Bradinn

If you’ve wandered down the centre aisles of a Canadian Costco recently, you know it’s a dangerous place for your wallet. You go in for a rotisserie chicken and a flat of toilet paper, and suddenly you’re staring at a giant display of 2025-26 O-Pee-Chee NHL Booster Collections nestled right between bulk laundry detergent and a 10-pound tub of peanut butter.


They normally retail for $50, but Costco had them on sale for $40 CDN. For that, you get 18 packs of classic paper hockey cards plus an exclusive oversized OPC Premier Jumbo card.


Now, I already have completely finished base sets in my collection—like this year's Tim Hortons run—that are tucked away, pristine, and absolutely untouchable. I’d rather break a finger than break up those sets. But I needed a secondary "fun supply" of loose cards to use for Through-The-Mail (TTM) autograph requests, and having not opened loose packs in years, my trade bait binder was looking pretty sad.


So, I bought the box. Let's see if this is a legitimate value for the average hobbyist, or if I should have spent that forty bucks on 26 Costco hot dog combos instead.


The Reality of Retros and "High Series" Heartbreak


Before we look at the numbers, we need to talk about how Upper Deck structures O-Pee-Chee these days, because retail packs will always give you a heavy dose of reality.


The base set is a massive 600 cards, but cards #501 to #600 are considered High Series short prints. This year, cards #501–#540 feature the 4 Nations Face-Off tournament subset. Because these fall into those high-series slots, they are mathematically tougher pulls than your standard base cards. Shaking loose a Nathan MacKinnon from a cardboard box next to the checkout lane is a genuine win.


On the flip side, we have the famous card-stock Retro parallels. Retail logic dictates that for every top-tier star or premium rookie you hit, you are destined to pull several Retros of a grinding, fourth-line center who averages four minutes of ice time a night. Statistically, those cards end up being worth little more than a standard paper base card to anyone who isn't that player's immediate family. It's just part of the retail gamble.


The Break: Tossing the Pocket Change, Counting the Hits


When evaluating a retail box, counting cards worth 60 or 70 cents doesn't give you an honest picture of real-world value. Nobody is retiring on pocket change, and I'm not listing a $0.60 Radko Gudas on eBay.


If we brutally trim the fat and drop all the inserts that came in under a buck, here is what the actual surviving "hit" list looks like from my 18 packs:


2025-26 O-Pee-Chee Retro #545 Sam Rinzel (Rookie) - $8.00
2025-26 O-Pee-Chee Retro #574 Justin Robidas (Rookie) - $4.00
2025-26 O-Pee-Chee #516 Nathan MacKinnon (4 Nations High Series) - $4.00
2025-26 O-Pee-Chee OPC Premier #P81 Sebastian Aho - $4.00
2025-26 O-Pee-Chee Blue #573 Jacob Gaucher (Blue Rookie Parallel) - $3.00
2025-26 O-Pee-Chee OPC Premier #P78 Matty Beniers - $3.00
2025-26 O-Pee-Chee #509 Sam Reinhart (4 Nations High Series) - $1.50
The Big Hit: Sidney Crosby Costco Exclusive Jumbo Card


The real crown jewel of this box break wasn't hiding in the packs—it was the box-topper. I pulled the Sidney Crosby from the Costco-exclusive Oversized OPC Premier Jumbo set. It doesn't have an official Beckett value attached to it just yet, but my guess is it will be $10.00 or more what’s the Book Value is published. Sid essentially carried the financial value of this box on his back.


The Financial Breakdown


Tossing out the under-$1 cards and adding our estimated Crosby Jumbo value:
Sidney Crosby Exclusive Premier Jumbo (Est. Market Value): $10.00
Sam Rinzel Retro Rookie: $8.00
Justin Robidas Retro Rookie: $4.00
Nathan MacKinnon 4 Nations High Series: $4.00
Sebastian Aho OPC Premier: $4.00
Jacob Gaucher Blue Rookie Parallel: $3.00
Matty Beniers OPC Premier: $3.00
Sam Reinhart 4 Nations High Series: $1.50
Total Realized Value: $37.50


The Verdict: Worth the Rip or a Ripoff?


Let's be completely transparent: if you are busting open this box hoping to pull a premium, top-tier hit like a hard-signed Rookie Autograph, a thick patch card, or a piece of game-used stick, look elsewhere. You are hunting in the wrong jungle. Those high-end, heavy-hitter chases are strictly reserved for expensive Hobby Boxes. Retail OPC simply isn't built to give you that kind of lightning strike.


If you buy this bundle looking to make a quick buck, flip the contents, and retire early, you're going to lose. Even with a lucky Crosby Jumbo pull and a couple of decent rookie retros, the raw math put me at $37.50—leaving me exactly two dollars and fifty cents short of what I paid.
But for the average collector, this box is an absolute, certified RIP.


If you keep your complete sets locked away and pristine, you need a secondary "mess around" supply of loose cards. Getting a massive stack of 144 cards to sort through on the kitchen table provides a ton of nostalgic entertainment. More importantly, because OPC is printed on matte cardboard stock rather than glossy plastic, those loose base cards are excellent, smear-free candidates to send out through the mail for autographs. Sharpies actually dry on these!


When a retail box gives you harder-to-pull High Series inserts, hands you a beautiful exclusive box-topper like the Crosby Jumbo, and practically covers its own cost before you even count the utility of your new TTM targets, it is definitively not a ripoff.


At $50 regular price, it's a bit of a gamble—but at the $40 Costco sale price, it's an absolute no-brainer. Just try not to buy a giant trampoline or a year's supply of mayonnaise on your way out.