Chronicles is the debut set of the MLBPA for Panini, and it looks like it was designed by someone in the legal department for the players’ union. The “Chronicles” themes seems to mirror a newspaper mentality, albeit a blocky, 1860s New York Times version. There is a headline at the top of the card’s right-hand side, and the “deck” is the player’s name, with a bar beneath it. Some explanatory type is added, much like the beginning of an article, but then the story “jumps” to the back of the card.
The left half of the card shows a small, cut-out color photograph of the player in action, with a larger black-and-white version of the same photo behind it. If Panini was trying to emulate newspaper design, then the photographic subject should have been facing from left to right, rather than “looking off the page.”
The card back features the same lead photography element, but it is tinted red and the “jump type” covers the bottom part of the photo, which is situated on right-hand side of the card. The left side contains vital statistics, such as birth date, hometown, height, weight, and how they bat and throw.
The base set has 100 cards, with an additional 50 rookies; the first-year players are numbered to 499. Parallels for the base cards include gold, numbered to 999; blue (399), green (199), purple (99), red 25) and black (1/1). There are the same types of parallels for the rookie cards, although the gold ones are numbered to 399 and the blues are at 299.
As has been my habit lately, I opened a blaster box to review. A blaster contains four packs, with five cards to a pack. Four of those cards are Chronicle cards, while the fifth one is a baseball version of some other 2017 Panini brands. I pulled 15 base cards and a gold parallel of Rays pitcher Chris Archer. One of the base cards I pulled was that of Yankees Hall of Famer Mickey Mantle. It’s always a nice touch when Mantle gets the No. 7 card designation; Topps did that for years in its more modern sets, so it is nice to see Panini do the same thing.
Of the four non-Chronicle cards I pulled, two were from Donruss baseball, one was from the Absolute brand and the fourth was from Prizm. Other brands I’ve seen pulled have Gold Standard and Spectra designs.
Panini Chronicles takes a different kind of approach, one that is less visual. The design is simple and consistent, and at $19.99, a collector is basically paying a dollar a card. But then again, that’s the cost for a daily newspaper in many cities, too.