Crown Royale 11/12: 2 Pack Break

Crown Royale was the most original product of last year. It was also one of the best selling products and it's prices quickly increased, with the result being that I picked up only a few packs before the prices flew out of my comfort range. This last week the 11/12 product was released and I decided to pick up 2 packs now. 

While I thought highly of last year's product I was left unimpressed by how long Panini (the manufacturer of Crown Royale) took to fulfill redemptions as I had requested a Henrik Karlsson rookie auto back in Sept of last year and have yet to see my redemption arrive! I figured that the redemptions would be the principle problem with the 11/12 product too but had seen that there were significant changes to other Panini products such as Limited. Checking the web for Crown Royale pulls I saw that many of the Scratching the Surface Signatures had blatant errors in that the team logo was incorrect or the image of the player showed a different team jersey than what was presented in the jersey or patch swatch (eg. player wearing a Blues uniform but the jersey /patch was from the Kings). As there were problems such as this and that there had been changes from the previous year's product, I thought I'd begin Crown Royale with only a couple of packs.

Commons: I pulled 6 commons from the 2 packs I bought. The card design is very similar to last years and has the unique die-cut crown with embossed foil motif. The base cards look very sharp and are worth collecting by themselves. Each pack is stated to contain 3 common cards, one subset or parallel, and one auto or memorabilia.

Parallel: I pulled one Ruby parallel from the two packs. This parallel stands out from the base by the foil being red colored and unlike last year the cards are not serial numbered. As a medium priced product I feel very strongly that these cards should be serial numbered, especially since lesser priced products such as Artifacts has serial numbers on everything but their common base cards!

Rookies: I pulled 2 rookies from my 2 packs, with one being autographed. Neither of the cards are serial numbered, which is a big mistake and I find it cheap and lazy by Panini. Nonetheless, the cards do look very sharp and have an almost identical design to the base cards except that the foil is a light blue and there's a block of text instead of stats on the back. A big bonus for these cards is that the auto is prominently displayed and is on the card instead of being a sticker. A big drawback, however, is that the word 'rookie' should be found somewhere on the card!

Memorabilia: I pulled one triple jersey card from the Royal Lineage set. The card features a swatch from Hall, Eberle, and Coffey. This is a nice looking card besides the overly dark design which is not helped by the three jersey swatches being dark in color, however, they are different colors themselves. Again the back does not include a serial number.

Crown Royale again delivers an outstanding product that delivers exactly what you expect for the money you invest in it. The design is wonderfully unique, although can be a little too dark on some cards. The usage of foil is a great touch and I love the on-card autos. The triple jersey card is great because it features three players that make sense together (all play or played for the Oilers). My only complaint is that NONE of the cards were serial numbered. This should never be the case for a medium to high priced product, especially when you are pulling autos, rookies, and memorabilia cards. From checking out other cards on the net it seems that only cards with patches were serial numbered, which is a big let down.

Second Box of Score 2011/12

A few days ago I picked up second box of Score 11/12. The first box revealed an autographed rookie and a short printed rookie, along with a stack of nice looking base, glossy parallel, and subset cards. Score is one of the most affordable products in the realm of hockey cards and offers some good value. This second box left me scratching my head and was the opposite of what the first box offered.

The biggest problem with the second box was that I was left with a mountain of doubles. The product's base set includes 500 cards and an additional 50 rookies. A second box for a product with such a big base set should never leave you with a mountain of duplicates, but Score 11/12 did. Additionally, the second box even had duplicates within it -roughly 6 duplicate base cards and 1 duplicate rookie card. I really do not like finding duplicates within one box, let alone finding a mountain of duplicates for cards I busted from just one box previously! In the case of the rookies, I found a total of 17 rookies in the second box. Sixteen of these cards were duplicates from what I had previously pulled! This demonstrates poor random placement of cards in Score boxes. Also, I found 2 duplicate rookies in the second box itself. You should never find duplicate rookies in the same box, and I had never had this happen in last year's Score product. Overall I am not impressed with Score after busting this box!

Word glossy not included around #.

Upon looking at the glossy cards I pulled from the second box I noticed that not all of the cards said glossy on the back. Glossy cards from the 11/12 Score product should have the word glossy above and below the card number on the back, along with the front actually being glossy. I noticed that all of the Boston Bruins cards had the glossy front but did not have the word glossy on the back. I searched various web sites to see if this was a known error or perhaps a variant short print, but thus far I have not come across anything about this, except for a message board on Beckett cards where people think it is a misprint and seems to have occurred to all the glossy Boston cards.. It would seem that this is an error that occurred on all the Bruins' glossy cards. To me, this is a sign of poor quality.

I picked up roughly the same number of subset cards in the second box, expect did not find any NHL Shield Die-Cuts or First Goal Cards. I believe the Shield cards are not found in every box, much like the snow-dome of last year's product. However, I did find a Score B subset card which I believe falls one per every other box like the Shield cards. Score B is a nice looking card with a black and white photo of Brodeur on the front and a small blurb about him on the back, however I have no idea why this subset is called Score B. It seems pretty random. It seems even more out of place considering that all the other subsets have themes that are logical to what is shown on the card, for instance Making an Entrance depicts how marquee players are shown coming onto the ice prior to a home game.

Sateri Front

Sateri Back: # should be at top left.

The best card from the second box of Score was a short-printed Harri Sateri rookie card. This short print appears exactly the same as the other rookie cards but the number on the back is missing. According to various web sites, this is a purposeful error by Panini and were short printed to somewhere under 100. While it's nice to pull a short printed rookie, I'd much rather have it be stamped with a serial number, marked with a higher number like the Landeskog I pulled earlier, or have a completely different look to it (foil trim or different graphics).

