2012-13 Prestige basketball hobby box

Sport:  Basketball
Product:  2012-13 Prestige
Break Date:  May 26, 2014
Hit Breakdown:  Three autographs, one memorabilia card
Summary:  The family and I were at Target picking up some stuff for a Memorial Day party, and I made my usual stop at the card aisle. I was looking for some Prizm World Cup cards, and they didn't have them. A large box did catch my eye, though.

Turns out they had a box – a hobby box no less – of 2012-13 Prestige basketball, marked down to $59.99. My mind immediately went to the Anthony Davis rookie auto, or the Kyrie Irving, or the Bradley Beal. So, with the potential for some nice hits and a reasonable price, I threw it in the cart.

Some further research showed that the $59.99 is basically market value at the moment, so in terms of price, it's not great, but not terrible. 

While I was thinking Davis or Irving, I should have remembered that this was a double rookie class, so when the autos started popping up, it was who I should have expected - Tyler Zeller and Marquis Teague. The third auto turned out to be a vet, fortunately, but Danny Granger is unfortunately not as nice a hit today as he would have been three years ago when he was averaging 20 a game. To make matters worse, it was a redemption which expired in March. But, I did plug the code in and Panini's system took it, so hopefully I'll get SOMETHING out of that.

The box also promised a jersey card, and here's where the break got interesting. I generally put all the fatter packs to the side when opening a box, knowing that most are full of decoys. When I finally got to the actual hit, it wasn't your run-of-the-mill white jersey...it was a really solid three-color Josh Smith patch, numbered to 25. There was actually another jersey card in there as well, Steve Nash, with a run-of-the-mill white swatch. But, the Smith is really nice. It had a couple indentations on one side, unfortunately (it looks like they're from the press).

The box also yielded most of the big-name rookies like Kyrie and Drummond, and there was a nice parallel Kobe, /249 to top it off.

All told, it was a great box at $59.99, but if it was it's original SRP (probably north of $100), I'm not sure the Smith would have made the break one to be happy with.

Grade for the product:  B

Grade for the break:  A-

Prestigious Picks:  Marquis Teague, Tyler Zeller

Distinctive Ink:  Danny Granger

Inside the Numbers Prime /25:  Josh Smith
Inside the Numbers:  Steve Nash
Bonus Shots Gold /249:  Kobe Bryant, Kris Joseph (RC)
Connections:  Kevin Durant/LaMarcus AldridgeJohn Wall/Rajon Rondo, Dirk Nowitzki/Steve Nash,
Franchise Favorites:  Kyrie Irving, Kevin Martin, Ricky Rubio
Hardcourt Heroes:  Rudy Gay, Blake Griffin, Tim Duncan
Stars of the NBA:  Marcus Thornton, David Lee, Amar'e Stoudemire