Review: Panini Hometown Heroes Baseball 2013

First off, I would like to say thanks to the WONDERFUL people at Panini America for providing us with this box to review. Here are many places you can find Panini America: official site, blog, Twitter, and Facebook. If you don't follow them at all..you should! They talk to you on Twitter, have contests on their blog and Facebook and the site is also fun to visit!

Box Break Down:

• 12 Packs Per Box, 24 Cards Per Pack
• Three Autographs per box!
• Three SportDisc inserts per box!
• $105 per box

 

 

BASE CARDS: Hometown Heroes is a NEW baseball card MLBPA product from Panini. The base cards are made up of stars of today, yesterday and tomorrow. There are 260 cards in the base set along with 40 Base Image Variation SPs. The design is classic throwback. Something that reminds us of Panini's basketball Past and Present with a touch of Topps Heritage. The old school design looks great. The only tweak we would make is the rookie card symbol. It shouldn't be hidden. We didn't know rookies existed til we saw Bundy than the small RC symbol hidden inside the baseball. The rookie logo would be much better placed to the top of the card.

Once again, this product would be better with MLB logos but Panini is doing a good job working with what they got.

 

These are really cool. Sportdiscs are lenticular action coins and change pictures when moved back and forth.

  

INSERTS: There are a ton of inserts in this product and in every box you should find Three Sportdiscs, Five State Parallels, One Zip Codes Parallel, Three Curtain Call, Two City Hall, Two Defining Moments, One Nickname, One Rivalry, and One Homegrown Heroes!

The inserts match the product. They are all in a throwback design. The state and zip code parallels are cool, however you gotta pay attention when opening the 24 card pack or you might miss em!

The one insert to me that doesn't seem to fit is the Nicknames one. That design seems more suited for Triple Play and not this product. But other than that there are some fun insert finds here with of course the Sportsdiscs being the most fun.

                                                    

                                                   

                                                    

AUTOGRAPHS: The Hometown Signature is an on card autograph set of players known for their hard-nosed play and interaction with fans on and off the field, the players in this autograph set you would call Fan Favorites with guys like Lenny Dykstra, Tom Brunansky, Tony Pena, Andres Galarraga, Willie Wilson, Oscar Gamble, Rob Dibble among others. This is the autograph heaven for those players you might not see everyday. You will find three in every box. There are different autograph sets in this product to collect as well such as Face of the Franchise Signatures, Hometown Signatures Set Checklist, Left Their Marks Signatures Set Checklist and Scripted Legacy Signatures Set Checklist

JERSEY/PATCH CARDS:N/A. I don't think this product really needs them. The autos are where it's at.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: This product has a place with certain collectors. If you are looking for a thrill ride and the big pull, this isn't for you. This is for the autograph collector . The one who goes around to different shows and different stadiums trying to find that one player he or she watched growing up and ask them for their autograph. And they may not always find them. But here is where they are hiding. And is or the the collector who likes just bust for fun and to have fun doing so.

Each box is LOADED with cards like the 24 card packs are with a variety of base, inserts and a possible autograph. It's a fun rip if you love a throwback product too.