The Flux Titan - A Research Paper

[duron]

Originally Posted by BeastMode27

For the record, I thought 2014 totally certified mirror parallels would be the next PMG type. It never panned out. That being said, I do like these as well. Have a different feel to them in terms of eye appeal/scarcity/affordability. Probably won’t after they ruin them 2 years later. I paid no attention to the silvers. Now looking at it, there are only 3 completed/active of a certain player.

Yea, Certified actually used etched holofoil, which is what Metal (and other 90s sets) used. It’s really the only true Panini comp.

[ninjacookies]

Aside from the beautifully complex and intricate foil etching, the thing that really set the OG pmg's apart from the field were the bespoke background designs. Regardless how ill-fitting or ridiculous, nearly every background was uniquely improvised and tailored to each player. They had to do this for large checklists across all major sports.

That's a level of care and craftsmanship that we'll probably never see again from kard manufacturers.

About the closest Hackler's ever come to that level of ingenuity was the Downtown line, with a checklist of around 20 players. And even then, you'll still find out later down the line that the design team plagiarized some c-list artist on twitter (see: Justin Herbert).

[Proton]

Originally Posted by Nomad

What I like about these cards is that, despite pumping attempts, they are still affordable. Meaning anyone on this forum who constantly groans that stuff is too high and opportunity gone can go take a walk.

May take a couple years, but I think in the new Topps set we have a firm indication of how committed Fanatics is to restore basketball to its former heights. Enjoying the last days of Rome. And the fact that Proton only has doubles of Scope, and not a truckload (and soon not that) speaks volumes as to why I like it.

Originally Posted by Orangejello727

I never said you cant enjoy it. Im wondering why people are telling me I cannot disgree with it? Because I choose not to agree that the two set.s are not comparable, somehow Im salty and an emery of the state that committed treason?

you should know by now disagreeing with the mass on here is a sin smh.. they saying you salty and mad cause you making sense ruining the pump haha. But pump confirmed op called flux “breath of fresh air” ::ded:: emoji x3. But fr tho only good thing about flux are some of the insert sets. It’s no diff from their other releases just having couple good things about it… To me the base set lookin like a chud with the classic hulk greening look yuckkk

Originally Posted by BeastMode27

For the record, I thought 2014 totally certified mirror parallels would be the next PMG type. It never panned out. That being said, I do like these as well. Have a different feel to them in terms of eye appeal/scarcity/affordability. Probably won’t after they ruin them 2 years later. I paid no attention to the silvers. Now looking at it, there are only 3 completed/active of a certain player.

my fav gotta be the purple scope. The purple blending in with the background design looks complete, and the scope gives it extra flair. But funny you say that about totally certified cause my cuz had mentioned how few years back people tried to push that as pmg ripoff cause of the etched foil

[DynaEtch]

Originally Posted by Orangejello727

I never said you cant enjoy it. Im wondering why people are telling me I cannot disgree with it? Because I choose not to agree that the two set.s are not comparable, somehow Im salty and an emery of the state that committed treason?

I havent been reading most of the thread, but I dont see why someone should have a problem with disagreeing, criticism is great for discussion. From the couple posts of yours I read, I largely agree with your stance.

[cboog3105]

Originally Posted by duron

Yea, Certified actually used etched holofoil, which is what Metal (and other 90s sets) used. It’s really the only true Panini comp.

some examples for comparison

[HunterConnorMom]

OP: Insightful write-up, thanks for sharing. Definitely made me think more about this set which is much appreciated. A few thoughts/questions:
1. Titan is mainly orange with two areas of haze in the atmosphere. Be careful though as these areas are sometimes falsely colored blue/purple to help distinguish between layers. Link: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/c...ni-072904.html
2. For the question about other colors that could be used, the color ideally would need to be light enough to show the color of the scope circles when shining a light on the card. Also colors would need to be differentiated from other sets. For example, red, green, and silver are already used with scopes in other sets. Orange could have been a choice but probably doesn’t mix well with gold parallel. Blue is too dark if you look at baseball chronicles cards. So maybe only choice was light purple but they mixed in other colors like blue in the card background kind of like a pseudo nebula color scheme.
3. Agree with Ninja about all of the card backgrounds being the same image with Saturn by players heads. If the background images were different then would feel more like the original PMGs. Agree with you though that appears they took some of the same design elements from each original set. One issue though is they still printed too many parallels of this insert. Why even print the non scope cards? Maybe because they weren’t sure which design was better?
4. The inserts have a nice common theme of the universe but the base cards just seem like a random design. For the atmospheric inserts, appears they might have taken the Earth’s distances for each layer which seems cool: https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone...ths-atmosphere
5. For your point about Easter Egg…it could have been so cool if they would have put the last few /38 scopes as a set redemption as it was done with 1997-98 set. Now that would have been an Easter egg! Link: https://www.blowoutforums.com/showthread.php?t=520787

[Nomad]

The Certified inserts add an interesting wrinkle to the debate. There is some Titan lineage through Panini.

