Panini/Donruss thoughts

The big news around the hobby right now is Panini's acquisition of Donruss.  The majority of the reaction that I’ve read so far is from that of football card collectors who were buying Donruss product for the past few years.  My perspective is a different one, that of a basketball card collector watching the whole trading card landscape change completely before his eyes.

I grew up watching the end of the Celtics dynasty of the 80s and they’ve always been my team of choice.  I love the Red Sox and Patriots as well, but the Celtics will always be my true love.  I enjoyed collecting basketball sets for various reasons including the fact that the sets were always a reasonable size and every year you had a batch of rookies who had a chance at being the next big star.  This year I’m loving the Topps Murad set and am disappointed that it’ll only exist for one year.

I wasn’t too excited when I first heard the news that Panini was now the only company that held a license to produce NBA trading cards.  All that most collectors know Panini for is their stickers and albums.  I didn’t want NBA stickers unless they were a fourth or fifth set and something cheap and fun.  It would definitely be interesting to see what Panini’s first crack at NBA trading cards would look like.

Now comes the news that Panini has acquired Donruss.  That makes me feel a lot better about next year’s basketball sets.  There are people at Donruss who can bring their experience of creating baseball and football cards to Panini.  It’ll be interesting to see what trademarks of Donruss sets might carry over to Panini’s basketball sets.  Will there be a ton of serial numbered cards inserted into packs?  Will we see some high end product along the lines of National Treasures?  Will we get one per pack sticker inserts?  It’s early and the news is still fresh so no one knows exactly what next year will bring to both the basketball and football sets produced by Panini.  I am happy to say that I am now a lot more excited to see that first sell sheet for 2009-2010 Panini Basketball.

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