2015 Panini Prizm Football Review and Box Break

I recently saw a very nice photo of Chuck and Mari Juliana on Facebook. Now the name might not ring a lot of bells but long before it was a familiar hobby term, Chuck was a major case breaker. Instead of splitting cases among paying members of an online audience, Chuck would sell singles and sets.

We talked a lot about card values and while I sometimes disagreed with him, he was always a gentleman in our discussions. One of our discussions involved a product called Ultra Sensations. Chuck said about that product that the real name should be “Ultra Confusions” because of all of the different subsets, variations and other quirks.

So, whenever a new release comes out and printed on the box are the words “More colors than ever before – Look for 12 Color Prizm Variations,” and no one blinks an eye, we’re living in a different world.

Thankfully, despite all the different colors, it’s relatively easy to deduce what’s what in 2015 Panini Prizm NFL. In fact, when I asked the owner of my local card shop, he said his collectors enjoyed all the colors. So, in about 20 years we have evolved as a hobby to where easily recognizable colors—even a lot of them– can help a new product.

Prizm has 20 packs per box with four cards per pack. Each box promises two autographs, two base Prizms, one base Red Prizm, one base Blue Prizm, one base Green Prizm, two rookie Prizms, five additional Prizms, 20 Rookie Cards, two Air Marshals, one Intros, one Helmets and one Rookie Revolution.

You’ll find veterans, rookies and retired greats on the checklist.

The fronts have a player photo set upon a silver background. The player’s name and team are at the bottom. The backs have a brief informational blurb, biographical information and seasonal and career statistics.

Triple Cards in Plano TX reported decent sales at $74.95 per box while leading on-line retailers are currently at $65-70 before shipping. Jumbo boxes, with four autographs, are available at card shops.

Here’s what we pulled:

Base Cards; Veterans: 36 of 200

Rookies: 22 of 100

Green Parallel: Byron Jones, Cecil Shorts III

Red: Ndamukong Suh. J.J. Watt

Blue Parallel: Robert Griffin III, Jaelen Strong

Red Power (#d to 99): Jordan Mathews

Air Marshals: Tom Brady, Cam Newton, Matt Ryan

Fireworks: Julio Jones

Hall of Fame: Jim Kelly

Helmet Die Cuts: Matt Jones, Ben Roethlisberger, Jameis Winston

Introductions: Desean Jackson

Rookie Revolution; Philip Dorsett

Autograph Prizm Green Cracked Ice (#d to 60); Bud Dupree

Autograph Prizm Red (#d to 299); Vince Mayle

Obviously we would have preferred to have received bigger names as our autographs and most collectors have expressed a concern about the quality of the checklist. However, they’ve been equally pleased with the low numbered parallels.

In many ways this is similar to many of the more traditional Panini issues as there is more than one better card per pack on average. It’s not really a set builder’s product, but few are these days. The design is somewhat typical of Prizm but some of the autographed relics (a first for Prizm football) are bold and very attractive. The parallels aren’t confusing either (at least not to me) so it’s safe to say this is not like the old Ultra Sensations but the newer Prizm.

Check out 2015 Panini Prizm on eBay here.