2023 Mosaic Football Preview: Why It Might Be The Best 2023 Investment [Checklist Added]

Mosaic Football has always been less attractive than the big three of opti-chrome brands – Optic, Prizm and Select – but this might be the year that changes. Here’s our detailed look at Mosaic Football and why 2023 might be a different story for the relatively young product. 

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An introduction to 2023 Mosaic Football

Mosaic is releasing on September 20th at $450 dollars. Each box contains 10 packs of 15 cards, which should hold the following: 

• 2 Autographs 
• 15 Mosaic Parallels
• 5 Silvers
• 20 Inserts

One thing to like about this product is the amount of cards you get. While $450 is still a considerable amount of money, you have 150 cards (and chances) to pull something big that will offset the price tag. The autographs can be big, of course, but the Mosaic parallels and silvers can be equally valuable if you hit a nice rookie in a low-numbered parallel form. 

Why Mosaic Football 2023 could be special

Let’s not bury the lead here.

At the time of writing this, Mosaic 2023 is the only confirmed opti-chrome release from Panini and Panini and Fanatics are going back and forth with the NFLPA dispute. 

For products like Optic, Select and Prizm, which all tend to fall late in the year, there’s no guarantee that we will get those products for 2023 if Fanatics does go through with snatching away the NFLPA license. 

If that’s the case, Mosaic could become the only opti-chrome product of the year for this entire rookie class, and that would instantly make it 10x more desirable than it is right now.

That said, this is all speculation. Don’t overreact – just bear this possibility in mind. 

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Unpacking the 2023 Mosaic Football set 

Note: Because of the ongoing NFLPA situation, we don’t have as many set details as we’re used to at this point. That said, after putting together the info floating around from various sources, here’s what we expect.

Mosaic is one of the best-looking products we’ve seen for 2023 (and, to be fair, it always looks good). Here are some of the cards you can expect to see.

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Parallels and Inserts

This year’s Mosaic has the same numbering system with slightly different colors. 

• Silver
• Mosaic Red
• Mosaic Blue 
• Mosaic Purple 
• Mosaic White 
• Mosaic Tesselation 
• Mosaic Gold 
• Mosiac Black 

Hobby inserts include Men of Mastery, Splash, Straight Fire and Swagger.

Possible autograph sets could include  In-Focus Signatures, Rookie Autographs and Showtime Signatures.

Should you invest in Mosaic Football?

For the sake of this segment, we’re going to assume Panini makes it through the year doing business as unusual with a wide variety of NFL offerings. That’s a lot more easy to predict than any alternative.

With that said, here’s the question: Is the 2023 Mosaic Football Collection worth the dice roll? 

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Investing in a sealed box of 2

Is it a good hold as a sealed product? 

Here’s the value of the last few years based on recent sales (9/8/23)

• 2023: $450
• 2022: $425
• 2021: $420
• 2020: $875

2020 is the first year of Mosaic and also the most expensive, but that value is propped up by Hurts, Burrow, Allen and Tua rookies. 

Typically 2022 is the lowest-priced box, too, largely because the weaker rookie class. (This makes me think that 2021 Mosaic, with Trevor Lawrence rookies, might be the best investment on the list).

So, as usual, the cost of the box basically boils down to how this rookie class works out. I’d guess that the 2023 class is closest to the 2021 class — better than 2022 and worse than 2023 – and if that’s the case, you can probably grab some mosaic boxes for less than $450 after the price settles a bit. 

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Investing in Mosaic Football singles

In the case of Luminance, there are limited singles that warrant long-term investment and, again, so much of this depends on how the NFLPA situation settles. 

If you’re looking to invest in singles, the best cards would be numbered mosaic parallels and rookie autographs. If you can buy raw and get them graded, bonus points for that.

If the other opt-ichrome products release this year, Mosaic has a fairly low ceiling of potential. But if not, these could ultimately be some of the biggest chase cards on the market. 

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Bottom line: Rip, Hold or Pass?

Mosaic Football is a middle-of-the-road brand with the potential to be more than that if it becomes the defacto optichrome product of 2023. It won’t be a terrible hold, even at release price, but it could be a great one.

What do you think of this product? What will it be worth in 5 years? Let us know on Twitter @card_lines.

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Full 2023 Mosaic Football checklist

See a full checklist of 2023 Mosaic Football checklist, fully searchable and customizable:

2023 Mosaic Football