Back in 2016, when Impeccable was first released, I wasnt a fan of Panini’s sets in the slightest. The cards they made were hammering home every pet peeve I had with design, and seeing a product released that actually encompassed what I liked was nothing less than astonishing. Now that Impeccable has come to WWE, and we are seeing some awesome stuff in the product with First Off the Line boxes releasing yesterday, I can already see a number of cards I want to chase. The awesome approach that drove this product’s inception seems to be in play for this release, too.

Ive said this before on Twitter, Impeccable is one of my favorite sets that Panini makes from a look and feel perspective, and I dont think that will be changing now that we are seeing this in action. Because many WWE collectors havent had an experience with Impeccable, I want to discuss my list of five things that people should be watching as the set is released on 10/19.

Number 1 – Will the Price Exceed the Value Expectations of Collectors?

Ever since the release of Prizm, WWE collectors have been cautious about diving in fast on these Panini products. Even though this product is almost entirely different than anything we have seen in the new era of wrestling cards, I get it this time. Super Premium products at Panini are a lifestyle, but not one that is devoid of risk. There is a HUGE risk here, especially because FOTL is releasing an entire week before the main product.

Right now, initial prices on singles are quite high, and box prices remain in the 500 dollar range. Im also not sure how the wax prices will fluctuate, which is even more of a focus now that we saw the FOTL boxes hit the floor on the dutch auction, but have been filling in breaks at 1500 per box on Whatnot (I am not exaggerating, this actually happened).

This brings up a very interesting and weird point in WWE cards, because we are seeing something happen that actually makes sense for once. Wax prices seem to be going down, but the chase worthy singles prices seem to be going up. Usually, both increase exponentially together. I also feel this is a good thing for a population of collectors who love ripping wax, but want to see more bang for their buck. If the best cards in the product are still valuable, but everything else is affordable, huge win all around.

Of course, this is a high end product, so things are going to start VERY high, and come down considerably if the card being sold is readily available. Seeing Stone Cold Steve Austin on card autos that have 98 copies? I cant say Im going to be paying Transcendent prices for those. Does that make the cards any less cool? Maybe from a value side, but the look is awesome. Making big names more accessible is something a lot of collectors have wanted to see for a long time, and here we are. On the flip side, this could mean some challenge for people hoping to hold on to these unique autos that were rarely available en masse for other Topps products at a price point that was prohibitive for 98% of the market.

Number 2 – Will On Card Autographs Make a Difference in Product Reception and Value?

Panini has released 4 sets so far, and all three of the main roster sets have had sticker autographs as the only method of signatures available. Impeccable is the first main roster Panini product with hard signed cards, and it definitely makes a difference to a lot of different people out there. Ive been collecting in the mainstream areas of the hobby for close to 30 years, and the introduction of sticker autos remains one of the more controversial aspects of collecting. Nothing will change that. However, seeing a sticker auto sell for more than an on card auto continues to be a disorienting experience. The reality is that with all the complaining, many hobbyists have come to accept stickers as a necessary evil.

Similarly, Panini took over this license at the beginning of the year, and timelines were exceptionally tight to get Prizm and Select out with no major delays. Because chrome stock cards take forever to print and pack out for signature, its understandable why stickers are the drug of choice for the card companies. It doesnt make it any less frustrating.

I do believe that WWE collectors are cut from a different cloth, and for almost two full years, Topps avoided sticker autos in their wrestling product lines. Not only that, but they did it with boxes that cost 1/5th the cost of Impeccable, and less. This reality is the only reason why I feel like there could be a bump in value with hard signed cards for this product.

If this were aligned to one of the major sports, where on card autographs are available more frequently, I would say that the value increase would be negligible. It could be a similar situation here, but one I am very interested in seeing outcomes.

