Quality Control Gallery: Panini America’s 2010-11 Absolute Memorabilia Basketball

Panini America Basketball Brand Manager David Porter sauntered over to the dark side of the office — sometimes referred to as the “marketing area” — earlier today with two heaping handfuls of hoops nirvana disguised as singles from 2010-11 Absolute Memorabilia Basketball.

To be sure, the batch of cards — freshly unearthed this week from the product’s first quality control case — was nothing short of mesmerizing.

Most collectors have high expectations for any Absolute Memorabilia release and this new edition, due out everywhere next week, will go a long way toward exceeding those with an arresting combination of content and design. Frankly, there’s a subtle beauty (yeah, I said it) hidden in the foil board of most every card I saw that seems to grow richer and more impactful with every take.

In fact, I opted to take photographs of many of the cards in the following gallery because simple scans just didn’t do the gems justice. Here, see what I mean . . .