What Is Up With Past & Present?

When you take a first look at Panini’s 2011-12 Past & Present Basketball you think “Cool” because you are looking at a stack of cards that will immediately bring you back to the crazy inserts from the 1990s. Inserts with names like “Raining 3s” and “Fireworks” seem like they are right out of Fleer's think tank.

That is until you realize that this product just seems like a hodge-podge with almost no rhyme or reason to what you see. You realize that there is no continuity to the product but instead seems like random inserts tossed in to a pack with a couple having sticker autographs stuck on along with a $100 price tag. The product will hit shelves this Wednesday so I guess we will find out quickly how collectors feel about the release.

The base set is broken down in to a couple of vintage-looking cards and then you will also pull a number of inserts:

 3 Autograph cards

1 Memorabilia card
4 Bread for Energy
3 Bread for Health
1 Bread for Life
4 Changing Times
2 Raining 3s
2 Fireworks
4 Breakout

Admittedly when I first saw the product I was stoked, and to a point I still am very interested, but the $100 price tag seems like a stretch for the product which is loaded with sticker autographs of such superstars like Lawrence Funderburke, LaBradford Smith and Scooter McCray. (Sarcasm sign here). Go ahead, look them up I can wait.

Oh, did I mention that Panini is not inserting any 2011 or 2012 NBA rookies in to their product? The only way to get a rookie card from either year is to pull a redemption card from select products. The promotion is called Panini America’s Dual Rookie Redemption program and there will be randomly redemption cards of the top draft picks from the 2011-12 and 2012-13 NBA Draft.

 

Maybe if they dropped out the autographs and memorabilia cards (or left one “hit” per box) and set the price to $50 a box I would buy in to it but all that keeps popping in to my head is: