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  1. #11




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    Of course buying cards is somewhat a waste of money unless you get a huge hit to recoup most/all of your money with a chance of actually making profit. It is not a total waste though, it is all worth money and can at least be insured at book value. I for one got back into cards from collecting with my father in the 90's in the 2009-10 season. I will tell you one thing, collecting cards is a hell of a lot better than a cocaine addiction. Collecting cards and then getting into precious metals is what saved my life. I would not let anyone ever tell me it is a waste of money. To each is their own.

    Retail UDS1 UDS2 is good for young guns. My cousin does awesome some years buying random packs at the corner store. Like... awesome. He has actually made profit with the bigger RCs he has pulled. Even pulling the rare Taylor Hall RC from Score. And the Seguin I think. Just ridiculous luck. Personally I do not have much experience with retail, I'm a hobby guy. I don't bust much since I was primarily an ITG collector.

    I always liked Artifacts though. I would think the retail is an excellent way to finish the base set since with my experience you wouldn't even finish the base set buying 5 hobby boxes.

    Either way, I am intrigued with what you pull. Keep us posted and good luck.

    First off, thanks to everyone for all the positive feedback. I appreciate it.

    I've ripped plenty of Blasters and Tins but I wanted to try something different this time. I haven't ripped anything in a while so, and here in Illinois my access to unopened hockey material is extremely limited. The only "variety" I really have locally are Blasters, Tins and Fat Packs and I have done really well with the Blasters and Fat Packs, but the inserts in Blasters and Tins are limited. With Fat Packs you get a little more variety and a lot more YG's... Now I hope I didn't make a mistake with the 18-19 retail boxes. I did watch a few beaks on youtube and they seem ok, those opening the product didn't get any major hits - no notable YG's, one of the guys did pull a McDavid Canvas tho and I would be happy with that. But overall my experience with unopened material has been that you at least get what you pay for value-wise with Blasters so I'm at least hoping I will at least get that.. I honestly expect I will get my biggest hits out of the Fat Packs tho.. Not to Jinx myself but I have had some pretty good luck with Fat Packs (and Tins & Blasters).. I mean I have pulled 5 Matthews Young Guns and I probably opened maybe 25 16-17 Blasters and maybe 5-7 Tins .. I don't know if that's good luck or not given the amount I have opened. Of course I have pulled plenty of other quality Young Guns out of 16-17 UD as well like Nylander, Tkachuk, Point etc. As a matter of fact I've pulled at least 5+ Point YG's (of course I have sold or traded most of these cards already)... I didn't open much 16-17 UD series 2 because where I live the selection is just horrible.

    But yea, I stopped collecting for like 20 years then one day a couple of years ago I bought a fat pack just for the heck of it and pulled the Auston Matthews YG and had absolutely no idea how much it was worth, so a couple of days later I looked it up on ebay and was shocked it was going for $150.00+ I mean I was expecting maybe 10 bucks or something.. I had no idea that Young Guns were as desirable as they are,, As a matter of fact I thought the Shining Stars insert was more valuable than the Matthews, lol and that's the card I originally looked up on ebay.... But yea, I pulled the Matthews and I got that "bug", so I went back, bought a Blaster and a Tin and some Parkhurst Fat Packs, ended up pulling a Nylander YG and a Matthews "Jumbo" card out of the Blaster Box and since then I've become quite the card addict.. Oh and around the same time I pulled a Parkhurst Red and Black Matthews Rookies so... Yea all that original luck got me back into collecting again and over the last 2 years I've managed to amass quite the collection.. Do I collect for the money and value? sure but I am a hockey fan and I am a collector - I do love cards however the hobby today is way different than it was when I left in 1997 and even now 2 years later I'm still learning....

    But back to the product...

    I find it interesting that many here are saying the Artifacts is by far the worst of the bunch. I watched a retail box break and the guy that broke them ended up with many cool cards, he got a handful of serial numbered cards, serial numbered parallels (including a Price) and a Mike Modano jersey.. Not only that but I enjoy collecting "vintage" and was really excited to see that Artifacts has a ton of Hall of Famers; guys like Bossy, Hull, Howe, Dryden etc.. That was cool to me... So I was kinda impressed by the Artifacts.

