Klein’s Korner: Panini Gets It Right – The last couple of weeks I’ve been doing a guest bit on the Hobby Hotline Show which runs Saturday mornings. The show was inspired by the old Cardboard Connection Radio show which many listeners called into.
Recently, discussed on the show was the topic of Panini’s policy change regarding expired redemptions. On the air, I made the case for the logical business reasons for those changes. My only criticism was how the change was communicated. However, to be fair, in these unusual times not all the dots get connected properly. I guarantee you that if that change had been made under normal circumstances, the communication would have been much better. The following week, we all praised Panini as you will see for some great things they recently did.
Later, I actually came up with five valid reasons for their change of policy and why it made sense from a business perspective. But the key issue centered on the word “EXPIRED”. Let’s remember Panini has gone above and beyond for years to honor these cards. That effort is not unnoticed and has been under-appreciated by collectors.
The following week when I called in everyone was sky high on Panini. Well, there were two good reasons for the praise. One was their latest basketball product, Mosaic, which was described in such loving terms that you would have thought Jennifer Aniston had just walked into the room. Those Mosaic cards are absolutely stunning and as the hobby is starving for new products, these cards are winning the day and rightfully so. To me these are as gorgeous as some of my favorite baseball sets.
Looking at these cards, I agree totally with that statement. I rarely purchase any new cards other than Series 1 Topps Baseball and Topps Heritage but if I saw singles at a reasonable price I’d probably say I need to add a couple of these to my collection.
The other thing we praised Panini for was the work done on Panini Instant and how it was shown during 
the recent NFL Draft. When your teammates are congratulating you publicly and in real time on Facebook for the work you did then you know it was well done. Normally, in an office circumstance you’d probably hear about that the next day at the office and maybe one or two emails. This time, the reaction was so immediate and legitimate the praise was real, well-deserved and truly worthy of the word, “Instant”.
As for the redemption issue and how we mentioned earlier, the good news for collectors is it appears either someone misspoke on Twitter, or Panini listened to the complaints and re-adjusted their policy to something which makes sense for all concerned. Trust me when I say I’m always happy when anyone does the right thing and Panini has adjusted and done more than the right thing in this case.
In my opinion, we have a happy ending and the end result is a win for collectors. We should be happy that we will continue to receive something for EXPIRED redemptions of which, it should be noted, that nothing is actually owed. Why? Because, technically, EXPIRED, means, according to Webster’s Dictionary: cease to be valid, typically after a fixed period of time.
For more from Rich Klein, follow him on Twitter @sabrgeek.
Rich’s vast experience and knowledge of the hobby has been well documented through the years. GTS is happy to feature his thoughts on collecting in Klein’s Korner. The opinions expressed are his and do not necessarily reflect those of GTS Distribution.
Klein’s Korner: Panini Gets It Right
