The Franchise

Panini brought back another set in this years Score Hockey called The Franchise.  I don't remember these ever being in the hockey release at this level.  The Franchise subset had always been comprised of mostly all-star players and the main stars from each team.  This years set does have more of the same.  But Panini added a retro-themed Franchise set very similar to the design I remember from back in 1992.  The only difference was, that set was in baseball.  Here they are now...

 There was also an autographed version of these as well as a triple panel card with 3 autos.  But I'm not talking about baseball here.  Let's take a look at this years set.

These are the regular Franchise cards.  They are all horizontal oriented with a large team logo about the size of a POG (remember those?) and an action shot of the player.  Honestly for me these are not very appealing, kind of a bland design, and for the most part...boring.

But the retro-themed Franchise are a different story. 

This set is a 6 card set (they are all here) that was originally thought to only be in retail boxes but I pulled all of these out of hobby boxes.  There are also two checklists that are a much harder pull.  Each of those features three of the players together. There are redemption autographs on each of these that are numbered out of #/10 and are practically impossible to find.  I haven't seen any on the Bay yet but I'm sure they are out there and will fetch a hefty tag.

I think it's interesting that the Bobby Hull that I pulled isn't the same as the original preview release.  I wonder if the preview card is the autographed one?  Who knows?