    So yea, if I can manage 2-3 decent hits out of all of this I will be happy.. Of course my "hits" will probably be Alex DeBrincat Canvas Young Guns, lol... Not that I wouldn't be happy with that considering I collect DeBrincat, but I spent all last summer buying up as many DeBrincat's as possible and I have more than my fair share of his YG's including the Canvas'...

    So yea, hopefully I will get a couple of the big Young Guns and if I do it will be worth it..

    The boxes will be here tomorrow so, I will certainly let you know what I got and how happy or pissed I am, lol...

    Also, I may record the break just in case I pull something totally unbelievable...

    Hey, the last time I made a "large" purchase of unopened material it was more 16-17 UD series 1. I purchased a lot of 6 Blasters from Dave & Adams for like 60 bucks shipped and I had a feeling I was going to pull another Matthews - heck - I expected it and I did - I pulled the Matthews... Kinda funny story because I hit "Auston Czernik" (sp) and saw the name Auston and my adrenaline spiked but obviously it was the wrong "Auston" and within the next couple of packs I hit the right Auston, lol.

    - Nick
    Last edited by Savard18; 04-12-2019 at 03:15 PM.

  2. #12




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    Just bought a 2015-16 MVP Hobby Box... It was only 40 bucks and there are some nice insert sets, short print rookies - not to mention the script cards as well..

    Hopefully I'll pull a McDavid.

  3. #13
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    Just bought a 2015-16 MVP Hobby Box... It was only 40 bucks and there are some nice insert sets, short print rookies - not to mention the script cards as well..

    Hopefully I'll pull a McDavid.

    Good luck !
    Jhonas Enroth Card Collector & Host of the Hidden Content
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  4. #14




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    Thanks, but I just realized that the only cards worth a damn in 15-16 MVP are redemption only cards, and the redemption's expired 3 years ago, lol.

    I contacted the seller (steel city sports cards) and asked them If I could swap out the MVP for something of the same value. I haven't heard back from them yet but I don't see why that would be a problem. Otherwise I'm going to have to really cross my fingers on this one.

  5. #15
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    Thanks, but I just realized that the only cards worth a damn in 15-16 MVP are redemption only cards, and the redemption's expired 3 years ago, lol.

    I contacted the seller (steel city sports cards) and asked them If I could swap out the MVP for something of the same value. I haven't heard back from them yet but I don't see why that would be a problem. Otherwise I'm going to have to really cross my fingers on this one.

    Best of luck with the swap.

    And hey, if you're feeling lucky, maybe you should take a gamble on some 14-15 MVP Retail Blaster boxes and pull me a Enroth Gold Script #/100 that I need...


  6. #16




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    I broke the 18-19 UD and 08-09 Artifacts, no major hits, tho I did get 7 young guns (Heiskanen, Comtois, Kahun/Kahun canvas ++), 4 portraits, 4 canvas (Matthews, Price, Kahun YG), a shooting star and a game jersey (Quick)...

    The UD wasn't a great break but it wasn't terrible either. It really was just like breaking a bigger blaster box, but at least blaster boxes have jumbo YG's...

    Overall I think the Heiskanen and Comtois YG's have potential, and as a Hawks fan It was cool to pull both Kahun YG's, of course who wouldn't want a Matthews and Price canvas?

    As for the Artifacts.... That was pretty interesting..

    I got 4 "hits" out of the box:

    - Blue Artifacts Forsberg 18/50
    - RW Stars Selanne 479/999
    - Treasured Swatches Kyle Calder
    - Rookie Redemption NJ Devils RED283

    TBH, I think the base cards are really cool, they're high quality foil cards and it's always fun to pull Hall of Famers like Orr, Howe, Hull etc in the same pack with future Hall of Famers so I'm really satisfied with the base, tho the "hits" were pretty atrocious. I mean I'm sure it could have been worse, but really? a Kyle Calder Kings jersey? first of all not only is that one of the worst jerseys one could possibly get, but it reminds me of the Hawks "dark age" so I view that "hit" as a negative. I also found it interesting that I got 2 of the "hits" in the same pack; Selanne RW Stars SP & Forsberg Blue parallel.. Obviously the Forsberg /50 is the best card I pulled and the redemption card is useless..

