Of all of the Panini products that they parade around like its some accomplishment, Absolute has been usually been the worst of the worst. In reality, there has been ABSOLUTELY nothing that gets changed year to year, and really, its beyond annoying. Up until last year, Absolute was just a rehashed set every single year, with very little that is added to the product to make it interesting. As a result, there are more cards like this eye sore, that makes me want to scream. One isnt enough? How about another example of a complete train wreck? As we can see with some of the cards, things are heading in the right direction, but we still set more and more examples of the complete lackadaisical approach that Panini has become infamous for.

As for things they got partially right, the Rookie Premiere Materials cards are a vast improvement over last year’s. In fact, since last year’s cards looked identical to 2007-2009, it’s the best we have had in a long time. The design is still miles behind the stuff we saw from Upper Deck prior to the loss of their license, and it is miles behind a lot of the stuff Topps is doing this year. Obviously someone at Panini felt a little threatened by how many of Topps’ sets are offering on card signatures, because this year’s cards will be hard signed. It’s a huge deal, but as we have seen with many of the cards that are foil stock signed with permanent marker, things don’t always work out. If there is one thing I would eliminate from cards in general, it would be rainbow and regular foil, and its one of the main reasons I hate this product as much as I do. Now that they are offering on card signatures on foil, it could be a complete disaster, or it could completely improve the collectability of this set. The horizontal design leaves some to be desired, as shown below by my favorite mock up creation artist, but its better than what we have gotten in the past.

MOCKUP RPM AUTO - MUCH BETTER VERSION

CURRENT PREVIEW RPM AUTO

When looking at the inserts for this product, its Panini-ville all over again. Stupidly named subsets with worse looking designs than ever. Because these cards will make up the majority of the hits in the pack, Panini is sure making it easy to buy the competitor’s products over theirs. The War Room cards are definitely the worst of the preview, as again, we get pads on and helmet off. I have no idea why Panini is so obsessed with these creepy ass pictures, but here we are back at square one. Im not sure why there are not more cards created in the structure of the Absolute Patches set, as it has a simple name, and a relatively good design. No retarded play on words needed for this one, just what it is and what it contains for the name.

People fawn over these cards because they have the “OMG SICKZ MOJOZ!!!!11!” patches on many cards, but for someone that values the way a card looks overall, a lot of these cards turn out to be visual diarrhea. Guess that is par for the course though with Panini.

With many of the cards in 2011 Elite, the design is right on schedule with Panini’s track record of complete failures. I credit a lack of effort and a lack of creativity in getting the cards done the correct way, especially for the rookies. Today, as the Elite set is revealed in completion on eBay, we are getting the idea that 99% of the checklist was done in an absolutely disgusting fashion. I say 99% because I found one specific type of card that looks to be done the way we expected ALL of Elite to be done.

Here is the auction for this card – Mark Sanchez Gold Status Die Cut Auto 6/10

As you can see, the card is horizontally oriented, and features a design very similar to the way the cards were done back in 2010. Although I HATE, HATE, HAAAAAATE the gold rainbow foil board and the way the diecutting is done, the actual design printed on the board looks a million times better. Even the washed out color behind the sticker was done correctly, and presents a great visual effect for showcasing the autograph.

Instead of cards that resemble this card, we are left with absolute shit for a product. Every other rookie card, insert, and piece of this awful excuse for a product was done the wrong way, and I hope Panini realizes this when they see collectors abysmal reaction to their cards.

Here is a mockup done by a collector on Panini’s blog. You can see how much better this would look over what we have so far.

Elite is one of Panini’s longest running products, and as it stands right now, we are being left to wonder who was asleep behind the wheel.

First off, let me say that Rookies and Stars has been a dead brand for years, if not the entire existance of the set itself. It’s a terrible concept for a product, mainly because EVERY product has both rookies and stars composing the checklist. It would be one thing if it was a unique idea, but it’s the standard, not the exception. That being said, for the last 3 years, this product has been so ugly, that it makes the other visual vomit that Panini has put out look great by comparison. This year, as if this wasn’t expected, its exactly the same.

The main issue, actually, is not that the design is so ugly that it cant be saved, it’s the way the set is laid out. The design work in this product IS terrible, don’t get me wrong, but that isnt what gets me. What I cant stand, is that Panini chose to use helmet off, full pads, creepy face photos for most of the box hits in this product. I get that some of the designers out there think this is a good idea for any product, but it isnt. I have said at least 3.4 million times that NFL player branding is helmet on, not off, and that means that putting pictures like this on cards makes no sense. Basketball and Baseball are completely different, mainly because the player’s face is just as much a part of their brand as their uniform is. Bottom line in football is that without a uniform on, many of these guys wouldn’t get recognized in public. That is the way the NFL is. Factor in that the pictures are beyond creepy looking, and you have to ask, WHAT THE FUCK WAS PANINI THINKING?!?

