Basketball Cards

The month of May was a big one for basketball card collectors, as 3 different Panini sets launched during the month (Past & Present, Momentum, and Brilliance). June marks the release of 2 different NBA sets: June 12, 2013 – Panini Crusade Basketball Checklist: Sports Card Radio Preview: Panini America Here & Here June 26, 2013 – Panini Gold Standard Basketball Checklist: Sports Card Radio Preview: Panini America Here & Here We’ll have a full review once the sets go live and we can take a look at some of the photographs of the cards. Both sets look promising, Crusade is a new ‘set’ however Crusade cards have existed in previous Panini basketball sets. Gold Standard (after not being released this year for the NFL) marks another release for the NBA collectors. This year you get 1 real metal (not gold) card per box.

12/13 Panini Brilliance basketball marks the initial release of a set that utilizes some of Panini’s newly found printing technologies to create a good looking set with multiple inserts and parallel cards to chase. Complete Checklist: Sports Card Radio Reviews: Panini America Lets start with the base set: features a whopping 300 cards (includes rookies & legends). Compared to most basketball sets, that’s quite a few cards. You’ll want to keep that in mind when you’re collecting the 3 different parallel cards in the base set. With 300 cards, it makes getting any one particular card that much harder to get. There is a Starburst parallel which is slated at about 2 per box. Then you have an Above & Beyond parallel – both the Starburst and the Above & Beyond parallel cards are not serial numbered. The one parallel that is serial numbered are the Artist Proof parallel cards – those are limited to just 10 copies each. The set features 60 autograph rookie cards. Other Panini sets have had about 80 signed rookies, so this lineup is a bit tighter than other sets you might find this season. The autograph rookie cards are not serial numbered, nor are there any parallel cards – so it will be interesting to see if there are any true SP rookie cards to be found. We can imagine that not every rookie card has the same quantity, so some players may be harder to find than others. Accolades is the first in a decent lineup of insert cards. These cards feature lots of shiny foil and detail that we’ve come to expect since the 12/13 Panini Prizm set launched last year. There are only 20 cards to collect from this set, including LeBron James and other NBA superstars. The City to City Jersey cards feature 2 different jersey pieces that are from a single player – but each one is from a different team they have played for. This actually is a pretty neat way to hit a Metta World Peace jersey card when he played for the Sacramento Kings (and was named Ron Artest) plus you get a piece of his current team. If you’re a fan of any of the players on the 20 card checklist, these certainly make for a unique card to collect. There are prime jersey versions serial numbered to 25 or less of each player. Game Time Jerseys are like the main jersey set, because it features 80 different NBA players. You also have prime jersey versions of each card that are serial numbered. You get 1 memorabilia card per box, so we can expect the non-prime versions to be available on the open market in substantial quantities. The Magic Numbers set is a small 15 card set featuring many of the games best players & scorers. These cards feature a mirror-like finish and have the players jersey number embossed on the card. The highlight of the set might be the Marks of Brilliance autograph cards – which is a set of 240 different serial ## autograph cards! Panini has been delivering big on some autograph sets recently, and pretty much just about any NBA player not named LeBron or Michael Jordan have some kind of ink with Panini. The depth of the autograph checklist might water down boxes (which only cost about $90 originally), but it’s cool seeing so many names – and the possibilities to pull a rare auto are still there. Scorers Inc is a 20 card set of the leagues best scoring talents. Stephen Curry proved in the postseason he was one of the leagues best shooters, and he’s joined by Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James and others. Spellbound is a 100 card set, but actually only features about 18 different players. Each player has about 4 or 5 different cards, which might make this a nice mini-set to collect if you don’t want to go after all 100 cards. Springfield is where the Basketball Hall of Fame is located, and this set of 25 cards features all HOF players that have been enshrined. Recent inductees like Chris Mullin can now have one of his first Hall of Fame cards. These cards actuall