Worth noting that in the entire history of Topps WWE, there was only a small handful of on card auto relics. Most recently we saw the Sting Bat Cards in Transcendent, but outside of that the choices are very sparse. Fully Loaded has become the only recent example where Topps was able to execute on card relic cards, and the value didnt really shake out well overall. Impeccable has multiple subsets of these cards, and its curious to see if the issues with Topps are going to continue here.

Number 3 – Is There a True Chase Element to Drive Collectors Crazy?

For as long as I can remember, chase cards in the hobby drive a product’s impact. In the NBA, the Logoman is the standard. In the NFL, the shields are insanely valuable. In WWE, I think its exceptionally more complicated and exceptionally more challenging to establish a chase for people to want to dive deep into a product enough to keep wax high.

That doesnt mean chase cards havent been created recently in WWE, though. In fact, I believe in the last 2 years, there are more chase cards available for collectors than ever before. In 2021 Transcendent, the autograph superfractors showed that a chase card can be possible. With Prizm, the black base 1/1s are incredible chases for many player collectors out there. Select had something that has never been available before in a WWE product – logo 1/1 autographs. Knowing this to be the case, I think there are a few potential chases in Impeccable.

One is focused around the case hits, which are the bar cards that have been in Impeccable since its original release. These cards feature stamped bars of silver and gold, and for some, are huge chases for their collection targets. Gold bars are 1/1, and given the price of gold right now, and the collectablilty of trading cards, these could be a chase. Similarly, Impeccable has shown that there are going to be some amazing relics used for the memorabilia cards, and there are multi-case hit jumbo relic cards that could deliver some INSANE swatches.

Given that Impeccable is designed to be a configuration that delivers the top level of collectible cards, I hope there are a few surprises that can knock the socks off of people and give them a reason to keep going back to the well the way Select did.

Number 4 – Is This the Right Time for a Set Like Impeccable?

For almost a decade, Topps released Undisputed WWE as its most readily available high end product. A premium product was only released once per year, and UD became the place where the top collectors flourished. Among the many issues that WWE collecting was saddled with, having a community driven by cheap thrills meant that sets like Undisputed were controversial. After many years of releases, most of that sentiment had gone away, leaving the examples from the set as a top collecting goal for almost everyone.

The difference was that most Topps products were released in WWE under 100 bucks, even after the boom period really got going. When 2020 Topps Chrome was released, it started as low as $65 – a product that eventually was a main component of the explosion of value in WWE cards near the end of 2021. Here, Prizm and Select are high end products around the same cost as Undisputed, despite having a flagship set configuration. Impeccable’s price point above $500 may be a challenge to maintain because there is no alternative lower end product that performs the way other low end Topps sets did back in 2020 and 2021.

Its also worth mentioning that Topps only put out a few wrestling sets per year, and Panini has released 3 since April, with Impeccable being number 4, and Chronicles coming mid-November. More importantly, the saturated market is likely going to see more products after Chronicles, which doesnt spell good things for a set like Impeccable that might find a problem with a card market on the decline. Even though this product has a LOT of unique benefits that arent available in other places, too much of the market is driven by perception in WWE.

Number 5 – Who is the Target Market for Impeccable?

I think we have seen some intriguing things happen across the release of Prizm and Select with the way collectors have reacted to the sets. Because of their history in NFL and NBA, I can also go back to the target market for each product, and see it play out identically in WWE. Prizm is an investor friendly product, driven by people looking to build portfolios in the hobby’s most profitable flagship brand. Select is aimed at the player collectors, with tons of cards to chase across 20 parallels. Impeccable is meant to be a big bang product, with chase-worthy super premium hits.

The reason this target is valuable in other sports is because the audience is huge. Collectors in the NFL, MLB and NBA have money, time, and resources to make their collections incredible. Some of that exists in WWE, but not at an audience size that is even close to the mainstream, or UFC even.

