General Forum

I just learned today that when it comes to Panini Prizm Basketball, the Silver Prizms are generally the most sought after.  Even more so than other prizms that might even have a SN.  Does anyone know why this is?  I even looked on eBay after learning this and saw that the sold listings seemed to verify it. Even in COMC.  

Any insight from fellow basketball collectors? 

You could look at it another way. Collectors don't like silver prisms and are selling them to get rid of them.

They are the the purest parallel of the base prizm set.  Sort of like the refractor to a chrome card back when there was only one parallel.  It's also easier to make an "upgraded" set with the silver prizms (with patience) where that is not possible with many SN parallels.  Also, some people really like the different parallel designs and colors and some just don't.  It took me a while to get my head around them.  Enjoy collecting them.

Regards, Greg

Grading and HOF/FHOF Set Registries (min production run of 999) drive the silver premium over rarer SN parallels.  Similar reason for /5s selling for more than 1/1s.

Do you see how often people whine about colored parallels on here? That's not exclusive to this website. 

The basic ones are not viewed as badly..and also they are consistent. You know that parallel is likely to be issued every year (although no guarantee). It's possible to build a collection of a player with a history. Some of the colored parallels come and go faster than even I can keep track of, and I'm one of the few who loves the colorful world we currently live in. 

Also, most collectors view completing a rainbow as an impossible task. Even if you have the money, which most- including myself- do not, actually finding the cards for sale is very often impossible because of the 1/1s. 

The basic parallel is viewed as a staple while the the colored parallels are viewed as a gimmick, as well.

The silver prizms "seem" to be the most sought after simply b/c there are more of them out there. More records for them will show up for just that reason.

That's along the same lines I was thinking that it's purely a numbers game and they may be in more abundant supply.

Because they're the prettiest. 

I can't agree that they are the prettiest. But they are the easiest to pull. I think my favorites of all the Prizm Parallels are the blue wave and purple flash. The Camo and White Prizms look good sometimes too, but they keep changing them from year to year and between the sports. If Panini would stick to the same Prizm "color" design each year in any sport, they might finally see what we like. What I mean here is this: In Panini's 1st NASCAR release (2016 Prizm), the Blue Flag parallel was actually the blue flash design. The "wave" was a different color. Now purple colored parallels use the "flash" design and the "wave" is red. They just need to stick with one design for a specific color and stop changing them. The "Silver Prizm" wasn't even called that until a couple years ago. It was just the Prizm Prizms parallel and that was really confusing to many people. So I understand Panini calling that the Silver Prizm now.