what's going on everybody welcome back to stacking slabs your hobby content alternative appreciate all of your support for the collector focused content we are putting out here on the stacking slabs network make sure you're checking out what we're doing on the weekend we got some fun content that is happening make sure you're checking out book to last a wrestling card podcast on the stacking slabs network hosted by my good friends adam and ryan from rbi crew seven the wnba card podcast is still popping shout out caitlin for running point on that we are building shows for collectors in niche categories we're doing it because we believe that the more we educate and the more we provide information in specific categories the stronger our hobby gets and we want to help drive that forward one little favor here if you don't mind we'll put a link in the show notes i'm trying to build up the weekly rip newsletter distribution list it is always on sunday it gets dropped via substack you'll get an email it's free but it's a companion piece to what typically goes out on wednesday which is the flagship episode so link is in the show notes sign up for that drop your email i'm trying to build that list up and as always hit the follow button tell a damn friend run on over the patreon all the things in this space there's not a lot of space on the stacking slabs calendar but in the space where there is like today i wanna be focused in on conversations around product i want not new product not pushing you to go buy something new or go buy into a break i want to dig into what is old what has existed for a minute and dig into some questions that i have around a specific product or release and i will say two things happened this last week that led me to today's conversation number one i was examining my collection and i'm an advocate for this i am an advocate for spending time with your cards one of those moments happened when my brother and his family came over shout out mcgrath cards came over he wanted to see the reggie wayne finite he had never seen it in person the twenty twelve reggie finite so showed him that and then i was like digging through cards and we went downstairs and then after they left i was like man i gotta spend some time with my cards it's been a minute you know busy life baby two young ones on top of it all the things it's like i have not been doing my responsibility as a collector and spending time with my collection so i made time later in that evening to just sit on the floor open up the cases check out my cards that's what i was doing it was fun i always leave with so much energy and in that process i've zeroed in on a gap in my collection and of course like one of the benefits of having a platform like this with an audience of collectors who know a lot about cards and where they are like sometimes i decide to hey i'm gonna throw this out there and if anyone can help me would love that but i was digging into my luck collection and i would i i pulled out my andrew luck gold vinyl from optic and every time i look at these cards i just i i love them i just love these cards but i i feel like when i think about my collection i i focus in on the prism stuff first but there's ancillary parts of the collection that i appreciate so i laid out i have three andrew luck gold vinyl one zero one if you are playing the home game and you're a nerd like me and you know checklists and stuff like that andrew luck is in four optic sets so i am fortunate to have the twenty sixteen andrew luck gold vinyl one of one which is the debut of optic football which is the subject of today's conversation i then have the twenty seventeen which is a a beautiful card and and i'll say this twenty seventeen optic kicks ass it's great i love it i just think it looks so good and it's also a set that you know i don't know you just never hear anyone talk about it never see anything it's a follow-up of the debut all these things but i just think it it it it presents well then i have the twenty eighteen for and i i do like the twenty eighteen not as much as the seventeen or the sixteen but i do like the twenty eighteen but then andrew luck in twenty nineteen before that season is when he retired but of course they the manufacturers didn't know luck was retiring so they issued a twenty nineteen andrew luck optic which has a gold vinyl that i've never seen and is the missing piece of my andrew luck gold vinyl collection so this moment happened and i was just like damn like gold optic rules like optic doesn't get enough hasn't there's not enough conversation around optic so that inspired today today's conversation if you know the whereabouts of the twenty nineteen i'm paying strong baby let me know the other moment happened when i i think we i was texting with john at pac nicholson we're talking cards we talk cards outside of the football card podcast believe it or not and make sure you're checking out the football card podcast on the stacking slabs network every friday but he we're talking about prism prices and this and that and he was make he made mention of the new optic release and how he enjoyed what it looked like and i was like i didn't even realize the new optic came out and this is what happens when you're in the dying days of brands in transition that the same promotion and pump and of pump and circumstances of before on these launches goes away right you're just kind of releasing stuff because it's the end of the road and so in a weird way while i feel like the the last prism installment twenty twenty five football didn't get the same recognition as previous years which is natural the optic more or less fell off the table where it took me a safe search to realize it even existed and then a follow-up text from from pac so after these moments washed over me i just i just had this thought and i i had this thought and i wrote it down and that was like the i wrote what i wrote down on my sticky note right next to my desk was what about optic what about optic and that's the question i have especially as we you know are exiting the panini era you have a brand like optic that wasn't there the entire run but certainly solidified itself as a product that was very important to this era for a multitude of reasons i would say that optic will always be a part of the conversation for a couple big reasons out of the gates i think recognition right you can see it and you recognize it and i think that's important this is helped by the nature of what optic is optic is a chromium extension of donris so much like tops chrome is an extension of tops paper it's the same thing so you're getting the opportunity as a collector to get introduced to the same design and photography through