Andrei Markov Signed Card in the Mail!

Woot! Just when I thought I wouldn't be receiving any more fan packs or signed cards in the mail comes a thunderous envelope! Encased inside were two cards autographed by the legendary Andrei Markov of the Montreal Canadiens. One card for myself and the other for my friend who's a big (understatement there) Habs fan. Below is the image of the Markov card that he sent back to me: if you noticed from the other two cards I received earlier, all three of these were from the beautiful SP Authentic UD product from 10/11. Loved the designs on the cards and thought that there would be enough white area for an auto to stand out -I was right about that one!

[Name of person]
c/o The Montreal Canadiens
1909, avenue des Canadiens-de-Montréal
Montreal, QC, CANADA
H3C 5L2

UD Series 2 11/12: 2 Box Breaks

Over the past month I picked up 2 boxes of UD srs II. It is a weaker product from last year's srs II in respect to it not short-printed and hence loaded with big hits in each box; last year I was pulling parallel young guns in almost every box, not to mention auto and buy backs. Compared to other years of srs II, besides the 10/11 edition, the 11/12 product stands as one of the better years. The card design is very attractive, with bar-none the best photography found in any sport card product, much like this year's srs I UD. In continuation from previous year's UD srs II, each box reveals one rookie jersey, one regular player's jersey, and of course the rest of the year's crop of young guns cards. I'm not sure about who exactly is included in this product's young guns list, but I do know (from pulling the card) that Zack Kassian is one of the rookies. In addition to the young guns rookies, srs II again delivers an update to the Victory product. While I do not buy the Victory product, I do enjoy pulling the update cards from the srs II product because it adds some diversity to the box. The addition of Victory cards adds more rookie cards to each box than found in the srs I product which does not include update cards. New to this year's srs II are update cards for OPC and MVP. I really like the idea of adding these other update cards as it adds that much more diversity to what is being pulled and multiplies the number of rookies one finds in a box. Despite this year's srs II not being as loaded as last year's, UD still put out a solid product that is very fun to break and provides a decent bang for your buck.

Young Guns: The box wrapper suggests you will find 6 Young Guns per box, and upon opening my two boxes I found exactly that in each. I also did not pull any duplicate rookies from the two boxes, which is always a relief when trying to build a set! I didn't find any huge names, but it is pretty common that the bigger rookies are seeded in the first UD series.

Canvas Parallel Set: I pulled 6 canvas base cards, 1 young guns card, and 1 retired stars sp card. The base and rookie canvas cards all have the same look as those released through the srs I product. I really like this parallel set and is something unique to the UD srs product. Last year UD had retro parallel sets and it would seem that the addition of parallel sets will continue. My only complaint is that the words 'young guns' on the canvas cards blends too much into the background and I would prefer to see the words stand out more with the usage of a lighter or brighter color or with the use of some foil. As a side note, the retired star card I pulled (from a separate box than the young guns) was of Gretzky. I knew this was a sp card and wasn't something I particularly collect. I after pulling the card I quickly sold it on ebay for a nice little sum that greatly offset the price of the box. The selling of this card demonstrates that the srs II product does produce cards of value! *on a side note, I only received one UD Exclusives serial numbered parallel card. I realize on the box that they only fall 1 per 2 boxes, but I think that they should up it to every box as it does add a little bit more of excitement to opening the product.

Gretzky Canvas sp that I sold.

Subsets: The srs I UD products introduced a new, 1950's theme for the Hockey Heroes cards. This was used instead of highlighting one particular player and UD will continue this theme of highlighting decades in chronological order until at least next year with the 70's and 80's. The srs II, logically, gives us the 1960's theme set and again the cards look great; there are on average 2 cards inserted per box. UD wrote that inserted into packs will be hard-signed Hockey Heroes but it would seem that these will be incredibly scarce; maybe on 10 or so of each signed card. The Hockey Heroes set had become quite bland and overused for the past two decades. It is very refreshing to see a new take on this subset instead of taking the easy way out of not producing them at all.

Jersey Cards: The regular jersey cards have the same design as the srs I product, which is sharp looking with the usage of a geometric pattern and medium-sized photo of the player. The jersey swatch is of an average size for a product of this price range -thumb nail size- and features some strong players; I pulled a Tanguay and Dadonov card. The Rookie Materials cards have perhaps the best design out of any of the previous year's UD srs II products. The jersey swatch is thumb-nail size and put into a 'R' shaped window. The design is simple and has a small player photo on the left with an additional close-up on his face in the right corner. The cards look really great and as per usual, fun to pull.

Red card is the OPC Update parallel.

Update Sets: As I mentioned above, this year's srs II product offers three different update sets! You have the MVP, OPC, and Victory update sets included. The Victory cards pull more frequently than the OPC, which pull more frequently than the MVP. The differences in pull rates provides another level of depth to this product that I really enjoyed. I also enjoyed pulling big name rookies that were featured in the srs I product, and hence not available in the srs II young guns list. Most notably of these rookies is Nugent-Hopkins, whom I pulled a rookie of from the OPC and MVP sets! In addition to the Update cards are the parallels of them, which are featured for the Victory and OPC but I am unsure of for the MVP.

