Panini's 2014 National Treasures Football Collation Debacle

If you're a football card collector who likes high end cards, then by now you are aware of Panini's debacle with 2014 National Treasures Football.  And in case you aren't aware of it then I'll summarize the situation right now: a whole week after 2014 National Treasures Football was released there were still no Odell Beckham Jr. and Teddy Bridgewater RPAs, or booklets.

This incident spawned a huge discussion on the Blowout Cards forums.

Everyone agreed that it was extremely unusual that no Odell Beckham Jr. and Teddy Bridgewater RPA or booklet redemptions had been hit even after a whole week since the product's launch.  Between all the cases being broken all across the nation in hobby shops, and in online breaks, by now at last a couple of each should have surfaced.

The conspiracy theorists believed that Panini purposely withheld those cards -- arguably the two biggest cards of the two biggest players in the 2014 rookie class -- to drive up sales not only in successive shipment waves of the National Treasures product, but also in other Panini products like Spectrum Football.

Other people who were less willing to immediately jump to the conclusion that Panini was up to no good believed that this could be an honest collation mistake or error.

I gave my two cents in the thread and noted how the chances of NOT seeing an Odell Beckham Jr. or Teddy Bridgewater RPA or booklet redemption was practically impossible if we assumed that 500 cases of National Treasures had been broken within a week.

Below is my full comment.

There are 150,552 cards in the set. There are supposed to be 8 cards per box but most boxes have 10 or 11. Let's just choose 11. (The higher number actually works in Panini's favor.) Divide 150,552 by 11, and that means there are 13,686 boxes in the entire production.  

There are 312 total OBJ and Teddy RPAs 

Let's assume that none of the OBJs and Teddy RPAs will ever appear in the same box. Divide 312 OBJ/Teddy boxes by 13,686 total boxes, and that means there is a .0228 chance of hitting one of those cards in the very first box of NT opened.  

Alternatively, there is a .9772 chance of NOT hitting one of those cards in the very first box of NT opened. Expressed as a fraction that's (13,686-312)/13,686 or 13,374/13,686.
As each box of NT is opened and a OBJ/Teddy isn't hit, then the probability of hitting one of those cards goes up ever so slightly.  

Similarly, as each box is opened and one isn't hit, the probability of not hitting one in the next box goes down. Number-wise, it looks something like this... 

(13,374/13,686) x (13,373/13,685) x (13,372/13,684) x etc. as each box is opened. 

Now, let's assume that 500 cases have been broken by now which is probably a reasonable assumption. There are 4 boxes per case. So that's 2000 boxes opened. (2000 boxes would also represent around 15% of the production run) We need to do that above equation 2000 times. 

What's the probability of opening 2000 boxes of NT and not hitting a OBJ or Teddy RPA?  

Expressed as an equation it looks something like this: 

(13,374! / 11,374!) / (13,686! / 11,686!) 

None of the scientific calculators I could find could hand this calculation because the numbers are too big, but it should be pretty close to zero and I think we can show that another way. 

When figuring out a probability and a past event influences a future event, it's called conditional probability. Our situation is conditional since once a card is pulled, it is removed from the available pool and not replaced.  

But because our numbers are so big, we can actually treat this as the opposite of conditional probability (unconditional probability?).  

As we found out earlier, the chances of a OBJ/Teddy RPA NOT being pulled from the very first box of NT is (13,686-312)/13,686 or .9772. Even if 2000 boxes were opened and a OBJ/Teddy RPA still hadn't been hit, then the probability of NOT hitting one in the next box opened would be (13,686-2,000-312)/(13,686-2,000) or (11,374/11,686) or .9733. 

.9733 isn't too different from .9772, so we can treat this entire calculation as unconditional probability (probability with replacement).  

So, if the probability of NOT hitting a OBJ/Teddy RPA is .9772, and 2000 boxes have been opened, then the probability of that happening is... 

.9772^2000 which is 9.27^-21 or basically zero.  

Even if we used a lower probability like .9733 and 2000 boxes were opened, then the probability is still 3.11^-24 or basically zero. 

For comparison, even with a probability of .9733 and only 200 boxes being opened (50 cases), the probability of still not hitting a OBJ/Teddy RPA would be .00446 or about 0.446% chance of happening.   

In short, if we assume that 500 cases of National Treasures have been broken (2000 boxes) within a week of the product's release, then the chances of NOT hitting an Odell Beckham Jr. or Teddy Bridewater RPA (just RPAs and not booklet redemptions) is practically zero, or about 0.00000000000000000002116%.

What does this all mean?

It means that without a doubt the Odell Beckham Jr. and Teddy Bridgewater RPAs were NOT randomly distributed throughout the 2014 National Treasures production run.  This is a fact.  The above math, if accurate, and I think it is, proves that it is about as close to statistically impossible for this to happen by random chance.

