Panini finally gives us soccer card collectors a premium set for Copa America with the introduction of 2024 Panini Prizm Copa America. 2024 Prizm Copa America comes at a great time as there are a couple of rookies in the set that won’t have many rookie cards. The tournament was won by Argentina so that shouldn’t hurt either as it gives the Lionel Messi cards some significance. I wouldn’t expect a 2022 Prizm World Cup type of effect, but it definitely can’t hurt. Let’s see what you can expect if you are getting involved.
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2024 Panini Prizm Copa America Breakdown
Checklist – HERE
Box Makeup – Hobby (Search On Ebay) – 12 cards per pack, 12 packs per box. 1 Auto, 4 numbered parallels, 8 other parallels, 12 Inserts.
First Off The Line (FOTL) – 1 Blue Shimmer base and auto
Mega (Search On Ebay) – 1 numbered Pulsar, 1 Elephant and 1 Auto per case which is 20 boxes
Retail Blaster (Search On Ebay) – Unknown but there are numbered Wave parallels, case hits and autos.
Print Run – ~2000 Hobby Cases, ~1600 FOTL boxes, ~53,000 Mega Boxes, Blaster unknown
Soccer Cards HQ Review – 2024 Prizm Copa America is releasing at the same time as 2023-24 Topps Chrome UEFA and you will notice the huge difference in hobby box print runs in the products. If this would have been a hobby only product it would’ve been like the good days of the soccer card hobby when print runs weren’t out of control. There are 1006 numbered base cards of each which isn’t a low number by any means, but it’s a fraction of Topps releases.
Endrick (Search On Ebay) and Kendry Paez (Search On Ebay) are going to be the big rookie chases in 2024 Prizm Copa America. Panini did get Endrick in a couple of other products for his club team Palmeiras with the main ones being in 2023-24 Donruss. This is the first pack pulled cards for Kendry Paez. Since both are headed to Europe next year they will likely get Topps rookie cards as well. Endrick does have autos in the product while Paez does not. Both players get a Color Wheel and Manga while Endrick gets a National Pride as well. Neither unfortunately get a National Landmarks.
National Landmarks (Search On Ebay), Manga (Search On Ebay) and National Pride (Search On Ebay) are all case hits while Color Wheels (Search On Ebay) fall 1 in every 10 cases. I am not a fan of Panini giving Lionel Messi another National Landmarks in here to go along with his 2018 World Cup Prizm National Landmarks. After they didn’t use any of the same players in 2022 Prizm World Cup that they used in 2018 it seemed like those could be a one and done thing. In these times having iconic cards be rare is a good thing so I am a bit disappointed in their decision. Unlike in the World Cup products where every nation gets a card there are only 5 nations represented in the National Landmarks checklist of 9 cards. This also means that there are going to be a lot of each which takes a way some of the appeal. The reason there are going to be a lot is because they come in every box SKU not just hobby if the sell sheet is right. That is the case for all the case hits so you can even hit them in blasters. I don’t know how often the case hits will fall in the non hobby boxes but from hobby alone there will be over 200 of each National Landmarks and National Pride, 100 Manga but only ~15 Color Wheel.
The auto checklist is pretty solid. It is highlighted by a dual auto of Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona (Search On Ebay). This is another card there was some speculation there would not be another one of to go with their 2022 National Treasures. The problem with sticker autos is that there can always be more and these manufacturers will do what it takes to sell product. There are other legends with autos including Pele, Ronaldo Nazario and Ronaldinho to name a few. While it’s unfortunate the market is flooded with autos of those players now, this product would’ve really struggled without their inclusion. As I mentioned there are Endrick autos (Search On Ebay) which along with Messi will be the main ones you are hoping to hit. If you are getting involved in Megas autos fall on average 1 per case.
The true color numbered parallels figure to be the ones that people want the most and they can only be found in hobby boxes. Panini did add a Stars and Stripes /24 parallel (Search On Ebay) to hobby as well. This is because the tournament was in America and the year was 2024 of course. This is similar to what they did with the Maroon /22 in 2022 World Cup Prizm. I expect these cards to be very popular for the US players but not so much for the others except maybe Panama who are a bit of a color match as well. There are no Choice boxes but Panini did find a way to get the animal print cards in. The Zebras fall in hobby, Elephant in Megas and Tiger in blasters. I know the Elephant are falling 1 per case in Megas so there should be less than 15 of each of those. There are also 4 1/1s of each base card with True Black in Hobby, Nebula in FOTL, Black Pulsar in Mega and Gold Wave in Blasters.
There seems to be a lot of excitement for 2024 Panini Prizm Copa America and deservedly so. It’s a unique product which is something we don’t get a lot of these days in the soccer card hobby. The hobby print run is very reasonable as well. I wish I knew exactly what the hobby box release price was going to be. The presales from the big distributors were around $400. then the FOTL Dutch auction sold out at $419 and as a result presale hobby box prices dropped to $350. I have seen presale prices as low as $292 on eBay. If the Panini hobby box release price is below $300 I think that is pretty fair. We know the Mega box presale is $55 and Blasters $30. I think at $300 hobby would be the way to go. The true color parallels always sell better than Pulsar and Waves plus the guaranteed auto. With the relative low hobby box run and the retail seemingly not being that low I could see hobby box prices creeping up which the retail now. If the hobby box prices start approaching $400 and Megas stay at $55 that could change I feel about the value proposition. The rate at which the case hits come out of retail will also be key so keep an eye on that.