2012 Panini Prestige Football Box Break Recap And Review

This year, Panini held back on releasing Prestige Football, making them the last company to release its first football product of the year.  By doing so Panini proves the old adage, “Good things come to those who wait.”  While Panini may have been the last to the table, the delay allowed Prestige to be the first release to feature rookie players in their team’s uniforms, from the Rookie Premiere and team practice sessions, which makes great use of their NFL license.

For the purposes of review, we classify Prestige Football as trading cards.  You can find Prestige in a wide variety of configurations in both retail and hobby.  We opened a hobby box, which contains 24 – 8 card packs with a promise of 4 autograph and/or memorabilia cards per box, with a guarantee of at least two autographs.

Here are some of the cards we pulled.

Base Set

 Aaron Rodgers, front and back

 Cam Newton, Eli Manning, A.J. Green

 Victor Cruz, Arian Foster, Julio Jones

 Tony Romo, Philip Rivers, LeSean McCoy

I wanted to highlight these next cards, also in the base set.

These cards of players that will be joining new teams this year.  This might not hold true for you, but I appreciate that Panini DID NOT try to Photoshop these. Not only does it look better to have these players in their prior team’s uniforms, it provides a record of their transition from team to team.  For future releases I would like to see them in their new uniforms, but for a pre-season release, without in action photos available, this is the way to go.

Rookies

Andrew Luck, front and back

 Justin Blackmon, Morris Claiborne, Ryan Tannehill

 Shea McClellin, Riley Reiff, David DeCastro

 Harrison Smith, Doug Martin, Brian Quick

Base and Rookie Parallels

2012 NFL Draft Alternate Photo SP

 Justin Blackmon

Extra Points

 Brent Celek Gold, Mike Wallace Gold, Sterling Moore

 Robert Meachem Gold, Morris Claiborne Blue #/999, Mychal Kendricks Bllue #/999

Inserts

Connections

 Detroit Lions - Matthew Stafford & Calvin Johnson Jr.

Stars of the NFL

 Brian Urlacher, Darrelle Revis

 Darren McFadden, Reggie Wayne

NFL Passport

 Robert Griffin III RG3, front and back

 Alshon Jeffery, Stephen Hill

Prestigious Picks

 Michael Brockers

 Chandler Jones, Doug Martin

 David Wilson, Ryan Broyles

League Leaders

Receiving Yards

Draft Tickets

 Brandon Weeden, Coby Fleener

 Ronnie Hillman, Nick Toon

Draft City Destinations

 Chris Givens, LaMichael James

 Mohamed Sanu, A,J, Jenkins Holokote #/100

The Hits

Memorabilia

 Adrian Wilson

 Chris Givens #/299, Ronnie Hillman #/149

Autographs

 Kendall Wright Auto #499, Marvin Jones Auto #/799

Overall Look

In years past, Prestige featured a simple design.  This year the look has been upgraded.  The fronts of the cards almost have a Contenders feel, which is a great improvement, while the backs of the cards still retain that simple design, which is fine because it keeps the stats and info clean and appealing to the eye.  The inserts are very well designed this year too, with the exception of the NFL Passport inserts that look like they were backwards built to accept memorabilia swatches but, oddly, were not.  The backs of these cards are better looking than the fronts.  There are only autograph hits for the NFL Passport line.  They are a total redesign and they look fantastic.  Another oddity, the inserts that were built backwards, the Prestigious Picks, I like.

Quality and Variety of Players and Subsets.

200 Base and 100 Rookies is a nice number for an early release.   No need to look for retired stars, unless you are looking for Randy Moss.  Prestige is all about current players and incoming rookies. Tebow fans will appreciate a 14 cards plus 1 auto card set devoted to him. 

Do the hits hold up?

There are some nice autographs to pull from this product, with the concentration of hits from the 36 players who attended this year’s Rookie Premiere, but you will also be able to find hits that feature the current stars of the NFL.

Will you want to collect them all?

There is a wide variety of insert sets creating different levels for set builders to complete, depending on the kind of challenge they want to take on, which is a good thing.

Rating

 4 1/2 out of 5

With its new look, 2012 Panini Prestige Football becomes one of the best early releases for set builders to start collecting.

2012 Press Pass RedLine NASCAR Racing Box Break Recap And Review

Press Pass does racing right.  2012 Press Pass RedLine NASCAR Racing just might be their best release of the year, giving the future release of Showcase a run for its money.  From design, execution and delivery of value, RedLine has it all.

Press Pass RedLine falls into our premium cards category.  Each hobby tin contains  2- 10 card packs with one memorabilia and one autograph card in each pack.

Here are of the cards we pulled from our box.

