2014 Panini Prizm

I've mentioned it before that I'd like to see Panini get a contract with Major League Baseball to officially produce baseball cards. There are two big obstacles to this that I see, one which Panini doesn't have much leverage, the other in which they do. The biggest obstacle of course is that Topps' exclusive contract runs through 2020, according to Beckett.com. Unless Panini can find some reason for an antitrust suit, that contract will remain in place. The other issue is that I'm finding recent Panini releases to be pretty boring. Which makes me not to want to collect them while waiting for them to get a contract. I did a review on 2014 Donruss a while back. I called it dull.

Now we have Panini Prizm.

Pretty much the same boring photographs Panini used on Donruss. Guys batting, guys pitching and the occasional catcher. In fact, the McCutchen pose on the Prizm card is, while not being the same photo, is exactly the same pose.

Granted the cards are more attractive than Donruss. I didn't buy any Prizm last year but compared to 2012 Prizm, the 2014 cards are better. The cards maintain the same silver borders but the photos now look like early Topps Chrome. It doesn't show in the scans, but when you move the cards to a certain angle you get a kind of highlighted border on parts of the card which I associate with early Topps Chrome.

There are 210 cards in the set (the last 10 being short printed) and many variations. I only bought a 3-pack with 15 total cards, and only got two variations. Variations include: Prizms (that's right, the card is Panini Prizms Prizms);

 I only pulled one of these. In person they look like Topps Chrome Reflectors.

Black (numbered to 1), Blue (42), Blue Mojo (75), Camo, Gold (10), Orange Die-Cut (60), Purple (99), Red (25) and Red White and Blue Pulsar.

In person this looks like an attempt to to a Topps Chrome X-Fractor.  There was one of these in each pack. The cards are pretty expensive, at 76 cents each. The Schmidt card is almost worth the price of admission.

There are a lot of inserts of which I got two. Chasing the Hall.

Actually not a bad looking card.

I also pulled a Intuition insert:

There are 6 other inserts, each coming in 5 variations plus 3 autographed inserts with multiple variations. The autos are apparently all on-card. Oddly there are no relic cards.

One last comment. The cards, as the came out of the packs, had a thin, powdery substance on the fronts. It was easily wiped off but I wonder at the cause. Early Topps Chrome cards have over the years acquired a little bit of tackiness to them. This can be rubbed off as well, with some effort. I wonder if these Panini cards are already showing signs of degradation.