13/14 National Treasures - 11/12 Prime Brett Connolly Black Plate 1/1

 If you said to me 7 years ago when I got back into collecting I would be having some PCs of players who aren't on the Devils and chasing parallels etc I would say you were crazy and there is no way. However, it has happened and I have probably 15 or so autos of Brett Connolly and countless rookies. But of course, I didn't have a true 1/1 yet just a Artist Proof from The Cup so I was able to fix that this spring.

The nice thing about my plate is I have two examples in my collection that were made with the plate:

 Example 1
 
11/12 Panini Prime Brett Connolly Rookie Holosilver /50

 Example 2:

11/12 Panini Prime Brett Connolly Hologold /25

 Here is the printing plate that was used to help those two cards above!

 When I picked this up, I didn't know what to expect. How thick are they? What do they feel like?

They are actually very thin and they have some weight to them (more than a normal card of course) and they feel really cold (metal obviously). No real texture to the surface and I was surprised the printing wasn't reversed.

 Here is the back side of the plate.

Getting my first plate was pretty cool, and I really like the idea. However, I don't see myself trying to get every single plate from Brett Connolly or any other player for that matter (unless circumstances are too good to pass up of course). I do have one more plate I added to my collection around the same time as picking this one up but I will save that for another day.

More Brett Connolly Parallel Rookie Goodness - Its Fight Time!

It is amazing how a card company can do both amazing and careless things all on one card. Panini Prime was a premium product with a price point of 200 dollars a pack. Not exactly The Cup price range but certainly on its way there. 

A recent pick-up for the old PC shows the great and bad things about the product. Come and take a look with me.

11-12 Panini Prime - Brett Connolly Hologold Auto Patch Rookie /25

Here is the holo-gold version which is a neat treatment to a card, but it isn't quite as flashy as Upper Deck's The Cup gold treatment. There is also a holo-silver version which I picked up a while back too.

What I like about this card is with the base you get 4 jersey swatches, with the holo-silver there are two patches on mine and then this card has one 4 colour patch, 1 two colour seam and a piece of the fight-strap with velcro!. The last piece is just a swatch of white jersey with a ripple. In all they are 4 great pieces from different parts of the jersey. The patch and the fight strap are just amazing. But, if you look closer, the seam piece doesn't even take up the whole window. There is actually a gap of NOTHING, that is a downer. Another downer is the signature. It looks like the auto area wasn't prepped properly or there was an issue with the marker. Either way, for a premium product those are both cons about this card.  

Here is the back side of the card. Nothing special here from the other versions except the numbering is to 25 instead of 199, 50, 10 which are the regular, silver and black versions respectively.

So, have you ever bought a premium card and been saddened by the craftsmanship? In all the patches and numbering make up for the signature and seam piece but I would not have been happy if I paid 200 bucks for a box and this was my main hit. But since his is in my PC and I paid very little for the card, its shortcomings can be over looked.

11-12 Prime Brett Connolly Rookie Silver /50

Here is my other Panini Prime Rookie pick up. This gem was picked up for less than a pack of Artifacts and it was worth every penny.

11-12 Prime Brett Connolly Rookie Silver /50

Unlike the Henrique, this one has a pretty sweet patch as opposed to a seam piece. This patch has silver trim with a black piece attached to the blue jersey. The other three pieces are just regular jersey pieces but still are all cool together and an on card auto makes this a winner. The silver holofoil shines nicely and like the Henrique this card is a great addition to my major PC.

Next couple posts are some holiday generosity I was fortunate to receive and a few box breaks.

11-12 Prime Adam Henrique Rookie Silver /50

Despite the reasonably low print run of 50 copies I have had a few chances to try and get myself a copy of this card. After a few denied best offers and too high BIN's, I found one copy that was up on eBay for auction! I love auctions because they allow you to name your price and if a card is worth more to you than anyone else you win. Also, sometimes they go unnoticed and you can steal one. I am not going to say I "stole" this one but I did land another card for my Henrique PC for much less than my limit.

11-12 Panini Prime Adam Henrique Silver Auto Rookie /50

The foil on this card is pretty nice, pops well with the rest of the card. On card auto is also a nice plus and two seam pieces and two standard pieces. All three Devils colours are accounted for and overall this card is perfect. The parallel versions of Prime Rookies interest me much more because of the holofoil and the swatches. The print run of the regular Henriques are /199 with most swatches being of single colour and the foil is gold. Really happy to land this one and my next post will be another from this set.

11-12 Cody Eakin Prime Rookie

Cross another things off the to-do list. Finally a Prime Rookie to my collection and a solid higher end Cody Eakin rookie. Cody was shipped from Washington to Dallas as part of the Ribeiro deal during the off-season and Joe Nieuwendyk must be pretty pleased at his return. Cody has a solid 6 goals and 19 points this season which is way higher than the 8 points he had in 30 games last year. He is continuing to improve and has been an awesome second/third liner for Dallas seeing some time on the PP occasionally. He is the kind of player all teams need and I look forward to seeing his career progress. 

11-12 Panini Prime Cody Eakin Rookie /199

These rookies remind me a lot of how some of the old OPC Premier rookies used to look back when UD was still producing them. This is a solid 2 colour, 4 piece set of swatches with a good blue sharpie on card auto. Totally a worth-while pickup that was very affordable.