two different formats recognition is important in collecting it's important to understand something by just seeing it think number two while it evolved in football and was always this way out of the gates there and i i i believe this i i this is more this is my opinion i believe that we're gonna talk one of ones one of ones and while twenty sixteen which is the subject we're gonna be talking about basketball how it debuted with one of one gold vinyl and one of one black in football it was just one of one gold vinyl in later years their nebula was added to the mix but i also think this is interesting i'm going off on a side tidget the fact that twenty twelve prison basketball did not have a one of one the twenty twelve prison football had two with the black finite and the orange pylon then we get all the way to twenty sixteen optic and now basketball has two one of ones with the black and the gold vinyl and the football has one these little quirks make me smile when i'm thinking about a manufacturer and decisions and all all these things so i start there i start with the moments that led me to today's conversation and then why i think this product is a product that's built to last and want to start this conversation with you the loyal listener of stacking slabs network and a fan of conversations around products to talk about twenty sixteen donner's optic and frame it up as an underrated debut set if you collect anything chrome in the panini era you know the mythology twenty twelve prism twenty thirteen select those sets get treated like origin stories there's reverence to them they get the debut premium when discussed and when positioned but then there's the third debut on the chromium side that i don't ever hear anyone talk about and that's twenty sixteen donner's optic if you polled the audience and said just walked around the national with a microphone walked around the national with a microphone and you asked what year did prism debut everyone would be able to say twenty twelve if you ask what year did optic debut i am not so sure the largest percentage answer would be twenty sixteen but this was the first optic this was the first gold vinyl one of one another interesting manufacturer error note the gold vinyl obviously a replica of the super fracture and tops debuted in prism football in twenty fifteen not one of one out of five went from ten year run twenty fifteen to twenty twenty five for the optic product they decided well this is getting a good reaction people know the super fracture swirls maybe we just create a one of one call it gold vinyl still but we put it in a product like optic i believe this is one of the best decisions panini made when making these nerdy decisions on set configuration and structure if you collect optic today and you like this brand there's a strong chance you chase gold vinyl in twenty sixteen optic i believe it deserves more attention than it gets what i wanted to do in this episode as i set the table for this entire episode i want to talk about why panini launched optic what problem it was maybe solving in this era and how the parallel ladder was developed why basketball and football might be different and why the debut set never received the same cultural lift as some of its contemporaries like prism this is gonna be just about structure so if we rewind to twenty twelve panini introduces prism it becomes the brand's flagship twenty thirteen they bring back the brand select it arrives under panini so by twenty sixteen panini owns the chrome conversation right this is the time too twenty fifteen tops chrome was in its dark dying days an opportunity to really take over the conversation on the chromium front so why introduce optic optic is donerous on a chromium stock full stop that's it donerous already had brand identity and recognition this is me putting on my marketing hat this is me trying to understand if we're building and developing brands to try to generate revenue the best way we can go about it or maybe the easiest way is to take what is in the hearts and minds already of collectors and pump some maybe i wanted to say thc but maybe what i was looking for was hgh into it and it can be something new it can be something bigger and better than ever before and so you got donaris which has recognizable design language broad distribution brand equity rated rookies which is a very very important note but what it did not have was a chromium stock so optic lets panini do something very strategic it allows them to monetize donaris at a chrome price point without turning everything into prism prism stays flagship optic becomes the bridge chrome it creates this ladder and if you like donnerus design but want a chrome feel you're just going to optic baby that's smart product architecture it's not random it's intentional portfolio layering and collectors rarely talk about that part and so the timing matters twenty sixteen donner's optic football release in december of twenty sixteen basketball releases in twenty seventeen twenty sixteen twenty seventeen optic on the basketball side so optic debuts inside an already crowded ecosystem it does not arrive as a revolution it arrives as an expansion and i think that's okay but that also might be why it has never reached necessarily the heights for with some of the other brands of this era and i think it matters for perception prism arrived and felt brand new optic arrived and felt familiar familiar rarely gets put on this platform or becomes mythology and that is the first reason that i think twenty sixteen optic is underrated and maybe is one of those products that not a lot of collectors could tell you oh yeah this is the first year of optic so when we look at the parallel structure and where things get interesting because sets don't earn status ever from just like the base checklist we we we know that especially in this era where it has really become not only the parallel era but there's been more one of ones in this run than ever before but football twenty sixteen just has the one crown one way to the top out of the gates and that's the gold vinyl simple clear clean the ladder builds gold vinyl is on top one card you just have one target if you're looking for the ultimate chase when the top is clear that means the market agrees faster agreement build status i believe the release of the super fact super fracture swirl design in twenty fifteen prism and pairing that with the ultimate chase and optic not only helped to maintain that parallel itself but helped elevate the brands that hosted this design or this aesthetic i think about my own personal collecting in prism more or less i collect black finite i collect gold and i collect gold vinyl and i collect gold