[rjcj2017]

Opened my 2nd hobby 2019 hobby box yesterday (Playoff, $100 from lcs). Ended up with a 250 pt card. And I also can't find a single card that I want to redeem my points (1300) on. Definitely not worth the $100.

Since I started buying hobby boxes from Blowout, I would usually make 6-8 purchases a year. Actually went all of 2019 without purchasing from them (not that there is anything wrong with Blowout). Actually ended up making probably a dozen or so purchases from COMC. Usually have an order of around $100 and get 50-70 cards, all PC or set needs. Beats paying $200+ (free shipping) maybe getting a couple of decent cards and hopefully a few PC cards an end filling boxes with cards I don't have a need for.

So in sum and a long roundabout way of getting there... Panini Points suck.

Agreed!

I would actually prefer the points if they offered hits from the same current product I just bought and didn't charge for shipping.

But I don't see either of those happening, so yes, they do suck.

[ZSDOne]

Indeed. Monopolies are not good.

---

Agreed on all points.

So like an idiot last week I bought one more blaster of Contenders Football thinking, what are the odds I'd get another points card?

Yep, another 400 points card, which I traded this morning.

3 blasters, 3 points cards.

Meanwhile, the package arrived today with the cards I picked with my other two points cards (five cards for my various basketball PCs).

And, even though I paid three times what I used to pay for shipping, they sent it via FedEx instead of USPS using ... wait for it ... a bubble mailer.

So they literally did nothing to add value other than just charge me more.

No extra packaging, no bonus packs (heaven forbid) ...

Suffice it to say I can't ever see myself using points cards again.

I will trade them as soon as I pull them from now on.

Contenders this year appears to be loaded with points cards in both Hobby and Retail - and since outside of 2011 when they had several retail exclusive /99 short print autos, Contenders retail has always been a rather brutal product (Contenders can also be an extremely brutal product in Hobby, especially now that its only 1 guaranteed on card auto, they no longer have the extra autos, and it looks like a high percentage of boxes this year have points cards)

Panini is apparently now using Fed Ex to ship redemptions - the last two redemptions I got from them were shipped by Fed Ex - I don't know how one arrived, since my wife brought it into the house - but the other - a 2018 Select Saquon Barkley auto-relic /49 - Fed Ex simply left on my front step - Panini put the bubble mailer (with my address on it) inside of a box. Fortunately, it did not disappear off of the front step - and fortunately, it was a redemption so I didn't have to pay for such fine service

I figure its only a matter of time before Panini starts charging for shipping redemptions too!

[rjcj2017]

Contenders this year appears to be loaded with points cards in both Hobby and Retail - and since outside of 2011 when they had several retail exclusive /99 short print autos, Contenders retail has always been a rather brutal product (Contenders can also be an extremely brutal product in Hobby, especially now that its only 1 guaranteed on card auto, they no longer have the extra autos, and it looks like a high percentage of boxes this year have points cards)

Panini is apparently now using Fed Ex to ship redemptions - the last two redemptions I got from them were shipped by Fed Ex - I don't know how one arrived, since my wife brought it into the house - but the other - a 2018 Select Saquon Barkley auto-relic /49 - Fed Ex simply left on my front step - Panini put the bubble mailer (with my address on it) inside of a box. Fortunately, it did not disappear off of the front step - and fortunately, it was a redemption so I didn't have to pay for such fine service

I figure its only a matter of time before Panini starts charging for shipping redemptions too!

Agreed. I was horrified at the shipping cost.

My five cards came in a yellow bubble mailer as usual ... only difference was, I paid $13 instead of $4 for literally the same service other than the name of the service (FedEx versus USPS).

I will not do the points cards anymore and sure as hell won't buy any more retail Contenders.

I bought one retail jumbo pack and was actually much happier with that than my three blasters ... pulled a Hockenson ROY insert for my Lions PC and a Pat Tillman base card for my Tillman PC ... much better deal for $5 and didn't have to eff around with any rewards cards.

[ZSDOne]

Agreed. I was horrified at the shipping cost.

My five cards came in a yellow bubble mailer as usual ... only difference was, I paid $13 instead of $4 for literally the same service other than the name of the service (FedEx versus USPS).

I will not do the points cards anymore and sure as hell won't buy any more retail Contenders.

I bought one retail jumbo pack and was actually much happier with that than my three blasters ... pulled a Hockenson ROY insert for my Lions PC and a Pat Tillman base card for my Tillman PC ... much better deal for $5 and didn't have to eff around with any rewards cards.