2011/12 UD SRS II is another strong product that sits well with its previous year's releases. The cards look very sharp and I greatly enjoy the additions and change ups from the previous year's releases. On the downside, it seems that the boxes are not as loaded or short-printed as the 2010/11 release, meaning that the 11/12 product will not be as collectible, however, also easier to collect because it won't sell out as fast. Another difference is that two boxes of the 11/12 product gave me a full set of the base cards, unlike the 10/11 product that took almost or over 4 boxes to complete. Base cards are not usually worth much, but to me it is nice to be able to complete a set with only a few boxes purchased.

In comparison to what else has come out for the 11/12 hockey market, UD srs II is one of the best products. You get a reasonable bang for your buck and it will leave you with a few bucks left to buy a new box to store your cards in! Much like the 11/12 srs I product, this product deserves a solid and fresh pickle!

Artifacts 11/12: Last Packs

Artifacts 11/12 is the best product yet of the 11/12 products. Bar none! This product is loaded with patches and low numbered cards. It also has some new inserts such as rookie redemptions for the top draft picks where the cards are numbered out of 99 and will be hard signed. The patches, autos, and low-numbered cards also feature solid players and as a collector you know that buying a few packs or a box will yield great cards that are worth the price you paid. This cannot be said for many products and is why Artifacts for the 11/12 product season is now sold out at my local store and at pretty much every other local store! Last year, Ultimate and Upper-Deck series II were the same way; loaded with excellent cards that gave back a reasonable investment in purchasing the product. I'm not saying that every pack one buys should have a Gretzky auto or something of a similar ilk. All I'm saying is that if companies continue to produce a product of high quality like Artifacts 11/12 where you know that in a box you will find an excellent patch card or a low numbered auto, then the product will sell out! Quality over quantity please!

On my most recent adventure to the card store I was told that there were only 5 packs left of the Artifacts 11/12 product. I scooped these up and have no regrets. Below is what I pulled from these 5 packs and from a previous group of 3 packs that I bought last February.

From the previous group of packs I pulled (most notably), a Kruger rookie emerald card numbered out of 99 and a Doughty jersey/patch card numbered out of 35! The Doughty patch is very nice with a 4 colour break and total of 3 colors from (presumably) the team emblem located on his shoulder. I love that out of only a few packs I pulled a low numbered parallel rookie and a beauty of a patch. Great cards!

The most recent, and unhappily final packs I bought revealed one of the best cards I have pulled in a long time. This was a jersey auto base parallel numbered 10 of 10 of Taylor Hall. The card is amazing and features one of the biggest rookies of last year, not to mention that it is super limited with only 10 made. One feature I really enjoy is that the card is numbered 4 in the series, which is his jersey number. I had not noticed this before, but all the jersey, patch, and auto variants of the base set are numbered according to that particular player's jersey number. A very nice touch.

The second card I pulled is sweet but nowhere near the level of excitement as the Hall. Thankfully I pulled this card first so it was not overshadowed by the Hall! This card was a Tundra Trios of Backstrom, Ovechkin, and Semin, numbered out of 149. This is in the same subset series as the Trios card I mentioned in an earlier post about Artifacts that featured three Canadiens. The Capitals' Trios card looks brilliant and made all the better by each jersey swatch being of a different colour: white, red, and navy. Also making this card even more attractive is that it features a jersey swatch from Ovechkin, which is something rarely pulled.

The final 5 packs I opened also featured a few weaker cards, such as a Legends, Star, and one Rookie card, each being serial numbered and considered the hit of the other three packs. While these cards would not set your world afire if they had been all that you had pulled, the Trios and Hall make up for it in spades. Also is the fact that the Trois and Hall had come from the same box, which either card would have made earlier products seem like the box or perhaps case hit. As I said before, I don't expect to find an amazing card in every pack, but I do expect at least one pack to have that amazing hit which makes the box or handful of packs worthwhile. I truly hope that companies like UD continue loading up their products to make collectors like myself feel that buying their products is a worthwhile investment. If they do so, then I believe the card market will continue to increase and be a thriving marketplace.

Old School: Upper-Deck 99/00 Gold Reserve

A few weekends ago I went in search of different card stores in the Calgary area. It happened to be the Free Card Day where participating card stores were giving away packs of the Canadian National Card series, which prompted the search for more card stores in order to acquire the full set. In this quest I came across a small shop that had boxes of older Upper-Deck cards for about $20 each. From their selection I decided on a box of 99/00 Upper-Deck Gold Reserve which I had never purchased before. The cards look OK and I pulled the entire set including sp's from the one box. The drawback was that I was left with numerous doubles, off cut cards, and zero subset or chase cards. Then again, the box was only $20.

Base Cards: From the one box I pulled all 135 of the base cards. The cards have a shiny foil design on the front with the player taking up the vast majority of the photo. The photos are fairly generic of action shots and often have the player's image slightly bleeding off the side of the card. Some of the shots are also off-center and the overall composition is uninspiring. The backs of the card are incredibly dark with a dark blue back ground and tiny, sometimes blurry white lettering. The cards are often off cut and the information is fills up the majority of the card whereby an off cut becomes more pronounced because the text is frequently cut away. This is probably one of the worst card designs I've seen but the product is cheap and it is fun to see older players when they were still actively playing.