vinyl because i just think it looks incredible and so because i collect gold vinyl there i look at sets like optic and i'm like alright well i can't collect everything but if one of my guys shows up on the gold vinyl side i love this look in prism why wouldn't i get this card in optic and that agreement from liking it in one product to seeing it in another i think helps build the status basketball when it dropped had two black one of one gold vinyl one of one when a debut set has two one of ones at top the the hierarchy is less clean collectors will ask the question what is the true crown gold vinyl became hobby language over time but black one of one existed from the start so optic basketball debut carries built a built in debate and when the debate exists the mythology builds slower and that's subtle but it still matters and on the basketball side i think what's interesting and i've always viewed this and again there's no one telling me i'm right there's no one telling me we're wrong this is my own opinion but i've always viewed the fact that in twenty thirteen when the black prism was created to be the one of one in in prism that was owned really owned by the prism brand and it became very it became more of a secondary parallel on the optic side where basketball didn't have the super fractured gold swirl look prior to twenty sixteen optics so i have always said because this is the introduction of an incredible looking card that is familiar but it hasn't existed before to me this has a higher status i don't know what you think but that's that's how i've always made it justified in my head so what's crazy about this and i don't wanna make this about numbers but i'm going to for this section i just i just did a optic gold vinyl one of one sort from highest to lowest in card ladder and just pulled some sales so again the theme of this is twenty sixteen these are twenty sixteen gold vinyl i've also used the word which is controversial controversial when talking about cards and collecting of underrated but i mean you you be the judge here twenty sixteen debut set steph curry gold vinyl in twenty twenty four this card sold for twenty five thousand dollars twenty five thousand dollars compare and contrast that with what a twenty thirteen steph curry one of one black would do or the his gold prism out of ten kevin durant in twenty twenty one his gold vinyl one of one sold for nearly nine k tyreek hill zeroukie gold vinyl auto eight k in twenty three kyrie gold vinyl in a psa nine in twenty twenty five in twenty twenty five it's sold for five thousand eight hundred dollars i can remember when the kyrie gold twenty twelve gold prism sold for like ninety thousand dollars so it's like look at those two things so here's a crazy one the lebron gold vinyl one of one psa ten in twenty nineteen this card sold for four thousand four hundred and ninety five dollars can you imagine what a lebron james would twenty sixteen gold vinyl would do now and even what it does now i still don't think it would do as strong as it will down the road just based on what this whole episode is the premise of is who's talking about debut year optic nobody so we're taking a step back these are the first gold vinyl ever created in an optic the debut year the origin point and yet they do not universally trade at debut chrome premium levels and this this is not here to say go out and buy this stuff i'm just trying to give you some information and trying to get you to contextualize perhaps where this era is right now like i am the one stop stopping the record screech and say hey this is where we are right now because optic does not carry the same narrative weight as prism the market prices players first then set very important players first then set as a collector whenever i notice that in a product that i love i run and i buy when we're leading with players and it's an amazing set one of ones i'm running to that stuff i just did it as a matter of fact last week in in in wrestling with with a couple cards it's like no one sees this i'm going for it with debut prism the set often leads leads the sentence with debut optic the player leads this isn't a knock this is just my observation so if we stay neutral prism is framed culturally as panini's chrome identity optic is framed as chrome donris so the hobby mind assigns prism as the flagship and optic as the alternative chrome even though twenty sixteen optic is the first time don russ design gets chrome that is a real debut but because it's layered onto don russ instead of replacing something else i think it feels less dramatic and collectors respond to drama not nuance so twenty sixteen optic quietly becomes foundation without becoming mythological and what we try to seek in all of these conversations here on the stacking slabs network is just why does this matter for collectors if you collect optic today if you chase gold vinyl if you care about first year anything then twenty sixteen optic matters i ask myself these questions do i value the first time the parallel existed do i care about the first optical vinyl ever made do i care that football had one crown and basketball had two because these are the types of structural questions serious collectors ask not bullshit like what's the last comp but what's the origin what's the context give me the context all day give me the origin i am creating an episode like this because this is the type of content i want others to share with me so twenty sixteen donaris optic is an underrated debut set because it did not arrive as a new brand it arrived as a new finish but finishes matter parallel hierarchies matter first year one of ones matter and the collectors who understand structure always operate with more clarity than the collectors who don't if you collect optic go study twenty sixteen you might see your cards differently i know i do after digging in putting this episode together and thinking about damn is this just sitting there like if if there's a player or a card in this set should i get it and i'll say this in closing like this stuff doesn't pop up like it is very hard to find the rare and scarce parallels of from the debut set it is but if you can you should get them and you should and you'd likely if you can find them at this point you're probably getting them at a really good time what do you think about optic do you have cool optic cards you wanna share throw them on instagram tag me at stacking slabs the day this episode goes out when you're listening to this on launch day you post it you tag stacking slabs i'll repost everything i wanna see your cool optic cards hopefully you enjoyed this conversation planning to do a whole lot more like it take care we'll talk to you soon