Panini NBA & NHL Finals promotions

NickM

Similar to the Super Bowl promotion they ran, Panini did NBA and NHL promotions where purchases of product from their website got you a black box with an autographed card of a legend, an autographed jersey card of a star rookie, or a 1/1 card with a real diamond in it. The NBA promo required a $100 purchase of any current basketball product, while the NHL promo is limited to boxes of 3 specific sets (Classics Signatures, Limited, and Certified). The NBA one sold out on Saturday night. The NHL one just started today (Limited sold out already).

I bought a box of Rookies & Stars during the Super Bowl promo, and was quite happy with what I got in my promo box (Bettis auto).

I didn't get the chance on the NBA promo (it sold out before I could place an order), but the online gallery looked great. However, what I'm seeing in other fora is that there were a lot of stinkers that weren't in the online gallery (Salley, D. Fisher, Horry, Jalen Rose, BJ Armstrong, Cartwright, Kerr, etc.). Granted, there were nice ones that didn't show in the gallery (Bird, Kareem, McHale, etc.).

NHL is limited to 370 boxes, and the

checklist looks really strong.

144 of the 370 cards are of current HOFers, with others like Jagr, Modano, and Shanahan being shoo-ins when eligible. IMO the only weak links are Hextall, Cam Ward and a couple of the rookie auto jerseys (especially Rynnas).

I bought a box of Classics Signatures.

Anyone else getting in on either offer?

Nick

BostonAmericans

I ordered a classic signatures box too. Here's hoping...................

Thanks for the head's up!

NickM

Panini screwed up royally on the basketball autos - beyond the collation mess (people who bought multiple boxes usually got clumps either of low #/d cards or of #/25 cards), it appears that they can't tell Bill Walton from Bill Wennington.
Every Bill Wennington card that has shown up on ebay (and one pulled on the Blowout board) has a Bill Walton auto, and all the Bill Walton Blazers cards (no Bill Walton Celtics cards have shown up that I have seen) have a Bill Wennington auto.

Nick

NickM

I've been tracking what has come up from hockey, and a fairly high percentage of the low numbered cards have been offered on ebay. A few of the #/25 autos have hardly shown up at all (and a couple of the /10s have not shown up at all), and the rookie patch autos other than Kreider had hardly shown up.
I got my promo pack. I seriously lucked out.
Yzerman 4/5

A warning note - if you are buying one of these boxes unopened off of ebay, assume it has been opened and the seller knows exactly what's in there. While there is a seal on the long side flaps, there are short side flaps that you can open, take the card out, reinsert the card, and reclose without leaving any sign the pack has been opened. Don't pay more than you would for the weakest link in the set.

BTW, a Bossy auto #/25 closed on ebay for little more than $15 recently.

Nick

BostonAmericans

I ended up pulling a Jakob Silfverberg 14/25.

The box autos were Mike Peca, Dave Gagner, Craig Ramsey, Kris Draper, Brian Bellows, and Norm Ullman. Nice cards, but probably going up on ebay.

NickM

One HOFer out of the 6 autos seems to be pretty common for Classics.

My box had autos of Richard Brodeur, Russ Courtnall, Bob Gainey (HOF), Trevor Linden Social Signatures, Kirk Muller, and Ron Sutter.

Nick