2012/13 Panini Prizm Basketball Box Break Recap And Review

Often new releases require a year or two to work out the kinks. 2012/13 Panini Prizm Basketball is one of those rare releases that gets it right the first time out the gate.  With a simple configuration and low number of inserts, all that is left is to concentrate on the base cards, which in this case are spectacular. It is difficult to look at these stunning cards and find fault. The truth is, even without the Prizm parallels, this set of cards works on it’s own merit. But add the soaring secondary market values of the Gold Border cards and you have the makings of one the best card releases of the year, Basketball or any other sport.

Though on the high end of the category from a cost standpoint, we classify Panini Prizm as trading cards.  Each box contains 20 - 6 card packs with a promise of 2 autographs, 2 Prizms and 2 Inserts in every box.

Here are some of the cards we pulled.

 Base Set

 Blake Griffin, front and back

 Derrick Rose, Dirk Nowitzki, Kevin Durant

 Patrick Ewing, Jerry West, Dennis Rodman

 Anthony Davis, Bradley Beal, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist

Prizm Parallels

 Ray Allen, Jason Thompson, Manu Ginobili

Inserts

Downtown Bound

 Kobe Bryant

Finalists

 LeBron James

USA Basketball Team

Kobe Bryant

This year in all of the Panini Basketball releases there will be a 5 card bonus pack top loaded in each box.  All cards will be part of the Kobe Bryant Anthology and cover his entire career with the Lakers. Here are the cards from our pack.

 Card 2, front and back, Card 124

 Card 60, Card 190, Card 112

The Hits

 Kim English Auto, Austin Rivers Auto

Overall Look

Pictures of these base cards just don’t do them justice.  Te cards appear to be debossed and etched on the front without any indication of that on the surface or the backs of these cards.  Whether this is accomplished by clear coating the surface or through clever shading makes no difference to the collector because either way the end product is stunning.

Quality and Variety of Players

The 300 player base set offers a really good mix of current and retired players. 100 selected players for autographs and 4 insert sets that range from 12 cards to 38, all the makings for a tight, complete checklist.  Even the green border cards found in retail are doing well.

Do the hits hold up?

Plenty of veteran, rookie and retired stars autos will make most collectors very happy.  The hobby exclusive Gold border parallels #/10 have to be considered hits too with Kyrie Irving version going for about $3,600 on the secondary market.

Will you want to collect them all?

Yes... yes you will.  And as a side note just incase the folks at Panini see this review. PLEASE do not play with the configuration of this product in the future.  Yes there is room to add Black 1/1s, but that is it.

Rating 

5 out of 5

2012/13 Panini Prizm Basketball obtains perfection through its simplicity.



Review box provided by Panini