A House Payment Or A Pack Of Cards?

Panini has just previewed their 25^th NBA set of the year, that is right TWENTY-FIVE releases in one release year.

 

To close out their 2012-13 NBA products, Panini Flawless will run $1,250 a pack. You get 10 cards per pack; seven autographs, two relics and a card that is either diamond-encrusted card or a parallel containing a diamond or emerald embedded in the card. The autograph checklist will also include the first licensed autographs for ROY Damian Lillard.

 

So there will be some solid hits like Lillard, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Larry Bird, there will also be prominent players who won it all like Rodman, Olajuwon, Isaiah Thomas and Robert Horry but the checklist is filled in with players who made a name for themselves, some even making the Hall of Fame, but yet never hit that “Premier” or “Next Level” form. Steve Nash, Wes Unseld, Mark Price and Dikembe Mutombo are all included not to mention that Upper Deck exclusives Michael Jordan and LeBron James are absent, two players who could actually justify a $1,250 price tag.

To be fair the cards do look good and there is a nice checklist plus the autographs are all hard signed but how many collectors (The collectors who actually collect for the entertainment of the hobby and not the ones who are in it for the investment) can afford a pack of these? I wonder what kind of prices we will be looking at on the secondary market for many of these cards. I wouldn’t mind picking up the Tom Chambers auto/relic card.

But realistically, what can most collectors expect for a couple of student loan payments?