Star Power: This is a short-printed set that continues the base card numbering. The design is very similar to the base cards and suffers from all of the same problems. The redeeming feature of the set is how it highlights older players such as Shanahan and Sakic.

Young Guns: Again the design is the same as the other cards and suffers all the same problems. What is special about these young guns, however, is that the Sedin twins and Luongo are featured in the set. It is great pulling their young guns but it is odd that their rookie cards were actually produced a few years earlier in other products. It's also annoying that the cards were over produced so while these are three of the biggest stars in hockey, these particular cards are virtually worthless. Nonetheless, it is fun to pull a young gun of these top players in today's hockey.

Upper-Deck Gold 99/00 is a somewhat fun product to break as a box provides you the full set of cards, including the sp's. The overall design is too dark and pretty bland, with numerous off-cut and damaged cards; it also doesn't help that the card stick together when opening the packs. Regardless of over production, damages, and dark designs, it is still fun to pull some classic players and suedo rookies of the Sedin twins and Luongo.

Orioles Fan Pack

An Orioles fan pack arrived in the mail the other day. Everything arrived in a legal sized envelope which included an informational card about taking tours of their ball park, a pocket 2012 schedule, an Adam Jones player card, a large sticker sheet, a promotional schedule sheet, and a short generic letter thanking me for contacting them. Overall a pretty nice little fan pack!

Send an e-mail to fanfeedback@orioles.mlb.com for your own Orioles fan pack.

Crown Royale 11/12: 2 Pack Break

Crown Royale was the most original product of last year. It was also one of the best selling products and it's prices quickly increased, with the result being that I picked up only a few packs before the prices flew out of my comfort range. This last week the 11/12 product was released and I decided to pick up 2 packs now. 

While I thought highly of last year's product I was left unimpressed by how long Panini (the manufacturer of Crown Royale) took to fulfill redemptions as I had requested a Henrik Karlsson rookie auto back in Sept of last year and have yet to see my redemption arrive! I figured that the redemptions would be the principle problem with the 11/12 product too but had seen that there were significant changes to other Panini products such as Limited. Checking the web for Crown Royale pulls I saw that many of the Scratching the Surface Signatures had blatant errors in that the team logo was incorrect or the image of the player showed a different team jersey than what was presented in the jersey or patch swatch (eg. player wearing a Blues uniform but the jersey /patch was from the Kings). As there were problems such as this and that there had been changes from the previous year's product, I thought I'd begin Crown Royale with only a couple of packs.

Commons: I pulled 6 commons from the 2 packs I bought. The card design is very similar to last years and has the unique die-cut crown with embossed foil motif. The base cards look very sharp and are worth collecting by themselves. Each pack is stated to contain 3 common cards, one subset or parallel, and one auto or memorabilia.

Parallel: I pulled one Ruby parallel from the two packs. This parallel stands out from the base by the foil being red colored and unlike last year the cards are not serial numbered. As a medium priced product I feel very strongly that these cards should be serial numbered, especially since lesser priced products such as Artifacts has serial numbers on everything but their common base cards!

Rookies: I pulled 2 rookies from my 2 packs, with one being autographed. Neither of the cards are serial numbered, which is a big mistake and I find it cheap and lazy by Panini. Nonetheless, the cards do look very sharp and have an almost identical design to the base cards except that the foil is a light blue and there's a block of text instead of stats on the back. A big bonus for these cards is that the auto is prominently displayed and is on the card instead of being a sticker. A big drawback, however, is that the word 'rookie' should be found somewhere on the card!

Memorabilia: I pulled one triple jersey card from the Royal Lineage set. The card features a swatch from Hall, Eberle, and Coffey. This is a nice looking card besides the overly dark design which is not helped by the three jersey swatches being dark in color, however, they are different colors themselves. Again the back does not include a serial number.

Crown Royale again delivers an outstanding product that delivers exactly what you expect for the money you invest in it. The design is wonderfully unique, although can be a little too dark on some cards. The usage of foil is a great touch and I love the on-card autos. The triple jersey card is great because it features three players that make sense together (all play or played for the Oilers). My only complaint is that NONE of the cards were serial numbered. This should never be the case for a medium to high priced product, especially when you are pulling autos, rookies, and memorabilia cards. From checking out other cards on the net it seems that only cards with patches were serial numbered, which is a big let down.

Atlanta Hawks & Minnesota Wild Fan Packs

Today I received two fan packs in the mail. One was from the NBA team, the Atlanta Hawks. Within this package was a series of team book marks and a programs from the Jan. 18th game against the Portland Trail Blazers. Nothing too special, but still pretty neat. The second fan pack was from the NHL team, the Minnesota Wild. This fan pack consisted of a rectangular player card. The card is pretty neat looking and features Niklas Backstrom (the auto is a facsimile).

You can contact the Atlanta Hawks by sending them an e-mail at hawks.fanmail@atlantaspirit.com. Contact the Minnesota Wild by e-mailing them at community@wild.com.