2011 Panini Gold Standard Football is the follow up release
to the explosive debut of 2010-11 Gold Standard Basketball. There are some small, but significant
changes. While the Basketball
version seemed to yield golden nuggets with every box, for Football
you will have to do a little more prospecting to uncover gold.
Gold Standard fits into our premium cards category. Each golden bar box contains 12 cards
with 3 Autographs and 2 Memorabilia Cards.
Here are the cards we pulled from the box.
Matt Schaub and Dallas Clark veteran base #/299
Greg McElroy and Patrick Peterson rookie base #/299
Y.A. Tittle legend base #/299
Darren McFadden Gold Rush #/299, Charles Woodson Golden Anniversary #/299
Delone Carter Gold Leaf Rookies Memorabilia #/299
Philips Rivers Gridiron Gold Memorabilia #/299
Cecil Shorts III and Lance Kendricks rookie auto #/499
Clyde Gates RPS Gold Rookies auto #/525
Overall Look
The gold bar box is still impressive, even the second time
around. Every card is still tied into a
golden theme. The cards for the most part still look great, but there is a
significant change that comes with the design of the sticker auto cards. For Basketball the stickers where
imbedded into the card, giving them a regal, crafted look that blended well
with the golden background. For
Football, the stickers are simply placed on top of the card making them appear
somewhat ordinary. The RPS Gold
Rookies, like our Clyde Gates, look fantastic when the paint pen signature
comes out clean but as with any paint pen signature there are examples out there of splatters, smudges and streaking. In addition, we’ve seen examples where
certain autographs have been done in black or blue sharpie over the black
background rendering the signature barely visable.
Quality and Variety of Players
There are some amazing players to collect but the checklist
feels very rookie heavy making this more of a prospecting product.
Do the Hits satisfy?
Pull one of the super rare cards with legends autos, veteran
star players, maybe even gold or diamond embedded cards and you’re golden, but there are a few glitches in the
system otherwise. While the base cards are numbered to 299 most, 30 out of
the 36, of the RPS Gold Rookies are numbered to 525 and regular rookie autos
are numbered to 499. Needless to
say, having hits that are higher numbered than the base cards is awkward. On the plus side, it increases you
chances of pulling a card from the upper echelon of Rookies, even though the
numbers for Newton, Green, Locker, Gabbert, Ponder, and Ingram drop down to
325.
Will you keep coming back for more?
For those who are looking for a well-rounded chance of
hitting established player autographs, this is worth a shot or two, but this
will appeal more to rookie prospectors who will want to spread the high risk
over a case of Gold Standard to increase their chances of a high reward.
Rating
4 out of 5
2011 Panini Gold Standard Football, when taken as a
rookie-prospecting product, provides a fun break with the chance of hitting
gold.
