11/12 Dominion is live

[MMarch]

Seller either got really lucky, or opened a TON of this product. 4 Engravatures, a Shield, some low numbered tags and patches, wow! Wonder how many cases it took to hit all these beauties - http://www.ebay.com/sch/m.html?_nkw...rds&_osacat=0&hash=item1e72c21a6a&_ssn=gerb67

 

[james_samson]

Whoah... They must have opened a whack-load of stuff...

 

[Krusin]

Another guy busted a 6 pack on Blowout's site, he has all cards listed but no pic's.

 

[Burner]

Does anyone else think these look a lot like The Cup? Maybe not exactly the same, but a lot of very similar features

 

[frankiefives]

Does anyone else think these look a lot like The Cup? Maybe not exactly the same, but a lot of very similar features

Considering Karvin Cheung, formerly of UD is now working with Panini, it's not surprising

 

[wildfan1833]

Well The rookie autos look plain IMO

 

[RGM81]

Stuff looks great - very excited to see some of the goods make an appearance!

 

[Nicholls9]

I love the clean look of the cards. White with the silver trim is great and not to busy. Looking forward to tracking down the Nicholls cards.

 

[Maple Leaf Sports]

Ruh-roh... another seller in Pennsylvania with a high-end Panini hockey product one day early... :dizzy:

 

[FrozenInferno]

First instance I can see of a patch mix-up:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OVECHKIN-BR...t=US_Hockey_Trading_Cards&hash=item27cb6de141

Looks like the Gaborik and Marty patches are reversed.

Dominion does look really good this year though, nice classy designs and lots of room on the cards for signatures. I'll be glued to eBay all day watching cards appear.

 

[paulxing]

well based on how the sticks are made, they are really easy to screw up.

 

[99goals]

well based on how the sticks are made, they are really easy to screw up.

Ya I know eh.. in that Kesler video, the guy had to lift up the sheet to find out where to stick the kesler stick piece. I can totally see that mistake happening now. Now that they do these videos people will get an understanding of how difficult it is to make these cards and the expense of it too.

 

[FrozenInferno]

I can totally see how easy it can be to make a mistake placing patches on multiplayer cards. Looking at the back of the sheet would tell you the players on the card but since you can't see the face of the card yet it could be very easy to forget the order or confuse your orientation and put the patches in the wrong windows, especially after long days applying hundreds of patches. Unfortunate that mistakes happen but it's somewhat understandable.

I peeled the swatch out of an ITG jersey card once out of curiosity and underneath was a grey background with the player name printed on it, and I think the team as well. That way the person applying the swatch doesn't have to look at the back of the sheet because its printed right inside the window. That seems like the best solution to misplaced swatch mistakes and probably a big part of the reason ITG never seems to mess up patches. It would take a bit more production time to have to print on an extra layer of the card but would drastically cut down mistakes. Maybe it's not feasible for a larger company like Panini who produces such a higher volume of cards, who knows.

 

[Chardcore]

Nice. But I definitely preferred last years horizontal design.

 

[gobuffalo2331]

Pretty weird that I saw a Alexei Emelin autograph patch RC with a sticker autograph on it. If I was a fan of him I'd rather have the redemption and wait till it was signed in person but thats just me.

 

[vegaspuck]

Pretty weird that I saw a Alexei Emelin autograph patch RC with a sticker autograph on it. If I was a fan of him I'd rather have the redemption and wait till it was signed in person but thats just me.

Alexei Emelin was not going to sign more cards. The choice was never using the cards that were made. Or using sticker autos we had in inventory. We went that route.

 

[gobuffalo2331]

Alexei Emelin was not going to sign more cards. The choice was never using the cards that were made. Or using sticker autos we had in inventory. We went that route.

Well that was the smart way to go then! I did a triple take when I saw the card earlier lol. Good job on your part to find another way to get the cards out.

 

[HighEndPlease]

Nice. But I definitely preferred last years horizontal design.

+1 (I also preferred last years horizontal design, plus the HUGE Patch on the RC /99)

Why oh why did Dominion change the design ??? I just looked at the Dominion Ryan Nugent-Hopkins RC /99 designs on eBay, and I'm sorry to said it looks horrible. The patch got smaller from last year, and most of the RNH patch are either 1 color or barely 2 colors.

I really like last year Dominion patches especially Eberle, Hall ARP RC /99 with the huge patches.

I'm a huge supporter of Dominion, but The Cup won over me this year.

 

[gobuffalo2331]

I too wish they never changed the design on the autograph rookie patches. They were awesome last year. I'm not a fan of this years design at all.

 

[The Great Zo]

Dominion's a much easier comparison to The Cup this year, because the sets are so similar in construction. In a lot of ways, 11-12 Dominion shares more of a lineage with The Cup (perhaps due to Karvin's influence) than it does with 10-11 Dominion (back in the Muir/Hall days). Taken on its own, that's neither good or bad -- just a reflection of what Panini's going for this time around.

One of the hallmarks of The Cup has always been the multiple (arguably redundant) patch/auto sets -- Limited Logos, Emblems of Endorsement, etc. Panini's gotten in on that this year with the Autographed Patches, Peerless Patches, and so on.

Panini did keep around some of the more unique sets from last year's Dominion -- benchmarks, engravatures, and the all-star embroidered autograph cards. I really like all three. I also like that they gave more meaning to the parallels, specifically tying different designs and foil colors to different memorabilia pieces.

There are parts of the Dominion program that do look rather plain, and I note a lack of foil on some of the inserts compared to last year (benchmarks, the booklet cards, the all-star patches, and a few others). As great as those concepts are, a flat surface finish just doesn't seal the deal. For a product at this level, I'd like to see every card be visually striking. You wouldn't want to embed a Gordie Howe stick piece on a Score base card. OK, on a stack of about 8 Score base cards.

I'm also concerned with a trend I've noticed in both Prime and Dominion -- some of the set names aren't printed anywhere on the card fronts (and in some cases, not even on the card backs). The jerseys look like base cards without a description, and would you know the name of this set? Supposedly this set is called All-Star Skills Complete Sweaters. No, this isn't a widespread problem, but it does make it tough to figure out which card is which, when there's a whole bunch of (very nice, but) similar sets in the product.

The memorabilia program in Dominion is a step ahead of The Cup. Frankly, I think The Cup is a little bit stale, as an overall brand. It's been nearly the exact same insert sets and parallel schemes for years now. I don't mind that Dominion uses some of the same basic structure as The Cup, as long as Panini's willing to keep and improve upon the unique elements. That's what sets the two products apart, and the continued evolution will certainly be worth watching.