The first few Contenders autos have popped up on eBay, due out this Friday, and two specific things jump to my mind. First is just how awful this design is, and second, how much of a missed opportunity it was last year with the ugly foil ruining a great design. My feelings on this design are not new, and I am continually shocked as to how little effort looks to have been used to complete the make up of the cards. At least there is no ugly foil this year, that is the only good thing I can say. Contenders is a set that everyone looks forward to every year, and when seeing the results of this specific year’s offering, its awful to say the least.
2011 Contenders Christian Ponder Auto Ticket – On card example, looks like two per box.
2011 Contenders Brandon Harris Auto Ticket – What the sticker autos will look like.
What is even more disheartening is how little people will care. Collectors, as we have seen with SP Authentic, will gravitate towards brand loyalty, even in the face of inferior design against previous years. Not only do I not support this practice, my feelings on how terrible Panini has been with design this year have been nauseating. More and more people send me emails every day, commenting on how they have been completely turned off by Panini’s lack of commitment to delivering great looking cards, especially for products like this.
I think that the scariest part is that Topps and Panini have both created cards with game photos of the rookies, Topps even getting them hard signed, and Panini still uses rookie premiere photos on these cards. There may be variations, similar to last year, which feature game photos, but overall I am not impressed at all when I compare last year’s amazing results over this year’s downgrade.
With that, I hope Panini will get what is coming to them. I do. I know it wont happen, but a man can dream. Maybe then they will really understand how important it is to deliver quality products year over year. Maybe after more redemptions like limited, we can see how collectors really feel.
This sums up everything I feel about this year’s Contenders. It’s so bad, all it makes me want to do is open 2010 Contenders again. Every time I watch a break of this stuff, I cringe when the autos come out. Sad.
After I saw a few of the rookie tickets with pictures from the rookie premiere, I was out. I liked last years tickets, but would have liked them on a white background, which is why I’ve been chasing Topps Precision this year. I’ve always stuck with Contenders up until 2009 with that horrid card, came back last year, and after this years really lazy design I think I’m done with them.
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