Given that is the case, will the bigger hits for the large checklist hold enough value to make this product a long term success? I think that is a big question that is still left to be answered. We all know that rare autograph cards from the top names will be valuable. What about the top cards from the midcarders who would still be valuable to a box price level in other sports? If you pull a 1/1 of a rando from NXT UK, I cant say I expect that the value is enough to make it a chase.

In fact, the checklist could end up being a detriment to the viability of the wax price overall. We saw this with Prizm, and though the list of names comprised a landmark accomplishment, it didnt do what I thought it would do for the wax. Instead, people continued to be frustrated pulling low end names from a box that cost $1000 dollars. In the other sports, people rip in groups and by the case, so a one box rip doesnt define a return on a break. In WWE, we saw a lot of smaller collectors try their hands with a single box, and walk away unhappy.

Overall, I love impeccable. I love the design, I love the way the completed cards turned out, and I dont think we have seen any of the main surprises yet. FOTL is an appetizer here, and so far, it looks like a singles buyer’s dream product. For someone like me, who only collects one person, it could be a challenge to find a reason to go to the shop and rip some of this wax. However, that doesnt mean I wont be refreshing eBay like a madman trying to find my singles I need. Im impressed with the way this worked out, much like my initial excitement when this first hit the NFL scene.

I love shiny cards. Ever since I started in this hobby back in the early 90s, I have always gravitated towards sets that feature the Chromium stock that has been a staple of the hobby for decades. When I started collecting WWE back in 2017, there wasnt much of it to go around, with Chrome and Finest not reemerging in the market until 2020. As you can imagine, most of my collection focuses on high end shiny examples from the recent boom. Much to my pleasure, Select is the next in line for that lineage, trying to capitalize on a market that has slumped with the hobby downturn over the last few months.

First, lets dive a bit deeper into what Select is all about, because for most WWE collectors, the releases of Prizm, Revolution and Select were very unfamiliar territory. Back when Panini America first took over the major licenses in NBA and eventually NFL, the focus on Shiny products hadnt reached the fever pitch it is at right now. Topps had been EXCEPTIONALLY successful with Chrome style products for their flagship and bowman lines, so it shouldnt be shocking that Panini tried their own hand at the wheel.

Prizm was created as a flagship answer to Topps Chrome, while Select almost exactly mirrored Topps Finest’s content and target market. Over the years, sets like Optic and Spectra have taken this even further, with fringe products like Obsidian gaining steam along the way as well. This might be the first year of WWE Select, but the actual product has been around for almost 10 years.

To me, Select has always been a better looking set than Prizm. For whatever reason, that hasnt driven the same amount of importance with collectors, as its clear that Prizm’s status as the flagship Panini set has overridden many of the flaws it has in its construction.

Select has always had a better design, better content, and a better price per box. The WWE release is representative of that approach as well, but it has taken things to a new place because of the new status of the market.

As a result, it should be no surprise that Select WWE has had the outpouring of support and acclaim from collectors that it has had. There are a ton of the elements that made Prizm and Revolution fun and exciting, while exhibiting very few of the drawbacks. I want to go through a few of those thoughts here, because I am enthralled by this product.

Exceptional Photo Usage

When I started seeing the first auctions come across, the first thing that caught my eye were the choices made with the photography in each level of base. WWE usually wants their superstars displayed with official renders, available in an online database that is curated multiple times per week. If you see a match card graphic on WWE TV, the photos in that database are used. Its a huge part of what makes the WWE presentation what it has been for decades.

Topps used that database a lot as we saw in photos for their sets, but Panini seems to have made it a point to make the action sit at the forefront of their brands. As someone who literally SHOUTED WITH ALL CAPS at Panini about their posed photos on NBA and NFL cards for 10+ years, this development is nothing short of incredible.

The good thing about a license like WWE is that visual documentation is a big focus for their business model, which for other niche licenses might not be the case. There are tons of photos to pull from, as WWE has had ringside photographers on the payroll since the 80s and 90s. Panini Select seems to have built each card with care, as photos were chosen to showcase the best of each superstar they depicted. Even better, the ones that broke the borders of the cards, and presented a unique visual engagement made things even better.

