The Panini America Quality Control Gallery: 2013-14 Pinnacle Hobby Jumbo Basketball

Massive, 30-card jumbo packs. Artist Proof parallels. Dufex-inspired Nufex. Z-Team inserts. Acetate autographs. Museum Collection. Die-cutting. Clearly, there’s a tremendous amount of feel-good throwback injected into 2013-14 Pinnacle Basketball that is sure to strike a variety of chords with nostalgia-minded collectors all over the country. But there’s an awful lot of new-and-improved, too. Like the season’s hottest rookies and the multi-tiered enticement of Clear Vision and the Essence of the Game autograph chase.

To say that 2013-14 Pinnacle Basketball — the first Pinnacle-branded NBA release ever made — is a massive undertaking might be an understatement. Every hobby jumbo box delivers 300 total cards (10 packs, 30 cards per pack), including two autographs, one memorabilia card and an insanely enjoyable busting experience.

In fact, there’s so much going on in one box that we solicited the services of Lucas Kinser, Panini America’s NBA Product Development Assistant, to provide some details.

Each pack should yield one Artist Proof, one Museum Collection (on Nufex) and four inserts on average. The more-common inserts are Team 2020, Power Positions, Awaiting the Call, Behind the Numbers, Scoring Kings and Clear Vision First Quarter. The tougher pulls are mostly the Nufex cards, like Team Pinnacle, Jamfest, The Naturals, Z-Team and Big Bang (which fall roughly 1.5 per pack; although no cards were sliced in half to arrive at that ratio).

The rarer pulls are at the box or case level: Artist Proof parallels of inserts fall every two to three packs on average. Die-cuts of inserts (numbered to 99) fall about eight per 12-box case; Artist Proof Green Parallels (numbered to 25) fall about every other box; Clear Vision parallels (numbered to 36 or less) fall one every three boxes; Artist Proof Black Parallels (numbered to only one) fall every nine to 10 cases.

In total, collectors can expect each box to yield 12 to 14 Artist Proofs, 10 Museum Collection, 40 inserts (including 15 or so on Nufex) and there’s a decent shot at a numbered parallel in each box.

“At the end of the day, you’ll have a stack of unique and stunning inserts for your purchase,” Kinser said. “It’s one of the most fun boxes to open I’ve seen in a long time.”

Added Panini America NBA Brand Manager Keith Hower: “The Product Development team is very pleased with the way Pinnacle Basketball came out. When we set out to create Pinnacle, our goal was to deliver a true collector’s product that is fun to break. We enjoyed breaking Pinnacle and the variety of content in each pack. We’re confident that our fellow hobbyists will have the same experience.”

See exactly what Kinser and Hower mean in the Quality Control Gallery that follows. 2013-14 Pinnacle Basketball releases to the hobby tomorrow, so stay tuned to The Knight’s Lance for additional coverage.