Panini America opened up on online selling window for the First Off the Line edition of 2019-20 Prizm basketball on Monday morning. After server crashes due to web traffic during a couple of other recent FOTL releases, the company came up with a new platform to offer boxes of what has been one of the most anticipated trading card releases of the year.
Panini used a modified Dutch Auction format in which the price opened at $1,000 per box and then dropped every two minutes.
It’s believed that fewer than 7,000 FOTL boxes were available.
The process took about four hours and 40 minutes, but eventually the product sold out and there were no web issues for buyers to deal with. While some jumped in at over $900 per box to ensure they didn’t miss out, many buyers waited until it dipped closer to $300 before purchasing and some reported landing boxes at $290 before they were gone. Prices were still above MSRP.
The FOTL version contain ten cards per box including three Shimmer autographs. Unnumbered blue, Green (# to 25 or less); Gold (# to 10) and 1/1 Black parallel versions are also possible. Each box also contains four Silver Prizms and three Shimmer Prizms with possible parallel versions at the ratio above. That content is exclusive to the FOTL boxes.
Some of those FOTL boxes purchased Monday are now being offered on eBay.
Standard hobby boxes with two autographs and 22 Prizms will release on Wednesday with pricing currently at a little over $400. Blaster boxes and packs that made their way to big box retail stores last week have been disappearing quickly.
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