2012 Panini Prizm Football Box Break Recap And Review

2012 Panini Prizm Football follows in the footsteps of the widely sucessful 2012/13 Panini Prizm Basketball and does just as well.  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. As an added value, Panini added Black Border 1/1s to the Gold Border cards that soared in value on the secondary market for the Basketball release.  All of this adds up to one the best Football card releases of the year.

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, 3 regular Prizms , 1 red diecut Prizm and 5 Inserts in every box.

Here are some of the cards we pulled.

 Base Set

 Joe Flacco, front and back

 Ray Lewis, Peyton Manning, Ray Rice

 Eli Manning, J.J. Watt, Reggie Wayne

 Josh Freeman, Ed Reed Vernon Davis

Darren McFadden, Greg Jennings, Philip Rivers 

 Jared Allen, Von Miller, Troy Polamalu

Rookies

 Doug Martin, front and back

 Alfred Morris, Luke Kuechly, Michael Floyd

Inserts

 Ray Rice Brilliance. Ryan Tannehill Rookie Impact, Marshall Faulk Decade Dominance

 Prizm Parallels

 Brett Ellison Rookie Prizm, Terrance Ganaway Rokie Prizm

 Brett Favre Decade Dominance Prizm, Jon Beason Red Border Die-Cut Prizm

The Hits

Mohamed Sanu Autograph #?399 

Ryan Broyles Autograph Prizm Parallel #/99

Overall Look

Pictures of these base cards just don’t do them justice.  The 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 includes 200 veteran players and 100 rookies offering a tight, but complete checklist.

Do the hits hold up?

Plenty of good autos will make most collectors very happy.  But just as in Basketball, the gold and black border parallels have to be considered hits too due to their high value on the secondary market.

Will you want to collect them all?

Yes... yes you will.  And as a side note I asked the folks at Panini in my previous review. not to play with the configuration of the Prizm in the future with the possible exception of Black 1/1s and to their credit they have left well enough alone.

Rating

 5 out of 5

2012 Panini Prizm Foottball obtains perfection through its simplicity.