    Of course I have more unopened material on the way, so hopefully that will go a little better but overall what I have broke so far is "meh" - not terrible and not great, I got what I paid for as far as BV but I didn't pull many desirable cards... I mean if I had the choice between the cards and my money back I would take the money back no doubt BUT that's the "risk" you take with unopened material. At least it's better than blowing a wad on lotto tickets and having nothing to show for it...

    I haven't received my case of fat packs yet and hopefully that will go over better.

    I intend to finish the Artifacts base set, because I really do like those cards - and I did pull many doubles and triples of some of the bigger base cards like Ovechkin, Gretzky, Crosby, Lemieux, Orr, Roy, Price etc..

  7. #17




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    Has retail artifacts always been as bad as it is now? I opened some of that in 15-16 and it was literally the worst thing I've ever opened in my life. Even MVP is a better break


    My experience with artifacts retail boxes is pretty much the same. Purchased a box from toys r us, got nothing but pack after pack of base.

  8. #18




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    I ripped the fat packs and as usual they didn't let me down...

    Out of 18 I got the following YG's

    Hischier
    McAvoy
    DeBrincat
    Boeser
    Tuch
    Yamamoto

    Does it really matter what other hits I pulled? lol

    As usual the fat packs payoff.... IMO, at least with me - the quality of YG's is way better in fat packs than tins, blasters or retail... I can't speak for hobby packs because I have never broke hobby.. Now why this is? I don't know, but what I do know is that whenever I rip a handful of fat packs I always get a nice Young Gun. Yea, your inserts are pretty much limited to Young Guns, Canvas, Portraits and Shining Stars but who really cares if you get the YG's???

    But yea, breaking those fat packs was pretty fun..... I was pretty nervous going into this fat pack break because the other stuff really didn't deliver much, however I hit the McAvoy in the very first pack and from that point I was pretty confident this was going to be a good break - and obviously it was...

    I already sold the Boeser and Yamamoto to recoup a little bit of the $$$ I dropped...

    So to sum it up - the fat packs paid off and everything else was "meh" at best... I will say tho that I did enjoy the Artifacts, but the only problem there is that the inserts were lame and were few and far between. Out of one retail box of Artifacts I only received (4) "hits", and 2 of them were total nonsense - a Kyle Calder Treasured Swatches and a New Jersey Devils Rookie Redemption card that expired almost a decade ago, but the product itself as far as design and content is pretty nice in my opinion. As far as value - I thought I could have gotten more bang for my buck, but I'm happy with the base cards I got - those are really cool, and I also really like that Peter Forsberg blue parallel /50 and that Selanne Blue "Stars" /999 will be a nice add to my Selanne collection...

    2017-18 Upper Deck Series 1 Fat Packs: 10/10
    2018-19 Upper Deck Series 1 Retail: 6/10
    2008-09 Artifacts: 6/10

    Now hopefully my luck on the Fat Packs will continue into a few ebay auctions I'm watching today, lol because if so I could end the day on a high note with a bunch of nice vintage cards - high end vintage.

  9. #19




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    I need to buy a case of top loaders. I hate putting nice hits in old cases, it really takes away from the card.




  10. #20




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    My experience with artifacts retail boxes is pretty much the same. Purchased a box from toys r us, got nothing but pack after pack of base.

    Yea, that's pretty much how I felt breaking this box...Not only that but I got 2 of my "hits" in the same pack, and to make it even more frustrating the pack that the "hits" were in (the best hits) they were in the 2nd to last pack. I mean I was really pissed until those last couple of packs...

    It seems the only "hits" I got on average were decoys lol... And those were inserted with absolutely no rhyme or reason.. I mean a dishonest person or card dealer could easily search this product.. If you're going to put decoys in packs then put them in all packs - just not some of them..

    I don't think I will be buying Artifacts again anytime soon that's for sure...IMO, this would be an excellent and fun product for $15-20, but I paid $30 and if one of my "hit's wasn't a blue parallel Peter Forsberg xx/50 (bv: $15) I would be very disappointed and would have felt like I was totally ripped off, but at least the Forsberg makes it feel like I got something out of it as far as value... I did have fun, and I do like the base as a collector - but I want more value than "fun" - I want my $$ out of it and I barely got that...
    Last edited by Savard18; 04-21-2019 at 04:24 PM.

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