As someone who lives by the photo on a card, I could not be more in love with the way Select was incorporating this element into the set, and it made collecting it that much more fun.

Unique Relic Content

Both Prizm and Revolution were built without a relic element to the product, something that Select is almost dependent on. This means that there were two paths that could be a part of the plan – either the more plain relic content that Topps was relegated to in the final years of their license, or the more dynamic relic content that Panini seemed to have negotiated as part of their license deal.

Topps tended to be very conservative with their relic content, as I believe it was likely dictated to them by the WWE. They used cut up pieces of mat, ladders, chairs and table pieces, and in some very special circumstances – gear provided to them (see Fully Loaded 2020).

Panini decided to go a bit more towards their brand style for NFL and NBA, using the colorful shirts that are popularized through almost half a century of WWE merchandising. Although these pieces of memorabilia dont seem to be tied to a TV event, they create a unique collectibility to the cards that are built with the pieces embedded.

Player worn content is a controversial subject in the hobby, because it represents a divergence from Game Used relics in hobby packs. Instead, cheaper jerseys are worn for a quick second at a signing and cut up for cards the same way a game used piece would have been cut up in the original years of the memorabilia card era.

We havent gotten confirmation on which realm these relics come from, but its likely the latter. The difference here is that WWE has never had these types of things as a main focal point of a product. Even though the relics are likely not from a TV taping, the colorful changes in relic content breeds a ton of fun chasing down the unique pieces.

Similarly, for the first time in WWE card history, the 1/1s seem to be built with specially cut WWE logo relics, something that has become a staple in the mainstream sports card chase. These cards have shown to be stunning centerpieces, and present a chase like we havent had in WWE cards before.

With the success of Select’s relic content, it opens up potential high end product lines for the license that wouldnt have been possible without this new approach.

The Massive Parallel Adventure

When looking at product configuration for Chrome stock products, parallels drive as much value as any other part of the set. This is a VERY foreign concept for people who have lived in the bubble of WWE cards for their entire collecting life, as it used to be the autograph content that determined value.

With Select, there are three base card levels, and a retail variation to boot. Each base variation has complexity in the parallels that make up the checklist, leaving about 40-50 cards needed for many supercollectors (like myself) to chase for top stars.

This is excessive for a number of reasons, but also a driver for focus on a long term chase that hasnt been available in WWE as of yet. Prizm may have had 20 parallels to collect, but this can be double that. Making this even more complicated is that some stars are only available in certain tiers, and others only in the retail configurations. This is a chase that may take some collectors years to complete, especially for the rarer cards that may not surface at all.

For some, this wide array of targets is more of a drawback, but with so few WWE products on the market, and even fewer chrome style products, this is a needed piece of the puzzle to keep the chase going when delays could hamper frequent releases to bog down the calendar.

A Deep and Well Conceived Checklist

When Prizm was released, I mentioned that it would be a landmark product because of the checklist. I feel like Select was conceived in the same vein and offers a huge amount of variety across the major WWE TV brands and the legends that populate it’s history.

The mix of current talent, rookie talent, and HOF / Legend content is exceptional, and its shocking some of the names that Panini was able to include in a product that comes on the heels of a leviathan like Prizm.

New talent like Roxanne Perez and Nikkita Lyons have their first Panini cards, alongside vets like Ken Shamrock, Terry Funk and Michelle McCool who havent had WWE cards in a few years. Combine those with the first Panini shiny cards of Macho Man and others left off the Prizm checklist, and I have seen a lot of happy collectors.

The Cool Factor

So much of what makes us happy as collectors is that cards can look really cool. Prizm had aspects of that with some of the pieces of their set, but its nothing like what Select offers. Tie Dye, Tiger, Zebra, and other fun parallel pattern designs seem to get more collectors engaged, and the relic content adds a new layer of connection to the mainstream hobby. These things drive interest, and interest drives both fun and value.

Select just feels like a cool product that focuses more on the things collectors want to see and chase, and that isnt easy to accomplish. Tastes are subjective, but its hard to find people that say “Oh well, Select sucks and doesnt deserve the hype!” People might say that the product isnt what they collect, or isnt for their focus in the hobby, but few have said its a bad product with bad value and a bad design.

I do believe that there are still some WWE collectors who dont get what drives the increased value across products like Select or Prizm, but I also feel like this is the first time where I havent seen those people trying to dominate the conversation with negativity. Exposure to this new era of WWE collecting has been a tumultuous experience for many, but this product seems to excite a number of the previous generation of WWE collectors as much as the new generation.

As things progress with Panini’s WWE license, I would hope the above mentioned elements of the product continue to be a focus going forward. Although its unclear if Panini will remain free of Fanatics’ consolidation plans, its very clear that the success they have found with Select has been nothing short of refreshing.

As soon as things started picking up at the beginning of 2020, there was immediate speculation on what could be causing the meteoric rise in card values as the pandemic kicked into high gear. That same narrative was immediately accompanied by talk of a bubble, and of course, when it would burst. Just like no one could have ever predicted that a worldwide pandemic would contribute to one of the largest collectible booms in history, no one could have ever predicted it would last as long as it has.

According to CardLadder’s indexing, the hobby seems to be on a downward trend over the last few months, with growth heading in the direction of -8% for the quarter. Despite ups and down, the larger graph still shows pretty flat, which depending on your thought process could be both good or bad. For most of 2021, the incline was a steep upward trajectory that allowed many collectors and investors to throw chips anywhere on the table and come up with a win. Now that things have been much more flat, some of those same people are starting to wonder if the honeymoon is really over.

There are some major contributing factors overall, and ill do my best to give my take on a few of them, especially as social media seems to run with their own agendas and narratives. For the most part there is a split between people holding out for the start of the NFL season, and those that believe this is the sign of the end times. Im somewhere in the middle, and hope I can outline some of the ways I see the hobby trending from a disinterested third party point of view.

The Junk Slab Era

Earlier this week, PSA tweeted out that they were holding 3.6 million cards in backlog, waiting to be graded. This is after A) suspending submissions B) raising prices and C) making better grades seemingly more difficult to achieve. Because grading is a conflict of interest laden business model, making business decisions on the flow of their submissions speaks to a larger issue with the hobby as a whole.

Right now, the hobby ebbs and flows based on the way graded cards are valued across the different corners of the collecting universe. The problem is, there are so many graded cards out there, that the way the public perceives them has changed dramatically over the last 2 years. The hyper mint marketing ploy that each of the 19373 grading companies have employed has started to backfire, especially as more “Gem Mint” cards drop in value overall.

For the last 2 years, collectors have employed a “GRADE ALL THE THINGS!” approach to their collection, sending in everything from worthless base cards to high dollar investment pieces, all with the hopes of gaining more value and equity in their PCs. As a result, the junk slab era has come to be a major factor, with so many investors seeing dips in readily available cards drawing less value on the secondary market.

With the backlog of grading showcasing that there are an insane amount of cards still to enter the market, this flood has massive implications on the supply vs demand economics of the hobby. For so long, the promise of increased value in graded cards had driven keen collectors to take advantage of the situation, but that secret has been transformed into a wave of (no longer scarce) cards being put on the block and selling for less and less. The scariest thing, is that the tidal wave hasnt even reached the mainland, because as we see, a ton more cards are still waiting to be processed.

The End of the Pandemic Era

For most in the world, life is relatively back to normal, with only a few reminders that Covid is still raging as a major factor in the lives of many. Now that people are out and about, taking vacations, eating at restaurants, and living their existence to the fullest again, disposable income is starting to be applied to other areas of budgets.

