2012-13 Panini Brilliance Basketball Cards

Product Review

2012-13 Panini Brilliance Basketball Product Review

Reviewed by Trey Treutel

Good: Lots of foil. Embossing is a nice element. Big jersey pieces.

Bad: Questionable QC, especially on the cutting of base cards. Base and insert designs blend together. Many autographs are short prints. Autograph design seems out of place.

The Bottom Line: Brilliance is another new product from Panini that finds its niche with the foil and embossing combo. It relies heavily on silver foil in most of the card designs, along with splashes of color. Some big hits can be found that should give the product staying power.

Card Design: 3.5/5.0

Go big or go home. This was the mantra that Panini clearly adopted in regards to their use of silver foil in this product. Nearly every base or insert card, other than the autographs, features a large silver foil embossed Panini Brilliance logo that takes up anywhere from 25% to 50% of the card. To me, it is a tad excessive. It should be more about the card and player rather than the brand name.

The base cards feature some of the heaviest foil usage. The Brilliance logo at the bottom covers nearly half the card. This leaves most of the player images cut off at the waist. Where are the legs? The top half of the card includes the remainder of the player along with a clouded background and team color scheme splash. The player name is just sort of thrown on at the bottom in a small black font. All things considered, the cards maintain an elegant look. But based on what I saw, the base cards suffer from a case of clean cut deficiency, as many edges were fuzzy and not smooth. The only parallels available in hobby boxes are the Starburst cards. Dropping at two per box, they are distinguished by an embossed stardust design on the top. They are easy to miss and my box yielded three.

Inserts are subjected to the foil and embossing treatment, as well. Team Tomorrow looks more like a rookie variation of the Starburst parallel, than a separate insert. The large name and team marquee is the only difference. Accolades is another insert that struggles to separate from the base cards. "Accolades" is embossed at the top of the card and the background only showcases a dark red color scheme across the set. Springfield goes the foil and gold route, but does make an attempt to give the player name a better design. Scorers Inc. is a little more imaginative with a thin silver border and fiery background. Magic Numbers utilizes a horizontal layout and an embossed player number to create one of the nicer looking insert cards in the product.

In my opinion, Spellbound is the most intriguing insert set in Brilliance. Although the design again greatly mirrors the base cards, Panini added a interesting wrinkle. The cards feature a large embossed block letter included in the player's last name alongside the image of the player on the card. For example, Derrick Rose has cards that feature the letters R, O, S and E. Manufactured letter patches have become much more common and I like this as a simple alternative to that.

Brilliance only includes two autograph sets, so the autograph design variety is limited. Both Marks of Brilliance and Brilliant Beginnings include sticker autographs and, surprisingly, no foil. Brilliant Beginnings cards are not numbered and includes a somewhat intricate silver design on the bottom half of the card. It manages to incorporate the sticker autograph in a decent manner. Marks of Brilliance autograph cards are all numbered, which is nice. The numbering is featured just above the sticker autograph, in a whited-out section near a much more subtle text area at the bottom. Neither autograph set seems to fit with the theme found throughout the rest of the product.

Finally, there are the relic cards, which pick back up on the embossed silver foil theme. With one per box, collectors will either find a jumbo swatch Game Time jersey card, or a dual jersey City to City card featuring those who have played for multiple teams. Base versions are not numbered and prime versions are numbered to 25 or less. Featuring a huge viewing window, prime jumbo jersey cards include some awesome patches and multi-color jersey pieces. These are easily the most sought after non-autographs in the set. Again, like the base cards, the Game Time jersey cards seem to just throw the player name wherever it will fit. This unfortunately resulted in the decision to place it vertically on the horizontal design, but typed so the card has to be held vertically to easily read it.

Checklist: 4.0/5.0

A plus for set and team collectors, Brilliance includes 70 rookie players in the base set. The 300-card base set is not as good for set collectors since a box only yields about 100 base cards. It would take at least three boxes with perfect collation to make a complete set, and that's not happening.

On paper, the autograph checklist is very deep, and includes 300 cards. A quick look at Marks of Brilliance reveals that most of the 240 cards in the set are either numbered to 199 or 25. However, this is not a clear case of short printing all the best players. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant, Blake Griffin, Larry Bird, Anthony Davis and Magic Johnson are all among the highest numbered cards in the set, with a numbering of 199. Obviously, there are also many no-name players numbered to 199 as well, but the odds are not completely against you. While Brilliant Marks includes a mix of rookie, veteran and retired players, Brilliant Beginnings is reserved for the rookies.

Value: 4.0/5.0

Sticker autographs keep the product from becoming a true diamond in the rough, but this is still a great under-the-radar product for value. This is especially true due to the surplus of mid-level basketball products released by Panini for the 2012-13 season. The allure of the jumbo patches and big name autographs combines with this foil-covered product and makes for an enticing purchase. Having said that, there is still a better chance to hit a dud, but not many products at this price level offer such a high ceiling for value.

The Fun Factor: 3.0/5.0

The initial appeal of the foil faded quickly, at least for me. This does hurt the fun factor because foil is so ingrained in Brilliance. But several of the inserts do add some variety to the product, notably Scorers Inc., Magic Numbers, and my favorite, Spellbound. Also, while I do not normally care for single-color jersey pieces, jumbo pieces still catch my attention, even if they are only one color, which the majority are. Two autographs round out the fun, and the checklist provides hope that one of those might be a star player.

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2012-13 Panini Brilliance Anthony Davis #72 Rookie Game Time Jersey Relic Patch

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2012-13 Panini Brilliance Dual Game Worn Jersey- Stephen Jackson #19

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2012-13 Panini Brilliance Bradley Beal RC #6 Team Tomorrow Wizards Rookie

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DeMarcus Cousins 2012-13 Panini Brilliance Game Time Jersey Prime SSP /25 Swatch

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Nene Brilliance 2012-13 Panini Game Time Jerseys Prime PATCH SP #'d /25 Wizards

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2012-13 PANINI BRILLIANCE #2 CITY TO CITY DWIGHT HOWARD DUAL PATCH

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2012-13 Panini Brilliance Ben Gordon Bobcats City to City JSYs Prime /25 3 CLR

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RAY ALLEN 🔥2012-13 Panini BRILLIANCE CITY TO CITY Dual Used Patches Nice!💎

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2012-13 Panini Brilliance #28 Russell Westbrook Thunder Patch SSP Game Worn

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2012-13 UD The Cup Brilliance Tyler Seguin Auto Dallas Stars B-TS Bruins SP

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(3) 2012-13 Brilliance Kobe Bryant Game Used Jersey Patch Lot SSP #1/25 - Lakers

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2012 13 Brilliance Basketball Joe Johnson Game Worn Jersey Hawks Nets Card Rare

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Ben Gordon 2012-13 Panini Brilliance City to City Game Used Jersey Relic #13

$8.99

2012-13 Panini Brilliance Ben Gordon City to City Dual Game Used Jersey Card

$5.00

Goran Dragic 12-13 Brilliance City to City Patch Suns Phoenix

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2012-13 Brilliance Joe Johnson Hawks to Nets dual 2 colors jersey card #17/25

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