In the end, Rookies and Stars needs to go, just as much as it has for the last decade. Now that we see just how poorly conceived and designed the 2011 version of the product is, that fact is even more apparent. We don’t need another stupid “Orientation” themed insert. We don’t any more of these manu-patches. We don’t need product after product that brings absolutely NOTHING OF VALUE to the 2011 card season.

Panini has some work to do in order to even bring a passable attempt at a product to the table. This is not passable at all.

Over the last few weeks, I have not had one single good thing to say about Elite. Preview after preview left me with the taste of vomit in my mouth, and now that we have started to see how bad the actual cards are, its gotten unbearable. The lockout has left Panini in a jam, and rather than actually think of a way to get out of the situation, they took the laziest possible way out. Oddly enough, it would be one thing if it was just one card or even one player, but its a majority of the set and almost every rookie player is affected. In fact, its so bad, that the people who end up busting Elite may have a lot more problems than originally expected.

First things first. I have already commented extensively on how awful the rookie cards look. The worst part of all of this, is that I was only commenting on the way the rookies look for the players at the premiere. Full pads, full helmet, full everything, and the cards still look as hideous as they ever have. For the players not at the premiere, Panini had one of two choices – either airbrush the cards like was done in prestige, or find other photos. Guess which option they took? Yup, they went to get as many combine photos as they could possibly find, because god forbid they actually spend the time to do the right thing. The result is below, including rookies in polo shirts, workout gear and combine getups. These rookies make up the majority of the box hits and the content of the product, and that is a TERRIBLE thing for this set. Panini only previewed the players who were at the premiere, and now I see exactly why they did this. They didnt want us to see the ugly underbelly this product has.

Secondly, there doesnt look to be a lot of Premiere player autographs of the base variety in the makeup of a case. Although there are combine photo emblazoned on card signatures that look as bad as any cards from this set, many of the regular autos are non-premiere guys. The diecut cards that have always been popular in this set look incredibly weird with the cards oriented the way they are. Because Panini just laid the base design on its side, text and all, the rookie cards leave no feasible place to diecut the cards. Rather than ditching the idea, as should have been done, they “jerry-rigged” it as best they could. The results are pretty much on par for this product.

Basically, now that we see what Elite is really all about, Inception might as well be Topps Five Star, because it is running laps around this cop out of a set.

For the last two years, the Topps rookie premiere autos have been serially numbered for the sole reason of avoiding situations like this. It is not the end all and be all of fake protection, but it is a deterrent that has resulted in a lot of protection from fake autos in most cases.

For those of you who dont know, due to the way the rookie premiere auto cards are made, there are a lot of open doors for scammers to fake the autos on REAL cards. Basically, Topps produces a bunch of the cards, but only has a handful signed. The other cards are destroyed, but back in 2007-2009, they may not have made some good choices in the way that was done. This allowed scammers to buy the unsigned cards, sign them with fake autos and sell them as real. Up until a few months ago, 2007 was the worst 2008 was pretty bad, and 2009 was relatively untouched. Not anymore.

In the last few days I have seen fake autos from two distinct sellers making their way onto eBay. The fake autos are still in phase one, which means they are still very easy to spot, but that will change quickly.

Here are the most obvious ones I have seen:

Knowshon Moreno 2009 Fake Rookie Premiere Auto

Percy Harvin 2009 Fake Rookie Premiere Auto

Knowshon Moreno 2009 Fake Rookie Premiere Auto – SELLER 2

Percy Harvin 2009 Fake Rookie Premiere Auto – SELLER 2

These are just some of the massive amount these two sellers have sold, and it is the primary signal that 2009 is now on the list of sets not to buy at all. Its unfortunate that there are people out there who think this kind of douchebaggery is going to help things, as the value of the legit ones drop each time a fake is sold, but as long as there is money to be made right? The second seller is the most intriguing because he also has this fake sticker auto card for sale. It is the same style of fake auto as the fake 2007 rookie premiere autos of Peterson, which makes me wonder if this is the guy who is actually signing all the fakes to begin with. He also has this fake 2007 Bowman Chrome Auto, which is also an obvious one because of the lack of color change in the bottom half of the card, but still a good one. Bad things, people. Bad things, indeed.

In the end, we are the only defense for ourselves, and that is where I hope to make a dent in the education. Most likely, if the people buying these paid attention to sites like this one or any message boards, its obvious that they wouldnt purchase these obvious ones. Remember, if you have a question about a card, ALWAYS ASK BEFORE YOU BUY. There are lots of people out there that are willing to help.