Base set

 Dale Earnhardt, front and back, Kasey Kahne

 Paul Menard, Landon Cassill, Justin Allgaier

 Jimmie Johnson. Elliott Sadler, Greg Biffle

 Kyle Busch, Juan Pablo Montoya, AJ Allmendinger

Color Proof Base Parallel

Juan Pablo Montoya Blue #/50

Inserts

  Dale Earnhardt Jr Performance Driven

 Jimmie Johnson Intensity, Kasey Kahne RPM

The Hits

 Carl Edwards Full Throttle Firesuit & Sheet Metal #/75, Travis Pastrana Firesuit #/75

 Jack Rousch Auto #/25, Trevor Bayne Sheet Metal Auto #/75

Overall Look

No question, cards that are bold enough to use the color black as its main component look fantastic. The red foil accents and selective use of gloss only on the photos and bottoms of the base cards pushes these cards to an even higher level.  The Performance Driven and RPM insert are sharp too.  The hits are gorgeous.  How Press Pass was able to prevent the dark edges of these cards from chipping when other card companies seem to always have that problem is impressive.

Quality And Variety Of Drivers

Press Pass always has a great checklist for NASCAR.  The addition of car owners has enhanced the checklists this year.  Racing fans will be very happy.

Do the Hits satisfy?

These are some of the nicest looking hits NASCAR hits and would do well side by side with some of the best hits in any sport. 

Will you keep coming back for more?

Most definitely.  This is a product that you will want to open time and time again.

Rating

5 out of 5

2012 Press Pass RedLine NASCAR Racing takes its place at the front of the pack this year and should hold to finish as the best Racing product of the year.

First Look At Ichiro With The New York Yankees

Today the New York Yankees acquired Ichiro Suzuki in a trade with the Seattle Mariners.  With the Yankees playing tonight in Seattle, all Ichiro had to do was make the short and very weird walk to the visitor’s locker room at Safeco to join his new team.  Here is a look at him just after he came out of the dugout for batting practice. 

After a quick warm up, he went to the outfield to say hello to the Mariners fans that he has played in front of his entire MLB carrer, a class move.  

In exchange, the Yankees sent D. J. Mitchell and Danny Farquhar to the Mariners.

Here is the photo released by the New York Yankees.

Information On Topps At The 2012 National In Baltimore

When you think of Baseball cards, you think of Topps.  For over 60 years, others have come and gone, but Topps has been there, every year.  So it is no surprise, especially in the middle of the MLB season, that Topps would offer collectors going to The National, a concentration of Baseball items as incentives.  Football fans need not despair, there are six of the top picks from this year's NFL draft that will be the subject of cards too.

First incentive is exclusive to those who have purchased one of the VIP or SuperVIP Packages.  As part of the gift package, Topps will give away a 5-card set of 1952 style cards seen here.

The set includes Mickey Mantle in his Joplin Miners and New York Yankees uniform, Babe Ruth in his Minor league Baltimore Orioles uniform, Jackie Robinson in his Montreal Royals uniform and Willie Mays in his Minneapolis Millers uniform.

The other incentives Topps will offer include two different wrapper redemption sets that will be available exclusively at the Topps Booth.

Collectors opening one full sealed Hobby Box of 2012 Bowman Platinum Baseball in front of a Topps representative at their booth can redeem their wrappers for a 25-card 2012 Bowman Platinum Blue Foil Parallel Set #’d to 499.  This set will feature the brightest rookies and prospects in the game.  And as a bonus, some sets will include randomly inserted autographed parallels featuring Bryce Harper, Yu Darvish, Dylan Bundy, Trevor Bauer, Bubba Starling and more. It will be best to hit this one early as this redemption will be limited to 100 sets per day and 1 set per person for the duration of the show.

Even if you can’t get there early enoughin the day to snag one of the 100 daily sets, it will still be worth your while to bust a box or two of Platinum at the Topps booth.  Any collector opening a box of Bowman Platinum at the Topps booth will be entered into a raffle for a chance to win a trip for two to Chicago to the Under Armour All-America Baseball Game.  The prize package will include 4 days of Under Armour All-American Baseball Game festivities, a private tour of Wrigley Field and the All-America Banquet & Dinner, a workout for the All-American players and the opportunity to meet the hosts for the event, Cal and Billy Ripken, a scout showcase with over 100 MLB scouts who will all there to view America’s top talent and tickets to the Under Armour All-America Game.  You will receive 1 raffle entry for every box you open.  The winner of the raffle will be announced at the end of the show on Sunday.

The other wrapper redemption requires that collectors open 3 packs of any 2012 Topps/Bowman Hobby product in front of a Topps representative at the booth.  Then you can redeem your wrappers for a 2012 Gypsy Queen styled mini card.  This is a 9-card set that includes cards for Bryce Harper, Yu Darvish, Yoenis Cespedes, Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, Ryan Tannehill, Trent Richardson, Michael Floyd and Justin Blackmon

This redemption will be limited to 100 cards per subject per day.  And each subject is limited to 1 subject per person per day.

The National will also offer collectors the chance to purchase boxes of what is normally an online exclusive, the all-new 2012 Topps Mini Baseball.  A limited number of boxes will be available at the Topps booth during the show.  As a bonus, if you purchase a box, you will receive a special 5-card set of mini promo cards.  The subjects include, Yu Darvish, Bryce Harper, Matt Kemp, Stephen Strasburg and Roy Halladay.

Topps will also host a special Meet & Greet where a question and answer period will be held. The first 150 people to sign up at the Topps booth will be invited to this event that will take place Thursday evening at the convention center from 5-7 PM. 

I will have more info on the National throughout the week.