Gil and Ted's Excellent Adventure

2016 Immaculate Collection Hodges/Kluszewski Dual Relic /10

I thought this was a neat combo even if it lacks Pirate subject matter. I guess it can be loosely considered a Pirate card since Kluszewski had a short tenure as a Bucco, but it will be sent to one of my Dodger buddies. You can never have too much Dodger trade bait! 

You can really find some nice deals on some high end sets from Panini. In the last few months I've found some nice Pirate cards out of National Treasures and Immaculate for pennies on the dollar.  That is rough for whomever busted those cases. 

Back to the Pens game. Thanks for reading! 

Majestic

Elias Diaz 2016 Immaculate Collection Patch /5

I guess this is one way to get around licensing issues. Chasing high end patches is not really my thing, but this one kind of fell into my lap.  

Elias Diaz found his way into several Panini sets this year as his prospect status gained some steam in 2015.  By the time spring training ended Diaz was hurt and a few months later the Pirates would sign Francisco Cervelli long term.  It is hard to tell what the long term outlook for Diaz is.  His claim to fame is his excellent defense so that should be enough to get him a backup job.  If the bat plays he could be a possible trade chip. The main thing is he is going to have to show he is healthy. 

The card was listed by an international seller so that likely scared away many bidders.  He had good feedback so I wasn't worried about receiving the card.  The main issue is always how the seller protects this card.  Thankfully everything was perfect. If I recall the final selling price with shipping was around $11.  Good deal considering the quality of the patch.  

Thanks for reading! 

Can I see Your License Please (A Love Hate Relationship with Panini)

I don't make it a habit to chase base Panini parallels.  While I'm somewhat of a Panini apologist I agree than many of the base cards are sub par. Obviously, the lack of licensing takes away a great deal from the overall look of the card.  For me Panini often makes up for this by having unique auto checklists, using college uniforms, better price points, and inclusion of pre war players.  The latter being the subject of my latest purchase.

2016 Immaculate Collection Honus Wagner /25

At least to me this card still looks cool. Obviously during this time period the uniforms were about as basic as can be so the impact of licensing is minimal. I think this is why I liked the Panini Classics set so much. A good chuck of the checklist was made up of pre war players.  Of course it was cancelled after a year.

While I like the Wagner, for every one of those you will find 50 of these...

I like a lot of things about the Donruss releases, but the base cards aren't one of them...

The most frustrating aspect about Panini is that they still haven't attempted to make some of their core products more visually appealing. Have you seen some the NFL versions of Donruss and Prizm? They are nice looking. It just seems like they could come up with some better photo options for current players to skirt the licensing instead of just brushing out logos.  Maybe some shots of guys in street clothes.  Topps had a cool shot of Cutch accepting an award in shirt and tie.  How about some shots from the neck up?   At this point I would be ok with them just trying something.  As far as I know they haven't made an attempt in any of their reoccurring sets.

Does the good outweigh the bad for Panini? I guess it depends on how you collect.  For me I still like them because of the reasons I listed in the first paragraph.  It just feels like they could really improve the one glaring negative....

Thanks for reading!