2012 Innovation Stained Glass Purple

[Gemmintpop1]

Innovation was one of the first panini products that attempted to bring back meaningful attributes to inserts and parallels in basketball cards, since some of the heavy hitters from the 90’s.

The set featured laser cut cards that were made of a wooden composite materials. This was a 75 card checklist that was the case hit of the product. To find the top players in the set is fairly difficult. Below is an example of the Damian Lillard that I own.



The second half of the base set were named “View” for their see through two-piece appearance that was very reminiscent of the 1996 ex 2000 cards. I don’t currently own any of these, but the foil on the 1/1 versions shine nicely, while the gold and red parallels are more of a dull color finish across the name.

It also featured stained glass cards that were reminiscent of the Gallery of Heroes cards from the 90’s. The base stained glass card was a 100 card insert set that wasn’t a case hit, but with such a long checklist the pop counts on each player remain very low.

The more rare purple parallel falls somewhere between 1-3 per case. The print run is sketchy to back into, so if someone else has it down please share. You can get to estimated number of cases in total, but estimating purple parallels per case * number of cases / players in the checklist gets you to something like 10-30? Below is the Lebron I own which currently sits at a PSA pop 4.



I first became interested in these when a hobby friend, Geechquest, made a post on a different forum that illustrated his top panini inserts. I saved the search and waited, waited some more, waited some more. Nothing was coming up for the Lebron. After discussing with another hobby friend, Mission street cards, he told me outside the one he owned, he only knew of a handful that he’d ever seen. A couple years later I was lucky enough to make a deal with a hobby friend, Cabamcards27, for the Lebron and the 2013 gold Durant.

Outside the rarity, I love these because it was a time period that Panini was still trying to win over the collector.

They used a textured see-through plastic to resemble real stained glass. They used a Gaelic font that one might see on a stained glass
Irish bar sign. They kept the parallels to just one, and were intentional about the color. Purple stained glass historically was used to represent royalty. Lastly, the checklist is huge, so you can get most players for a very reasonable price.

Finally, I forget who originally told me this. I want to say it was Showley. The best way to photograph these are to use a white background. Enjoy!

[Deadshot]

I've asked around about the print run on the purples and it seems like a big mystery. Like you, I acquired this one from Cabamcards27!



PS - Does your Lillard die cut have browning in the cutout area? Showley pointed it out to me on my David West and I can't unsee it.

[Gemmintpop1]

Nice photo of the Danny Granger! I celebrated internally when I heard you picked that up on the pod a few weeks ago. Looks great!

Yes, the inside is an off yellow color. I’m convinced it’s just the original color and not “yellowing”, but I’ll have to pull it out later and take another look to be sure.

[topgemcards]

Definitely on my chase list - even the base seems rare enough that it may take some time to find on the LBJ.

[daeve]

Nice photo of the Danny Granger! I celebrated internally when I heard you picked that up on the pod a few weeks ago. Looks great!

Yes, the inside is an off yellow color. I’m convinced it’s just the original color and not “yellowing”, but I’ll have to pull it out later and take another look to be sure.

I had always thought this was due to the laser-cut process itself... so it is not actively 'yellowing' but came out of the pack that way, which makes it more neat to me that it's a relic of the process they used in making the cards. I don't think I ever 'confirmed' this though.

[darz90scardz]

Nice photo of the Danny Granger! I celebrated internally when I heard you picked that up on the pod a few weeks ago. Looks great!

Yes, the inside is an off yellow color. I’m convinced it’s just the original color and not “yellowing”, but I’ll have to pull it out later and take another look to be sure.

I had always thought this was due to the laser-cut process itself... so it is not actively 'yellowing' but came out of the pack that way, which makes it more neat to me that it's a relic of the process they used in making the cards. I don't think I ever 'confirmed' this though.

Same thing happens to the 97-98 Skybox Premium Silky Smooth