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.