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.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment