I pulled a patch! (2015-16 Threads quick review)

That may not be a big deal to most reading this, but it's a big deal to me.

Yesterday we made a trip to the mall to get a haircut- I have not had a haircut since 2014, but it was starting to go in my eyes, so... - and naturally that led to a trip to Target, located at the mall. While there I got my first cards from 2015-16 Panini Threads, as my brother treated me to a blaster and 4 loose packs.

Although I will always prefer base cards, I love relics and patches too. This is the first NBA patch I've ever pulled from Retail, but the caveat is that the set is Target exclusive so they are ALL retail for this set.

Each blaster promises you two rookie relics or autographs, and two wood rookies, which Panini labels as inserts on the box but are actually part of the base set.

I saved my blaster for last and was surprised to pull this patch out of the box!

 

It is only the third patch I've pulled from Panini, and oddly enough two were from the same team. I have purchased others in that time, (the Panini era) but there's something special about pulling a patch. The other Pistons patch I pulled was from 2012-13 Totally Certified, of Ben Gordon.

The only place on the jersey where this would fit is the bottom of the R in Detroit, IF the patch is lined up with card correctly. (They aren't always, but Panini usually does put them so they are right side up when the card is)

Interestingly, the relic I got from my Donruss blaster was also Stanley Johnson! Of this year's rookies, I've already got the best collection of his, with two relics (including this one), 3 base RC and one parallel, I believe. Every year there is one rookie I usually pull more cards of than any other- it looks like it's him this year. (This is much harder to figure out than it used to be when I was able to acquire more cards and when there was more than just Panini)

Also, according to my Patch Gallery on the Trading Card Database, this is my 75th patch, combining both NBA and NASCAR. I am not totally sure I remembered to add all of them onto it though.  I just looked through it and I don't remember having any that aren't present, but that doesn't mean anything as my memory is shot. I had to edit a large portion of this post when looking through the linked gallery and realizing this wasn't my second Panini era patch, but my third. Oops! Double oops, I just looked through again and realized the patch gallery does not include the 2001-02 Fleer Exclusive rookies. I also forgot to put the Noah Vonleh patch SN 07/10 I nabbed on ebay for less than the serial number on there. After fixing that, I see this is patch #78, not 75. I wonder now if I missed any others...

My other rookie Relic was Jerian Grant of the Knicks. (Somewhat surprisingly, I don't have a single patch from the Knicks, one of several teams missing from my patch collection)

For the base cards, actually I am not really a big fan of them. They are too dark.

Each and every card has a large are of black at the bottom of the card, and darker versions of the team colors on the bottom corners. The name, position and number bars are foil, with the base color coming through for each. (all names appear in black)
Backs are similar. Usual Panini lack of stats. and all cards have black and white copies of the front photo. The borders around the picture vary in color based on team but the name bar and below is the same color scheme for every card.

Since the Aldridge card I chose didn't really show it well as the Spurs team colors are black and silver, here is Carmelo Anthony of the Knicks, which was the first card I pulled out of my first pack.

2015-16 is by far Panini's best year design wise...but Threads is a bit of a clunker. Hoops was great, Complete was a favorite set of mine, (despite the misnomer, it included only 330 of 450 players- FAR from complete!) and Donruss is also really something great, Threads is...not. It is a step back to 2013-14 when practically every Panini set was variations on the color black. There was no Threads that year...I almost wonder if this design was created for that season and then shelved for some reason.

Also, quite a few of the cards came out of the packs damaged. It feels like when cards stick together and you pull them apart, pulling part of the other card with it. It appears mostly to affect the tops of the cards, about where the team logo is on the front and the equivalent space on the back.

My two Wood Rookies, clearly labeled Wood Rookies, were Kelly Oubre Jr. and Rashad Vaughn. Again, the design is not as nice as last year's.

Other inserts I pulled, besides the relics, include Precision Players, which seems to be the most common as I pulled three out of 4 regular packs and one blaster, High Flyers, Century Greats and Team Threads. I haven't scanned the latter yet, but it's the exact same design as they have been using since 2008-09, a textured, die cut jersey shaped card. It works, and does not need to be changed.

None of the inserts have any text on back, or stats. A lot of empty space. I'm not too impressed with them, to be honest.

Only card in my collection showing Bulls sleeved jersey and 50th logo.

This is the brightest card I got from the set.

With all that said....would I add more of these to my collection? Of course I would. It may not be my favorite set, but I'm a card collector...if it's produced, I will collect it. If I could suffer through collecting 14 years of Press Pass's inept exclusive contract with NASCAR, then I can surely collect one NBA set that doesn't live up to it's yearly compatriots! My local Target only had two blasters left, counting the one I got, and if I wasn't so intent on saving money for this weekend's NNL East (See my Scale Modeling History blog on Sunday afternoon for coverage) it would almost surely make it's way into my collection as well...