Coming up, Panini will release the basically non-publicized version of “Crown Royale” that pretty much fell on its face in Basketball. On their new blog, they tried to create a little hype for the set by posting actual pictures of one specific part of the product. While much of the product looks like gridiron playing cards mixed with the typically terrible Panini brand designs, these cards look good for one specific reason – the die cut player images.

Die cut images over a jumbo patch is actually a technique that companies rarely use, and is completely underrated. Because these cards use this concept to success, I would guess it will be used more often to ofset the normal monotony that plagues our industry. It also presents a unique situation, as these cards are going to be ridiculously low numbered and will not reflect the success of the rest of this product. However, a preview like this will definitely spark interest because of how few times we see cards that successfully pull off a die cut in this fashion.

Trust me, its rare that I like something that Panini does. However, when cards like these make it onto my radar, I begin to wonder who thought of this stuff, and who is the idiot that designs the rest of the shit they put out. Maybe if interesting cards that are similar to this subset regularly make it into a panini set, the tone in which I talk about the Panini brand would change.

Here are the previews: