First Look: Panini America’s 2012 Black Football

By Susan Lulgjuraj | Beckett Football Editor

Get your credit cards ready, Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III collectors.

Panini America is adding a new high-end football product to its line – 2012 Black. Much as the name states, the cards show players set against dark backgrounds.

One of the selling points of Black are the Rookie Signatures Materials Prime, which will have on-card autographs and prime pieces of memorabilia embedded in the card. These cards – featuring players such as Luck and RGIII – are numbered to 349 or less.

Each box will contain 12 cards and collectors can expect three autographs and two additional hits in each box. There will also be two base cards, two Rookie Cards, two inserts and one parallel.

One of the more interesting concepts of Black derives off the parallels. Panini is only putting Black Printing Plates in for the 100-card base set. But if a collector pulls one of the black 1/1 plates, they can redeem it for the rest of the printing plate set, which includes cyan, magenta and yellow.

Some of the other highlights from Black include:

・ Stat Line Materials Prime: Between two to four pieces of memorabilia behind a die-cut stat window specific to each player (numbered to 49 or less). These sound similar to the Silhouettes Panini has recently done, which collectors have enjoyed.
・ Onyx Materials Jumbo Prime Jersey: An oversized piece of event-worn jersey from the top 2012 rookies (numbered to 10 or less).
・ Marks of Distinction: autographs from current and former players (numbered to 99 or less).

Black is scheduled for a November release.

Susan Lulgjuraj is the editor of Beckett Football magazine. You can email Susan here with ideas, comments and questions. Follow her on Twitter here.