Building Sandcastle: Legendary Leon’s First Autos Coming to 2013 Prestige Football

Mysterious. Magnificent. Mythical. Majestic. Mustachioed. Marvelous. Must-see. The fact of the matter is that any one of those words -- and so many more -- could be used to describe the athletically spectacular, comically charged wunderkind known as Leon Sandcastle, the fabulously fictitious No. 1 draft pick of the Kansas City Chiefs who burst onto the scene while starring in an NFL Network commercial that aired during Super Bowl XLVII.

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Mysterious. Magnificent. Mythical. Majestic. Mustachioed. Marvelous. Must-see. The fact of the matter is that any one of those words — and so many more — could be used to describe the athletically spectacular, comically charged creation known as Leon Sandcastle. The fictitiously fabulous No. 1 draft pick of the Kansas City Chiefs (played by NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders) first burst onto the scene while starring in an NFL Network commercial that aired during Super Bowl XLVII.

Almost immediately, fans and collectors lit up the Internet with voracious support of Sandcastle and wishful, Photoshopped renditions of his trading cards. In May, Panini America made history by producing Sandcastle’s first Rookie Cards inside the landmark 2013 Score Football release. Next week, they’ll raise the bar by delivering Sandcastle’s first certified autograph trading cards inside 2013 Prestige Football.

Limited to just 21 copies, Sandcastle’s short-printed 2013 Prestige Football autographs are sure to command big attention and even bigger bucks on the secondary market, especially considering that Sandcastle himself (or the football legend who plays Sandcastle) signed the autographs. Making the prime-time penmanship even sweeter? The fact that these 21 autographs, signed late last week, mean 2013 Prestige Football will include 100 percent live autographs.

“There was some concern last week that we would have to include Sandcastle’s history-making first autographs as redemptions in Prestige,” said Joe White, Panini America’s NFL Acquisitions Manager. “But true to form, Sandcastle came through for us in a big way. Working with a superstar of Sandcastle’s magnitude was a real thrill for all of us here at Panini America and we think the results speak for themselves.”

In addition to his autographs, Sandcastle also appears on a short-printed base Rookie Card in the set, too. You can get your first look at Sandcastle’s signatures below. Stay tuned to The Knight’s Lance for additional coverage of the Sandcastle phenomenon and the 2013 Prestige Football release.

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41 Replies to “Building Sandcastle: Legendary Leon’s First Autos Coming to 2013 Prestige Football”

  1. This Sandcastle gimmick is a complete joke,and I feel it makes a mockery of the quality and REAL football players who are rookies this year. I feel like it’s the companies way of saying “we don’t have enough confidence in the actual rookies this season to make us any money, we need to promote a TV COMMERCIAL to cover our butts.”

    I feel like it’s also an insult to collectors. Why not just put a real Deion auto in the product instead of this junk.

    Laughable.

    1. Appreciate your perspective, Seth. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. We have extreme confidence in this year’s crop of rookies and can’t wait until they start taking the field. We’re just having a little fun with a Leon Sandcastle phenomenon that took fans and collectors by storm. We’re talking about 21 cards across an entire product that I’d venture to say will be huge pulls for those lucky enough to find them.

      1. HUGE indeed I cant wait to see what they pull on secondary market,This so called Laughable Card will pull big bucks in for the lucky ppl who pull it, UNLESS they are an AUTO Collector like myself who would rather keep it then make Money on it, Anyway i gotta feeling this auto card will be the biggest in the set and KEEP YOUR EYES on MATT ELAM all reports outta Ravens Camp is that this guy will be an INSTANT IMPACT Star,already picking off Flacco In 11 on 11 drills and already has most of the Defense Down,ELAM is sumthing special to watch MARK MY WORDS, And Got my Justin Tucker Playbook auto redemption today ITS SWEET #PaniniAmerica RULES

  2. Pretty Freaking cool! I wanna find one of those Rookie cards! On a side note, are you guys going to release the PR on the Father’s Day stuff and a checklist? I know it was said on Saturday that an attempt was going to be made to have it up Saturday night.

  3. Awesome you guys could get this done!

    I think the NFL should continue to carry this on every year with their network hosts, it would be one of the most anticipated commercials during the Super Bowl every year: next years phenom LaMichael Urving aka “The U”.

