‘Twas the Monday before Panini Black Friday and I’m sitting here wishing I could fast forward through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, most of Thanksgiving, minus the football and my mother’s special turkey legs and jello mold to 10PM Thursday night when I pop my doors and kick off the holiday season in earnest with Panini Black Friday.
My shop has seen success with Upper Deck’s Singles Day and the more recent Topps Holiday Pack promotions, but the one that seems to really move the collecting needle is Black Friday. Since starting in 2011, my collectors have embraced this promotion and its brother, Father’s Day, more strongly than any other promotion I offer. If you’re unfamiliar with how it works, shop owners receive free packs to hand out in accordance with the purchase of certain Panini products.
A few weeks ago, I was waiting anxiously by my laptop for the announcement of which boxes would be part of the promotion as well as how many packs would accompany each release. When it landed, I did the equivalent of the sports card owner 100 meter hurdles to print out my order form send it back before any of the products sold out on that Friday. Imagine my surprise on Monday when Kevin from Panini asked me at the Southern Hobby Expo why I had not turned in an order form. The second time was the charm. Sometimes other shop owners ask me why I attend events like this one. Let me just say that before we got to any of the breakout sessions, networking or buying opportunities at the warehouse on Tuesday, this trip was covered by my getting my order form in (again) for Black Friday.
This year the participating products include:
17/18 Panini Vanguard NBA
17/18 Panini Donruss Optic Mega Box NBA
18/19 Panini Hoops NBA
2018 Panini Rookies & Stars Longevity NFL
2018 Panini Donruss Factory Sets NFL
2018 Panini Illusions NFL
2018 Certified Racing
2018 Prime Racing
Each box purchase will reward collectors with a designated amount of the special Black Friday packs. There is a recommended amount of packs per box, but please check with your local card shop to see how many they will be giving out. Personally, I went crazy strong with the Optic Mega Boxes and also brought in a healthy amount of Illusions since the Mega Boxes offer me the chance to dish out five packs for a rather reasonable price. Illusions has been a strong seller for me and I can offer six packs to anyone who buys one of those.
Once again this year, Panini is offering packs with football-related content to those who buy football products while there are multi-sport packs for the other releases. Each of the sets offer parallels like Rapture (/25), the ever popular Cracked Ice (/10) and Checkerboard (1/1) versions.
You can get a peek at the base and parallel boxes here, check out a photo preview of some of the possible relic cards here. Hoping for autograph cards? The preview of some of what’s going to be inside those packs is here. I can’t wait to share those images with the throng of folks who wait a long 365 days for this promotion.
Your local hobby shop has hopefully stepped up to bring in a healthy amount of Black Friday friendly boxes and bonus packs, so please consider supporting them this Thursday, Friday or beyond with the participating products.
It hasn’t been all promotions, promotions and promotions at the shop.
1) 2018 Topps Triple Threads MLB – Just like Black Friday, Triple Threads has a long track record of success and between box sales, case breaks and case sales, the four cases I started with will soon be a distant memory.
It has been fun seeing the creative title cards that Topps offered up this year, the cool triple signed/triple relic cards, booklets, white whale cards and all the other creative components of TTT.
You can see some of them here.
2) 2018/19 Upper Deck Series 1 NHL – I will admit that I went a little light on UD1 this year after some of the challenges of last season’s hockey sales. Fortunately a young gunner from the Canucks named Elias Pettersson came along just in time for collectors to get inspired and UD1 is turning into the powerhouse it has been the last few years. My initial order did not make it through the first weekend and fortunately I found a wholesaler who had not bumped their prices so I could restock at initial cost.
Since so many people look at the Young Guns from UD1 and UD2 as “true rookies”, the success of UD1 makes a massive difference as I approach ordering other products. Seeing what Pettersson’s rookie cards are selling for, I am encouraged that we will hopefully avoid some of the stagnation we saw with 2017/18 releases.
3) 2018/19 Donruss NBA – I am going to be a little more honest that I probably should here. I ordered multiple cases of this year’s Donruss just so I could get more Prizm for my shop. I did it last year as well and am still working through all that I brought in (the Donruss, not the Prizm). So when case after case of the current Donruss landed, I stacked them up behind the counter and expected them to creep out slowly.
While Deandre Ayton, Trae Young and Luka Doncic have played well, the local pick, Michael Porter, is still recovering from back surgery and no timetable has been established for him to play this year.
Donruss has surprised me with how well it has been moving and collectors are digging the two autographs per box. I have already seen autos for Kobe (a redemption) and Steph Curry (live). Panini also reconfigured the boxes with 10 packs and 30 cards per pack and if things keep going as they are, I might not have cases stacked behind my counter this time next year.
4) 2018 Leaf Memorabilia Vault Mixed Sports & Entertainment – Leaf Memorabilia offers 10 signed or historical items per box. I offered my collectors the chance to try a case as a break and not only filled up one this past Saturday, but knocked out a second case as well.
There were some cool items in the boxes including signed bats from Frank Thomas and Al Kaline, a signed baseball from Alex Rodriguez, signed 16 x 20 photos of Carson Wentz, Adrian Peterson and others, a George Foreman singed boxing glove, a full check from Warren G. Harding and some other signed pieces from Steven Spielberg, Whoopi Goldberg and Roger Daltry.
It is always fun during a break when collectors are wondering if you have any more of a product and when they could do another one. Fortunately, Brian Gray had another case lying around and my collectors should have it gone by the weekend.
5
) 2018 Panini Phoenix NFL – Phoenix has been an interesting release since it popped in 2016. I sold more of it that year than I expected and more recently the 2017 release has been bolstered by the success of Patrick Mahomes. When 2018 landed, it didn’t exactly run out of of the gate, but more recently it has been gaining momentum. Even though Prizm released more recently, it has not slowed down our Phoenix sales.
Prizm started out higher than I expected (yup, a hobby shop owner is complaining about the price of a release on release day) and it has led to slower sales than I expected. Perhaps that has helped open the door for Phoenix to succeed, or perhaps all those collectors who embraced it the past few years are coming back to roost. Either way, it is nice to see Phoenix rise again.
So there we are with some heat on a cold November night. Again, please make it to your LCS later this week for Panini Black Friday for loads of free packs. Also check out the recent Singles Day and Topps Holiday Pack promotions in case they have any to still offer as well. If you happen to be collecting in Colorado, please make it to Mike’s this Thursday night after enjoying your football, turkey and other nibbles and mention you read this if you don’t mind (yes, we start the Black Friday festivities early).
Looking ahead to some fresh releases that might hit the next hot list, don’t be surprised to see the aforementioned Prizm NBA, Immaculate NFL, Bowman Draft MLB, Topps Dynasty MLB or the return of Playbook NFL taking their turns. It’s not a bad time to start prepping those holiday wish lists to share with your friends and family so you get the right gifts this year. We’ll chat again come holiday time.
Fortunately I’ve been selling cardboard like crazy so let’s dive in to What’s Hot:
1) 2018 Topps Triple Threads MLB – Just like Black Friday, Triple Threads has a long track record of success and between box sales, case breaks and case sales, the four cases I started with will soon be a distant memory.
It has been fun seeing the creative title cards that Topps offered up this year, the cool triple signed/triple relic cards, booklets, white whale cards and all the other creative components of TTT.
Mike Fruitman owns Mike’s Stadium Sportscards in Aurora, CO. His column focuses on what products are selling best in hobby shops. He’s got thousands of cards for sale on COMC.com under the ID cardmn5150. Enjoy new arrivals and big hits from Mike’s on Twitter. Mike’s is always looking for more friends on Facebook and you can email him at [email protected].
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