Panini Fake Patches (aka Maybe Topps isn't so bad?)

Wow, look at that card, 4x Hall of Fame Quarterbacks, 1/1 laundry patches, that is the kind of card people pay big money for. But wait? Game-used Mitchell and Ness jerseys? Mitchell and Ness doesn't make NFL game jerseys. This is a $600 per box product with Jerseys they went down to the sporting goods store and used. Panini released a statement on this basically saying that this card was made in error, along with three other laundry tags. But trust us, everything else in the product is legit, really it is, trust us, buy more boxes.

What makes this worse is the fact that Panini is now the only NFL card manufacturer, and it is only 3 years removed from a similar issue with Panini Flawless, (link 2: update) another high end set with "event worn" being labeled as game worn.

Both these issues were spotted by collectors, and in both cases Panini owned up and disclosed more errors in the products, offering to either fix or replace the mistakes.

The question is, are these isolated instances, or is this standard operating procedure for Panini.

Hey, remember when Terrell Davis played for the Seahawks, no? Panini does.

I was always a little skeptical of relic cards, but with there being several instances of fakes, there is really little hope our cards are real. As a collector with a limited budget, it is pretty disheartening to think the cards I spend my money on might be fake. We have had other fake relics, players stamping autographs on cards and the rumor that Shaq had someone else sign his cards for years. At this point I don't buy cards thinking the relic is real, I buy them because I like the look of the card or it fits into my collection, and is cheap. There is no chance of me spending big on a high end relic. Football is worse with the "Event Worn" jerseys that come out before the player even plays a game with the team. A game worn jersey is a relic of a moment in time, a piece of the game we spend a lot of our free time watching and loving, a cheap jersey a guy wore at a photo shoot, no thanks.

I really don't want to slam Panini, their design team is great and they do great things with how cards look, but between the recent fakes and the huge amount of sticker autos, it's not no to be disappointed.