I, like many others out there, got a press release from Panini today. It's a buncha lotta boring stuff about their upcoming products and their first football product under the new license. It's sort of tedious. The first thing you see in the e-mail are some pics of their Prestige rookies like this one:
Typical crummy Donruss design that puts more focus on where the sticker autograph or relic piece that you won't get on the cards you pull is supposed to go than if the thing actually looks decent or not. I ain't gonna lie, that card looks terrible. Tip for Panini designers: if you can cut the card in half and vastly improve the look of the card, you're doing it wrong.
(non-SP ugliness just for Canuck)
Enough with complaining, I haven't liked Prestige since the '90s and I didn't expect this year to be any different. Here's the text of the press release, you can read it if you like or scroll down below to see my take on the whole thing:
PANINI AMERICA ANNOUNCES MULTI-YEAR TRADING CARD DEAL WITH NFL AND NFL PLAYERS
2010 NFL Product Debuts Today With Panini Prestige Football
NEW YORK, NY (May 13, 2010) – Panini America (www.paniniamerica.net), a subsidiary of The Panini Group, the leading global publisher of sports and entertainment collectables, announced today that the National Football League and NFL PLAYERS (the marketing and licensing arm of the NFLPA) has awarded them a multi-year trading card licensing agreement and license for Stickers/Sticker albums. The 2010 NFL season marks the first year Panini will produce NFL Trading Cards under their new agreement. Panini produced NFL Trading Cards after purchasing Donruss Playoff in 2009.
“Panini has beenaggressive inthe U.S market and done aphenomenal job,” said Leo Kane, Vice President of Consumer Products for the NFL. “We are pleased to make available new products to our collector fan base including Adrenalyn, and sticker and sticker albums.”
Panini kicks off its 2010 NFL Trading Cards with its 2010 Panini Prestige Football product, which will be released today. It will be the first time the 2010 NFL Rookie class will be featured on NFL Trading Cards. Prestige will include autographs of top NFL Rookies autographed to 100 or less including Sam Bradford, Tim Tebow, Ndamukong Suh, Gerald McCoy, Golden Tate and Colt McCoy to name a few.
“We are excited to have been awarded an NFL and NFLPA license. We are committed to introducing NFL Trading Cards to a whole new generation of NFL fans and building new collectors,” said Mark Warsop, CEO of Panini America. “The NFL is one of sports premiere properties, and we are enthusiastic about introducing NFL trading cards on a global level.”
The Panini Prestige Football release will be followed by the release of other Panini Football products including: Donruss Elite, Score Football and Panini Classics Football – all before NFL Training Camps open. Panini expects to announce several agreements with NFL Players as the face of its products in the coming weeks.
“We look forward to continuing our partnership with Panini America. They’re focused on engaging kids, attracting new users and increasing brand awareness. These elements, coupled with a strong rookie class, is a recipe for success,” said Karen Austin, Assistant Vice President, Trading Cards and Collectibles for NFL PLAYERS.
As a leading global publisher of sports and entertainment collectables, Panini has license agreements with three of the major U.S. sports, including the NFL/NFLPA, NHL/NHLPA and an Exclusive Trading Card and Sticker Partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA). Panini’s other partnerships include an exclusive license with FIFA for the 2010 and 2014 World Cup, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and with four-time NBA Champion Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers. Panini also has a successful collectibles business with consumer brands including DreamWorks’ How to Train Your Dragon, Disney’s Toy Story 3, Hannah Montana and High School Musical, and Warner Brothers’ Harry Potter.
Did you read all that crap? I sure didn't. I was able to get this far:
and license for Stickers/Sticker albums.
Let me repeat:
LICENSE FOR STICKERS/STICKER ALBUMS
It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!
YAAAAAAAAHHHHH STICKKEEEEERRRRRSSS!!!!!!
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Topps, you're getting left behind. You'll probably have to bring back Topps Total to compete with this one.
I mentioned that I was going to get superstitious and try sticking a sticker into its album every morning in order to ward off evil work spirits. Let's see how we did, shall we?
