Some panini baseball news

[BBCgalaxee]

With the hire of Jim Stefano, Panini is looking to do more in baseball. Stefano, Senior Director of Product Development, was a big baseball person at Fleer.

- Panini Roundtable for brick & mortar stores will start soon. Stores that are part of the program will get special kits, including early checklists and short-print lists.

- Black Friday, Father’s Day and other similar promo packs will only be available for B&M stores, not online retailers. There was also mention of a MAPP-type of pricing returning soon for Internet retailers where they will have to keep the price of a product for 30 days.

2013 America’s Pastime

This product will feature cards numbered to 125 or fewer. There will be cut autographs of players such as Ty Cobb, Ted Williams and Stan Musial. There are plenty of Hall of Famers and al the top 12 rookies from this past season.

It was described as a mini National Treasures for half the price.

 

[383astro]

I would like to know the future of national treasures and prime cuts. America's pastime sounds interesting, wish they would release a little info.

 

[BenG76]

With the hire of Jim Stefano, Panini is looking to do more in baseball. Stefano, Senior Director of Product Development, was a big baseball person at Fleer.

- Panini Roundtable for brick & mortar stores will start soon. Stores that are part of the program will get special kits, including early checklists and short-print lists.

- Black Friday, Father’s Day and other similar promo packs will only be available for B&M stores, not online retailers. There was also mention of a MAPP-type of pricing returning soon for Internet retailers where they will have to keep the price of a product for 30 days.

2013 America’s Pastime

This product will feature cards numbered to 125 or fewer. There will be cut autographs of players such as Ty Cobb, Ted Williams and Stan Musial. There are plenty of Hall of Famers and al the top 12 rookies from this past season.

It was described as a mini National Treasures for half the price.

I know you own a card shop and I can imagine that is a tough business. I will say though that for a lot of people out there they aren't very close to a LCS. Myself its at least an hour and a half to one which is Big T's in Salem, VA and unless I am in that area and hankering real bad for a box to rip I would rather go elsewhere. I am not saying there should be no difference between retail and hobby. I will say that Panini really needs to step it up on the retail end because quite frankly it sucks.

I am not the biggest fan of Topps either but I have never come close to pulling a decent card from Panini retail products. Usually when I have bought a blaster I am lucky if I pull one low end insert. Same thing for rack packs or whatever they call them now. I have pulled many autos and other decent cards from Topps retail in the past year and a half I have been collecting again. I have bought some Panini basketball and football hobby boxes and I will say I wasn't disappointed.

With my work I am in Walmart and such several times a week so its easy to pick up a blaster or a rack pack to kill the pack ripping itch between ordering retail boxes online. If anything I would like to see them improve retail at least a little bit.

Also they really need to find a way to get licensing from MLB cause to me the baseball cards are a bit lacking without logos. I still don't understand how Topps basically has a monopoly on this. What happened to anti-trust laws and competition being a good thing in this country?

 

[steve-a-reno]

Unfortunately, any promo, Black Friday event, etc. will be long gone before any customer has a shot at my local fraud of a card shop.

 

[BBCgalaxee]

Now I'm not knocking anyone who buys online or retail. Not at all.

But as a store owner AND collector, I completely appreciate the times when Topps, panini and any other entity does an lcs promotion.

Why? Well obviously it helps business but with the decline of card stores over the last 15 years, I honestly feel that "newer" collectors have no idea how fun it is to just hang out, shoot the breeze and open cards with fellow collectors in a totally hobby oriented atmosphere.

I might be saying the wrong person, but I believe it was gellman from "sports cards uncensored" who once used to believe there was no need to go to a card show because of eBay.

But once he attended one, he changed his tune because it's one thing to have a mail day and post it online, it's a totally, completely different experience when you can share your card board passion with others....in person!

Sadly not everyone has a store or show nearby.

But if you do and it's run by a truly legit business person who also loves the hobby, you'll never want to leave.