I am a high end autograph chaser. I live for rare cards that I can display with pride, and as far as Football is concerned, there are not many products left that deliver on this kind of level consistently. With Topps Five Star being the only product that features on card autographs for veteran players as well as rookies, my options are limited in this kind of chase. Although products like Chrome, Precision, Supreme and Finest this year delivered beautiful cards with a lot of merit in their own right, they are not the kind of card that delivers high end appeal with every card in the set. Five Star does that, as we can see from the cards Topps has previewed so far.

People often wonder why I am so critical of the product National Treasures has become in recent years, and the answer is pretty simple. Due to the look and composition of the cards, many of them do not look like they would be in a high end product. For a lot of the cards that National Treasures is based around, there is no distinguishing factor between them and ones in sets like Prestige or Limited. In fact, I would go so far to say that outside of the logo 1/1s and rookie auto patches, I would be hard pressed to find a Panini set that they would not fit right into. That is an awful representation of the value National Treasures presents at $400 dollars a box.

With Five Star, and Exquisite before it, the cards look like they belong in a product that ends the calendar year. Although the swatches may not be giant sized, it makes little difference when the product features incredible design work that cultivates value in its baseline appearance to a collector. I would even say that the reason SP Authentic and Ultimate collection were able to stay around at the top of the mountain for as long as they did was because Upper Deck used the Exquisite standard when designing all of their products. They did high end better than anyone, even inventing a new echelon of wax with Exquisite’s original release, all due to the way they approached the product’s build.

On card autographs don’t come easy, and it takes a level of planning that Panini seems to scoff at. However, when reviewing the cards that National Treasures has consisted of, its easy to say that there is little difference in both checklist and design from a product like Threads or Limited. This is a major problem that many of the distributors feel is the reason Panini has not been more successful in their calendar.

I have always said that unique ideas and designs will drive a revolution, that companies who embrace the differentiation of their product lines will ultimately succeed that much higher than they normally would. Yet, we see that collectors will buy anything as long as it has a jumbo swatch, and the complacency grows with each successful release despite poor design or lack of content. Complacent company yes men will sit on laurels that they have not earned until something forces a change. This change can only occur if consumers speak with their wallets.

Current formula – As long as we sell well, we don’t need to get better in any way.
Necessary formula – how much better could we get if we improved quality components?