Box Review: 2019 Panini Prizm (hobby)

Last week, I held the second night of my ongoing Breaker's Club group break.  One of the boxes that we ripped was a hobby box of 2019 Panini Prizm.  Each hobby box of '19 Prizm promises 12 packs with 12 cards per pack which is definitely a nice and hefty box of cards (at least by modern card standards).  In addition, each box also promises three autographs (again, a hefty number of signatures for a modern card product)!  The question that needs to be answered then is "Is this a case of quantity over quality?"  Only one way to find out, read on!

Base cards:

I get the feeling that Panini Prizm isn't a set that most people chase after to build the base set but rather it's the parallels that everyone loves.  In that sense, you can think of Prizm as Panini's answer to the Topps Chrome brand as both are shiny and full of colorful parallels.  That being said, the base cards for the 2019 set are actually fairly nice with good action shots and a surprising amount of color given the silver/black borders on every card.  

Even though all the logos are edited out, these are still solid-looking cards.  The base set is 300 cards strong with a nice mix of rookies, veterans, and retired stars.  

Inserts:

While the main draw of Prizm is undoubtedly the parallels (and autographs), let's first take a quick look at the inserts from within our box.  Prizm has no shortage of inserts, that's for certain!  

The first eight inserts include several decent designs and players with the highlight being that Ohtani Instant Impact card.  The Scorching cards are also neat in a super cheesy sort of way (which is perfectly acceptable here at Nachos Grande)!  While the above cards are fine in their own way, there were a few more inserts that I thought deserved a closer look starting with this Machines card of Jose Ramirez:

I love the gears in the background; the whole thing fits together for the Machine theming of the set.

Next, as a math guy, I had to highlight the Numbers Game set which features numbers all over the card design.

Who doesn't love math?  Okay, most people probably don't love math but I'm guessing a higher percentage of baseball card collectors like math as compared to the general population.  Even better for the card design, the numbers in the background are tied to the featured player (for example, Martinez swatted 43 home runs in 2018 and batted .330 with 130 RBIs).

Finally, we round out the look at the inserts with arguably the best card of the batch:

The Mike Trout is a Prizm parallel of the awesome Star Gazing inserts.  Definitely has a nice-looking card design and the theme is fun as well!

Parallels:

The Prizm set is probably best known for its preponderance of parallels and our box certainly lived up to the set's reputation.  We pulled 3 Prizm parallels, 4 Blue Prizms, and 5 Red Prizms (none of which were serially numbered).  However, the rest of the parallels were serially numbered!

The Viloria, Yelich, and Wynns are #/399, the Wendle and Anderson are #/299, and the Robles and Norwood are #/199.  I also have to give Panini credit for coming with some absolutely asinine (and yet fun) parallel names for this set.  For example, the Robles and Norwood are part of the set called the Lime Green Donut Circles Prizms.  Who doesn't like donuts?

Continuing with the parallels:

The Treinen is #/150 while the Romero and Jones are each #/60.  For my money, I think the Treinen is the nicest looking parallel of the bunch, officially called the Neon Orange Donut Circles Prizms.

Finally, our rarest two parallels:

The Austin Meadows is #/50 while the Rodon is #/35.  The Meadows is a Snake Skin Prizm while the Rodon is a Navy Blue Kaleidoscope Prizm (even more fun names for parallel sets)!

Autographs:

Finally, as if the box weren't loaded enough we get to our three promised autographs beginning with a Taylor Ward Rookie Autograph:

Our second autograph is another Rookie Autograph, this time of Enyel De Los Santos and it's a parallel!  

More specifically, it is a Burgundy Shimmer parallel numbered out of only 25 copies!

You'd be forgiven if you thought an autograph numbered out of only 25 copies would be the hit of the box, but you'd be wrong!  The true hit of the box was this beautiful Carlton Fisk autograph from the simply named "Signatures" set:

A beautiful-looking card and a great way to end a box!

Overall, I give the 2019 Panini Prizm box the following rating:

Set Design:  C

Collation:  A

Opening Thrill:  A

Overall:  B+

The Prizm brand suffers in my eyes because I'm a set collector through and through and this set isn't really designed with set collectors in mind.  That being said, as a box opening experience I had a lot of fun ripping through the 2019 Prizm box.  With plenty of inserts, lots of neat colored parallels, and three autographs, it's hard not to have a good time.  I do think our particular box was probably quite a bit better than one would usually expect (especially with the Fisk autograph) but I can only grade what I rip!