I just finished reading every post on the blogosphere about Panini's new MLBPA license. Every post that was put up on blogs I follow at least.
I'm not overly impressed with this new deal. Personally, I'm just not a big fan of cards without logos. Without the logos, the cards are just little pictures of guys. Some of them won't even be "baseball" like pictures. There won't be any "action" photos from games. There won't be any play at the plate shot (yikes!). That's not to say I don't have some unlicensed issues from the past in my Rangers collection, because I do. (Before you Obak lovers start leaving nasty comments, I think Obak is an exception. It's got some funky historical stuff that I like.)
I'm not big into football, basketball or hockey cards, so I'm no expert on Panini products. It just appears to me that their products are all the same. Slick card stock, vanilla designs and very little effort to put create unique products. Again, it hasn't been a problem for me since I don't collect those other sports, but I would purchase a sampling of Panini baseball cards if they had the full license of MLB.
If this leads to the end of the Toppsopoly and Panini can get a full license from MLB, then great. It will give collectors another legitimate choice and competition is good right? The best thing to come out of this will be for Topps not to have the security of the monopoly. Maybe some real innovation and great designs are on the horizon. Maybe. I just don't see them coming from Panini. I would love to be wrong about that.
I think they'll have action shots on some of them. UD could have photoshopped the logos out of their photos, but chose not to. Panini probably will just omit the logos. Oh, and the backgrounds on everything.
ReplyDelete--Jon
I'm fine with a Topps monopoly if it means Panini doesn't have a baseball product.
ReplyDeleteI primarily collect hockey and I can say that 95% of Panini's efforts have been absolutely lousy and forgettable. Sticker autos, unappealing designs, and inserts/parallels that are unnecessary are all trademarks of the company. Ugh.
Seeing as how I'm completely unimpressed with panini's NBA exclusive, I'm not looking forward to their MLB stuff especially without logos. What are they gonna use to fill all the blank space on their cards when you pull the non-auto, non-swatch base version?
ReplyDeletePanini is starting to come out with some baseball stuff that I like. I think they're starting to figure out how to get around no logos.
ReplyDeleteI still think they should produce an entire set of action shots without logos. People would buy it ...
... Well, I might.