Release Date: May 15, 2013 Checklist: Sports Card Radio Panini Review: Panini America Blog Base Cards: A nice mixture of current NBA players we expect, rookie cards, plus some legend cards. There are three types of parallel cards in the base set. You have a Force Die-Cut, which is serial #/25. Then you have the Drive parallel cards, which are serial numbered to 49 copies. The Drive parallel cards look as if they have a large foil layer on top of the card so they are hard to miss. Then you have ultra rare Power parallel cards serial numbered to one. Rookie Cards: Essentially two types of rookie cards exist in this set. You have the base card rookies, which are not autographed. Then you have the Momentus Autograph set, which will act as the autograph rookie in 12/13 Panini Momentum basketball. There are about 85 autograph rookie cards in the Momentus set, which has two parallel versions of the main set. You have Blue Momentus Rookies and Red Momentus Rookies. Looks like most of the blue rookies are serial numbered to 49 or 48 copies, where as the red versions appear to be numbered out of 10. Given that the 12/13 NBA Playoffs are being contested when this set drops, several rookie cards are going to be highly sought after now. Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson, Kawhi Leonard and others will see increased demand over previous sets because their teams are in the playoff hunt. Momentum Autograph Cards: A very basic autograph card design with some interesting names among the names on the checklist. Recent Hall of Fame inductee Chris Mullin, everyone’s favorite 90′s underachiever Anfernee Hardaway, and high flyer J.J. Hickson are among the many that sign. 100 total players sign, which would make this a ‘large’ set …. but if you continue reading, Monumental Marks is even bigger! There are three different parallels for the Momentum Autograph card set – Drive #/49 or less, Force #/25 or less, and Power #1/1. Panini went away from the color theme, and went to the base set parallels for this set. Monumental Marks Autograph Cards: Another real simple autograph card, which says Monumental in the name, but I’m not sure what the theme is here when you have everyone from Kwame Brown to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the set. However, hand it to Panini, they do often deliver a pretty wide range of players for collectors to collect. And this set truly delivers for collectors – 300 total players sign in this set! Holy crap! All the cards are serial numbered, and some are numbered in the 129 – 149 range, and some are short printed to about 15. It would have been slightly more interesting from a collecting standpoint if Panini had not put serial numbers on these, and let collectors find out which autographs are SP (or come out with blogs later that have print runs). Anyway, just my opinion. Can’t really complain too much about a 300 card auto set. There are 3 types of parallel cards, Blue serial #/49 or less, Red numbered #/10 or less and Black versions numbered 1/1. That’s it! Tight set with pretty deep checklists within each sub-set. Boxes deliver 5 autographs per box. Some may be duds, but if you land a rare autograph #/49 or less – it will probably be a great card to add to your collection or sell/trade for something else. You also get a Kobe Bryant anthology pack with 5 Kobe cards in each pack.

It’s almost like every Panini basketball set has a bit of Past & Present NBA players, but this set is named Past and Present so we expect a nice mix in this set. Comparing the checklist to another set that just came out in Preferred Basketball, there are as many intriguing past & present NBA players (with on-card autographs) in Preferred as Past & Present, so it makes it a tough sell initially for me. But then Panini posted that the memorabilia cards (Gamers and Dual Jerseys) would only be found in retail packs! Might not get the guys who bust hobby boxes much love, but there are 2 Targets and 2 Wal-Marts in my town (and no card shops) making it much easier to score a pack or two at retail. The only concerning thing to me about only having the memorabilia cards in retail are that pack searchers will likely feast on the unopened stuff – so I wouldn’t be expecting to land one unless it was from a sealed blaster. I’ve made a few trips to Target on the way home, so far – no dice, but will try others this weekend. The Treads cards are kind of neat, as they look like the treads of a sneaker. The winning touch die-cut banners are very cool as well, featuring players that have won an NBA championship. There’s not too many real stand-out type cards in this set that are must haves, although Duke fans might note that Jay Williams autographs were inserted for the first time in 9 years. Panini made an announcement on their blog like it was a big deal, but his career was riddled with injuries and unless you like Duke it makes these not really a big draw. Seems like collectors agree, as they only sell for about $5 – $10 on eBay, and I can imagine when his signature shows up in others sets, it might not go anywhere but down. A box break typically yields about 3 autograph cards, and like we said earlier – the jersey cards are only found in retail packs. I would probably avoid buying a box, as you could spend $80 – $90 on single cards and score some nice ones from this set. Other soon-to-be-released Panini sets look like a more exciting break, including 12/13 Momentum Basketball or 12/13 Elite Series Basketball. Overall, this set met expectations (that were low) but might be a set that could be eliminated because of the strength of Prizm, Select, Limited and other brands Panini has already. There is nothing in this set (like a Wilt Chamberlain cut) or even rookie redemptions for the 2013/14 NBA rookie class to really make it stand out over the other sets on the market already. Why diminish your brand with somewhat weak sets? Not sure, maybe this will sell well enough to make a profit, but it doesn’t really deliver anything for a basketball collector to want to run out and spend money on like Prizm and Select have.

This letter is to Topps. This letter is to Panini. This letter is to Upper Deck, Leaf, Tri-Star and any other company that is in the business of making sports cards.This is the first day of baseball. For me and many of my fellow sports enthusiasts, thi