Despite Panini telling people that they are SURE the missing Teddy Bridgewater and Odell Beckham Rookie Patch autos and booklets are in the product, evidence from message boards, group breaks, and ebay show that something is going on. As mentioned before, there are a lot of theories, but nothing has been solidified as of yet.

Just so everyone is clear, these cards are NOT what I am talking about:

2014 National Treasures Odell Beckham Sticker Auto Patch

2014 National Treasures Odell Beckham Colossal Auto Patch

2014 National Treasures Teddy Bridgewater Colossal Patch Auto

2014 National Treasures Teddy Bridgewater NFL Gear Auto Patch

I also dont buy the late arrival to packout excuse, as many of the cards from the blog preview have surfaced:

2014 National Treasures Teddy Bridgewater Notable Nicknames Auto

2014 National Treasures Teddy Bridgewater Laundry Tag Auto /5

The missing cards are the redemptions for the RPA and Parallels numbered as high as 99, and the Booklets numbered as high as /99. These are identified as the "true RC" in the set, and though I dont care about that designation, it makes them more valuable than any other version. Even if the cards were SPed to something like 49, its still a statistical impossibility that we could reach this point in the product without any of them showing up. Every other rookie on the checklist has been pulled in multiples.

The funny thing is, collation and packout issues have caused problems in the past, and its not uncommon to see cards not show up for a day or two past the release of the product. At the same time, its VERY uncommon to see the best cards of the product, with high numbering not surface – even after 6 days from the first auctions being posted.

I remember back in 2008, when previews for Exquisite football showed up, there were images of a special round of retro Rookie Patch Autos for Tiger Woods that Upper Deck posted on their blog. When the product hit in late February, many collectors started their chase. It took until late April before the first Tiger was pulled and posted, leading to a very similar anger among those who bought the boxes looking for the card. Of course, there were only 14 Tiger cards to be pulled, so it is a much different situation than what we have right now. At the same time, pack out and collation could have pushed the Tiger boxes to a later allocation, and a later surface date.

There have also been collation issues in Panini products too, with Immaculate Basketball and National Treasures Basketball experiencing some issues. In 13/14 NT, a blowout group case break of 40 cases led to so many Alex Len rookie patch autos, that Panini actually had to step in and make good with a set of 1/1s to make it up.

In Immaculate, some of the non-NBA autos and certain players were allegedly part of a second wave of cases that didnt show up until later on in the release. Both of which Panini faced a lot of criticism for, but nothing like what we are seeing with the current situation.

Similarly, with Topps, there have been autographs from largely collected sets like Heritage baseball that have never shown up, even to this day. I specifically remember a Bo Jackson auto that was previewed, and has not surfaced from what I can tell. Same could be said about the fabled Bowman Chrome Evan Longoria superfractor.

With Tiger, and the other situations mentioned above, the collation issues did not effect the biggest cards in the product. Arguably, Tiger was the top chase, but his cards were never the focus of 2008 Exquisite the way Flacco and Matt Ryan were. If those two were missing, you could bet the hoopla would have reached fever pitch just like today.

Tomorrow marks one week, and its not looking like we are running towards a resolution anytime soon. I would guess that Panini will either make a statement or artificially remedy the situation shortly, but im not sure if that will be enough to quell the discontent. They have earned themselves a reputation now, and every product will have the question from this point forward. The longer it goes without addressing the issue, the more those questions will impact their online presence.