If Odell Beckham Jr. and Teddy Bridgewater RPAs were randomly distributed throughout the 2014 National Treasures production run, then statistically, collectors should have seen a handful of them pop up already whether it be on eBay or online box breaks.  Clearly, something went wrong when National Treasures was packed out.

Now, whether this was an intentional act by Panini or a mere innocent collation error we don't know.  Panini haters are quick to assume it was an intentional act by Panini, but I could see this being a simple innocent collation error too.  Don't get me wrong, I am not completely dismissing the idea that Panini did something intentional, but I think without any evidence proving their guilt that the most we can say happened is that there was a horrible collation error.

My guess is that Panini was still waiting on those cards to come back signed, but in the mean time they started the packout process believing that they'd get the cards back in time before the packout process was complete.  But while the packout process was still in progress, they realized they wouldn't get those cards back in time before packout was complete so they needed to insert redemptions for those cards.  They began inserting redemptions into the production run at that point in time, but by that time the first wave of cases had already been packed, sealed, and prepared for shipping to distributors -- all without any Odell Beckham Jr. and Teddy Bridgewater RPAs in them.  Panini then completes the packout process.  From their point of view, the RPA redemption cards have all been packed out and they've done nothing wrong.  But in reality, because the RPA redemption cards were inserted into the production run mid-packout, the boxes which had already been packed out and sealed had none of those cards.  Meaning collectors who bought those initial cases had ZERO chance of hitting an Odell Beckham Jr. or Teddy Bridgewater RPA.

Is there a moral to this story?  If any, I suppose it's that pre-ordering a product is a gamble.  Who knows what production issues it might contain.  Topps has had its share of problems too.  Most recently its 2015 Topps Tribute Baseball release was recalled due to a large portion of the autograph cards being smeared.  Also, Topps' 2013 Five Star Football release was plagued by many of the cards suffering from ink stains on their edges from the cardboard boxes that they came in.  (See my blog post on that issue here.)  Had a consumer waited until after the release of the product then they could have avoided these problems.

Topps seems to have a little more trust in the collecting community than Panini.  It may not be a lot, but it's there.  Panini on the other hand has proven themselves very adept at losing consumer confidence by using questionable patches in their products, putting the wrong patches on cards for players, putting questionable player autograph stickers in their products, and now having major collation issues with their products.  Since Panini will now have the exclusive NFL license for football cards starting this year, I want to like them.  I'm trying to like them.  But they sure are making it difficult.  Clearly they have a lot of room for improvement, and it would be nice to see them make some improvements.

2014 Panini National Treasures and Topps Five Star Football Redemption Shelf Life

In case you haven't noticed, I've been keeping a log of all the redemption expiration dates for football products.  I made that page so people buying older product will know whether the redemptions are expired or not.

One thing I've noticed is that 2014 Panini National Treasures Football has a very short redemption shelf life.  National Treasures went live on April 8, 2015.  The National Treasures redemptions expire on October 08, 2016.

That's a shelf life of only 550 days!

The concern about Panini's redemptions expiring so quickly is moot, however, since Panini will honor expired redemptions.  (Although, at some point in the future they may change their policy.)

Since Topps does not honor expired redemptions there is more concern when buying their products.  2014 Topps Football also went live on April 8, 2015.  The Five Star redemptions expire on February 28, 2018.

That's a shelf life of 1058 days!

Topps gives you almost three years to buy their product without having to worry about hitting a redemption that is expired.  After the redemption expiration date passes, buying a product that is known to have redemptions in it now becomes extremely risky -- especially if the redemptions are of top players.  Wouldn't it be horrible if you hit a redemption of the top QB in the league only to find out the redemption is expired and the card company won't honor it?

Bottom line, when buying older products you should always determine beforehand whether it contains redemptions, and when those redemptions expire!

2014 Topps Platinum Football Box Break

Here's the box of 2014 Topps Platinum Football that I bought at that card show a few weeks ago.

Got a couple of nice rookie QBs.

And rookie cards for Odell Beckham Jr. too.

The two base card autographs were of two defensive studs.

And the RPA was of Cody Latimer.  I got really lucky and hit a pulsar refractor variation.

This is a really nice product, and provides a lot of bang for your buck.  I bought this box for $50.  Blowout Cards is selling them for about $55 so I got a good price on it.  Inside each box are three autographs, so you're paying about $18.33 per hit, with a decent shot at hitting something really big like a superfractor.  I would definitely buy another box of this product at the $50 to $55 price range.

2014 Upper Deck SP Authentic Football Box Break

Here's the 2014 Upper Deck SP Authentic Football box that I purchased a few weeks ago at a card show.

The guy at the card show was selling the box for only $85.  I felt like that was a pretty good deal since Blowout Cards is selling hobby boxes for $100.

