Patch card? Says it's a patch card.......Oh Topps.....you fooled me again.

In the hobby world of jersey and patch memorabilia cards, it's always fun to pull or find a low serially numbered patch card. According to some of the manufacturers these patch cards are supposed to have a piece of a jersey number or piece of the name plate or even a piece of the team emblem on them. Some examples of this would be something like this:

or a beauty like this

another fine looking specimen

As beautiful as some of these cards may turn out to be it just so happens every now and then you do get some blunders and stinkers when it comes to pulling these low serially numbered "supposed patch" cards like this 2011 Topps Finest football Bilal Powell card that I pulled that says, "player worn patch" right on the card and it's serially numbered 19/25

What I did get was a plain old jersey swatch. The exposed white on the side of the "patch" window is due to the crooked piece of jersey exposing the sliver of a jersey number or letter.  Somebody in quality control made an oops there. Let's look at another example of a card missing some quality patch materials.

 This was a card that I pulled from out of 2011 Topps Supreme. Adrian Peterson and Maurice Jones-Drew autographed and serially numbered 3/5 game used relic card. Now can you picture this for a minute and visualize with me that would it not be more appropriate for these low numbered cards (especially the Peterson) to specifically have patch pieces instead of just a plain old jersey swatch? However when something is this low numbered I feel it would look ten times better with a piece of patch emblem. Now the yellow swatch could be from the neck line as that is about the only visible yellow that I know of on the vikings jersey and that's cool in its own way in terms of collectible pieces.

If we look at this 2011 Topps Supreme 4 player jersey card serially numbered 9/25 it also another victim of the plain old jersey swatch.

Then we have something like this card:

A 2011 Topps Finest Stevan Ridley rookie autograph player worn patch card serially numbered 354/599. It's just a blue solid patch and I'm not 100% sure but I don't think it's jersey material as it's too heavy of a fabric from the feel of it.

Here's a good example of rather well used patch piece.


While it may be only limited to 49 copies there is some quality patch material that was used in the making of this card. Notice how the patch piece is also more than a "inch cube" of material and almost goes the length of the card and seems to be of multiple colors as well.

Here's another example of a color patch limited to 99 copies:









Sometimes with these patch cards you get the elastic bands from the sleeves or necklines like these cards:







  and my hats off to PANINI for pulling off these cards

You're getting the whole top of the jersey tie!

The manufacturers sometimes need to take a step back and look at how they're producing these cards. No company is exempt from having blunders and mistakes happening in the production/application process.  What it all really comes down to is what you want for your own personal collection and for your own personal amusement. 

Panini Customer service PART Deux aka PT 2

This is the result of the excellent Customer Service from Panini. Thanks so much!

Panini Customer service comes through once again.

Last November of 2008 I had purchased a hobby box of 2008 Donruss Threads. When I was down to the 2nd last pack of the box I hit the mother of payloads (for myself that is) and pulled a Mario Manningham Rookie Class autographed card. With me being a die hard NY Giants fan I was extremely pleased at what I just pulled and I immediately put it into a hard plastic cover and was tickled to be adding it to my personal collection. Now don't get me wrong as there is nothing wrong with pulling an autographed jersey card, but when it's your own favorite team/player that you pull... it is truly just that much sweeter. The card was stored in a 1000 count box in the closet with my other cards and had not seen daylight unless I took it out of the box to show someone the card. On Sept 29th I took the card out of the box as I was reorganizing the box and was surprised to see how much the autograph was fading off of the manufactured letter. The picture up above is how it looks now as compared to when I first pulled the card which had a very dark solid autograph color. The autograph on the patch was fading much like that of the 2007 Upper Deck sweet spots autographs (http://fielderschoice.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/more-on-my-sweet-spot-breaks/). I decided to contact Panini Customer Service regarding this issue. I had sent them an email explaining what had happened and I included a scan of the card. After Panini Customer Service received and reviewed it they agreed to exchange it. Unfortunately they were not able to replace my exact card with the same one as they were out of them. However, they did offer me a Brian Brohm rookie class in exchange for the Mario Manningham. I politely explained to them that I would prefer to have another Mario Manningham if possible or someone else from the Giants or Ray Rice or perhaps even Rashard Mendenhall and if that was not going to work then they could send me the Brian Brohm autograph. They did not have any other Mario's on hand but what they did offer me was going above and beyond the call of duty:

Updated By: Panini America Admin Created Response No. 12 Monday, October 19 2009 03:23:53 PM
Description Details:
Hi Timothy,
I found a 2008 Playoff National Treasures signatures patches NFL # 28 Lawrence Taylor 15/25 value at 30 dollars more than yours will you consider this card Please let me know so I can mail this out to you. Thank you

My heart about hit the floor because I was not expecting that to happen. I have been wanting to add a Lawrence Taylor autograph to my collection for quite some time and this was going to be the first one let alone a patch autograph card. I would've been happy with just another Giant rookie auto or the Brian Brohm but this was going above and beyond in my opinion. I have been purchasing Donruss/playoff products since 1991 and in all of that time I have only ever had 4 problems. Two of them were manufacturing issues and one being not given the right amount of cards per box. The Mario Manningham issue was number four. However Donruss/Panini/Playoff have always took care of my issues in a timely professional manner. They always sent something a little extra for the problems I've had and had a very good turn around time with returning products to me. I've always had my emails answered and always had my calls answered with kindness. I know some people will disagree with me and say, "well I was screwed out of such and such" or "Customer service doesn't know jack's squat about cards". I know this because I see the negative comments on the Beckett Boards and I see it in other web sites where people are saying about how most of the cards manufacturer's customer service sucks and don't care about the consumer. In all the years of doing business with the card manufacturers such as Donruss/Playoff/Panini and Upper Deck, they've all been faithful and good to me whenever a problem had arisen. As for TOPPS customer service....well... it just plain sucks. There's no toe stepping around it and there is no other way to put it other then the TOPPS customer service department sucks. They're a pain in the ass with replacements and damaged product issues. TOPPS needs to take some lessons on Customer Service from Panini and Upper Deck. If I had a choice of getting a Tri-Star Camel turd relic card or a gold chrome rookie autograph from TOPPS, I'd take the relic card any day over the TOPPS redemption.
My point in a nutshell... Panini came through for me on an issue I had with one of their products and they went above and beyond to get the issue resolved. Thanks Guys!