Despite pulling a short printed rookie I am very disappointed with this second box of Score. The only saving grace is that the product is so cheap that I can afford to take another chance on it.

Upper-Deck Artifacts 11/12: 4 Pack Break

Continuing my thread of boxing day box and pack break extravaganza is the rundown of what came out of 4 packs of Artifacts 11/12. This is hands-down THE best product so far of the 11/12 season. The packs can be a little expensive at $10 each but there is a guaranteed hit in each one! This guarantee is included in all the Artifacts products from previous years except the 11/12 product includes the biggest and most numerous hits!

Two of the four packs had common hits, which I refer to the subset base cards as. These cards are broken into two groups, Stars and Hockey Legends. Both of these sets are serial numbered out of 999 and continue the base card numbering. These sets are getting tired as they have been included in each year Artifacts has been produced, but it is fun to see which current NHL star will be included for that year. Regardless, I pulled one Star and one Legend from the packs. Thankfully the other two packs provided a much bigger jaw dropping experience!

The first big hit was an Artifacts Tundra Trios card, numbered 148 of 149 that featured three jersey swatches. The jerseys came from Subban, Price, and Plekanec of the Montreal Canadiens and features two red and one white swatch. I loved that more than one color was found in the jerseys and loved it even more that the card featured some of my favorite players from one of my favorite teams! Awesome jaw dropping moment!

The fourth hit of the packs was huge! This hit was of a jersey and patch base parallel numbered 42 out of 65! The card is of Patrice Bergeron, and yes I know it is sacrilege to like both Boston and Montreal. Nonetheless, the patch is beautiful with three breaks, featuring a large yellow chunk and a smaller black and white area along with a second tiny black piece in the corner. The jersey is lackluster as it is solid white but who cares when the patch is this prominent!

Striking two big hits like the Montreal Trios jersey and Bergeron patch /jersey cards are why I will keep going back to this season's Artifacts product! Just awesome stuff!

Upper-Deck Series I Hockey: 2011/12

Upper-Deck series I & II hockey are perhaps the best sets available for this sport. It is an affordable product where the base set is easy to build and rookies and subsets add an element of chase, not to mention some very attractive case breaks. While this is traditionally a great product, it has become stagnant over the years and UD has addressed this by offering three types of parallel cards, more types of case breaks, and overhauled the Hockey Heroes subset which is a mainstay of this product. On all of these revamped fronts the 2011/12 product has hit a bulls-eye, however the base cards are perhaps the most poorly designed ever.

The other day I picked up 6 packs of UD srs I. My superstition, which is shared by many card collectors, is that I always grab the last few packs in a box. Again, this was a case where I wasn't disappointed!

Base: As per usual with UD srs products, we have here a 200 base card set, with another 200 base card set tacked on with the srs II. The base cards feature a few of the key players from each team and nothing else too fantastic. This year's base cards are no exception, but for perhaps some of the best photos I have ever seen in this product: loved how Getzlaf is turned into a pretzel in his photo! My criticism for this year's base set is that the front design is very bland, with an uninspired silver outline puck shaped area that presents the player's name at the bottom. The graphics around this puck shape are also very bland and blend into background, which does feature a great photo that is not obscured by the graphics or text. The other weak note is that the backs of the cards have little to no colour, making them again very bland. The text stands out well and even features french translations. The worst part of the backs is that there is a massive negative space between the stats and blurb about the player. This negative space is non-existent on players who have been in the league for more than 8 or so years, but on sophomore players this space is massive! I don't know if UD didn't have enough to say about each player or if someone was too lazy to move the text up a centimeter to match where the stats ended. Either way, I greatly disliked the look of the base cards.

Hockey Heroes: I pulled one of the Hockey Heroes cards and they look superb! For series I, the subset features the great players of the 1950's, and here I found a Bobby Hull card. I love the graphics and the whole concept of this subset! This is a must collect set for sure.

UD Exclusives: I pulled on parallel card from the 6 packs. These parallels are numbered out of 100 and fall roughly one per box. I didn't find a great parallel card (Zidlicky), but it was still nice to pull one. On the side of criticizing the base cards, this parallel base differs from the regular base only in the addition of the gold foil, numbering, and statement that it is a parallel card. Again, the design is weak and the gold foil does little to improve it.

UD Game Jersey: While not a favourite player, Ilya Kovalchuk is a star player and I was delighted to pull it! The jersey card is pretty much the same as every year except that the design is different. The design differs in the geometric patterns that appear behind the player's photo and in the shape of the jersey window. As per usual, these memorabilia cards are not numbered, but do look pretty sharp. On average these cards fall 2 per box.

Young Guns UD Canvas: I pulled a second short print but un-numbered parallel. This time it was of a rookie card instead of the regular base. The card has a textured front, similar to a canvas, and is printed on thicker stock. The design is also slightly altered from the regular edition rookie cards. This fall one per 2 or so boxes, so I was definitely lucky to pull one of these.

Overall UD srs I is a fun-as-expected product to break. I definitely lucked out on the cards I pulled, and will be returning to this product shortly. I love the price point and the canvas cards are very cool looking; perhaps even better than last year's retro rookie cards. The only down fall of this product is that the base cards have a horrible design, but the rookie and subset cards are what most people collect this product and I am really no different. This is a sweet if slightly soggy pickle of a product!