Panini Dropping New 'Prospect' Product
Baseball prospectors will soon have another product on the market. It's been announce that Panini will drop a new set called Prospect Edition, an autograph heavy checklist with big names. Along with Elite Extra Edition and Prizm Draft Picks, Panini has been a good source of young ball players and their autographs for a long time.
Pete Alonso back to the Mets on 2-year, opt out deal
A hobby box of Panini Prospect Edition will have 48 cards, divided into six packs of eight cards. And one of the more attractive aspects of this product is a whopping six autographs per box.
Similar to Contenders, Prospect Edition will have rookie ticket inserts, with and without autographs. Some of the preview art points to big names. Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes appear to have a dual autograph. And the cover boy, 2024 No. 1 overall pick Travis Bazzana is sure to have some ink, with at least one image, an insert called 'Future Legends,' seen on Beckett.com's page for the product.
What is also exciting is that their appears to be Kabooms, one of Panini's more rare and valuable inserts, on the checklist. On Beckett.com a Kaboom featuring Athletics prospect Nick Kurtz was on the checklist page, though an entire checklist has yet to be released.
According to Dave & Adams, as well as Steel City Collectibles, the product is set to drop on February 28th. Though on the official Panini page there isn't a date listed, only an option to input your email for notification when it goes on sale.
Topps Generating More Talk on Upcoming 'Liquid' Parallels
It remains to be seen how much a hobby box will run you. Currently Dave and Adams has it for $159 on pre-order, not far from the $150 price tag with Steel City Collectibles. In recent history, pre-orders on sites outside of the manufacture's site tend to be higher than retail price when buying straight from the producer.
Even so, $150 for a box with six autographs is a great value buy. While Panini and unlicensed cards generally carry a lower value than their licensed counter parts, you can still hit a home run with a product like this.
After graduating from the University of North Dakota in 2008, Cole worked as an advertising copywriter until shifting to print journalism a few years later. Managing three weekly newspapers in the Dakotas, Cole won numerous awards from the North Dakota Newspaper Association including Best of the Dakotas and, their top award, General Excellence. He returned to collecting in 2021 and has since combined his passion for writing with his love of cards. Cole also writes for the Sports Cards Nonsense newsletter and has made guest appearances on multiple sports card collecting podcasts including Sports Cards Nonsense, and the Eephus Baseball Cards Podcast. IG: coleryan411 X: @colebenz