What makes Score a great product is that it is very affordable and offers autograph /chase cards. Products with a similar price point, such as Victory, do not offer autograph cards nor as many subsets or parallels. A box of Score should cost around $30 and I'd recommend buying it early as last year's product has doubled in cost! The cost is why I picked it up during my boxing day shopping, as it added a bit of volume to my purchase while not depleting my bank account!
Score 11/12 boasts a 500 base card set and a further 50 rookies. In addition, there are another 20 rookie cards that are short-printed -not serial numbered. Beyond the base and rookie sets are 11 subsets to collect, all of which vary in rarity. As for the autographs, there are three different sets of autos! The common set is the autographed version of the base set, followed by the Hot Rookie signatures, the short-printed rookie signatures, and finally the Recollection Collection which is a small list of cards from the original 1990-91 Score set that have been autographed. None of the cards in Score are serial numbered, and the odds of finding the cards is not clearly laid out by Score, if mentioned at all. However, most of the information about rarity and checklists can be found on Panini's website or various blogs such as mine! Follow this link to find a comprehensive list of the Score 11/12 cards.
BASE: The base card design is not as attractive as last years. The front of the cards have a white boarder with red curved lines along the vertical sides and the player's name at the bottom. The problem is that the white boarders become lost in photos of hockey players that already are dominated by the absence of color. Allowing the image to fade out or to bleed past the boarder would have looked better. What doesn't help either is that the player's name also becomes lost in the image as each text color corresponds to that player's particular team. While colors like black and red work well, silver is completely lost; why would anyone think this was a good idea?! Also, the photos are fairly generic and rarely have well framed shots. Too many of the photos are taken at shoulder or eye level with the player's upper body being lost in the arena's crowd. Here, the image would be improved by blurring the background so that the player would take center stage. Score is out-shot by the Upper-Deck series one base cards! However, the Score product is less than half the price of UD and you do get what you pay for.
PARALLELS: Each pack of Score includes one parallel. These parallels are often the glossy variety, which has been improved upon from last year's product. The front of the cards are identical to the regular set except for it being glossy. In last year's product you could sometimes 'gloss' right over these parallels. New for this year, the glossy cards have the word glossy written around the card number on the back. Simple and effective. I also pulled one Gold Rush parallel, which is identical to the regular base set except for the card has a gold colored border on the front. Nothing too special and not exactly worth collecting; the glossy cards look much better. Gold Rush cards fall one per box.
SUBSETS: There are a ton of subsets in Score. There are two that can only be found in retail jumbo packs and another 9 in hobby packs. There are two die-cut subset cards that I think fall one per box (not one each). The design of the non-die-cut subset cards look OK and are nothing too special. They are printed on the same stock as the regular set and have a similar layout to the base set. Regardless, the cards emphasize important moments throughout the season, such as the first goals from the previous year's rookies, highlights from the Stanley Cup playoffs, or the fan affection and ticker-tape atmosphere when a player enters the arena. All of these cards are fun to look at and read the backs of, which is something too many subset cards forget about -fun! What's also fun is the die-cut card. I pulled a NHL Shield die-cut that features a silhouetted Nicklas Lidstrom with a NHL shield graphic cut out of the card's top. The card just looks cool and has a small blurb on the back that explains why Lidstrom is such a powerful force in the NHL -seven time Norris Trophy winner.
HOT ROOKIES: Perhaps the most attractive aspect of buying a box of Score is that you know you will walk away with a mitt full of rookies and one is likely to be a top draft pick! Score rookies do not tend to be highly valued because they are common but it is because they are so common that at least you can say that you have so-and-so's rookie card unlike other products (UD) where you might have to buy 10 boxes before you find that top rookie card! I pulled 17 regular rookies cards and one double (which is likely an error because I never found doubles in any boxes last year). The design of the rookies follows the same format as last years but adds a bit more drama. The player is silhouetted with thick design borders and bold text. The background behind the player is a water color pattern that can be easily created in Photoshop but nonetheless is used for good affect here. As I said before, it is rewarding to pull a known high-draft rookie in a box, and here I found a Cody Hodgson rookie.
I also pulled a short-printed and an autographed rookie. Short printed rookies are identical to the regular rookies. These cards are numbered 551 to 570, being the additional 20 cards to the regular rookie set. The one I pulled was of Gabriel Landeskog, someone definitely making an impact in the NHL. The autographed rookie was of Erik Condra and this card is from the regular set of rookies. The autograph is signed in blue ink over top a sticker. I am not a fan of sticker autos but I know they are cheaper to produce and hence more commonly used in cheaper products. Overall, my luck was definitely running high with picking up a sp and auto rookie in one box!
The verdict for Score 11/12 is that it is a certified sweet pickle of a winner. There are many short-comings with this set and there is a lot to improve upon. However, there are noticeable improvements over last year's product so it would seem this would be a product that will continually evolve and improve. The most important aspect of the Score product is it's price! At $30 a box, this is a very affordable set to build and it is a set that is not too large like the 800 card OPC sets that are very difficult to build and who's boxes cost roughly $70 a pop. I also really appreciate the number of subsets and the restrained amount of parallels. The inclusion of autographs and short prints also adds that extra layer of icing to this cake.
