Can you remain timeless while being timely? Panini tries with 2010-11 Timeless Treasures Basketball Cards and succeeds. An All About Cards review.

It was just announced the 2009-10 release of Panini Treasures was our pick for Best Premium Basketball Cards of the year in our 2010 Sports Card Awards.  So how does the 2010-11 compare?  It’s another winner for Panini and you just might see it again when the 2011 awards roll around.  Going with the theory of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” this release uses the same concepts as last year, same tin holder, same amount of cards and the quality is still there.   We are glad they didn’t make any big changes. 

This set falls just between our classifications of Premium cards and Ultra Premium cards, but we’ve classified these as Premium because of the low price point, which makes it less of a high risk set while still retaining the possibility of a high reward.  At only 5 cards to a tin (ours had 6), it has elements of a “lottery box” that is normally found in our Ultra Premium card classification but its more accessible to the common collector.

Lets look at the cards we found in our tin before I get into details of how we feel about this set of cards.

Base cards of Rajon Rondo, 118/399, Al Horford 198/399, and Marcus Thornton 3/10

Rookie Recruits auto of Greg Monroe 24/299

 

NBA Apprentice Triple Jersey of John Wall, DeMarcus Cousins and Patrick Patterson 28/99

NBA Apprentice Jersey/Auto of Eric Bledsoe 50/50

Overall Look

We love the design of this set and its inserts.  The base cards strike a nice balance between shiny and matte finishes which give them a classy feel.  Some nice retro flair mixed with modern lines make these cards feel classic without seeming dated.  The rookie card designs are modern with splashes of older color schemes, and by referring to them as apprentices, carries the theme of these new players taking their place in the history of the game.   The sharp, bold lines of the Hall of Fame cards make these historical players relevant to the modern game of today.  One might even call the design of this set… timeless.

Quality and Variety of Players

By paring down this set to about 100 of today’s star players, about 50 rookies and about 35 old school Hall of Famers the quality is there and variety is found in the amount of different inserts.  Because of the smaller pool of players, you are more likely to pull something nice.

Do the Hits satisfy?  Are the cards too base heavy?

Keeping with the theme of this being close to a “lottery box” and at only 5 cards, there will be times that a tin will be a bust.  Our tin’s hits were all rookies, great if you are a prospector, not if you are looking solely for star power, but we’ll chalk that up to luck of the draw.  The hits are plentiful and easy to get.  The base set is properly proportioned.  This is not going to be an easy base set to collect, but that’s what you want from a Premium set of cards.   With each numbered to, at most 399, these are base cards that will hold their own value, which strikes a nice balance for this set.

Will it keep you coming back for more?

With a low price point, not much more than a regular hobby box, and a chance to pull some really nice hits, these just might be the potato chips of the Premium card world where you can’t buy just one.  This release will make a lot of collectors very happy.

Rating

 4 1/2 out of 5

You just might want to pick up a few Panini 2010-11 Timeless Treasures to see what gems are hidden inside those tins.



Review box provided by Panini