The design is right in line with the previous Absolute sets. This feels like it could have been brought out in the early to mid-2000s. It's faithful to the feel of the original sets, almost to a fault. The parallels are there. So are the short print cards. It's everything that was loved and hated about this release in one package.
If you throw in a few tiny elements from Leaf releases of the same time period, I think you found the inspiration for the 2020 set. What I really did not like about this year's Absolute was the distribution. $100 for twenty hobby cards. It breaks down to five bucks a card, which includes eight base cards, two parallels, four inserts, two memorabilia cards and four autographs. It sounds like a great deal on the surface, but most of those haven't held much resale value. Let's face it, that's what most people are looking for nowadays.
The set is broken down into a regular set of one hundred cards and a short print autograph set of sixty-six cards. A lot of these short print cards can be found for a steal on reselling sites.
Out of 166 total cards, the White Sox have five cards in the regular set and four cards in the short print set.
24 - Tim Anderson
50 - Jose Abreu
62 - Yasmani Grandal
79 - Yoan Moncada
84 - Eloy Jimenez
110 - Danny Mendick (auto) (/149)
113 - Luis Robert Jr. (auto) (/149)
145 - Dylan Cease (auto) (/149)
149 - Zack Collins (auto) (/149)
The main drawback with Panini product is the lack of MLB logos. Hopefully, someday that will be able to change. Until then, it will be their Achilles heel. No matter how nice their cards are, Panini will always lose a fraction of value because of that fact. These cards are nice looking and a bit nostalgic. In the short print cards, you can see why they went with the bigger autograph. It hides the majority of the player behind the cutout for the auto. The logo problem takes care of itself in most cases.
Overall, I like this set. It would have been much better with an MLB license.
