Product Review: 2013 Panini Elite Football Hobby Box

Panini released the 2013 Elite Football product on Friday July 12th this year and it came in with a load of great inserts, autographs and great value as always. Elite has been a fan favorite to collectors and whether it's the silver foil base card design or the inserts and autographs, it's always proven to be a solid product. This year's edition is no different with 20 packs per box, 5 cards per pack and 4 Autograph and/or relic cards to pull.
Elite brings together a 100 card base set to collect and 100 Base Rookies which are numbered from /699 to /999. Both come with parallel versions to collect being Turn of the Century /199, Gold Status /49, Red Status /25, 1/1 Black Status and printing plates which are 1/1 as well. Other Parallels like Aspirations and Status Die-Cuts also reflect the players within the product but are a little different from the base card parallels.
There are a few inserts that you will pull from the box including Zoning Commission, Starstruck, Primary Colors, Passing the Torch, and Panini Portraits. Most of which have parallels for them selves and even some autographs to find. Another cool insert are the Hard Hats. These use Acetate technology and are serial numbered. Have been a fan of these the last couple of years.
Relics play a part of the Elite product for 2013 with 12 different sets to hunt down your stars in. New to the brand are the First & Goal cards with the relic piece on a plastic turning piece in the card. Pretty cool idea, haven't seen one in person yet but look nice.
You can't mention Elite without the Autograph aspect of the product. As you would expect these are focused on the Rookies within the product and provide a variety of inserts and base card rookie autographs within the product. Veterans have been included in the hard to find Dual Autographed Passing the Torch insert and are short printed.
being a Mid-end football product you would expect all of this to be included in the Elite product. Lots of goodies for your buck. Lets see how we did in our break:

Base Cards: 85 (0 doubles)
Base Card Rookie: 3 - Phillip Thomas /999, Eddie Lacy /699, Zac Dysert /899
Base Card Rookie Parallel: 1 - Turn of the Century Jamar Taylor /199
Zoning Commission: 2 - Julio Jones, Mikel Leshoure
Passing The Torch: 1 - John Randle/Jared Allen
Primary Colors: 1 - Jay Cutler
Primary Colors Red Parallel: 1 - Sam Bradford /25
Panini Portraits: 1 - Robert Griffin III
Hard Hats: 1 - Alex Okafor /299
New Breed Relics: 2 - Mike Gillislee /399, Joseph Randle /399
Autograph: Rookie Status Parallel #168 Matt Elam /49
Autograph: Rookie Inscriptions Acetate Johnathan Franklin

Elite is one of those products that we've enjoyed over the years. The base cards are the simple foil design as we've seen in the past, but have a little different trim around the borders. They still are hard to keep clean and crisp on the edges, but looks nice among the mid-end products. The Rookies are nicely serial numbered and are in different ranges from /699 to /999 on the ones we pulled.

The Inserts are a nice touch in the product but seem to go aside with the amount of Parallels in the box. The Parallels are that shinny goodness we've grown a custom to seeing from the Elite products. Turn of the Century Parallels are really nice and provide a serial numbered hit from your box. We pulled the Taylor and looks really good overall. Hard hats are a very cool acetate die-cut design which make you want to collect this insert set. 

 

Primary Colors and Portraits are 2 new inserts for the product. We happened to pull a Same Bradford Red Parallel for the Primary Colors which is numbered to only 25. On the flip side for the Portraits we pulled a RGIII. Another cool designed insert that you will want to collect.

 

We were a little disappointing in the relics this box had because they were single solid swatches and the design was nothing too desirable. This is most likely due to the fact they came in this nice fancy product of Elite. They fit more of a Score brand type of relic design in our mind. Both are serial numbered which is a nice add.

 

Last but not least are the autographs. We were surprised on the ones we pulled due to the very low serial number on the Elam Die-cut and the Rookie Inscriptions seem to be a case hit autograph. The Elam is a good looking card with the Die-Cut and gold reflective foil on it. Even though it is a sticker autograph, it's numbered out of 49 and will add some value to it on the secondary market. The Franklin Inscriptions autograph is also very nice. It is set on the acetate technology with an on-card blue autograph. This one is not numbered but will never complain about an on-card auto. 

Overall we did well on this box. 85 of the 100 Base cards is a really good start to completing the set. Really liked the inserts of the Hard Hats, Portraits and Primary Colors that we pulled. The Autographs made this box a really good value overall as the Elam is only /49 and the Franklin Acetate on-card is a great pull. Both will do well on the secondary market. It was a fun box to bust open and look through the cards but you have to be a little careful with the silver foil base. Finger prints run wild all over them and they can ding up a little during the breaking of the box. Again your only pulling 100 cards in total from the box so a very manageable sort to run during your break. This product really has it all wrapped up with Parallels, Inserts and Autographs keeping this a solid product in the mid-range value.

Most cards/hits pulled in our breaks end up on our site storefront www.packgambler.com, our COMC account ThePackGambler, or our eBay account thepackgambler. If you are interested in any of the cards we have mentioned please send us an e-mail at packgambler@gmail.com

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.16 out of 5
Cost: 4.5/5
Autographs: 4.5/5
Relics: 3.5/5
Parallels: 4/5
Concept: 4/5
Fun Aspect: 4.5/5