2016-17 Panini Black Gold Stars Medallions #S-CP Christian Pulisic

The 2016-17 European soccer season saw the first issuance of ultra -premium soccer products and the 2016-17 Panini Black Gold Soccer product, released on January 5, 2017, was one of this inaugural class of ultra-premium products; an ultra-premium-priced product that subsequently evolved into the Panini Obsidian brand after only a one-year run in soccer, which happened to be Christian Pulisic’s rookie year (though it had slightly longer multi-year runs in basketball and football).  At an original suggested retail price of $399.99 for a box that provided only eight total cards per box ($50.00 for each of the eight cards in the box, but a bargain considering the cost of an unopened box is roughly double the original price as of January 2026 with few available), the 2016-17 Panini Black Gold Soccer product provides Christian Pulisic’s rarest pack-based  base rookie card (which has five total parallels, including the base version), a Stars Medallions insert card (which has three total parallels, including the base) and an autographed card (which has four total parallels, including the base). ​

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The 2016-17 Panini Black Gold Soccer product was issued in hobby boxes only, which included two base cards, two serial numbered base cards, two insert cards and two autographed cards in each box.  Thus, we can sum all the serially numbered parallel cards and conclude there are 210 serially numbered parallels for each of the 162 base cards, which totals 34,020 total serially numbered parallels of the base cards.  At the pull rate of two per box there were 17,010 boxes produced, or 2,126 cases. 

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Based on the case breaks we witnessed of 2016-17 Panini Black Gold Soccer (which admittedly is a smaller sample size than other Pulisic rookie products), base-level Stars Medallions are pulled at a rate of one per box and there are a total of 41 different players featured in this insert set.  At one per box, 17,010 boxes will generate the same number of base-level Stars Medallion cards, which equates to 415 copies per player, meaning 415 copies of the 2016-17 Panini Black Gold Soccer Stars Medallions #S-CP Christian Pulisic exist.  In addition to the base version, this offering also provides a Holo Gold version /50 and a Black Gold 1/1 version. 

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One interesting fact that further illustrates the rarity of the 2016-17 Panini Black Gold Soccer #5 Christian Pulisic base rookie card is that its print run of only 210 copies is roughly half that of the 415 copies of the 2016-17 Panini Black Gold Soccer Stars Medallions #S-CP Christian Pulisic base insert card.  It is very unusual to find a base card with a lower print run than an insert, but that is the case with this product.

Here is a table summarizing the three versions of the 2016-17 Panini Black Gold Soccer Stars Medallions #S-CP Christian Pulisic insert card and print runs of each: