2010 Patches and Plates Pre-Release Review

If you haven't gandered at the released photos of Panini's latest upcoming release Plates and Patches well you haven't been reading the blogroll.  Panini released a large number of photos of cards and then Beckett proceeded to laud it with reckless abandon. 

Here's my take with some card images borrowed from the Panini site.

 , oh double MEH.

Sorry for 150 bucks a pack I just don't see it.  First off Plates and Patches was already an Insert in the 2010 Gridiron Gear.  So now are we just taking our Inserts and making them their own set?  That and I just don't see anything all that new here.

I'm not saying these are terrible cards there not, its just more of the same, and 150 bucks for sticker autos seems like a rip off even for 4 sticker autos.  The cards I do like are these...

Here is Suh's Rookie Blitz card, man he looks angry.  I think he's going to be a force to be reckoned with next year. I'm going to assume these are base cards?  I don't know.  After looking through the released images and sell sheet there might be some cards I'd go after on the secondary market but I don't see any reason to shell out $150 bucks for a pack of cards.  Now I realize you get a lot of bling for the 150 in each pack.

Here's the break down. 

Eight cards per pack/box featuring


- One Autographed Prime Memorabilia Rookie Card

- Two Additional Autographs #'d to 999 or less

- One other Autograph or Memorabilia

- Two Commons

- One Parallel

- One Insert

So 4 autos is nice but they all look like some kind of sticker auto, or presigned inserted auto.  Look closely at the Tate up there.  I mean who doesn't like a patch card with multi-color and stitching.  Now if Panini would like to send me a box to review up close and personal I wouldn't be opposed to that, but I'll save my money and buy two Jumbos of Series 1 Baseball when it comes out next month.
 
Looking down the pipeline there's not much lower end football coming out anytime soon.  Playoff Contenders, at about 5 bucks a pack is the last one on the horizon I see for a while.  Maybe I will have to put a Magic set together after all. 
 
I will give this to Panini, they have by far the most interactive and up to date, well fairly up to date, website of any of the card companies,  their videos on how cards are made, inserts inserted, and the blog posts releasing teaser images are great, even though I might not be drooling, at least they seem to realize it's the fans and customers who matter here.   Panini does lower end cards so well.  I'm talking like Score Football and Hockey, Donruss Hockey. Now just to step it up and add some creativity to your higher end stuff. I sorry I'm sounding like a broken record but when your high end looks like you mid range, that's not right.   And it's kinda sad I like the looks of their base and inserts over their autos and patches in this set.  But that's just my opinion.  If anyone does open some of this and comes across some Packers stuff I'll trade you for it. 
 
cb out