BOX BREAKS: 2011/12 Panini Limited

With Trevor Linden making it into yet another 2011/12 product, I thought I'd roll the dice on a box of Panini Limited hoping to land one of the coveted pieces of cardboard.

And if I didn't get any Linden goodies....maybe I could land some solid tradebait.

I don't think I got anything of the sort.

2011/12 Panini Limited

This is a mid-range product hovering around $100 a box. In it, you get one pack of seven cards. There's a guarantee of 3 autographs or memorabilia cards.

Fingers crossed.


The base cards are a definite improvement from last year. I like the simple design and the photos are nice. The regular base cards are numbered /299.

Nothing fantastic, but that was a 'known' going in.

By the way.....I'm leaving the third base card for the end - HINT.


The jersey card too is a nice upgrade from last year. The window for the material is better shaped and has a border. Simple, but way more effective.

This Subban card is /99. Not bad, but the white swatch all but throws this into the cheap trade box.


Pronger! This is the second nice Chris Pronger card I've landed in a month.

In December, I won a round of Panini Certified pack wars and got a great looking patch card /5. Great card.....not so great player.

This Limited 'Prime' patch is /25 and has a nice thick seam down the middle.

Now I just need to find a Pronger collector.


There are a lot of different insert sets in Limited. Some are nice, some are niche (that sounds rare).

And some have Linden in them. Awesome and not awesome at the same time.

The Retired Numbers set doesn't look as nice to me as last year, and I don't see this Bucyk being an overly-desirable catch (even if it is /199).


Pronger! Again!

At least he's on one of my favorite insert sets - The Stanley Cup.

Numbered /199, these cards have a shiny look to the front, almost like one of those cards where you peel off the top protective layer.

They don't scan well at all but are a very sharp looking card.


Now, there are these manufactured patch autograph cards of this season's rookie crop. Guys like Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Gabriel Landeskog and Mark Sheifele are the big grabs.

Anyone know who Jonathon Blum is?

Well, I got his auto /299.

Maybe I'll disassemble this one to see how they are made. That's more interesting to me that the actual player card itself.


So.....not such a great box break so far.

Well, there's hope. For I was lucky enough to see the name Trevor Linden inside my box of Limited.


And even though it's his regular base card /299, it was an exciting pull.

Sad how this simple base card becomes the 'bit hit' in the box.

So if you counted right....that's eight cards. Bonus! (sarcasm)

In all fairness, I saw some pretty nice cards come out of this product and I was doing everything possible not to feed the urge to buy a second box. I'm using that money to buy Linden singles from the set.

But there is some silver lining to this Limited cloud.

One of the other box breakers pulled a Daniel Sedin jersey card. And since he is a rabid Canucks hater and I'm 'the Canucks guy' he passed it over not expecting anything in return.

A much appreciated gesture.

In addition, another box breaker pulled the same Daniel Sedin...but the autograph card version. He really had no use for it and so we pulled off a nice quick trade (and I was actually able to add a much coveted Cup Raiser as well).

Here are the pair of Sedin cards.


The two-colored jersey is /25 and the auto is /49.

That pulled my poor box break into the world of average.

Still.....it was a lot of fun. And I'm looking forward to even more fun tracking down my Linden wants.