I really don’t get it anymore, as it has gotten to a point where I don’t even have any more adjectives for “ugly” to describe a lot of the junk that Panini continually deems worthy of being released to the collecting public. After seeing the QC gallery that they posted on their site for the upcoming release of Threads, all I can think is that they are doing a great job of showing people exactly why NOT to buy this product.

Don’t get me wrong, some of the cards look well designed, but these cards are not the main box content, and are also very small parts of the checklist. I very much like the All Rookie Team Cards, as they look great, as do the base cards. Both sets look to have a good concept and even the swatch placement on the ART cards looks to be in the right spot. However, when you see how the base cards transfer into both the jersey parallels and the auto parallels, everything falls apart, as usual. Not only do we see the BIG WHITE BLOCK back in force for the rookie autos, but you also see a swatch that breaks design borders on the base card. Its shocking that Panini is willing to make as many design mistakes repeatedly, as Topps flies past them in the fast lane to the left.

I defintely love that they got some of the players to take pictures at signing events with Panini t-shirts on. This is because I know the first thing I want on my cards is a player looking completely unamused in a photo that has nothing to do with football. I really believe that all the companies should have done the airbrushing, or like Topps did with some of the rookies in their products, put them in pro-uniforms with photoshop.

Secondly, the main box hit Rookie Class Letters are a completely stale concept that needs to go. They either need to change the letters themselves to coordinating jersey patches that spell out the name of the team instead of the name of the player, or just ditch this concept. Threads letters have extremely little value on the secondary market once better products hit, mainly because A) many collectors are over the novelty of a manu-letter auto, B) the black and white coloring of the patch detracts from team connection, and C) the cards look ugly with the tiny borders and tiny player picture.

When considering the Rookie Collection cards, first I am glad that they didn’t go with their 8th passport theme of the year. However, the cards look really stupid with the studio shots of the rookies just standing there. In my opinion, these cards could have been better with action shots, but for some god-forsaken reason, Panini thinks these shots are “OMG AWESOMEZ!!!” In reality they stick out like sore thumbs, especially on the oddly composed Ponder/Rudolph double decker mean face card. Rudolph, in his picture, has an expression that looks like the photographer had sex with his sister and didn’t call her the next day. Love the pic choice there.

I really think when you compare a completely stale brand like Threads up against an overwhelmingly fresh set like Inception, its easy to see why one carries EXTREME value on eBay, and the other will be another flat and boring box that will sit on shelves for months. Threads is going to cost as much as Inception does, has no on card content, and poor design choices on a lot of the cards. Hell, even compare it to Finest out in a few weeks, and its still a dud. Topps must be laughing all the way to the bank, especially when the only people who will have this product in hand over the first week, will be the dwindling number of card shops that no one lives by! Nice job on that one Panini.

Here is the gallery: