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.

Upper-Deck Artifacts 11/12: 4 Pack Break

Continuing my thread of boxing day box and pack break extravaganza is the rundown of what came out of 4 packs of Artifacts 11/12. This is hands-down THE best product so far of the 11/12 season. The packs can be a little expensive at $10 each but there is a guaranteed hit in each one! This guarantee is included in all the Artifacts products from previous years except the 11/12 product includes the biggest and most numerous hits!

Two of the four packs had common hits, which I refer to the subset base cards as. These cards are broken into two groups, Stars and Hockey Legends. Both of these sets are serial numbered out of 999 and continue the base card numbering. These sets are getting tired as they have been included in each year Artifacts has been produced, but it is fun to see which current NHL star will be included for that year. Regardless, I pulled one Star and one Legend from the packs. Thankfully the other two packs provided a much bigger jaw dropping experience!

The first big hit was an Artifacts Tundra Trios card, numbered 148 of 149 that featured three jersey swatches. The jerseys came from Subban, Price, and Plekanec of the Montreal Canadiens and features two red and one white swatch. I loved that more than one color was found in the jerseys and loved it even more that the card featured some of my favorite players from one of my favorite teams! Awesome jaw dropping moment!

The fourth hit of the packs was huge! This hit was of a jersey and patch base parallel numbered 42 out of 65! The card is of Patrice Bergeron, and yes I know it is sacrilege to like both Boston and Montreal. Nonetheless, the patch is beautiful with three breaks, featuring a large yellow chunk and a smaller black and white area along with a second tiny black piece in the corner. The jersey is lackluster as it is solid white but who cares when the patch is this prominent!

Striking two big hits like the Montreal Trios jersey and Bergeron patch /jersey cards are why I will keep going back to this season's Artifacts product! Just awesome stuff!

Artifacts 2010-11: Two 3-Pack Adventures!

On two separate occasions I picked up 3 packs of 2010-11 Artifacts. I really enjoy this product as it has a low price-point that produces a hit per pack that could either be a serial numbered card or a material /auto card. Also, the cards look really sharp with a flashy foil accents on the borders.

The hits I pulled:

Legends: Pulled 1 Cam Neely Legends card numbered out of 999. The card is without auto or material attributes, but nonetheless is a nice looking card. The card is not part of a subset but rather belongs to the regular set which is broken into base cards, rookie cards, legends cards, and stars cards. This is the same organization as the previous years' Artifacts product.

Rookies: Pulled 2 rookies, both numbered out of 999. The rookies weren't big names (Tokarski & Hamill), but the cards are still sharp looking serial numbered rookies that always adds depth to a card collection.

Jersey Cards: I pulled a base card parallel where two small swatches of jersey were placed at the bottom, and the card numbered out of 150. This is a great way to produce a base card parallel, and while the jerseys are white and the player is not a big name, the card is still very sharp looking and a fine addition to the collection. The second jersey card I pulled was of Roberto Luongo and is also numbered out of 150. The card belongs to the Frozen Artifacts subset and features two square jersey swatches, with one above the other. Not a bad looking card of an A-list player.

Patch Cards: This is perhaps the best patch card I have ever pulled from an Artifacts product. This is a duel patch card of the Tundra Artifacts Tandems subset and features the two A-list players of Henrik Lundqvist and H. Zetterberg. The card is numbered out of 15. The patches are of the same size and shape as the jersey cards: two squares over top one another. The patches are really unique as the Lundqvist patch is all white, but the material is looks like looped wool; really neat looking. The Zetterberg patch is also very nice looking, with a seem on the left side, showing a splash of red along the squares border.

Overall I felt I did quite well with these 6 packs. Artifacts continues to be a strong product, but I do wish they would make the jersey and patch windows a bit bigger.

Upper Deck Artifacts 2010-11: 3 Pack Break

Picked up 3 packs of Upper-Deck Artifacts, 2011.

Never been a huge fan of this series as the design has been weak and last year's product had many defects. The primary defect is that the foil along the cards was often scratched or ripped. Nevertheless I picked up 3 packs of this year's series in the hopes of finding one of this year's great rookies.

From the three packs came 8 base cards. The base cards are not numbered and feature a similar design to the 2010 product, including the foiled accents. Unlike last year's product is that the foil is mint from the pack! The cards also have a really sharp look, with the players displayed over a stylized background that is either blue or yellow in color. The highlight of this product is that each pack contains a hit, although the hits can vary from a serial numbered 'Star', 'Legends', or 'Rookie' to a memorabilia or auto. The Star, Legends and Rookie cards are the same as last year's series, along with the hits of memorabilia and autos. The fact that the only difference from the 10-11 and 09-10 products is that the backgrounds have been changed on the base cards does not warrant a 'pickled' status. I still like how you get a hit, even if it is weak because the price of the Artifacts product is affordable and as my three packs show, it is worth it. I would just not recomend sinking too much cash into this product as there are better products out this year.

Hits from the 3 packs of Artifacts.

Getting back to the three packs I opened, the three hits were one memorabilia, one auto, and one rookie. The memorabilia card was a Frozen Artifacts Paul Stastny single color, two-piece jersey numbered out of 150. The autograph was from a less than pickled player. The auto is an unnumbered Gilbert Brule card. The auto is not a hard sign but instead on a sticker. I prefer hard signs, but am not upset over the usage of stickers either. What was nice about the auto is that it was signed in blue ink, unlike the more common black ink used for most cards; I don't get why more autos aren't done in different colors, but maybe that's just me. Lastly, the rookie was of Corey Elkins, numbered out of 999. Overall not bad pulls from three packs, but again the unimaginative design leaves me wanting a lot more. I'll probably pick up a few but not many more packs as I would rather spend the money on a different product.