To say I have mixed feelings about Prime Cuts is putting it lightly. The set that was once Panini baseball’s best, has become a punch line of design and content, especially after some of the breaks collectors have been reporting. Aside from the massive amount of stickers that are again adorning a product considered to be high end, the overwhelming amount of prospect content is disturbing in a set like this.

There is one subset that showed a lot of promise in the previews, and now that a lot of them have been posted, it doesnt make me want to buy any more of this product, but it does get me very excited for when Five Star Baseball eventually hits the market. There are few from Prime Cuts that look really cool, but it is very hard to ignore the pictures of the more recent players in their logo-less getups.

Here are some of the more desirable ones:

2011 Prime Cuts Cal Ripken Jr Auto Inscription

2011 Prime Cuts Randy Johnson Auto Inscription

2011 Prime Cuts Carlton Fisk Auto Inscription

The retired guys like Ripken, Fisk and Thomas are great examples of how unlicensed cards should look, while the ones like Hamilton and Ortiz are complete jokes. The studio shots have always bothered me in football, and without uniforms on, they bother me in baseball too. If Panini can airbrush out the logos on the retired guys, why not on the current stars? I dont need a card of a guy who looks like he is leaving the gym after a workout.

Additionally, adding cut autographs to this set is a good idea, but not when there is no picture to match the cut. I get that licensing is a bitch for a lot of older players, but the cards look 25% as cool without a player to match the autograph. I cant count the number of times the person opening the pack has to search for who they pulled on the back of the card, as the picture tends to be a guide to value of the card when opening the packs.

I have frequently mentioned the way that autographs and inscriptions can revitalize a sagging market, and I think Panini had the right idea on paper here. The execution was above the level I usually expect from them, as the overall design of the cards is great. Using player nicknames as the theme is a perfect use of the inscriptions as well. However, my appetite will be insatiable for the higher quality inscription cards in Five Star, and with what Topps has been able to do in football, it will make Prime Cuts look like the minor league pitcher brought up too early.

There continues to be no reason why one company can deliver a ton of hard signed content, and why another cannot deliver any. Although this type of hard signed content is some of the best in the set, it was the complete extent of Panini’s effort. With everything else as stickers, this high end product might as well have been 100 bucks a box. Topps has shown that they are poised for the continued release of high quality products, a situation that was in question as little as 6 months ago. Panini better step it up if they hope to be a viable option for collectors without a true license.