I rarely follow basketball cards enough to notice when new products come out, unless there is something drastic that forces me to recognize what is going on. Im just not a basketball collector. However, when I started seeing people talking about the release of the new Panini Gold Standard basketball, I couldnt help but scoff. I couldnt understand how a high end NBA product could be released without rookie autos and with huge amounts of redemptions.

In fact, every rookie autograph in Gold Standard is a redemption:

2012 Gold Standard Futures Pick #1 Redemption

2012 Gold Standard Futures Pick #2 Redemption

2012 Gold Standard Futures Pick #3 Redemption

2012 Gold Standard Futures Pick #5 Redemption

This was also a factor in 2012 Limited:

2012 Leaf Limited Draft Pick #1 Auto Redemption

Panini has had enormous problems with redemptions lately, if not only because of a massive failure in the way the handle and process their customer service. To expect collectors to stomach a huge price tag like Gold Standard, and not have a ridiculous bad taste in their mouth about the redemptions in the product makes me laugh. If Panini was unable to get rookie autographs in the product, they should have waited, or at least adjusted their release calendar to make more room for production after the draft. Its piss poor planning to me.

Last week, I had a long conversation with a card shop owner in California that had stopped carrying Panini products because they could not stand the stupidity in the way Basketball products are released and produced. He was eerily nostalgic of the popularity of Upper Deck’s profound success in the NBA, and wished they would be granted a license again. Bottom line, he said, these Panini products are on a schedule that have no consideration for collecting habits, and even less consideration for what NBA collectors are looking for in a box. It obviously doesnt help when the two best players you sell are also redemptions.

Like the NFL, the NBA is almost 100% dependent on autograph and relic content in a product, most of which is derived from rookies. They are a valuable piece of the puzzle, and with the recent redemption problems, Panini is obviously not getting how terrible a situation like Gold Standard could potentially be. Its almost like they dont know how to create products that cater to the target market that the NBA collectors are famous for cultivating. High end all the time every day.

Maybe I just dont understand NBA cards enough to understand why collectors stand for this.