When Panini announced their auction for the inaugural season of Prizm Football, I was quite interested in what they had to offer.  Seeing that the cards were being issued as uncirculated 1/1 parallels.  I thought any and all would be way out of my price range or at the very least more than what i would want to pay for in a football card…even though they would be issuing 1/1’s of Washington Redskins.  So, in a passive approach I just watched from the sidelines as the Alfred Morris card went for $200+.  The thing that i noticed though, was that most of the other cards were going for $20 to $50.  Your basic ‘team favorite’ kind of guys.  These guys aren’t really superstars but rather guys that you like and that wear your teams jersey on Sundays.  This gave me hope that I could win a card or two without going buckwild.

I still need that diaper money son!

With the auctions ending at 10am PT, this created a bit of scheduling conflict for me and work.  I typically get to my desk around 7am and the project manager i’m working with rolls in around 7:30am, while the other architect on our team likes to stroll in about 9:30.  The straggler likes to get settled in and start asking questions around 9:58…2 minutes before the auctions ended.  My solution?  Hit the john with a fully charged iphone at 9:57 and bid my ass off!  Too much information, i know, but the details are important when telling a story.  This technique was crazy successful and turned me in to a winner in life and in parallels…plus i got some ‘me’ time during the hectic workday.

If wildside71 is reading this, i’m sorry you had to hear of my ill techniques this way, but the bidding wars were fun!

Enough with the rambling, here is the first card I won.

London Fletcher

As you can see, these cards come in a standard issues magnetic ultra pro snap lock case with a red Panini sticker covering the magnet.  The photo doesn’t do the card justice, but it is infinitely better than the my scan attempt.  I think Panini did a great job with this promotion (maybe it’s gimmicky for some?)  Being able to bid on a 1/1 rather than hoping to pull one from a box is much better for a team collector like me.  I’m able to get exactly the guy I want without screwing around with fruitless packs or boxes.  I get my guy each time.  PLUS the case these guys came in is pretty cool.  I’m not sure exactly what it was, but it seemed to be some type of plastic composite with black felt lining that the card was set in.  Great packaging for a one of a kind item.  My only critique would be that the box itself had the players name and team on the outside of the box.  I’m sure this wasn’t done to cut down on costs, but if you have multiples of these things, there is no telling who is in what box?  That’s a very minor issue though and i’m conjuring up ways to get the names on the boxes for proper storage and retrieval in the future.

This post is the first in a series of posts i will do on these cards.  I hope you enjoy them, and again, wildside71…no hard feelings.

-HTTR!