Normally, it would be considered an off-season release but this season has been anything but normal. 2019-20 Contenders Optic basketball has a September 23 release date that falls in the latter stages of the post-season.
Optic is, of course, a spin-off of the regular Contenders product that came out at the beginning of this calendar year.
Each Optic box will have one pack of six cards that will include an autograph and four inserts or parallels along with a base card. Each case will hold 20 boxes.
SRP is $125 this year but the basketball market has been sizzling with boxes of virtually every product selling well over SRP thanks to the hunt for rookie cards of Zion Williamson and Ja Morant.
You can see boxes for sale on eBay here.
Rookie Ticket Autograph cards and their parallel versions will be the big attraction in Contenders Optic. The 1/1 Gold Vinyl parallel is the one everyone will be chasing but there will be other parallels, too.
1982 Tribute Autographs and Veteran Ticket cards feature a mix of current and former greats with on-card autographs. Numerous parallels will exist for those as well, but Panini hasn’t provided details yet.
Superstars die-cut insert cards will include Gold (# to 10) and 1/1 Gold Vinyl parallels.
New insert sets this year will include Uniformity, Historic Picks, Historic Slams, and All-Star Aspirations. Historic Slams will be based on specific photography from some of the most famous dunks in NBA history. Historic Picks pairs 2 players selected at the same draft spot from different years.
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