Considering an essay on how the 20-21 Flux base is actually a once-in-a-generation homage to the height of greening and in particular the 1996-97 Topp's Best set. Many of the same hues predominate as greened Apprentices, Ballhawks, etc. (Even going back to 95-96 TB). It's not only green... there are interesting reds, browns, bronzes, etc. The difference of course is that one reflects an organic chemical aging process over the course of 26 years and has a chance at patina. The other was designed by some intern who was given free reign at the computer.

[Orangejello727]

Originally Posted by DynaEtch

I havent been reading most of the thread, but I dont see why someone should have a problem with disagreeing, criticism is great for discussion. From the couple posts of yours I read, I largely agree with your stance.

I accidentally quoted you when it was someone else who called me salty. I apologize.

[duron]

Cboog is the new photography master on here after Abra stopped posting

[tjforce]

Originally Posted by cboog3105

some examples for comparison

These Certifieds have a certain appeal to them, but where Panini screwed them up was printing too many parallels and too many copies of these parallels.

I mean, look at this:

Platinum Red /279
Platinum Blue /149
Platinum Red Die-Cut /135
Platinum Blue Die-Cut /74
Platinum Purple /49
Platinum Purple Die-Cut /25
Platinum Gold /10
Platinum Gold Die-Cut /10
Platinum Green /5
Platinum Green Die-Cut /5
Platinum Black /1
Platinum Black Die-Cut /1

That's 12 parallels and 743 parallel copies of each player. Way too much to make it an exclusive set.

[Nomad]

From one perspective that is only about 2.5 the total Lamelo, Ant, or Wise Titans, given that three versions exist.

[BeastMode27]

Originally Posted by tjforce

These Certifieds have a certain appeal to them, but where Panini screwed them up was printing too many parallels and too many copies of these parallels.

I mean, look at this:

Platinum Red /279
Platinum Blue /149
Platinum Red Die-Cut /135
Platinum Blue Die-Cut /74
Platinum Purple /49
Platinum Purple Die-Cut /25
Platinum Gold /10
Platinum Gold Die-Cut /10
Platinum Green /5
Platinum Green Die-Cut /5
Platinum Black /1
Platinum Black Die-Cut /1

That's 12 parallels and 743 parallel copies of each player. Way too much to make it an exclusive set.

The die cuts are the mirror versions. The regular platinum are not great looking. So 250 total mirror parallels.
Football was much more rare, and looked better with the mirrors not being die cut. I had the mirror green 1/1 rookies of both Carr and Bortles in 14 haha. They didn’t have mirror blacks. Football break down was mirror red 25, blue 10, gold 5, green 1.

[Tallboy]

Originally Posted by Orangejello727

I dont know why you would say I am upset? Because I dont agree with notation of common theme automatically make me upset? We cant disagree? Its not allowed and if I do I must be upset? Is that how it really works?

I'm not telling you what you can or can't do, but you came into a thread created by someone effusive with positivity, and you've elaborated quite a lot on negative points. It's possible that in your own voice you're being playful, but that's lost in text.

Originally Posted by Orangejello727

I think 1997 Metal Universe was more a "Metal" theme more so than an outer space theme. Cards like Shaq having windmills and Garnett with fish in the background gives more of an indication that the theme was "metallic" more so than outer space. There are various cards in the set that seem 'Planetary'. Unlike Flux where every card is the same background.

Ah, well, truly the theme was "Universe" - as in "Marvel Universe" - distinguishing it from the mere "looks like metal" theme of the previous releases. Not everything in "Universe" looks like outer space, but a decent amount do, and more importantly, the one that truly matter (MJ) does. It's that Jordan card and its parallels that everyone's chasing, and that means we'll probably getting outer space basketball cards forever.

But you're absolutely right that it's a huge difference that MU has different backgrounds for different players, while Flux - and basically everything else - does not. Really sets the '97-98 MU apart as an all-timer for me even if the PMGs didn't exist.

Originally Posted by Orangejello727

I dont care of Titan deserves to be as special as PMG. You have it all wrong. Im more in the realm of "Get your own style" more than comparing the two. Ive also noted previously that I think Panini creates it's design and set names using a random generators. Throw a bunch of styles into a generator and it randomly spits out a theme, color and random name and BAM...you got yourself a new product! Its up the rest of you to make 10 page documents to try really hard to compare it to something you've seen in the past that was very successful and hopely it sticks!! Thats what has happen here

I see it differently.

