Certified 10/11: 3 Pack Break

Certified is a product of Panini's and was one of their first products in the re-entry to the world of Hockey cards. As with many new products I like to try a few packs to gauge if I'd like it, especially since this was one of the initial products by Panini. Panini's Score was a home run in my opinion for it's incredibly low price, nice retro design, and hard-to-find hits. Crown Royale, discussed previously, is also a product by Panini and was an excellent product despite the high price tag. Certified bucks the trend of the Crown and Score products in that it is an absolutely horrid product, except (oddly) the base cards.

What I got:

Front of base cards

Back of one base card

Base: The base cards have great photographs with an eye-catching shimmer and foil to them. The cards are not serial numbered, but look incredibly sharp and stand out against any of the other base cards produced by UD or Panini this year. The back of the base cards is regular card stock with a somewhat lackluster design that still manages to compliment the fronts. The base cards are almost worth collecting by themselves.

Back of Champions card.

Front of Champions card.

Non-Material or Auto Subset: I pulled one Certified Champions card, numbered out of 500; this was the hit from one pack. The card has a similar style to the base cards and features images of Corey Perry & the Anaheim Ducks from when they won the Stanley Cup a few years back. The card looks OK but I've never been a huge fan of these types of subset cards, where events are highlighted from previous years of the NHL. However, at least it's not highlighting something completely random but instead showcases Stanely Cup winning teams, regardless of how tired that theme is in the world of hockey cards. In contrast, the In Harm's Way subset from Crown Royale is interesting for it showcases goaltenders being in physical conflict with other players, which is a different idea for hockey cards (however, the NHL & NHLPA prohibit sport cards from depicting photographs of fights so this Crown subset is treading a fine line).

Notice the big negative space 

around fabric.

Back of Varlamov card.

Material: I pulled one Fabric o the Game card and this is where much of my disappointment resides. The card features a moderate sized square red jersey swatch from Semyon Varlamov, with a serial number of 250 on the back. Varlamov is not a bad player to pull, but the card's design is incredibly boring. The photo of Vaarlamov is dark and placed on top an equally dark background, making the photo disappear. The design itself is erratic as it appears to represent part of a jersey (?), with a long tag stretching down one side in which the jersey swatch is located. The tag is long enough to accommodate more than one jersey swatch, which is the idea as there are different levels of the jersey cards (eg. 1 or more jersey swatches or patches). This is a very lazy design that leaves a lot of unused space on the card around the jersey swatch, which is also a very lightly colored area that makes the card unbalanced as the player's photo is dark. Furthermore, I prefer to see the serial numbers on the front, as this is part of the key attraction to the card, material or auto + rarity + player photograph = a good card!

Notice the poor quality punch of letters.

Back of Toews card.

Moving on. The second material card I pulled was a Fabric of the Game Jonathan Toews three piece jersey. The card is numbered out of 25 (again printed on the back side) and has the identical design to the previously mentioned Fabric of the Game. It appears that three different parts of the uniform /jersey were used for this card, and the fabrics are inserted below a cutout of the letters NHL. All the previous negative comments from before apply to this card plus with one additional flaw. This flaw is that the letters NHL are cut out incredibly poorly, with jagged pieces sticking out along the margins of each letter as though this was done by a child. Such poor quality can be glossed over on cheaper products, but not one where each pack runs you close to $15 and especially since a card numbered out of 25 would suggest this would be one of the better cards in the set.

This is a really poor product mainly due to the quality and design behind its material cards. Additionally, that one of the hits was a subset card numbered out of 500 leaves you wanting a lot more when you plopped $15 down for that pack. For that price the subset card should be on top of a jersey or lower numbered card, however this argument can apply to many other products such as Artifacts. Overall I would not buy this product again and I regard this as one of if not THE worst product of the 10/11 season. I rate this product as one soggy, half molded over sour pickle.