Buhner-graph

I don’t have many autographs in my Buhner collection, that really aren’t many to choose from because his career ended before autographs became common on checklists, so when I pick one up it is pretty big for me. The only card I purchased through eBay during the Black Friday weekend was a 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes autograph. This is only my second Buhner autograph so I am excited and it is on-card too.

Early Preview: 2013 Panini Hometown Heroes Baseball

Panini is bringing a new retro baseball set to shelves towards the end of the year, Hometown Heroes. The base set will contain a 300-card checklist which will include players from the 1950s through today. There will be parallels, inserts and autographs (currently 6 autograph sets are expected). Only the Hometown Heroes autographs will be on-card signatures.

 

The set seems to be bi-polar with some of the cards having a pleasant retro look while others are over-burdened with varying elements that seem to be conflicting. I like the base card and the Sport Discs, which reminds me of when I was a kid and would run up to Circle K to get a Slurpee and pull the discs off of the bottom of the cup, but I am not a fan of the other card designs.

It seems like many of the complaints are related to Panini’s not having a MLB licensing and the lack of logos and team names, which does not bother me, what bothers me is the conglomeration of designs. There does not seem to be uniformity to the set, something that is shared with Panini’s Cooperstown Baseball, which was also recently previewed.