General Forum

I noticed the 2019-0 Hoops Rookie Sweaters are listed As MEM but the 2020-1 Hoops Rookie Sweaters are MANU, interesting. The sweaters in 2019-0 were for sale in NBA stores and I would not be surprised if the cut some up for this purpose. I did not see the 2020-1 versions for sale and the look like random pieces of cloth.

Not actually a Panini, but I have a piece of the Detroit Jos Louis Arena on a Boston Bruins Cam Neely card (Fleer Board Certified). It is weird.

We all know that Panini is special in their own way. The legal writing with the relic thing is one, but don't forget the fake/autopen autos. They got caught with their country music issue, then Dak Prescott, then... They seem not to use creativity at the right places.

In regards to the tire...yeah they could easily. However, the tires are so common since each team uses 12 or more in every race, there's really no need to. That's why tire relics are the most common. 

I have friends who have gone to the race and came home with an entire tire for free. Once they are used up they are no good to the teams for the most part so you're essentially helping the team not have to handle their garbage. 

That's interesting Billy. I learned something new today. I am more familiar with F1 where Pirelli takes all of the used tires back, presumably for R&D purposes.

The legalese for memorabilia cards started way before Panini started making the cards of this century. Topps, Upper Deck, Fleer and Press Pass all had some kind of disclaimer on cards made in the early 2000's. The term "event-worn" came about somewhere around 2005 in football cards. Those were mostly for rookies with stuff they wore or held at the Rookie Premier photo shoot each June after they were drafted. I'm pretty sure that Upper Deck's issue with having non-certified "game-used" items in their cards led to the disclaimers that we see today.

Press Pass actually had race-used WIN tires in many products for several years before they shut down. Since the winner's entire car is completely tore down and inspected after the race at NASCAR's R&D center, those tires had to come directly from NASCAR itself when they are done with them. Panini has never taken the initiative to do that since they started making NASCAR cards. So their tire cards are probably from the first or second set of tires used in a race. Like Billy said, it's really easy to get those tires. As for Pirelli vs. Goodyear, Goodyear inspects the used tires at the track as they come off of the cars. Each NASCAR team inspects them too before they hand them over to Goodyear. The teams do it for just that race to measure wear and figure out if they need to change the balance of the car during the race. Goodyear takes them to get info for future races at the same track or a similar type of track coming up.

What bugs me most about Panini is that they rarely tell what type of item is in the MEM blocks. In some cases, you know what it is, but not always. A piece of fabric could be a jersey/firesuit or a glove or a sock or an undershirt or pants. If it is really hard, it's sheet metal or helmet in NASCAR or just helmet in MLB/NFL. With all the types of "worn" or "used" memorabilia put into cards these days, I don't think the companies can even keep up with what they have anymore unless it has a logo.

Hmmm... how about a new line of really interesting MEM cards...?

Tooth fragment (DNA certified of course) for hockey.

CTE report for football (too dark?)

"All-Clear" steroid results for baseball.

"Fan-used" ear plugs for racing...

 That's funny, Ron. I'd have to actually wear ear plugs at a race for them to get some from me. I wear earbuds plugged into a pocket radio so I can hear what is going on. You can not hear the announcers during the actual racing, only during caution when the cars are far from you or on pit road. So I listen to Motor Racing Network to know why a caution happened if it was on the other end/side of the track and I couldn't clearly see it. I'd say about 60% of fans at the race are wearing earplugs. The rest do like me or pay ridiculous prices to get a scanner headset so they can listen to the radio communication for their favorite driver. I'd wear some plugs for a while if I knew they would be put into a card though. 

I know they posted something in their blog a while ago about this.  Due to Covid, the 2020 (& probably the 2021) rookie relics were all non-player worn since there wasn't a traditional rookie photo shoot where these things are usually handled.  I personally don't care - the fact that the player would put on a shirt, take it off, then repeat that many times over doesn't really excite me anyway.  I really don't place much value in small swatches even if they are game worn.  I'll save up for an actual game-worn jersey if I find a game-worn item to be something I want.  Fortunately, most of the guys I like are on the cheap side -- I've never paid more than $150 for a game-worn jersey.

That's funny Ron :)

The "non associated" memorabilia used to bother me in the beginning but I've started to care less. I simply don't buy these cards. And if I pull one, whatever. If it looks good and/or is a rookie I'll keep it. I wonder what changes when Fanatics takes over the licenses.

I have Mark Madsen and Derek Fisher cards that I picked up for maybe a couple of dollars each and are probably considered worthless in terms of money. But I will never trade them because they have certified game worn material from the NBA finals in a Lakers championship year. Finding that in today's era seems a costly task.

What does annoy me are the many bad checklist sticker autos for high end products and the lack of on-card autos in 'affordable' products. Also the redemptions for 'non superstars' I don't quite understand.

RonEaston wrote:

Hmmm... how about a new line of really interesting MEM cards...?

Tooth fragment (DNA certified of course) for hockey.

CTE report for football (too dark?)

"All-Clear" steroid results for baseball.

"Fan-used" ear plugs for racing...

Spazmatastic, 

How much do scanners cost today? I haven't been to a race in 10 years, but still have my working scanner from the early nineties.