Story on Sports Collectors Daily on Panini signing deal with Mantle family
 

Saw a disappointing story on Sports Collectors Daily yesterday. It appears Panini America has signed a deal with Mickey Mantle's two surviving boys (estate) to produce cards of their dad. Danny and David felt the market has been flooded with cards of their father. While that is true, Topps produced all kinds of cards to recoup the yearly fee they had to shell out to issue cards of Mick.

Where I am going with this chagrin is due to the fact Panini's hands are tied by being forbidden to use any New York Yankee emblems. No matter how eye-appealing of a pose they may use, without the "NY" the cards are going to die. Even a card with an autograph would be spoilt by the missing "N" superimposed over the "Y". It's a shame for Panini.

----Brian Powell

I have seen some nice unlicensed issues over the past decade since the limiting of the licensing from the major sports. I don't really collect much modern in the past five years but I try to keep up with things.

The issue in my mind is the lack of creativity by Panini. The designs they use are stale and poorly thought out. Yes, the absolute overproduction from topps by issuing seemingly no less than 100 different Mantles yearly in every set was lame, but I can't see Panini making even 1 palatable card even with a license.

With Topps losing out on Football and Basketball, now you add that they are losing on a major Baseball draw. It makes you wonder what will happen when their exclusive rights are up in 2020. Panini has made quite a case for MLB to consider their product in the future even if it isn't exclusive.

IMO Topps has made its own bed and now they can Lay in it. They have screwed customers over time and time again. I think their real downfall is redemptions. If a redemption is 1 day expired they do nothing for you. I purchase packs of cards, not redemptions that are worthless. Not to mention, many times they dont fullfill the redemptions with the right card, and lowball you with a replacement. Many redemptions are outstanding 4 or 5 years. Maybe the card was $1000 when you redeemed it, now it worth $500 several years later, and they offer you a $250 replacement for it and say take it or get nothing. I HOPE they lose the Mlb License.

Panini already has a license with the MLBPA so they can legally produce any baseball sets they wish. As noted, what they do not have is the MLB properties license.

And this is not the 1st time Mantle (or his family) has signed with a company other than Topps. In the early 1990's, Mantle signed autographs and did other promotional usages for Upper Deck. He was in their card sets in that era.

Rich

I would think that all this bodes well for vintage cards.

'Life was so much simpler back then...'

Simpler? There is a reason Musial doesn't have a Topps card until 1958 even though his rookie year was in 1942. Or Ted Williams in 1954 even with his RC year in 1939.

There were licensing issues back then just as there are today.