Panini is understandably excited about how its Prizm basketball product fared this season. Now, they’ll bring the brand to football with optimism that this year’s rookie class can still move product. Among the twists in the boxes of Panini Prizm 2012 football that will hit store shelves on Wednesday are rookie photo variations. There are 25 of the 100 rookie cards in the checklist that have been created with short printed photos you’ll find only in hobby boxes. The difference, if photos released by the company are any indication, is subtle but might be interesting enough to move some product.
The biggest rookie stars of the 2012 class all have variations in the Chromium-inspired product including Russell Wilson, Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III. Collectors who open a hobby box should find one somewhere amid their 20 packs.
Prizm Football will have one rookie card per pack in both hobby and retail (which releases the first week in February), and all will have parallel variations: Prizm, Red Prizm (hobby only), Green Prizm (retail only), Gold Prizm and Finite Black Prizm.
The rookie autographs are numbered to 499 or less. The 100 vets and retired players who also appear in this product, have signed cards numbered to just 149. Hobby boxes should have two autographs and collectors who don’t live near a brick-and-mortar card store can find one in a retail box as well.
The base set will include 200 “commons” as Panini has unabashedly called them and the 100 rookies.
Panini Prizm 2012 will have six cards per pack with 1/1 Finite Prizm variations among the big hits. You can see a few more sample cards below.