    You guys could also get auto’s and inserts from guys like Mayock and Eisen in a “Combine Comments” subset.

  4. Seth cool out, this is actually adding a little FUN to card collecting, I love the idea and cards, great for the sport, card collecting and even Deion for having some fun, love the afro…CLASSIC!!!!

  5. A dual Deion/Leon would have been better, but still very cool! I can see where Seth is coming from, but I like that you guys do things that are different…and as long as the gimmicks don’t overshadow the rest of the product, I see no issue.

  6. Seth I guess you were watching another draft. This years draft wasn’t the best. There’s not going to be that one hit card everybody wants to have. That’s not panini fault. Good idea panini

  7. Funny little story. During Father’s Day, I grabbed 8 packs of 2013 Score and said to my wife “All I really want out of this product is a Leon Sand Castle rookie.” Do you know why? Because I don’t know anything about football rookies, I have a hard enough time keeping up with all the baseball prospects, and I loved the Leon Sandcastle commercial. Sure enough, second pack in I pull a black Leon Sandcastle parallel! I was thrilled!

    So, is this laughable and a complete joke @Seth? Absolutely, and that’s why it is SO MUCH FUN and is THE ENTIRE POINT OF COLLECTING CARDS. My apologies that you don’t feel the same way, Mr. Murphy, but it generated enough interest in football cards for me to buy some, and now I have a few autos of some of the rookies and I’ve done a little research on them. A new football card collector in the making? Maybe!

  8. You know what would make collectors really happy about this card. If it was a redemption.

  9. I see some are complaining about this idea of adding him to the mix, but come on, the hobby is about having fun. I like this idea. Especially since this rookie class is known as a weak one why not add something new to the mix for collectors. And technically, this is still a Deion Sanders auto.

    I like that you guys went outside the box to bring this guy on board. And to be honest, thats another reason why I chased down Score retail to try and land one (though I didn’t lol). You guys are here to catch our attention and put out great cards and I think you did.

  10. Seems like some good fun to be had here, one thing I will say is variation autos usually do very well on the secondary market so all the Deion collectors out there will probably want these as a different kind of addition to their collections. Good job on this one Panini, I wonder who will be next year’s Leon Sandcastle. Thanks Tracy!

  11. Amazing job panini ive always loved your idea for product in fact i pulled the exact same pull as Ryan did on your Father’s Day Promotion Maybe Next year They’ll be a DirectTV commercial as good as Sandcastle so you can make a Peyton,Deion dual auto

      1. These look like they’ll be sticker-autos, but if you had video of him in character signing cards, that would be amazing!

  12. no seriously tracy. like did just somebody at the panini HQ do it or what cuz there is no leon sandcastle. if anything it woulda been cool to put a deon sanders auto on the sandcastle card. so who really signed it cuz there is no real leon sandcastle

      1. oh ok sweet. so thats kind of cool that deon snaders signed leon sandcastle. i thought some guy in the panini hq did. well this changes my perspective of the card. thanks tracy!

  13. You are completely right Seth. This is an insult to this year’s draft class. The Sandcastle gimmick is a joke.

    1. We’ll have to respectfully agree to disagree on this one. We’re having some fun with a fun topic that impacts 21 autographed cards in the product. But we certainly appreciate the passionate dialogue Sandcastle has created.

  14. No offense, but I really feel this is stupid. I don’t think this should be in a football product. I was a joke a LONG time ago, and it’s over. IMO, it degrades the product

    1. Couldn’t agree more. I won’t be purchasing any product with this card in it if it counts as a “hit”. I’d rather collect actual players. If you are going to put fake people in, might as well put Cheeseburger Eddie from ‘The Longest Yard’ in the set too.

  15. I cant wait for the Passing the Torch dual between Deion and Leon. Everybody can see how the “S” was made to look like a “$” which Deion has always done.

  16. My 10 minutes are over people. Leave me alone!, quit trying to cash out on my likeness you white devils, and let me rest in peace. Dayum!
    Seth +1.
    Tracy -1

  17. i pulled a black border leon sandcastle from score…what is the print run on this card? it appears to be a ssp..any help would be appreciated

  18. Leon Sandcastle (Deion Sanders) is great. Deion is great. Combine the two u get, AWESOME! great card making! keep up the good work!

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