I stand by the fact that the lack of opportunity to spend money is what kicked off the collectible boom, and now that those options are back, many more people have to balance their spending. Similarly, because of more people being out from isolation, gas prices spiked, and world conflicts made those situations 10 times worse. This has also led to massive inflation, alongside a lack of stimulus payments that gave many collectors the money to buy cards they wouldnt normally buy.

Right now, this is a perfect storm of contributing environmental factors, and I havent even begun to go through the crypto crash that has impacted a ton of source funds that some investors were using to invest in cards.

Increased Supply without Increased Demand

The value of cards as an asset is something that can be traced almost directly to two things – supply and demand. Basic economics at play. For the beginning of this boom, the demand for cards was insatiable, with many collectors seeing their access to wax and singles stripped away as more and more people entered the market.

As expected, the manufacturers immediately tried to match the demand with more supply, but due to pandemic worker shortages and material issues, most could not keep up in any real way. Now that we are going into the summer of 2022, some of that has normalized, with supply finally catching up as a result of increased production runs combined with all the factors listed above. Demand has cooled on certain things, and collector revolts against high prices in the lower classes of spending have led to major shifts in both the primary and secondary markets.

Certain things have been holding stable, but the areas seeing the most problems are the areas with the most supply. High run flagship sets with large retail configurations have seen cooling, as well as some of the top high end products. These offerings, whose prices have risen above the prospects of the tent pole hits have seen breakers move away from trying to fill their lists. Flawless Basketball had risen to over 20k per box before the hunt for the triple logoman card ended. F1 Dynasty released yesterday at $18k per case, which only contains 5 cards. The appetite for super premium releases seems to have shrunk, but its all about which of those products really feels the pain.

So far, the singles market at the top levels seem to be holding, with big sales still going down regularly at many of the big auction houses. If you go back to my posts on this topic from earlier, this is some of the ways I expected the end of the boom to go down. We will have to see if this quarterly downturn is temporary or if this slow decline leads to something more drastic.

Delays in Production

Even with more supply hitting the market, we are still seeing major production delays rippling through the calendar across each of the manufacturers. Its now into May, and we still havent seen 2021 Prizm Football, a product that usually hits before the beginning of the NFL season. With every manufacturer trying to cash in on the demand before it cools further, this is a direct result.

Most of the delays come from material shortages these days, but at the beginning of this, it was a combination of that plus lack of resources to put the products together once they were printed. At first this led to more demand for a decreased supply, but that situation has been turned on its head now that the hungry base of collectors is starting to move onto a ‘wait and see’ type of investment approach for many of the bottom 90% of the market.

Fear of Consolidation

As if things couldnt get more complicated, there is also a huge cloud hanging over the hobby coming sooner rather than later. Fanatics has acquired all the major licenses. Fanatics has also aquired Topps. This means that hobby consolidation is no longer a pipe dream, its a plan in its execution stage.

Even with the gigantic influence that Topps has had on cards for close to 100 years, collectors are starting to fear what could happen when Panini is removed from the equation. To date, Topps has found success in a lot of areas, but the investor crowd has entered this game when Panini owned the top two sports in the land.

Almost immediately after the boom began, many of the biggest sales went down in football and basketball, and focused on legacy sets that drive the Panini brand wagon. Although there are many theories that suggest those sets wont die due to further consolidation, its clear that there is a lot of trepidation around the future of investor friendly sets.

Honestly, this whole thing doesnt look like its set up for long term success. There are too many headwinds for the hobby to remain at an all time high. Now that doesnt mean its going to snap back to pre-boom prices, as that bell has already been rung. I also dont believe we are on the verge of a massive selloff, but its clear that the environment created by the factors described here could contribute to a drop that people might not be ready for. As always, that exit strategy needs to be in place, but I will close here by saying this isnt the time to pull every fire alarm. However, there is some smoke that will send people to the exits. Hopefully, things bounce back and this post looks more like chicken little and less like Nostradamus.