Preview - 2011-12 UD Parkhurst Champions (Pics Added 6/18)

[RGM81]

5 cards per pack. 20 packs per box.

CONTENT HIGHLIGHTS:

- ALL RETIRED SET
- All Autographs are Hard-Signed!
- Get a total of 2 per box from the following combination of items:
* (including at least 1 autograph) * Wire Photo Single Player Autos
* Wire Photo Multi-Player Autos
* Renditions Color Autos
* Renditions Black & White Autos
* Regular card Autos
* Champ’s Mini Signatures (SP’s too)
* Champ’s Mini Signatures, Red Ink variations
* Parkhurst Masterpieces (sketch cards)
* Champ’s Mini Fossils & Artifacts cards
* Champ’s Mini Parkhurst Back parallels (SP’s too)
* Champ’s Mini Gold Rainbow parallels (SP’s too)
- Collect awesome paintings, depicting some of the NHL’s most artistic characters in terrific renditions!
- Tons of original artwork!!
- Grab 1 Champ’s Mini-Card in every pack!
* Highlighted by Cool Fossils & Artifacts cards!
* Find great signatures too – with regular and red ink versions!
* Also look for parallels, distinguished by different card backs!
- Find Signature cards of every piece of the regular set (reg. cards + 4 subsets)!
- Find cool old-school wire photos, featuring 1, 2 & 3 NHL stars in one shot!

Approximate Release Date:
October, 2011

PRODUCT BREAKDOWN:

Hard-Signed Parkhurst Autographs
- Regular Card Autograph cards – inserted 1:22
- Wire Photos, Single Player – inserted 1:400
- Wire Photos, Multi-Player – inserted 1:2,600
- Renditions, Color Photos – inserted 1:800
- Renditions, Black & White Photos – inserted 1:4,000
- Champ’s Mini-Signatures – inserted: 1:100
- Champ’s Mini-Signatures, Red Ink variation – #’d to 15

Parkhurst Hit
- Parkhurst Masterpieces (sketches) – #’d to 10

Champ’s Mini-Cards (combined to fall 1 per pack!)
- Regular cards – inserted 1:2
- Regular cards SP’s – inserted 1:20
- Green Backs – inserted 1:6
- Green Backs SP’s – inserted 1:80
- Parkhurst Backs – inserted 1:171
- Parkhurst Backs SP’s – inserted 1:2,560
- Fossils & Artifacts cards – inserted 1:1,280

Regular Cards
- 100 Regular Cards
- 30 Wire Photos, Single + Multi-Player
- 30 Renditions, Color + B/W

Product Highlights:
- Regular Card Autogrpah //'s (1:22)
- Wire Photo Autograph //'s (1:400)
- Parkhurst Masterpieces )#'d to 10)
- Champ's Fossils & Artifacts (1:1280)
- Champ's Signatures (1:90)

Box Break: (on average)
- Two Great Hits
* Highlighted by 1-2 Signature Card
- Five (5) Wire Photos cards (1 multi)
- Two-to-three (2-3) Renditions cards
- Twenty (20) Champ's Mini cards

Case Break: (on average)
- Ten (10) Renditions B/W cards
- One (1) Fossils & Artifacts OR Champ's Red Ink (SP) Sig (# to 15) OR Parkhurst Masterpeice Sketch (3 to 10) OR Wire Photo Multi-Player Autograph card OR Renditions B/W, color Autograph Card.

Key Inserts:
- Wire Photo Autographs:
Orr, Gretzky, Messier, Lemieux, Clarke, Beliveau, Lindsay;
Howe-Bower, Hull Mikita, Messier/Kurri, Esposito/Orr;
Esposito / Bucyk / Orr and more

Renditions Autographs (Black & White variation):
Roy, Lafleur, Beliveau, Hull, Howe, Lemieux, Gretzky...

Champ's Signatures:
Orr, Mikita, Brett Hull, Messier, Lemieux, Bossy, Shutt, Bowman, Robitaille, Bucyk, Kurri, Sakic, Bower, Neely...

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No pics yet - will add as soon as they become available.

[polacksrules]

Wow didnt expect to see champ cards back.

[30ranfordfan]

Going to have to see a checklist..... but this one could be VERY good. Sounds like they're combining elements of Parkhurst, Masterpieces, and Champs into one set.

[Bauldie]

So I assume something will be getting the axe next year then?

[Prime B]

So instead of getting creative and creating new sets UD is really just taking sets out of the market and half-assing it by combining them, a la Ice and SPX Finite being cross-branded this year? How exciting.

I will give them credit though for a hard-signed product in the Fall, that will be nice. The problem is there will be no rookies or current players in it so that limits the widespread market appeal for it.

- ALL RETIRED SET

Bonus is they'll have no excuse for redemptions since there are no players traveling during the season to track down.

[TMacfreak91]

Personally I think this is a bad idea. Just seems to me like they're trying to do waaaay too much within one product and to me I don't see how most of the Champs elements fit AT ALL. Since when has a Parkhurst product had something like "artifacts" or "fossils" ? I think if they would have made this set a typical Parkie (retired players, hard signed autos) and then added the Masterpieces element it would've been great but adding the Champs stuff is too much. And maybe I'm just thinking logically here (as many non-manufacturers seem to do) but maybe they should've put the fossils and "artifacts" pieces into the ARTIFACTS set as 1, it just makes sense, and 2, us collectors have been suggesting it since the license change? Sorry for the rant but I think this set is just too much for one set.

Conclusion: Nice elements - too much for one set.

Steve

[RGM81]

So instead of getting creative and creating new sets UD is really just taking sets out of the market and half-assing it by combining them, a la Ice and SPX Finite being cross-branded this year? How exciting.

I will give them credit though for a hard-signed product in the Fall, that will be nice. The problem is there will be no rookies or current players in it so that limits the widespread market appeal for it.

Bonus is they'll have no excuse for redemptions since there are no players traveling during the season to track down.

This is actually something I've been advocating for them to do for the better part of a year now. They have a number of excellent subsets within terrible products - by culling some of the chaff they could end up with products that are greater than the sum of the parts.

You look at a product like Trilogy - on its own, there's not much in there that people care about. RCs are S#'d but that's it. The Scripts autos are stickers. Nothing memorable about the memorabilia cards. The golden gems of Trilogy are the Frozen In Time and Ice Scripts subsets.
Take a look at another product largely scrapped this year: Ice. Lots of popular stuff in there - acetate RCs, Glacial Graphs, Frozen Foursomes, even the PETG memorabilia cards have a cool look & feel to them.

Why they cancelled both of those products, and letting both SPx and SPGU continue to exist as they were, instead of combining the best of the two sets and giving collectors a ton of hard-signed acetate goodness still boggles my mind.

The 06-07 Parkhurst set was one of the more popular auto sets in recent memory, so taking that as the framework and adding some cool subsets that up the value of non-auto/non-memorabilia inserts (a growing trend in the hobby) makes for an interesting recipe. Will it work? Time will tell.

[Captain Canuck]

without seeing mock-ups or a checklist, I have to say I like this idea. I loved the 06/07 retired set... if this is anything like that, I'll be buying.

[mingus_md]

Seems like there is too much going on for one set. I would really like to see a Parkhurst set like 2006-07 without all of the Champs stuff.

[stankskunk]

I like it, it actually sounds like a fun break. I liked Champ's so I might be biased, but I don't think its really that bad that they're mixing a bunch of stuff into one, as long as it doesn't make the cost too steep.