Its hard to argue that the booklet cards in 2013 Playbook arent pretty freaking cool. The silhouette style presentation, with card stock technology that resembles acetate, the cards are amazing. That isnt the problem, however, as the question remains whether that technology is worth a price tag above 175 dollars. I really like the way Panini is thinking with the whole concept for the set, but with a class like this, its hard to justify spending so much on one potential book auto.

Here are some of the bigger hits posted:

2013 Panini Playbook Ray Rice Down and Dirty Logo Patch Booklet

2013 Panini Playbook EJ Manuel Auto Rc /49

2013 Panini Playbook Giovani Bernard Auto Patch Booklet 1/1

2013 Panini Playbook Geno Smith Auto Patch Book

Because I am a true risk taker (more gambler, now that I think about it), I decided to try a box of my own. I had some extra money, and the calendar is pretty dry for the next month. I was able to pull two players that one could consider to be higher tier rookies, but wont even come close to breaking even on the box. That is something that I had prepared myself for ahead of time, so it wasnt a shock. I pulled a DeAndre Hopkins auto book with a 3 color patch, and a Ryan Nassib parallel auto book /39. Both are pretty nice cards, but Im not even coming close to 180 bucks. There are some unique autos on the checklist, no doubt, which makes it even more unusual how difficult it is.

That’s not saying there arent cards in this product where you can, its just crazy difficult to pull one. As I mentioned yesterday, I loved the way some of these other additions to the product have turned out, and I think the content is a winner in most cases. The success doesnt revolve around that, however. The success revolves around whether or not a crappy class can sustain a high end price tag. After seeing the way things have turned out, Im going to say probably not. To be honest, I think it was tough to break even on last year's set too, with one of the best rookie classes in history. That should say something to the manufacturer, even though the actual cards look awesome.