Wednesday, April 13, 2022

Bootleggin' with Panini, Part 2


Panini's on-demand product imitates the 1990 Donruss set. 
 
Previously on "Bootleggin' with Panini", we saw the major card manufacturer and current NBA license holder take a crack at the 1991 Donruss design for this season's crop of rookies. I decided to buy a couple of cards from last year's set "for research purposes", and my collection as well. Last year's Rated Rookie style tribute, naturally, featured the 1990 Donruss baseball design. I think it was a bit more successful than this year's version.


On the back, you see that the print run was significantly higher than this year's (2502). Last year's crop of rookies, led by Anthony Edwards and LaMelo something-er-other had considerable more hype than this year's set, so that's not terribly surprising. Again, the horizontal Donruss stats-on-the-back look is tossed aside here for a cropped version of the front photo. These cards are a bit more substantial feeling than their 1991 counterparts, and have a completely matte finish as opposed to the bit of gloss we saw with the others.


The most jarring thing to me is that the borders are color coded based on the team. While we certainly have seen the green bordered 1990 Donruss look (see The Rookies), I have a feeling that the color coding will really look strange for players on certain teams.

I know that there was at least one more year of these "retro" Rated Rookies. Should I do some more "research"?

2 comments :

  1. Old Topps designs get rehashed so often. It's nice to see a different design from my card-collecting youth.

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  2. I was just thinking how cool it would look if these borders were color coded based on the team. Good job Panini. As for more "research"... I can never get enough of it when reading card blog posts.

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