A Panini tradition for several years now, the Limited brand continues in the hockey arena with its usual one pack per box and multiple hits per pack formula. It’s that quick hit that many collectors enjoy breaking into every season to see what they can pull. In this shortened hockey season without new rookies, it is one of those products that may be your only hockey break of the season. So let’s get down to it and see what we pulled in our box of Panini Limited hockey for 2012-13.
Design: 
I actually REALLY like the design aspects in this product, except for one thing, the manufactured patch autographs. I was going to give this 4 1/2, but I had to knock it down because of two manu-patch autographed cards. One of them, the autograph already has some pen bleed on it which is disappointing and one of the main reasons I don’t care for that style of card creation. Other than that, the base designs look great with the color photo of the player and the sepia background. The inserts are solid as well and the other hit look good too. Great design work, but I just hate manu-patches.
Checklist:
To me, there is a benefit of not having many rookies in the sets this year and that is you can find more veteran content. That has resulted in a pretty decent box we received of this product. Tyson Barrie is a solid defenseman prospect, so that isn’t too shabby. But the highlights are a Hall of Famer game used piece and a future Hall of Famer autograph. One rookie hit, one current veteran hit, and one legend hit. Panini does well mixing in all of these into their product run and it was cool seeing it all come together in one box of a product that usually has quite a few rookie hits. Then again, no new rookies either like Yak, and it’s kinda disappointing. But blame the NHLPA!
Value:
I believe the box originally retailed at $100 like the typical Limited products, but right now this one is currently sitting at $82 over at DA Card World. Not bad price at all for this product and what I would love to see the product hit the streets at. Panini has eliminated its MAPP policy, so maybe we’ll start seeing better opening value the first few weeks. But as I stated in the checklist area, we received some pretty decent cards in our box with Iginla, Fuhr, and a solid prospect. Overall, I think this box held up its end of the bargain. Others have been worse, but I’ve seen better too. Limited is risky like that.
Overall:
Overall. A solid four stars. This isn’t your typical four star review as Limited has shown many positives this year. Next year will be interesting though with the double rookie class, but I’m enjoying the product this year for what it is. The design is well done, but I still don’t like those manu-patch autographs. At least Panini has limited their use across the board and you only really see them in two products (Dominion). The checklist is good for this season and really is a testament to what I believe rookies have done to the hobby. Watering down boxes with rookies has been a problem, but this box shows the good of a variety of players. Which not only improves the breaking experience, but adds some better immediate value. We all aren’t prospectors or care for waiting out rookies, so this is a nice change of pace.
Once again, a thank you goes out to Panini America for providing this product to review. You can find them online on their official site, blog, Facebook, and Twitter accounts.
You can find the full checklist of this product over at Cardboard Connection.
Subscribe to us on YouTube to see the live break of this product. And look below to see the cards we pulled from the break!
