Rank these brands, post 2018: Select, Optic, Mosaic

[tjforce]

Interested to see how people view these brands from 2019 until now.

Each brand has it's pluses and minuses, but as a collector/investor/whatever it is you do, how do you rank these brands? (not rip ROI, but the actual cards themselves).

Disregard the early years of these 3. Looking at year once Mosaic was it's stand alone brand sold similar to the other 2.

[oldgoldy97]

Select
Mosaic
Optic

Optic has gotten really bad. The inserts are trash filler. It’s either a numbered card or a rookie auto. Mosaic isn’t too much better, but it’s at least not a chromed up version of something like Optic is. Select is still somewhat fun even if watered down with retail.

[KhalDrogo]

They’re all equally bad. Overproduced, 100 different parallels, no creativity. Mosaic was always unnecessary, but it’s sad what they’ve done to Select and Optic.

[yiguiri2002]

I take Optic as the best of them. Then Select and Mosaic.

I've ripped Mosaic the most but mostly because it's the most affordable one. They tried to make it the low end Chrome release (which makes sense because the designs are goofy and look cheap) but they overprinted everything so it's just another cheap release now.

They ruined Select with the retail release, prior to that I would've said Select. It still looked great until recently but the blue base just looks bad.

Optic has actually improved IMO, I'll take the last couple of year's design over the first 2. It's simple, clean and doesn't try to do too much. But it just gets lost with so many Chrome release. Get rid of Select retail and Mosaic and Optic would be great, even with overproduction and so many parallels.

[mc1]

Optic, easily.

Mosaic is wannabe Prizm and Select Ive always had a special disdain for.

[Spacemanspif]

Optic head and shoulders above the other two. Clean bordered design with the iconic RR, sure overproduction hurts but that would only affect ROI which is not supposed to be part of the decision. Also the only autos of the 3 that I actually collect and want to collect.

Select 2nd, even though I like to collect paralleled I’ve never been a fan of the 3 versions/levels of rookies. The only thing that I liked out of all of Select was the silver Courtside, things like tie die and gold/bronze checkerboards didn’t do it for me (why not just keep it gold?) The blue retail is extremely yuck. Horizontal Autos are awkward

Mosaic is way too much background, cropping out game action and crowds is more of a gimmick for inserts than a set design. Again with the multiple versions for RCs. Never owned an auto, I think they’re all sticker anyways

[Ericc5Bears]

Select is really tough to rank because the courtsides are sick but all the other levels are pretty garbage. I actually think Mosaic is slept on, nebulas look so sick and it's one of the few panini sets that actually has solid QC, very rare that you pull a card from mosaic that wouldn't grade at least a 9. Literally 90+% of optic and select cards I bought this year had surface dimples all over the place. I'd probably go:

Mosaic
Optic
Select

[SoccerRCs]

Select
Optic
Mosaic

Mosaic is so gimmicky looking IMO.

[hawkfandan]

Mosaic is a mess, but I'm a sucker for some of the designs (i.e. Genesis and Peacock), particularly if they color match. Honeycomb on the football side are also very nice.

[mc1]

Select is really tough to rank because the courtsides are sick but all the other levels are pretty garbage. I actually think Mosaic is slept on, nebulas look so sick and it's one of the few panini sets that actually has solid QC, very rare that you pull a card from mosaic that wouldn't grade at least a 9. Literally 90+% of optic and select cards I bought this year had surface dimples all over the place. I'd probably go:

Mosaic Nebula? Epic set for sure. Iconic almost.:)!

I actually do really like the white /25 from mosaic.

[cardsin47]

I’m surprised Select is lagging behind the way it is……. but the beauty of Polls is ( once enough respond :coffee: ) ~ they don’t lie

[Nomad]

I don't understand this comparison exercise. Select, Mosaic, and Prizm, that's one thing. Chromed basic set.

Optic = Donruss or Contenders chrome-out versions. Those are valid to compare. Kind of like Bowman base and Chrome.

Then there are the RPA chase sets, such as NT and Flawless.

And then the sets that actually look good.

[mvp]

Optic is still one of my favourites period. Give me a nice gold, blue, green, red, etc #'ed Rated Rookie over any of the equivalent parallels in the other brands mentioned.

[luke1014]

Optic
Mosaic
Select

Select is probably my least favorite Panini brand. It's medium tier product pretending to be a premium one.

[ninjacookies]

Select
Optic
Mosaic


Never bought into the Mosaic concept. The entire set is just too repetitive and uninspiring, and the inserts seem like leftover scrapped projects from their Hoops line.

I enjoy(ed) the 3 tiers in select with nice, on-card rookie autos...plus the die-cuts.

[Tallboy]

I picked Select. I don't feel passionate about it generally, but some of the designs have led to excellent cards.

https://sportscardinvestor.s3.amazonaws.com/prod/525_2_1-L

With Optic, I'd rave about the '18-19 design of Donruss (and thus Optic), but since then the overall design has been weaker and this makes me feel like there's no real point in a shinier version of it.

Still, I'm not sure if I'd put Mosaic ahead of Optic. Not an awful design process overall , but similar to Revolution, much depends on the specifics of that year's design and it's easy to feel like the player is just in an arbitrary void.

If I were just ranking '19-20's year, I'd put Mosaic over Donruss/Optic, but on average I think it'd still go D/O. So:

1. Select
2. Donruss/Optic
3. Mosaic

[bmf]

Select may be the most underrated product in existence. Some of the designs are truly spectacular.

[eastbayak]

Optic used to be way above Select on the list until it started coming out with all the crap variations (Choice, Fast Break, etc).

I view the products (Select and Optic) pretty comparable though I’d prefer owning low print-run hobby parallels from Optic (Gold Vinyl, Black, Gold, White Sparkle, Blue) than Select.

Mosaic is a distant third from the two.

P.S. Voted for Select because I like it more from an overall experience (Optic rips suck).

[blackbears86]

I’m surprised Select is lagging behind the way it is……. but the beauty of Polls is ( once enough respond :coffee: ) ~ they don’t lie


Up to 2018 select was pretty good. But now that they have it in retail, it's lost it's luster.

[ninjabum87]

The odd thing about almost all Panini brands is there are maybe one or two parallels I like and outside of those I really dgaf. I like Select fotl pulsars a lot and Mosaic white /25 quite a bit, but aside from those the rest are pretty bleh to me.

[h00perstar34]

Optic all day. Even the retail blasters have 1/1s and clean on card autos, which you can’t say for the other two.

Select a distant second and mosaic might as well toss in the landfill…

[TheGZA]

All I ever buy is retail so my rankings are based on that:

Optic
Select
Mosaic

Optic is tops for me, although this year's product is lacking....something, that makes me less enthusiastic about than in years past