Panini has revealed what caused dozens of Downtown short print inserts to be included in several cases of 2023 Optic FOTL Football. The sports collectibles company says a manufacturing error was to blame.
UPDATE: On Donruss Optic “Downtown”
Earlier this week we became aware of a manufacturing issue with First Off The Line (FOTL) Donruss Football Optic & a collation issue related to the Downtown insert.
After conducting a 72 hour onsite audit at a new print manufacturer, we…
— Panini America (@PaniniAmerica) August 2, 2024
Earlier this week, breakers were showing off an incredible number of Downtown cards they pulled during a single case break. It first started when Backyard Breaks hit 25 Downtown cards. Several other breakers showed off their “God” cases they opened for breaks, including LilPullman who hit a staggering 55 Downtown cards.
According to The Collectibles Guru, The Hobby House had 25 and 26 in a span of two cases. SZN Sports Cards, Elite Rips, 238 Cards, and City Breaks pulled 25, while We The Hobby hit 24.
???? BREAKING NEWS ????
Since yesterday’s release of Panini Optic FOTL, there have been AT LEAST eight breakers that have pulled 24+ Downtowns out of one case each. Downtowns are typically a “case hit”, and are one to a case.
Number of Downtowns pulled per breaker:… pic.twitter.com/97xOmS7WNN
— The Collectibles Guru (@ericwhiteback) July 31, 2024
All of a sudden, Downtown cards — which are only supposed to be one per case — were flooding the market.
After realizing the collation issue, Panini conducted a 72-hour audit at its new print manufacturer. That’s when, the company says, it was revealed an error during manufacturing caused the problem.
“The audit revealed that this issue was isolated effecting a small number of FOTL cases where extra content was included in some cases – but there was no shortage of any content in the FOTL boxes sold,” Panini said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Panini adds that the manufacturing and packout of the rest of Donruss Optic Football was normal and unaffected.