What I see with the OP is that Panini made a product that made his neurons really start firing and that inspired him to playfully write something up with a lot of images he thought was beautiful.

[tjforce]

Originally Posted by BeastMode27

The die cuts are the mirror versions. The regular platinum are not great looking. So 250 total mirror parallels.
Football was much more rare, and looked better with the mirrors not being die cut. I had the mirror green 1/1 rookies of both Carr and Bortles in 14 haha. They didn’t have mirror blacks. Football break down was mirror red 25, blue 10, gold 5, green 1.

I've learned in collecting that if it has to be explained too much then it's a limiting factor.


Also, die cuts are typically a limiting factor, other than those sweet sets like Flair Hot Hands back in the day.

[Nomad]

Oh I thought you were talking about Full Capacity for a second.

[gemmintpop1]

Originally Posted by Nomad

Oh I thought you were talking about Full Capacity for a second.

If you like the movie themed cards, Hoops did an “Arceologists” set that gives a nod to Indiana Jones.


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[babyfaceposey]

Originally Posted by gemmintpop1

If you like the movie themed cards, Hoops did an “Arceologists” set that gives a nod to Indiana Jones.


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I liked those. Have a gold Donovan Mitchell.

[sebreg]

Originally Posted by ninjacookies

Aside from the beautifully complex and intricate foil etching, the thing that really set the OG pmg's apart from the field were the bespoke background designs. Regardless how ill-fitting or ridiculous, nearly every background was uniquely improvised and tailored to each player. They had to do this for large checklists across all major sports.

That's a level of care and craftsmanship that we'll probably never see again from kard manufacturers.

About the closest Hackler's ever come to that level of ingenuity was the Downtown line, with a checklist of around 20 players. And even then, you'll still find out later down the line that the design team plagiarized some c-list artist on twitter (see: Justin Herbert).

Good points regarding the time, care, craftsmanship of unique detail executed in those OG pmgs.

[gemmintpop1]

Originally Posted by ninjacookies

Aside from the beautifully complex and intricate foil etching, the thing that really set the OG pmg's apart from the field were the bespoke background designs. Regardless how ill-fitting or ridiculous, nearly every background was uniquely improvised and tailored to each player. They had to do this for large checklists across all major sports.

That's a level of care and craftsmanship that we'll probably never see again from kard manufacturers.

About the closest Hackler's ever come to that level of ingenuity was the Downtown line, with a checklist of around 20 players. And even then, you'll still find out later down the line that the design team plagiarized some c-list artist on twitter (see: Justin Herbert).

I think the closest Panini has ever got to this was Gyula’s 2014 cards. 50 player checklist, each with original artwork. Just like the old Duncan yo-yo commercials… “If it ain’t a Gyula, give it to him.”




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[Nomad]

Originally Posted by sebreg

Good points regarding the time, care, craftsmanship of unique detail executed in those OG pmgs.

Even OG PMGs (I am going to say Metal Universe to give proper respect to the base set) repeated the background motifs, I believe twice, between players. (See Anfernee Hardaway/Michael Jordan) They are not exactly same but only required a few digital tweaks.

[sebreg]

Originally Posted by Nomad

Even OG PMGs (I am going to say Metal Universe to give proper respect to the base set) repeated the background motifs, I believe twice, between players. (See Anfernee Hardaway/Michael Jordan) They are not exactly same but only required a few digital tweaks.

Gotcha, thanks for specifying that point wasn't aware of that. Like many I like that set but can't say I know it inside/out.

[gemmintpop1]

Originally Posted by sebreg

Gotcha, thanks for specifying that point wasn't aware of that. Like many I like that set but can't say I know it inside/out.

It’s also worth noting the design work deteriorated every subsequent release. While the OG 97 had unique designs, 97 championship used city photos (still clever but not time intensive), 98 used game photos (even less time intensive), 2008 used the same digital black space background throughout.


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[Nomad]

Wasn't 97 Championship released before OG 97, same year?

[ninjacookies]

Originally Posted by gemmintpop1

I think the closest Panini has ever got to this was Gyula’s 2014 cards. 50 player checklist, each with original artwork. Just like the old Duncan yo-yo commercials… “If it ain’t a Gyula, give it to him.”




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I think Panini originally started out with good intentions. But they soon realized the law of diminishing returns. Why spend extra time on things when you can sell just as much for minimal effort and petty theft?



Still gives me the warm fuzzies. Panini's design team coming for that Qwasian ACEO crown.

[Nomad]

Nope. Nowhere near. Because still chromium. Not hand designed.