2010 Panini Timeless Treasures

The first round of the NBA Playoffs have begun and the final shots of the NBA releases are gearing up from Panini. Over the next 2 months we will see 4 releases; Timeless Treasures Basketball (4/28), Absolute Memorabilia Basketball (5/19), Court Kings (6/02) and Platinum NBA (7/7).

Timeless Treasures is up first coming out within the next couple of days.

Scheduled Release Date: April 28, 2010
Box Configuration: 5 cards per pack, 1 pack per tin
SRP: $100.00

Box Break:
3 Autographs or Memorabilia cards per pack
2 Commons or parallels

In true Panini form, the set contains some major pulls. The set contains 100 base cards with 8 different parallels including Silver, Gold and Platinum parallels which are numbered to 25, 10 and 1, respectively. Then there are Autographed Silver, Gold and Platinum parallels and then there are also Material Jerseys and Material Jersey Prime parallels that include jersey swatches.

With parallels, there are well over 50 relic inserts including jerseys, laundry tags and logos and there are almost as many that contain signatures with some containing both a signature and an autograph.

The base cards are just that, simple base cards with the player’s image with a pleasant background. It is nice to see a basic base card, this allows you to focus on the player and appreciate them in their element. I do not care for those over-designed backgrounds that take away from the focus of the player.

A couple of the inserts interest me like the Statistical Champions Materials, MVP Materials and Material Ink. The cards have a nice appeal and are not overly designed. The elements are thought out and placed in a balanced way to give a pleasing appearance. There is a balance between the player’s image, the relic and the autograph, which are still unfortunately sticker autographs.

On the other side there are some inserts that are perfect examples of what not to do when designing a card. Dime sized relics, too many colors used or overly designed and poor selection of font/color. Inserts like Rookie Year Materials, Hall of Fame Materials and the NBA Apprentice Materials inserts.

My Thoughts:
With a checklist that includes Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Dirk Nowitzki, Kobe Bryant, Tyreke Evans and Brandon Jennings you have to like the chances that you are going to pull something awesome with each pack, but paying $100 for a 5 card pack containing 2 commons and a dime sized plain red jersey swatch of Rick Berry doesn’t seem to justify the cost versus reward with me.

There are definitely draws to this release, but I think I would be better off looking to pick up singles on eBay. The cost would be lower and I would be getting exactly what I want instead of taking a crapshoot.