Leave it to Panini to prove that they can do worse than Points Cards:

Against my better judgment, I got a hobby box of 2019 Contenders - I present the "hits":

1) Marcus Green base Rookie Ticket (6th Round WR - Draft Pick of the Falcons signed to the Eagles Practice Squad)

2) Ryan Connolly base Rookie Ticket (5th Round Linebacker for the New York Football Giants)

3) Mack Wilson variation Rookie Ticket (5th Round Linebacker for the Cleveland Browns - at least that is the name of the card, the autograph looks like LL)

4) Devante Parker NFL Ink autograph /199 (a 2015 First Round Draft Pick who has not exactly had a great career - in other words, a blatant sticker dump)

And that's it - all sticker autographs, no on card auto. And only 4 autographs rather than the "5 autographs on average"

There are no words

[rjcj2017]

Leave it to Panini to prove that they can do worse than Points Cards:

Against my better judgment, I got a hobby box of 2019 Contenders - I present the "hits":

1) Marcus Green base Rookie Ticket (6th Round WR - Draft Pick of the Falcons signed to the Eagles Practice Squad)

2) Ryan Connolly base Rookie Ticket (5th Round Linebacker for the New York Football Giants)

3) Mack Wilson variation Rookie Ticket (5th Round Linebacker for the Cleveland Browns - at least that is the name of the card, the autograph looks like LL)

4) Devante Parker NFL Ink autograph /199 (a 2015 First Round Draft Pick who has not exactly had a great career - in other words, a blatant sticker dump)

And that's it - all sticker autographs, no on card auto. And only 4 autographs rather than the "5 autographs on average"

There are no words

Man, I'm sorry.

I get that there can't be a Kyler Murray auto in every box, but come on, maybe someone drafted in, I don't know, the first three rounds?

And I always like the "on average" disclaimer .... does that mean that since you got four autos that some other box somewhere had six?

Quality control is a lost art.

Well, at least it sounds like you didn't get a points card, LOL

[ZSDOne]

Man, I'm sorry.

I get that there can't be a Kyler Murray auto in every box, but come on, maybe someone drafted in, I don't know, the first three rounds?

And I always like the "on average" disclaimer .... does that mean that since you got four autos that some other box somewhere had six?

Quality control is a lost art.

Well, at least it sounds like you didn't get a points card, LOL

It is true that nothing probably is better than a 150 points card - so maybe Panini is into something.

And it seems that it could be even worse - there are some Contenders boxes that only have 3 autos.

But in all seriousness, this brings up a problem that I see with Panini moving to cater to the "case breaker" market - it used to be that you never saw absolute clunkers of boxes - you'd see some poor boxes, but there would at least be one decent autograph in a box - and it seems that in the products that are less popular among breakers, that you never really see an absolute clunker - but in the products that are most popular among Breakers, the price per box has gone up (you used to get 2 on card autos and usually 6 autos per box in Contenders for about $150 and no points cards- now you get 1 on card auto and 5 (or 4 or 3) autos for $200). Besides Contenders, Prizm and National Treasures (although I am neither rich nor crazy enough to buy something that expensive) are also bad offenders. The price has gone up and the quality of individual boxes has gone down

I am now thinking that you simply need to avoid the popular case breaker products. And its a good idea to avoid any hobby product that you don't want to build a base set of. And I've gotten the impression that with a couple of exceptions (the 2019 Prestige $40 boxes with 2 autographs and 3 parallel cards, Score hobby boxes) that Panini simply does not care about catering to the small collector market anymore - everything is about catering to the high end collectors and the box breaker.

[rjcj2017]

Lack of competition definitely doesn't help!

[maizenblue73175]

You hit it rite on the nose. No threat of being dethroned. NFL needs to license at least 1 more manufacturer. Panini will get their s**t together when there is someone else driving the market. Let's get Topps, Topps Chrome, & Topps Triple Threads back.
low, mid and high end.

Lack of competition definitely doesn't help!

[jplarson]

Man, I'm sorry.

I get that there can't be a Kyler Murray auto in every box, but come on, maybe someone drafted in, I don't know, the first three rounds?

And I always like the "on average" disclaimer .... does that mean that since you got four autos that some other box somewhere had six?

Quality control is a lost art.

Well, at least it sounds like you didn't get a points card, LOL

It's been years since Panini has even bothered to publish odds on any of their inserts or hits. Completely disguising print runs and making inserts into different lettered (cause heaven forbid they use numbers to help set builders) subsets. I'd be REAL curious how often points come up on average, because it's disgraceful.

You hit it rite on the nose. No threat of being dethroned. NFL needs to license at least 1 more manufacturer.

We can all thank the NFL and the NFLPA for allowing this to happen. Leo Kane was the NFL SVP for Consumer Products and Keith Gordon was the President of NFL Players Inc who were in on that.

If we want to voice our displeasure with the powers that be, the people under "Player Inc" at the bottom are a great place to start - https://www.nflpa.com/about/department-contacts. The ones dealing with licensing are the likely folks who need to hear how Panini is dropping the ball.

[rjcj2017]

Agreed on all counts, friends.

I mean, I despised it when they were just charging regular rates for shipping on the points rewards, because they already had my money from whatever blaster or pack I had already bought.

The insinuation was that if I walked out of Target or WalMart with a Panini box that said "one guaranteed auto or mem card," then that's what I would have in-hand at the time of purchase.

Not some stupid mail-in/online program with extremely limited selection from antiquated products that they now charge triple the normal shipping rates for.

Honestly, it irks me that they don't charge for redemptions but do charge for points ... I mean, what's the damn difference?

Either way you're not getting what you're supposed to be getting, so it seems only fair that they could just eat the cost for both programs.

Never again for me ... luckily, they are fairly easy to trade on the boards right now, but I also have to wonder how long that will last.

Once that dries up I guess I will quit collecting certain products altogether.

I already know for a fact I won't ever buy retail Contenders again.