On The Radar: 2016 Panini National Treasures Football Preview

If you think back to 2009, National Treasures maybe wasnt even the top 3 for products that collectors cared about. When Upper Deck lost their NFL license the next year, it left a giant hole in the super premium market that NT eventually filled by default. The product never really earned any of the brand recognition that it got, it was just lucky that no one else had a product with history in that space.

Over the next few years, Panini’s designs went from meh, to awful, to good to okay, and now that we are seeing the follow up to a very mediocre 2015 set, Im actually ready to say that this is one of the better looking versions of the product that I have seen since it’s creation. I really like the look, and I think it will end up being quite good.

Now, we are already seeing the stupid hat set is back, inexplicably for another year, which is fucking trash. Considering how bad these cards look, I actually find it funny how they have spread to other sets. As I have made clear in previous posts, the posed photos are such a visual train wreck, that it makes these cards completely horrendous.

Im sure there will be other posed photo sets, as Panini has shown their raging erection for these photos to anyone who will look. Lets just pray to the card gods that Panini decides to tape their boner down for as much of this product as possible.

Overall, this is looking like a good year for treasures, and hopefully they can execute like they did for Limited. Considering how bland Flawless looks from the same preview post, Treasures might be it.

Not a bad finish for the year when you consider how bad it started and continued through the middle of the year. Panini got very lucky with Dak and Zeke, and if they had started using better design work in the lead up as much as the completion, who knows what this year could have been. Pretty clear that collectors have spat on the terrible mid year products they put out, as there are so many red numbers on Blowout’s product page. They seem to be focused on driving good sets when it matters, and Treasures is definitely one of the only brands they have that matters. Too bad so little effort was used for the rest of the year.

One thought on “On The Radar: 2016 Panini National Treasures Football Preview

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *