Panini America’s live-tomorrow 2017 Classics Football is a best-of-both-worlds kind of product. It’s vibrantly old-fashioned in some spots but unmistakably new-school in others. It’s the best of yesterday, today and tomorrow with enough throwback collecting nods to delight newcomers and longtime collectors alike. It’s variations and parallels and Glossy SPs and No Name Fronts and Blank Backs and BuyBacks. It’s content rich and pulpy to the touch. It’s Jim Brown and Leonard Fournette and seemingly every era in between.
And tomorrow, it’s finally here. To prepare you for the arrival of 2017 Classics Football, we brought you a revealing Quality Control Gallery yesterday. Today, we’re taking you directly to the box level with a pack-by-pack preview of two early boxes. After the gallery, stick around for the complete product checklist.
Panini America’s long-awaited reboot last season of the company’s popular Classics Football franchise provided a powerful blast from the past — and not just because it marked the brand’s first appearance since 2010. Panini America product developers successfully reinvigorated Classics Football by richly turning back the clock with an arsenal of throwback touches. From card stock to card backs to content to design, 2016 Classics Football didn’t pick up where 2010 left off; it created a vibrant new future for the brand by going straight old school.
The result was a captivating relaunch that ushered in a new chapter for the venerable brand. That chapter continues this week with Wednesday’s release of 2017 Classics Football. If you were lucky enough to catch the live preview breaks last week from the 2017 NFLPA Rookie Premiere Presented By Panini America (conducted by KT Authentics, STL Sports Cards, Ultimate Box Breaks and Monster Breaks), you got a comprehensive early look at the release. If you missed it, don’t fret: The following Quality Control Gallery should do the trick.
LOS ANGELES — Panini America made the most of yesterday’s 2017 NFLPA Rookie Premiere by capturing the compelling content (autographs, memorabilia, photography, video and more) that will drive the company’s NFL trading card products for the rest of 2017 and beyond. But the company used its Panini Instant platform to deliver a new innovation to one of the most important events of the year: Real-time Panini Instant cards featuring, for the first time, the 37 rookies in attendance in their NFL uniforms.
One by one, players made their way to the Panini Instant station on a sun-baked (but otherwise pristine) Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum field to pose for their Instant imagery. Within minutes, photos were shot, designs were completed and cards were available on the Panini Instant platform.
LOS ANGELES — In a whirlwind first three days at the 2017 NFLPA Rookie Premiere Presented By Panini America, one of the most important events on the collecting calendar every year has more than lived up to its sterling reputation, delivering a year’s worth of highlights — and seemingly an entire season’s worth of autograph cards — for Panini America. One by one, 37 of the biggest rookie superstars in the NFL have made their way through a spacious Panini America Player Suites to sign autographs, including on-card gems for the likes of 2017 Elite Football, 2017 Origins Football and more.
While we could sit here and wax poetic about the lasting memories created in the Panini America Player Suites during the last three days, we thought we’d let a gallery full of compelling photos from the first three days do the talking for us. While much of these first few days have been dedicated to autographs for upcoming Panini America trading card products, we’ve also witnessed . . . a Leonard Fournette signing for Panini Authentic . . . a raucous and entertaining event in conjunction with GTS Distribution featuring Fournette, Dalvin Cook, Mitchell Trubisky, Patrick Mahomes, John Ross and Davis Webb . . . an early look at 2017 Classics Football from Ultimate Box Breaks, STL Sports Cards, KT Authentics and Monster Breaks and more.
From the day we first released the initial glimpses of Panini America’s new 2016-17 Grand Reserve Basketball earlier this month, the buzz has been building. On May 2, however, all we had were the first hard-signed returns from the new release. Today, we finally have complete details. Set to arrive in late June, the new release delivers two autographs and one additional autograph or memorabilia card in every box (eight cards per pack, three packs per box, eight boxes per case).
2016-17 Grand Reserve Basketball is bolstered by an eclectic mix of autograph and memorabilia content and a diverse array of printing technologies. On average, each box will deliver one Cornerstones card featuring four pieces of player-worn jersey and an on-card autograph. All Cornerstones cards will be numbered to 99 or less.