I admit that it was a little sketchy buying sealed hobby boxes from a random guy at a card show.  In every case of 2014 SP Authentic, three of the boxes have those Super FX bonus packs.  This guy probably bought a case of this product for himself, opened some of the boxes, hit the three boxes which contained the Super FX bonus packs, and then decided to sell the rest of the sealed boxes.

I knew that when I was buying the box that there was a very high chance that it wasn't going to contain a Super FX pack.  But since the guy was asking only $85 for the box, I was willing to take that risk.  After all, there were still three autographs in the box, and those autographs could be awesome autographs too.

Sure enough, when I opened up the box, it didn't have a Super FX bonus pack sitting on top.  That didn't really bother me because only a few packs into the box I hit an awesome Odell Beckham, Jr. Future Watch insert numbered to 99.

I felt like regardless of what the three autographs were in this box, that this one card made the entire box worth it.  I felt even luckier when a few packs later I hit a Johnny Manziel Future Watch insert numbered to 999.

If only Johnny Manziel were a good NFL QB...

My first autograph was Chris Borland which is quite timely considering that this guy just retired after one season in the NFL due to brain trauma concerns.

The second autograph was David Fales, backup QB for the Chicago Bears.

And the autograph patch was Logan Thomas.  (Barf)

The card itself is gorgeous.  The cards look much better in person than they do in pictures and scans.  The patch autograph card is so nice that I might actually keep this card... maybe.

I really like how Upper Deck pays attention to the back of the card, and puts effort into making the back of the card just as important as the front.  Panini could learn a lesson from this.

Not a terrible hobby box.  The Odell Beckham, Jr. Future Watch insert is probably the hit of the break.   

BGS Surface Subgrade

I found another card which has a final grade more than 0.5 higher than the lowest subgrade.

Remember, the general rule is that your final grade can only be 0.5 higher than your lowest subgrade except when your lowest subgrade is surface.  When your lowest subgrade is surface, and all your other subgrades are significantly higher than the surface subgrade (such as 1.0 or more), then your final grade can be 1.0 higher than the surface subgrade.

In this dual relic card of Aaron Rodgers and Jason Campbell, you can see that the surface subgrade of 7 is the lowest subgrade on the card.  The other subgrades are all significantly higher than the surface subgrade by at least 2.5 points.  This brings the card's final score up from what would normally be a 7.5 to a 8.0.

Be sure to this previous blog post, and this one too, for more information on BGS grading.

2014 Topps Inception Football Box Break

I picked up three hobby boxes from a local card show.  I ended up buying 2014 Topps Inception, 2014 Upper Deck SP Authentic, and 2014 Topps Platinum.

Here's the Inception box.

This Inception box was only $65.  I think that was a pretty good deal considering that Blowout Cards is selling Inception boxes for $82 right now.  What's crazy is that another guy at the card show was also selling Inception boxes and he wanted $95 per box!  Um, no.

I really like Inception.  The cards are high quality.  Can't complain about getting this nice looking Tom Savage patch autograph.

When I was looking at the back of the card I noticed that the little biography talks about him playing for UCLA.  This is obviously a mistake since Tom Savage played his last year at Pittsburgh.  The biography information is for UCLA's quarterback Brett Hundley.  How could Topps make this mistake?  Hudley was still in college in 2014.  He hadn't even turned pro yet!

Even though this is an error card, the error will not impact the card's value.  I can only see this card being worth more than usual due to its error if Tom Savage some day becomes a star.

The other autograph in the pack was Terrance West.  I like the on-card autograph, but geez what a lazy signature.

The final hit was a De'Anthony Thomas patch card.  You can barely see three colors in the patch window.

The parallel card was a Julius Thomas magenta numbered to 75.

Four Packs of 2014 SP Authentic Football

I picked up four packs of 2014 Upper Deck SP Authentic Football from my local LCS.  I wanted to get a box, but they were all out so I just bought their remaining loose packs.

This is my first time seeing these cards in person.  I've been dying to get my hands on these since they came out but I've been busy spending all my money on other products that I just never got around to it.

Geez, Upper Deck does a really nice job with these cards.  The base cards are gorgeous.

It really is a shame that Upper Deck is losing its college license to Panini.  Upper Deck has some of the most timeless, classic, and clean designs of all the major card companies.

Didn't hit any autographs in the four packs, but I did hit two Future Watch inserts.  I remember this design from when I was a kid.  Such a classic and awesome design.

The original 2000 SP Authentic Football cards were stamped along the left and right edges.  The 2014 cards aren't stamped; however, Upper Deck put a gloss on the card in those areas to simulate the stamp.  You can't see it on the scans, but it's there.

Even the back of the cards are well designed.  Panini, on the other hand, practically ignores the back of cards and doesn't make the back informative and worth reading.

Sigh.  I'm going to miss Upper Deck's college stuff.  I guess I better buy up as much of this as possible before it's all gone.