Rookies & Stars as trading cards.  So when you form your comments keep in mind these are cards that cater to set builders, primarily base card and insert sets with some hits sprinkled into the mix. They tend to be reasonably priced.  Try to look at the product from the perspective of someone who would most likely purchase these cards.

You have until Wednesday, October 24, 2012 at 9:00 PM Pacific Standard Time to leave you comments/review here on the blog or on our Facebook page, or you can email them to AACNFLPOD (at) Yahoo (dot) com.  Now here are some of the cards we pulled.

Base Set
 Arian Foster, front and back
 Calvin Johnson Jr., Julio Jones, Cam Newton
 Drew Brees, A.J. Green, Peyton Manning
 Antonio Gates, Fred Davis, Brian Urlacher
 Jason Pierre-Paul, LeSean McCoy, Wes Welker

Base Rookies
 Dontari Poe, Melvin Ingram. Dont'a Hightower

 True Blue Base Parallels
Brandon Jacobs, Jermichael Finley 
 Torrey Smith, Jason Witten
Terrance Ganaway, Rishard Matthews, Fletcher Cox 

 Longevity Base Patallels
Hakeem Nicks #/249, Stephon Gilmore #/249 

Inserts

Statistical Standouts 
Marshawn Lynch, Calvin Johnson Jr. 
 Eric Weddle, Matthew Stafford, Ray Rice

 Greatest Hits
 Jon Beason, Patrick Peterson
 DeMarcus Ware, Asante Samuel

NFL Team Pennant (Die-Cuts)
 Minnesota Vikings, Denver Broncos

Player Pennant (Die Cuts)
Ben Roethlisberger

The Hits
 Joe Adams Rookie Materials True Blue #/399
A.J. Jenkins Rookie Crusade Material Red #/199
George Iloka Rookie Card Autograph #/499
 Andrew Luck Rookie Materials Autograph #/499

Good luck and thank you to everyone that takes the time to leave your opinions.  I look forward to reading them.

2 comments:

  1. 1. I really like this year's base card design. Their use of the team colors across the top goes well with the player's photos. And I like how it's not over powered with foil in an attempt to get too fancy. Sometimes simple is better.

    I also really like the Greatest Hits inserts. I'm a huge fan of companies who utilize color images on top of black and white images. The team and player pennants are kind of neat too... especially if they're made out of felt like the 1998 Contenders pennants.

    The hits look nice too... especially the Crusade rookie memorabilia cards. I'll overlook the lack of on card autographs, because this isn't considered a high end product. However, I'm not going to lie... I'm not a fan of players signing stickers.

    But not everything gets a golden review. I'm not a fan of the Statistical Standout inserts. Their design reminds me too much of a Contenders base card. And their Longevity parallels are terrible. This collector doesn't want to see Longevity written 30 times in the background.

    2. I'm a team collector, so 3 to 5 cards (excluding rookies) aren't really enough for me when it comes to the base set. I also don't like the fact that you can't pull regular base rookie cards of Andrew Luck, RG3, and other big name rookies. Or am I not reading the checklist correctly?

    In terms of hits, I'm impressed to see Aaron Rodgers, Peyton Manning, and other big names on their autograph checklists. And since the veteran autographs are tough to pull compared to the rookies, I imagine they'll hold their value.

    3. Are most of the hits strong? No. You asked the question and I gave you my honest opinion. There are way too many autographed rookies and not enough veteran autographs for my liking. But once again, it's not exactly a high end product.

    4. I'd classify myself as a set builder, but this isn't really my cup of tea. I'd imagine the regular base set (w/o short prints) should be fairly easy to build. But with 3 to 5 players from each team, that's not enough to draw my interest.

    I also don't like the fact that they didn't produce non autographed rookie cards of some of the top rookies.

    Which leads us to the collectors with deep pockets who plan on building the complete set with autographed and autographed memorabilia cards. I definitely wouldn't waste my money. Too many autographs of people who won't last three years in the NFL.

    Although, I must say whoever decides to build this set will definitely have a keepsake in their possession.

    5. Your box definitely falls into the extremely good category. You pulled the Andrew Luck. The rest is a bonus.

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  2. 1. I like the designs of the cards as an autograph collector there is areas in all the cards that are light so you can see the autographs on them.
    2. As in most sets there is always the big name stars and rookies this set appears to be no different. I would like to see the other players on cards from time to time instead of the same 10 guys from each team in every set. Lineman/special teamers need more card love.
    3.some good some not good. I hate the true blue and longevity which are just the same cards as the base cards with an add on, whatever! I do like the stat leaders and the team pennants nice in a lower end product. Jerseys and autos are hit or miss like in any set depends on who you get you got a great one in Luck but i'm sure there is not one in every box!.
    4. If your a base set builder yes. If your looking for all the inserts and hits to build your set NO! to much and probably cost prohibitive for the quality of this set.
    5. Extreme for sure this box had the homerun in it with the Andrew Luck Material Autograph this cards is what there selling packs/boxes on, the chance to get this one card is the lottery we play with buying packs and boxes.

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