Panini Gold Standard Basketball was an exciting debut
release last year, chock full of gold goodness along with some supreme hits and
included the highest odds of pulling a Kobe Bryant autograph of any prior
Panini product. Now in its second
year, Gold Standard suffers from a little bit of the sophomore jinx, both
through no fault of their own, (the copious insertions of rookie redemptions)
and some conscious changes in the checklist formatting and some design
elements.
But not all of the changes bring 2011-12 Panini Gold
Standard Basketball down. Many
elevate this release and show great strides in the right direction. It is clear that Panini listened to
collectors’ feedback and tried to effect positive change.
We place Panini Gold Standard Basketball in our premium
cards category. Each box contains
1 – 10 card pack with 3 Autograph and 2 Memorabilia cards per box.
Here are the cards we pulled from our box.
Base Set - #/299
Tyreke Evans, front and back
D. J. Augustin, Antawn Jamison
Thaddeus Young, Gordon Hayward
The Hits
Black Gold Memorabilia
Carlos Boozer #/149, Toni Kukoc #/49
Rookie Redemptions
Gold Futures Autograph from the 2011 NBA draft
Golden Futures Metal from the 2012 NBA draft
Autographs
Dave Cowens Marks of the Hall #/99, Tracy McGrady 14K Graphs #/25
Overall Look
The base cards looked good before, but here is where some
changes have had a positive effect.
This current design looks fantastic, skillfully providing a more
sophisticated look. The Marks of
the Hall cards are some of the best-executed hits so far from a design
level. But the Hall of Gold
Memorabilia cards look like Oddjob knocked out the Panini design team and
treated all the Hall of Famers with a “Goldfinger” –esque overlay that, at
least to me, comes off as a little creepy. Dedicating the Gold Rush cards to a single insert this year
instead of spreading them out amongst all of the inserts allowed for a uniform
styling that makes the embedded real gold seem more special. Other standouts are the 14K memorabilia
cards and the Bullion Brand. The
Black Gold cards are nicely executed but oddly enough seem to emphasize the now
passé nature of single color swatches, especially when put up against their
Prime counterparts.
Quality and Variety of Players
Gold standard is once again loaded with the best of the game,
both past and present. There are
some dream cards to be pulled from this release. Due to the 2011 NBA lockout the only Rookie cards available
are redemptions for future cards, both of which we pulled, the guaranteed Draft
11 Rookie auto and the Draft 12 straight rookie card.
Do the Hits satisfy?
It is certainly not Panini’s fault that things are this way,
but it does dampen expectations knowing that at least one of your hit cards
will require redemption. This will
become a bigger issue after the January 18, 2014 redemption deadline. Other than that, the potential for
pulling a great autograph is there, but it will not be quite as easy as last
year. Mostly this is due to the
reduction of Kobe Bryant autographs, which actually helps prevent the market
from being flooded with them. It
appears that the scales have been tipped to provide for more even keeled boxes,
but that also seems to have reduced the number of boxes that will knock your
socks off. On the plus side for
collectors hoping to hit real gold, confining the Gold Rush cards to a
dedicated insert has not only cleared things up, it seems to have added a
little over 500 more cards embedded with gold to the overall circulation.
Will you keep coming back for more?
This is a product that justifies multiple purchases. If you can go by the case, it greatly
increases you odds of mining some real gold.
Rating
4 out of 5
2011-12 Panini Gold Standard Basketball comes in shy of its
stellar debut but shows signs of adjustment that should solidify its long-term
appeal. Even with its faults this year, it still ranks as one of the better
opportunities to walk away with something special.
Review box provided by Panini
