First looks: 2013 Pinnacle baseball cards + 2013 Panini Prizm details
Update: Originally published on April 3 — now has new details and images
By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor
Pinnacle is back on the diamond.
Panini America‘s 2013 baseball slate will include a revival of the Pinnacle brand as 2013 Pinnacle is scheduled to arrive on July 31.
Packing two autographs in each 24-pack hobby box, it will carry a suggested retail price of $2.99 a pack and include a meaty lineup of inserts and parallels to go with a 200-card base set that includes 50 Rookie Cards.
Each box will include the two autos along with three Museum Collection parallels printed with Nufex technology, two Artist’s Proofs, 10 other inserts, three Clear Vision plastic inserts, five more Nufex cards and five additional plastic cards — 29 total inserts per box, according to the company.
The Artist’s Proofs will be hobby-only inserts, while other standard inserts will include Team 2020 (10 players), Awaiting the Call (10 cards), Position Powers (20), Behind the Numbers (10) and five cards each for Looking Back and The Hit King.
The Nufex inserts will include 10 Team Pinnacle cards, 15 Slugfests, 10 Aces, 12 The Naturals and eight Z-Teamers. Plastic inserts will include 16 Pinnacle of Success, 16 Swing For the Fences, 12 Essence of the Game and eight Skylines cards.
The product also will include a five-card tribute insert to Pete Rose — who can appear on cards here because they are not MLB Properties-approved — called The Hit King.
In other news, the basic lineup for Panini’s 2013 Prizm set also was announced. While the 2012 edition arrives later this month, the 2013 version of the set is slated to arrive on Aug. 28.
Carrying a suggested retail price of $4.99 a pack, it will include two autographs in every 20-pack box along with hobby-only Prizm parallels dropping three per box. Also to be found will be Orange diecuts (/50), Gold (/10) and 1/1 Black Finite Prizms.
The base set of that product will include 300 cards (including 50 rookies) along with five insert sets. The inserts will be paralleled in hobby packs only with Gold and Black Prizms. The sets include Fearless (20 cards), Rookie Challengers (15 cards), Game Changers (15), Band of Brothers (20 and 10 additional short-prints) and a dozen Top Prospects.
Panini has not released any images for that set at this time.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball magazine. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here. Follow Beckett Media on Facebook.
I really, really, hope that Mike Trout “Rookie” card is a mock-up.
can we say UGLY
You can but I personally like the set…
Those are some of the ugliest cards I have seen from Panini in weeks. They never cease to amaze me with how ugly they can make cards.
Yes, another legacy brand coming back to the hobby with a reasonable price point. I was hoping for Donruss or Studio but Pinnacle is fine with me. Cards look fine when you compare them to some of the old Pinnacle sets.
HOW MANY MORE YEARS OF TROUT ROOKIE CARDS ?
That is one ugly design. The font is way too big on the player’s name.
REALLY!!!!!!!!! MIKE TROUT ROOKIE CARD. THAT IS SO LAME. ABOUT AS LAME AS PEOPLE THINKING PARALLELS AND INSERTS AND REFRACTORS AND PROSPECT CARD ARE TRUE ROOKIE CARD. THEY ARE NOT!
Card companies have doing this for years until the RC card logo was put in place. I think Derek Jeter has “rookie” on his Score and Leaf cards in 1996 and other rookie style language on most his cards until 1998 like “future star”, “blue chip”, and “propsect”.
Topps still used the All Star Rookie Cup on Harper and Trout this year even though these guys have had cards for a while now.
I have not issue with Panini using the rookie language on Trout, maybe RC is misleading but it his first Pinnacle release and he was the rookie of the year last year in the AL.
Most collectors are smart enough to know what cards for each player are considered desired. Since the 1990’s inserts, autographs, relics and parallel sets have trumped true rookie cards.
This madness must end. Start counting Bowman cards as RCs and if the other brands/companies want to try to keep up, so be it. I’ve been collecting Jurickson Profar, Dylan Bundy, Bryce Harper and Mike Trout “rookie cards” for about eight years now. Starting to lose interest in baseball. At least in the other sports you don’t see the guy in a set until he gets drafted.
I agree with rick.
This is ridiculous. Why do they even bother?!? Could they make the brand ‘Pinnacle’ any bigger?
As for what is and isn’t a ‘RC’, I go by my own definition. I’m fine with Bowman sets focusing on RC’s, and being ‘Home of the RC’, but that doesn’t make me want to collect it (much).
And, for my own definition, if the back of your card doesn’t have Major League stats on it, then it’s not a TRUE ROOKIE CARD. {But that’s just me. I say to each their own.}
The problem here is the wording – if Trout was identified as a “rookie star” and not a “rookie card,” I’d be OK with it. But it’s quite misleading to label a third-year card as a rookie card.
Pass
I personally like the design of the cards and it doesn’t quite scream unlicensed as some of their other products. At the price stated above. Ill try a box.
The rookie card thing is kinda ridiculous, however. I like the fact that there are so many players to collect, just come up with a better way to classify them.
PC Prospect Card RC Rookie Card FYC. First Year Card. However the FYC should really only effect those players to which products such as this which come out 9 months after the season has finished. saying Rookie on the Card does not make it a rookie card.
my take on the “rookie card” thing is that, like with Leaf and Donruss years ago, there were ‘Retro’ style inserts to make up for lost years…maybe that’s what this Trout card is…or maybe it’s some sick joke.
Or … perhaps just an error on an early mock (which might help sell some boxes).
Brings me back to Just Minors or Signature Rookies where logos were not shown. I was a photographer for Just Minors and was instructed to take photos where the Logo/Team was obscured.
Yuck
I was really hoping these guys would resist getting into Baseball until they actually had a license from MLB. The Leaf Memories was pushing it…should have waited for like a 25th Anniversary. My big fear is they will bring back the Donruss label also without the benefit of a license. I would also like to say Panini has done so little to impress me in terms of design…then again most modern card designs have a major flaw…..the space reserved for the Swatch