Crown Royale 2010-11: 2 Packs

Crown Royale is one of my favorite products of the 2010-11 season, and definitely the best product yet produced by Paninini. This is one of my favorites because the design is excellent, the photos spot on, it has on-card autographs, produces two hits per reasonably priced pack, and the base cards (while not serial numbered) have die-cut and foil trimmed tops in the shape of a crown. Beautifully designed set.

Enough gushing. Awhile back I picked up two packs of Crown Royale (on two separate occasions). As I know I will receive two hits per pack (one material or auto and one serial numbered non mat /auto), I like to pick up one pack when I am buying individual packs of a cheaper product such as Upper Deck srs 1 or 2. This way I know I will have one pack when leaving the card store that will definitely have a great card. However, I have found I have much better luck pulling the big rookies and case breaks when purchasing say 8-10 packs of UD than I do buying a box.

The Hits:

In Harm's Way: This is a non-mat /auto subset card numbered out of 299. It is the first of this subset I have pulled, and it is also numbered 1 out of the set. The front of the card features a dynamic photo with very little flash compared to other cards in this product (flash being foil or die-cut). Nonetheless, this is a pretty neat concept for a subset where the back tells the story of one instance where the featured player was injured, or came into 'Harm's Way'. Not something you typically see on a sport card.

Regents: This is another non-mat /auto card but this time it is not a subset card but instead belongs to the set, fitting somewhere between the base cards and rookies. The card is numbered on the back to out of 499. Also on the back is one year of stats and small blurb about the featured player; in this case I pulled a Mario Lemieux. Regents is pretty much the same as the 'Legends' featured in Upper Deck products like Artifacts and O-Pee-Chee. Regardless, it is still fun to pull a classic player especially when it's Lemieux.

Rookies: I pulled a rookie in each of the 2 packs I had picked up. The first was of Robin Lehner of the Ottawa Senators. The auto is on card and signed with a blue marker. Really sharp looking as the background behind the auto is whitened while the rest o the card is fairly dark, making the auto really pop. The rookie cards have a low numbering (Lehner was 135/499) which is perfect for autographed cards, and it is a pet peeve of mine when autographed rookies are given high print runs as they were in SPA 10-11. The second rookie I pulled was of Brandon Yip of the Colorado Avalanche. The card was actually a redemption and was the first redemption I had pulled from any Paninini product. Going by UD standards, I figured I'd be waiting between 6 months and a year for the redemption but instead Paninini had that card in my hands within a month.


After another couple of packs, I am continued to be enthralled by the Crown Royale 2010-11 product. The cards look great in every aspect! Definitely a sweet pickle of a product that I will be reaching back into the jar for more of!