SCU Go-Live Report: 2014 Panini Immaculate Baseball

Let me start by saying that I think its a good idea to try to bring Immaculate to other sports, as it houses many of the best looking cards that Panini makes across all sports. Not even close. Despite the absolutely HORRID name for this product, the Basketball version has done very well as an Exquisite clone. In fact, when you look up Exquisite in the thesaurus, Immaculate is one of the first synonyms. Not surprising.

Check out some of the big hits already up:

2014 Panini Immaculate Mike Trout Auto Bat Relic

2014 Panini Immaculate Ken Griffey Jr Auto Patch

2014 Panini Immaculate Clayton Kershaw Auto Patch

2014 Panini Immaculate Miguel Cabrera Auto Relic

2014 Panini Immaculate Masahiro Tanaka Jumbo Patch

2014 Panini Immaculate Jose Abreu Auto Patch

With Baseball, im not as interested, as I dont think that even the 50% drop in price is a good enough incentive to try your hand at some of these boxes. Just too many dud cards on the checklist. All that being in place, the cards do look good, but arent as good looking as some of the products that Topps is able to produce with logos in place. Because the checklist of players isnt THAT different, I would almost rather just buy those.

Now, if you are a Panini lover, I can understand why you would be all over these boxes. Secondly, why are you reading this blog? Haha, kidding. I think there is merit to these cards as a stand alone product, and as far as the baseball stuff goes, its the best that Panini has made in a long time – logos or no logos.

I also like some of the interesting relics that Panini has chosen to use, cleats, gloves, etc, which makes for a fun chase. There are a lot of stickers, which is disappointing, on the other hand, and these trapped autos look awful.

The reason some of these cards are valuable is because of the brand recognition that they are getting from Basketball, as I dont think they would be as costly without that. As we saw with a lot of the other transfers to baseball, I would guess the price is going to drop much like Treasures did a few years ago.

When this eventually comes to football, Im going to love seeing what they do with it. They have done some really nice work in Basketball, and with a full logo and HOF capabilities, its going to be a winner. This, im not seeing long term success. New will mean hot, but the cards have RARELY held.

Time will tell.

One thought on “SCU Go-Live Report: 2014 Panini Immaculate Baseball

  1. Pingback: Around the Carding Blogosphere for September 26, 2014 : The Baseball Card Store

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