Product Review: 2013 Panini Prizm Baseball Hobby Box

As we watch the last month of Baseball's regular season, we are delighted to have another Panini Baseball release with Prizm. 2012 marked the first year of Prizm to collectors with a very good showing and a desire for a return this year. Well collectors sure will be happy to hear it's back and packing some extras to the product as well.
2013 will stay with the same packaging format of 20 packs and 6 cards per pack. The set is a very large 300 cards strong which will also have 5 Short Print Highlights to hunt down #'s 301-305. Prizm will continue with it's Prizm Parallel's which will be Prizm, Orange Die-Cut /50, Gold /10 and Finite 1/1.

Inserts will come in six different series. All will have parallel's to collect as well. You'll find Band of Brothers, Fearless, Rookie Challengers, Superstar Spotlight, Top Prospects, and Team USA. Some new inserts for 2013 with some cool designs. Team USA also has Autographs to be found numbered out of 25 and 1/1.

Every box will contain two autographs. Both will be sticker autographs but the checklist is 90 cards deep with stars like Puig, Clemens, Wright, Trout, Bagwell and Machado to name a few.

For a box around $100 there is a lot to watch for when busting a box. Lets see how we did in our break:

Base Cards: 62 (0 doubles)
Base Rookie Cards: 40 (0 doubles)
Base Card SP: 1 - Miguel Cabrera #305
Base Card Prizm: 4 - David Ortiz, Alex Gordon, David Wright, Derek Jeter
Base Card Orange Prizm Die-Cut: 1 - Ian Kinsler /60
Band of Brothers: 1 - Phillies (Utley, Halladay, Howard)
Fearless: 3 - Posey, Strasburg, Pedroia
Rookie Challengers: 1 - Dylan Bundy
Superstar Spotlight: 1 - Clayton Kershaw
Top Prospects: 1 - Carlos Correa
Team USA: 2 - R.A. Dickey, Dustin Pedroia
Team USA Prizm: 1 - Mike Trout
Autographs: 2 - Anthony Rizzo, Ben Zobrist 


This years design of the base cards are a little different from the previous year but with the same principle of chrome like presence. Adding the 5 Short Prints to hunt down will be a little tricky if you go by the box. We managed to pull the Cabrera but not sure if these are 1 per box or not. being a SP probably not. The Orange Die-Cut Parallel's are new for 2013. They do add to the fun of busting open the box to see if you pulled an orange or gold parallel. Also being numbered will help the secondary market sales for Prizm.

  

Inserts are plenty in this box as we came across a variety of them. First up the Rookies and Prospects. Both Top Prospects and Rookie Challengers designs are great. Nice selection of players in each and is also nice to see some prospects showing up in a regular set. Not sure if I agree with putting the RC logo on the Rookie Challengers. these cards aren't the RC cards for that player since they are in the base set. Either way two nice sets to collect.  

 

 Band of Brothers and fearless are two new additions to the Prizm baseball product. Band of Brothers isn't too appealing as an insert but like the idea instead of just going with the norm when grouping players from the same team on a card. Fearless is a great looking card. the colors in the design really pop and look great with every player I've seen. Very nice set to collect just for the design itself.

Superstar Spotlight is another new insert for this year. It is similar to the Dominance/Brilliance sets from last year inthe fact they have taken the best players and put them into one insert set instead of two. It has a basic design and reminds me a bit of Elite. Team USA are back this year and continue to focus on the best to play for the team. We managed to pull a Trout Prizm Parallel from the three we pulled. The design is a little different and shows a bigger USA baseball logo on the front.

As for the autographs we weren't too impressed with the players we pulled but again you can't expect too much from the box. the two autographs are nice for this price range and if you do happen to pull a top player or HOF player it's a bonus. Both are sticker autographs and follow the same design as the base cards. Rizzo and Zobrist aren't top notch but will come in handy for trading or giveaways down the road.

We did alright in our break overall. Pulling 102 of the base cards leaves us about 2-3 boxes short from even trying to finish the set. So if your a set collector this one could be costly to put together unless you search out shows or stores for your missing cards. The parallel's really are nice in this product and finding the right player could provide some good secondary value. The inserts are also nice and can be easily collected to completion. Fearless would be recommended to finish. Pulling two autographs are never a bad thing however unless you pull a decent star your not going to break the bank on your pulls. You could find a parallel or a star in your box which would be a good pull though. If you go in will any higher expectations than this is not the product for you. It is a fun break overall and the design of the cards are great to look at. This product is mainly for set builders or just having some fun ripping some baseball cards. I'll probably bust a couple more boxes before the year is up and see about building the set.    

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

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.58 out of 5
Cost: 4/5
Autographs: 3.5/5
Parallels: 5/5
Inserts: 5/5
Concept: 5/5
Fun Aspect: 5/5