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.

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.