BEFORE:
AFTER:
So, did it work? Does superstition pay? Will album stickers become the new Boggs chicken dinner? Well, here is an artistic representation of work yesterday:
CHRIS CHAMBLISS WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME???
So, uh, yeah. Didn't work. Not even slightly. Superstitions ain't real, kids, put down the horsey shooz and rabbits feets and believe in Science instead. On an up note, a conversation at my place of employment tipped me off that a colleague or two just might possibly be a reader of this here blog! So, as of this moment I SHALL NEVER SPEAK OF WORK AGAIN. Not even a little bit.
There's about a day left to decide the fates of those 1982 Topps stickers. "Stick 'em" is leading at the moment, so if you want to save them you better get to voting. Someone asked in the comments if the things would even stick anymore after over two and a half decades. Well, to test that theory, I took this sticker here...
of Milt Wilcox and decided to test its adhesive qualities. Todd let me have two of these stickers so I had a spare anyway. Here is Milt's future home:
#186 in the album. Will it stick to the album or will the ancient glue be useless? Only one way to find out:
It stuck! The glue wasn't super sticky, but there was more than enough stick 'em on there to adhere nicely to the page. Plus I can potentially peel it off if the mob demands I keep that album pristine. There you go, hard proof these stickers will still stick, even 27 years later.
I just found out my wife had three packages of cards in her trunk for the past two weeks. Oops. I opened 'em up and found something extraordinarily interesting from reader Todd Querry. I found this:
This, is a 1982 Topps Sticker Album. It's well known that I love stickers and I love sticker albums and I love putting stickers in sticker albums. Now, along with the album there were...
Stickers. Forty-two different ones. Very Adamsy. Some of them are regular stickers, some are 1982 Topps inserts with the "Coming Soon" ad on the back. The condition of the stickers range from near mint to eeeccch. Stars like Rickey Henderson are in the pile along with journeymen like Juan Eichelberger. I also know for a fact I have a bunch more of these things hiding in my collection somewhere. So... here's my question:
STICK 'EM
or DON'T STICK 'EM
I really need help with this one, folks... That 1980's kid inside me is yelling at me to stick those suckers in the album, but the rational part of my brain (such as it is) is insisting that this ain't 1982 and I need to grow up. There's a poll over on the side. Vote and decide the fate of these stickers.
If you vote yes, I'll dig up the rest of 'em, paste them all in and do my best to find a cheap box to rip to (hopefully) complete the set. I'll even give away the doubles and unopened packs once I'm done.
Vote no, and I'll find the rest, seperate the regular stickers from the pack inserts and store them all away with the rest of my Topps oddballs. Then I can focus on my '88 Panini album instead.
Help me out guys, this one is really gnawing at me...
(note: if Todd leaves a message saying to stick 'em, they are stuck. He gets the deciding vote in this)
So, did it work? Does superstition pay? Will album stickers become the new Boggs chicken dinner? Well, here is an artistic representation of work yesterday:
CHRIS CHAMBLISS WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME???
of Milt Wilcox and decided to test its adhesive qualities. Todd let me have two of these stickers so I had a spare anyway. Here is Milt's future home:
#186 in the album. Will it stick to the album or will the ancient glue be useless? Only one way to find out:
It stuck! The glue wasn't super sticky, but there was more than enough stick 'em on there to adhere nicely to the page. Plus I can potentially peel it off if the mob demands I keep that album pristine. There you go, hard proof these stickers will still stick, even 27 years later.
This, is a 1982 Topps Sticker Album. It's well known that I love stickers and I love sticker albums and I love putting stickers in sticker albums. Now, along with the album there were...
Stickers. Forty-two different ones. Very Adamsy. Some of them are regular stickers, some are 1982 Topps inserts with the "Coming Soon" ad on the back. The condition of the stickers range from near mint to eeeccch. Stars like Rickey Henderson are in the pile along with journeymen like Juan Eichelberger. I also know for a fact I have a bunch more of these things hiding in my collection somewhere. So... here's my question: