Product Review: 2012 Panini Momentum Football Hobby Box

Another week and yet another NFL product from Panini is out. This time it is the High-end product Momentum. This product was scheduled to be out in July but was pushed back to this week for release. I wasn't too sure if I would jump into this one or not but after reading the box configurations and the amount of hits you receive it is another easy decision to buy a Panini product.

Each Hobby box brings in 10 packs of cards with only 3 cards per pack, and one of those cards will be either an autograph, relic or autographed relic. 10 hits per box! Really? how can you go wrong with that many hits in a high-end product? You just can't. The value in this product is unreal and nothing else compares to it currently in the market. Now for the average collector keep in mind the cost of the boxes is $200+ so your looking at a range of $20 to $25 per pack/hit, but if you pull one of those patch cards your in for a treat.

The Base cards are 100 cards deep and they will have three different parallels to collect. Gold, Platinum and Black will be numbered from /99 down to /5. These seem to be inserted 1 per box so will be rare to find and should have a decent secondary market value. The design of the base cards are on nice and put onto a thick stock. Only thing with these is with the black backs and bottom fronts you can see some "chipping" happening on the cards over time. I only had a couple of the base cards shown minor signs of this already.

As for the hits, well Panini again has packed another NFL product with a lot to look for. All of the Relic cards have Prime patches to go along with them, as well as dual, triple and quad pieces. The core of the relics and autographs lye within the rookies for 2012. Each one of them have autograph, autograph relics and prime jumbo patch cards. Additionally can find veteran player autographs or relic cards which include retired players. And with ten hits per box your bound to hit at least one or more of these. As for the numbering of the relics, there isn't a listing yet of these but I have seen numbering of /799 down to 1/1's on autographs and relics.

Each box will yield the following hits: 1 Momentum Rookie Signature RPS, 3-4 Rookie Autographs and 5-6 Memorabilia cards. Again loaded with Rookie content in this one which Panini has done a great job with thus far in 2012 products. Knowing this going into breaking the box I was not expecting to land a top draft pick like RGIII or Luck, but more so was excited to see the Relics I would pull.

So here is what I pulled:

Base cards: 19 (Nicks, Roethlisberger, Urlacher, Forte)
Base Parallels: 1 (Gold Bernie Wells /99)
Rookie Autographs: 4 (Cyrus Gray /299, V. Burfict /799, Kendall Reyes /799, B.J. Cunningham /799)
Veteran Relic: 1 (Jay Novacek /199)
Rookie Salute Relic: 1 Rueben Randle /375
Rookie Team Threads Dual: 1 Coby Fleener /199
Rookie Team Threads Triple Patch: Mohamed Sanu /25
Rookie Momentum Signature RPS: 1 Brain Quick /599
Rookie Momentum Signature Platinum Prime RPS: 1 Jarius Wright /25

This was a really great product to open. Knowing your going to get a hit in each pack is truly an awesome feeling. Even though your paying a high price tag on this it is well worth it. As for my box, overall I'm pleased with it. The Triple Patch Sanu /25 I pulled has 2 colors or more for each patch and looks great. The Novacek relic is ok as a solid blue color but wasn't expecting much for the veterans in this one. The Jarius Wright Prime is a decent hit at the low /25 print run but a little disappointed that the prime relics are all solid white. A little color in there on any of the three would have added more value to the card for me. Again it was an unexpected hit from the box as I was only expecting to receive one of the rookie RPS cards. All of the Autographs I received were stickers which is the norm and some would agree that receives stickers over a redemption is better overall. The quality on the relics have really come out in this product with very nice and sharp designs around them.

As for the overall secondary market value, this might be one to sit on. Unless you receive one of the top draft picks, it might be worth more down the road when some of the rookies make a name for themselves. Of course if you pull a crazy patch of anyone it would be great to flip now. Because of this I do have mixed feelings in regards to if this is a flipping box or keeper, you can go either way but will depend on who and what you pull out of the box.
Panini has proven once again that they put together another great product and good value to the customer. So far this is the top Football product of the year and will be hard top this in regards to cost and value add in the product. If you haven't bought one yet, I suggest you do before they become scarce int he next few months.

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.6 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Autographs: 4/5 
Memorabilia: 4.5/5

Design: 4/5

Rookies: 5/5
Fun Aspect: 5/5