2017 Panini Contenders Draft Picks Basketball Forum

The 50 base cards all have variations.  There is no variations guide from what I can find.  I see Beckett has listed what it thinks are the A & B cards.  Should we go by that when determining which card is the base and which is the variation? I think COMC also has a different idea as to which cards are base.  I might just leave this set be for a while.

Beckett also said that the base and variaton cards appear to be distributed equally so maybe we'll never get a true answer.

Based on the gallery here, the vast majority are home and road uniforms, but I did see at least one player where both cards are home uniforms.

Let me just beat the dead horse again: I loathe planned variations!

I agree with Billy.   A planned variation or SP is just junk, a gimmick.   Unlike they 1960s and before when a shortprint  was simply because  Topps knew that last series or two of set would not sell as well as the early series.   It was not a gimmick to make money, but to save money

Every time the subject of variation cards comes up on this site, I get a sort of "get off my lawn" feeling from the posters.  Topps doesn't directly make money from variations/short prints/gimmicks.  Topps makes money by selling packs and boxes of cards.  The dealers/collectors are the ones that make money if they are lucky enough to find a variation.  Of course, the drive to find those variations can cause more people to buy boxes of cards, which indirectly makes Topps money.  But, if there wasn't a desire for these cards on the market, Topps wouldn't produce them.  Many collectors, like myself, go out of their way to get variation cards and enjoy having them displayed in their collection.

OK.  Sorry.  Rant over.

I think this set is an example of too many variations.  If every card is going to have a variation that isn't even harder to get than the base, just give the cards different numbers to make it less confusing.

Fair point.  However, the manufacturer should release some sort of guide so collectors know what they have. It does make it frustrating to try to enter your collection in the database when you don't know which version of a card you have. Also, we have had many cases of a member guessing wrong when adding a scan.  That sort of mistake could cost another collector big money.  But as far as collecting them goes; by all means, go after any and every card you want.

If they were different numbers, there wouldn't be a problem. it'd be easy to tell which ones you have because they would each have their own number. Apparently the card companies think collectors can't count very high?

On its best day, Panini sucks. Feel free to overwrite anything I've added if you think that you have found better information. I won't take it personally.

They produce crap and provide questionable information a lot of the time when it comes to their finished products. They shouldn'y have the license but apparently they have the most money.

I'm not as down on Panini as you are, and most people are, but they can be exasperating sometimes.
The fact that they refuse to properly cover the NBA really frustrates me, and my freqent complaints on their blog probably frustrates them...you will never know it because they usually don't post my comments.

I'm like, you produced a 750 card set when you had the NHL license, why do you refuse to give us anything more than 300 cards? How can you possibly call a set "Complete" when you issue 330 cards for a 450 man league? Do you understand the defininiton of the word Complete?

They upped it to 400 last season but until it's 450...actually, as of 2017-18, the NBA roster can now be 17 people, so 510 people...until there are 510 cards in at least one set, of 510 different people, I will keep complaining to deaf ears.

I actually have a theory as to why the NBA has continually gotten the short shrift, (even before Panini got the exclusive) but if I publish that theory it's going to make me some enemies. It shouldn't be too hard to figure out if you watch any sort of sports this week.