Collectors sometimes can get jaded by the names of some high-end card sets. You know the names — and I am not picking on any company in particular — like Immaculate, National Treasures, Sterling, Exquisite, Platinum or Flawless, to name a few. It makes sense. You won’
t see a company touting a brand name like “Mediocre,” for example.
All jokes aside, Panini America’s release of its 2016 Impeccable Football product on October 19 promises to be a high-end brand with a low print run, durable card stock (canvas) and plenty of autograph and relic cards. A full checklist is available below.
2016 Panini Impeccable Football Info
A hobby box will contain eight cards, and Panini is promising at least five autographs, one parallel numbered to 25 or less, and two base cards numbered to 75 or less. Hobby box prices have ranged from presells of $485 to $550 or more, depending on the retailer.
Even though the base set of 2016 Panini Impeccable contains 100 cards and is low in its numbering, collectors are not going to be dropping cash for those cards. It’s the autos and memorabilia that will be the big draw.
Autograph and Relic Cards
Rookies Autographs will feature the top first-year players from this year’s NFL draft, and will be numbered 99 or less. As it turns out, 99 is the highest numbered card you will see in 20
16 Impeccable. There will be 50 of these cards.
On the veterans side, Elegance Veteran Patch Autographs contains an on-card autograph and also has memorabilia (prime jersey swatches) as an added bonus. Some of these cards will be numbered to 5 or less.
Elegance Rookie Helmet Patch cards are 1/1 parallels that include signatures and memorabilia. These cards vary with pieces of helmets, patches and even nameplates. Nameplate autograph cards are numbered to 15.
Impeccable Jersey Numbers Autographs will feature on-card signatures and jersey numbers from top players, with cards numbered to their uniform. Good thing Jim Otto doesn’t play anymore — a “00” would have been an interesting insert, though.
Indelible Ink is a series in which cards are also hard-signed and numbered to 99. There are also gold, platinum and printing plate parallels.
Inkpeccable duals will be numbered to 25 or less and will feature a pair of autographs. Parallel versions will include trio and quad autograph cards.
For those who love to collect autographs of legends, Impeccable Cuts have cut signatures of pro football Hall of Famers. All are numbered to 5 or less.
And finally, Silver NFL Logo cards will be numbered to 15 or less and will be embedded with one ounce of .999 Troy silver. There also will be 14K gold parallel versions.
Panini’s Impeccable football offers high-end rewards for those prepared to shell out the cash for it. It won’t be long until we know whether it delivers enough bang for those bucks.
Shop for 2016 NFL Trading Card Boxes at SportsMemorabilia.com.