2010-11 Panini Luxury Suite Hockey
Product Review
2010-11 Luxury Suite Hockey Product Review
Reviewed By Doug Cataldo
Good: Loaded with hits (8 per box), several hard-signed autographs, new product line (though it borrows its name from a previous Pacific Trading Cards product that Panini just happens to own), a rookie card in every pack, including some extremely short-printed ones.
Bad: Rookies #'d to 899, missing Lemieux, Gretzky, Hull and other hockey Hall of Famers, and the box price is sporadic from dealer to dealer.
The Bottom Line: A welcome addition to the Panini family, Luxury Suite delivers a high-end hockey experience for collectors wanting more hockey memorabilia cards and a shot at some not-so-common autographs. Some collectors might not feel comfortable in this price range ($40-$50 per pack), but if you want the goods, you've got to pay the price.
Card Design:
A new product, Luxury Suite delivers a fresh design from the Panini team. The majority of the cards feature a horizontal layout with a black and white nameplate. The Luxury Suite logo is impressed in bronze foil for base set cards. The foil color changes with the different levels of parallels. The athlete is the focus of the card, with a strong color photo and faded net in the majority of the backgrounds. Some use the original photo background with muted color. The rookie cards feature a close-up and an action shot of the prospect. Private Signings, the lone insert set, have a traditional vertical design with gold foil highlights.
Checklist:
You lose points for not having the big three on your checklist. A hockey set without Gretzky, Gordie and Mario simply doesn't make as big of an impact as the one that does. However, Panini's Al Muir is a crafty guy. He has amassed an impressive list of lamplighters, muckers and netminders to fill the gaps. You'll find all-time greats like Johnny Bower, Dale Hawerchuk, Al Secord, Denis Savard and Marcel Dionne among the 25 legends on the checklist. It was actually refreshing to see some of these names and not the usual suspects, though with such a high-end set it couldn't have hurt to see such names as Messier, Yzerman, Roy, Kariya or Jagr appear on the checklist.
Value:
Like most products these days, boxes are hit or miss. There's definitely value in every box and expectations will be high for a $40 per pack product. Not every pack is going to deliver that amount of secondary market value but some will eclipse it. Luxury Suite by the case assures you of two SSP Rookie autograph/memorabilia rookies #'d to 199 or lower, three SP rookies #'d to 299 or less and five gold parallels #'d to 10.
The Fun Factor:
It would be difficult not to enjoy opening loaded packs loaded like the ones in Luxury Suite. Knowing that all the elements many collectors desire such as sequentially numbered autographed memorabilia rookie cards, limited low-numbered parallels, hard-signed signatures from a unique and new set make it very appealing. The box was not the best, but it did deliver some memorable hits and provided autographs of players you don't see flooding the market. The memorabilia cards, not so much, but with the chance of pulling eight hits, you are bound to find something great if you stick with it. Overall, it was a fun experience. It is difficult to find completely new sets these days and Luxury Suite fits the bill. It also meets the needs of hockey collectors searching for something not so traditional.
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Set Checklist
2010-11 Panini Luxury Suite Hockey Set Checklist Index
Browse our sortable subset checklists for this product by clicking on the desired subset below:
Product Details
Panini's Luxury Suite promises to cut straight to the high-end hits when the product hits the hobby scene this June. The freshman hockey card offering features an intriguing patch and autograph driven parallel system, a wide array of rookies and plenty of on-card autographs. Each hobby box of 2010-11 Panini Luxury Suite will deliver 4 packs, 8 hits and 4 numbered rookie cards.
Box Configuration: 4-Packs Per Box/3-Cards Per Pack
Pack Price: $50 SRP
Product Type: Mid-High End Hockey Card
Geared Toward: Collectors who like to cut straight to the hits (base card haters), Hardcore hockey fans, Autograph and Memorabilia card collectors, Hearty relic seekers, Collectors of the 2010-11 NHL rookie class
What's In The Box:
- 8 Autograph/Memorabilia Cards
- 4 "Group 4" Rookie Cards Numbered to 899
Product Highlights/Details:
- Every card in the set is either a memorabilia card, an autograph card, an autographed memorabilia card or a Rookie Card.
- Each pack will deliver 2 autograph or memorabilia cards and at 1 RC from the product's 125 rookie checklist - 50 of the RCs will be enhanced with an autograph, relic or both.
- 15-boxes per case
- Each case delivers: 2 Super Short Print autographed memorabilia RCs numbered to 199 or less, 3 SP Autographed Rookies numbered to 299 or less and 5 Gold Parallels numbered to just 10 copies.
- Multiple tiers of every base card, each enhanced by a variety of memorabilia options including game-used swatches of jersey, prime jersey, patches, jersey numbers and sticks.
- Autographed cards featuring some of hockey's greatest legends (#'d to 199).
- 1/1 Black Parallels!
Panini America's Hockey Brand Manager Al Muir talks about the all-new product..
“Clearly, Luxury Suite isn't for every budget, but if the market has demonstrated anything of late, it's an unquenchable thirst for high-end product," says Al Muir, Panini America's NHL Brand Manager. “Luxury Suite delivers on its name. There's no filler here — it's all thriller."
Panini America's Hockey Brand Manager Al Muir on Luxury Suite's Rookie Selection..
“The super short print RCs will be the hot pull," Muir notes. “Players like Taylor Hall and Jeff Skinner have already proven their value to collectors, so the chance to acquire an RC with both a patch and a hard autograph at this price point should be impossible to resist. Generally, I think our commitment to on-card autographs across the board will be equally appealing.
“It's an incredibly demanding process to make a product with this many hard autos come together, but when you have a brand like Luxury Suite, there's really no other way to go."
Preview Card Gallery:
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Art Vandelay
Avoid like the plague.