2016-17 Panini Aficionado #41 Christian Pulisic

 

The 2016-17 Panini Aficionado Soccer product was released toward the later stages of Christian Pulisic’s rookie season on April 26, 2017.  The Aficionado brand was re-introduced by Panini in 2016-17 for soccer and basketball 20 years after it was used by Pinnacle to produce a premium 1996 baseball set.  Like its baseball predecessor in 1996, the soccer and basketball products each only had one-year set runs in 2016-17.  The 2016-17 Panini Aficionado Soccer product includes four total Christian Pulisic rookie-year cards: a base rookie card #41 (which has six parallels, including the base version), a Global Reach subset card #184 (which has five parallels, including the base version), a Craftworks insert card (which has no parallel versions), and a First Impressions autographed insert card (which has four parallels, including the base version).  The base cards in the set mimic the design of the base cards in the 1996 Pinnacle Aficionado baseball set, and the 40-card Global Reach subset similarly mimics the 10-card Global Reach subset in its 1996 predecessor.

 

The 2016-17 Panini Aficionado Soccer product was only issued in hobby boxes that each included one serial numbered autograph card per box.  Thus, we can sum all these serial numbers and conclude there are 16,660 total autograph cards and the same number of boxes produced, allowing us to use pull rates to calculate print runs of each card.

 

The 2016-17 Panini Aficionado #41Christian Pulisic rookie card is not a short print like his 2016-17 Donruss or 2016-17 Panini Select cards and thus is not as rare as those cards, but with only 6,220 copies of the 2016-17 Panini Aficionado #41 Christian Pulisic base card produced by our calculations it is still far rarer than prominent rookie cards from other sports, and most of its parallels are quite rare.  

 

To determine the print runs of the non-serial numbered cards, we used the production run of 16,660 boxes mentioned above along with our experienced pull rates as follows: the base cards are pulled with a rate of approximately 56 non-Global Reach base cards per box.  If we multiply that by the 16,660 boxes, we get 932,960 total cards.  We can then divide that by the base set size of 150 non-Global Reach cards and determine there are an estimated 6,220 base copies of the 2016-17 Panini Aficionado #41 Christian Pulisic rookie card.  The parallel versions of the base version cards, meanwhile, are pulled at a rate of ten per box (these ten per box include the serially numbered Artist’s Proof parallels and the First Kick parallel, in addition to the regular Artist’s Proof base parallels) for a total production of 166,600 non-base, non-Global Reach parallel cards.  This yields 1,111 total parallels of each card including the serially numbered parallels and First Kick parallels.  When we subtract the /99, /49, /1 parallels and nine First Kick parallels, this means there are only a total of 953 base Artist’s Proof parallel cards of the 2016-17 Panini Aficionado #41 Christian Pulisic rookie card.

 

With respect to the First Kick parallels: It is widely stated in eBay listings and elsewhere that First Kick parallels are a “case hit” – meaning each case yields only a single First Kick parallel.  With a 150-card base set (note the Global Reach subset does not have First Kick parallels), it requires opening 150 cases to obtain a single 2016-17 Panini Aficionado #41 Christian Pulisic First Kick parallel, and also means there only are either nine or ten 2016-17 Panini Aficionado #41 Christian Pulisic First Kick parallels in existence.  We believe the number is likely only nine, meaning the First Kick parallel cards are actually pulled at a rate of.9725 cards per case rather than 1.0 per case (meaning 39 cases in the world won’t have one).  We do acknowledge there could be ten copies of each First Kick parallel in the world, but do not believe that is the case as it would require 111 cases to contain two First Kick cards and we have not seen convincing evidence of this occurring.  A nine-card Panini Aficionado First Kick population also would be consistent with our estimated nine-card print run of other unnumbered Panini grail parallel Christian Pulisic rookie cards, such as the Donruss Swirlorama (and the Revolution Galactic version if the original stated odds of Galactic parallels were followed, though we believe Panini subsequently enlarged the print run of Galactic cards).

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That said, we have opened a limited amount of this product relative to other Pulisic rookie products so again do acknowledge it is possible that there are ten Christian Pulisic First Kick parallels in existence.  We also acknowledge our average 56 non-Global Reach base cards per box could vary slightly, but believe any variance would be minimal.

 

The three serial numbered 2016-17 Panini Aficionado #41 Christian Pulisic Artist’s Proof parallel cards are the Red /99, Bronze /49 and Gold 1/1.  It is worth noting that several grading platforms have labeled the Red /99 parallels of this card as “Purple,” which is understandable because the Red parallels do actually look closer to a purple color than red color. 

In summary, here is a table showing all six versions of the Panini Aficionado #41 Christian Pulisic rookie card and what we believe to be the full print runs of each, from least rare to most rare: