When it comes to jumbo patch autos, I honest believe there are only a handful of ways to make them visually appealing. I dont know what it is, but on a standard card surface area, I understand how difficult it can be to make it all fit. That being said, I think the jumbo patch autos from 2012 Limited work on a number of levels despite the challenges. I will RARELY support a vertically oriented card of this nature, but it works here, for some reason.

Rookie Jumbo Patch Autos

I think these are the best cards in the entire product. Because they are horizontal in orientation, and have a nifty presentation with the zoomed in full bleed player photo, I am a fan. Despite the fact that they are stickers, the card’s design is by far one of the more stunning cards this year from Panini. I dont like the big block windows as much as the number windows, but both are good overall.

We just got our first look at what the NFL logo parallel 1/1 will look like, and even those cards look good. Its unfortunate that the stitching has been replaced by the less appealing plastic shield, but that is a league uncontrollable.

Veteran Jumbo Patch Autos

Not sure why the horizontal design was changed, but it still works regardless. It isnt AS COOL as the rookie version, but it is a card I would buy if Peterson or Ponder had an autograph jersey parallel up. I think that the player photo is still big enough, and there is less of a tetris stacked look when the crop doesnt begin at the swatch line. Because the pic extends down past the beginning of the swatch, it is a much better look. There are some big names in this set, which is something that I think collectors will appreciate, especially with the shift to rookie content in many of the Topps releases.

Veteran and Rookie Non-Auto Jumbo Swatches

Both of these are done in the vertical version, and luckily, Panini shifted the swatch down more to make the card look like it works without the sticker attached. In the past, Panini would have left a blank area for the non-auto parallels, but this time, they did it the right way with the swatch all the way down to the bottom. I really like these cards, and if I were someone that collected jersey cards, I would be all over these.

My biggest complaint on both rookie and jumbo focus on the little strip of stock that covers the swatch on non-number cards. This is likely to be extremely condition sensitive, and I wish Panini had thought ahead and just left it open. So far, there havent been many complaints, but that could change as the card age.

Considering how awful looking some of the other subsets are in 2012 Limited, these are definitely worth a shout out.