Upper Deck Artifacts - Base Set Stars

[ellford]

I'm hoping someone can help me out with another question.

I've just gone through itemizing my sons cards, as well as his duplicate listing and when I take a look at the Upper Deck Checklist, it lists cards 101-130 as "Base Set - Stars".

We don't have any of these in his collection, so I'm wondering if you can buy them separately from Upper Deck, or where do these cards come from? Do they just come from the larger retail box sets?

Same with the "legends" and "rookies" - we don't seem to have any of those either, but he's got a few Rookie Redemptions, and a Material card... I'm guessing they're just super rare and most people likely auction these then?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as it turns out his favorite player is in the "stars" series (Taylor Hall) and if it's a next to impossible feat for him, I might have to look to the auctions...

Thanks!

[30ranfordfan]

Are you buying the retail boxes (I think they have 3 or 4 packs?) at Walmart, or something like that? I'm pretty sure those cards can come from those packs.... but the bigger the box you buy, the better chance you're going to have at pulling something like that.

Upper Deck Artifacts "tiers" their base set. What I mean by that, is that as you progress through the checklist - the cards become harder to get.... though like most base sets, none are super short printed or anything like that, so they are fairly obtainable.

You've see the checklist, but I'll just go through the numbers:

Cards 1-100 are the easiest to get. There is no serial numbering on them.
Cards 101-130 (like Hall) are the 'Star' players. They're current guys in the league, not rookies, not retired stars, and they're limited to 999 copies
Cards 131-160 are the "Legends". These are all retired stars (Gretzky, Roy, Sakic, etc). They're limited to 499 copies, and the toughest 'base' cards to pull
Cards 161-180 are Rookies (all players that were rookies last year, but missed the cut off date to get into 2014-15 sets). They're limited to 999 copies


If you're looking at collecting the whole set, until you get a significant chunk of it done... boxes are a good way to pick away at it. They can also be expensive. They can also give you a chance to pull out really nice, limited, cards that aren't part of that base set (autographs, jerseys cards, the rookie redemptions, etc).

I just looked at a link from Dave & Adam's Card world. A hobby box (8 packs) from is selling for $79.95 USD (not cheap, but certainly not the most expensive product out there either):

http://www.dacardworld.com/sports-ca...by-box#details

Details say you get 4 serial numbered cards per box. Those are going to be Stars, Legends, and Rookies (cards 101-through-180) and parallel cards (like we were talking about in the other thread, they're the same basic card, but with a different color foil, and different serial numbering).

If you're trying to put together a whole set, or just really want that Taylor Hall, auction sites like eBay can be a great way to pick those cards up (the Hall would cost you less than a pack of cards would) I would also recommend COMC.com as a place to buy single cards, because the shipping will cost you a lot less if you're buying multiple cards from multiple sellers (vs eBay). For example, on their site, they've got 30 of the serial numbered cards (including Taylor Hall) priced at $1.25 or lower. Even if it's 30 unique sellers, you could buy them and have them all shipped in a single package for $3. eBay, you're usually going to be $3 (or more) shipping from every seller you deal with.

Another really good option is a forum like Sports Card Forum! It's a great place to trade doubles (if you've got them) or to buy cards from people looking to sell.

I'm not a big artifacts collector myself (I have not bought a box of it in a couple of years) so I don't really have any recent experience to talk about..... but Upper Deck Series 1 is a set I collected this year. I did buy a lot of product (2 hobby boxes, 9 Blasters from Walmart). The base set is easy to put together (you get, roughly, 1 base set... 1-through-200..... in a hobby box). The rookies are tougher. I would have got 6 in each hobby box (12 total) and 3 in each blaster (27 total). I don't recall the exact number of duplicates I had, but there were some. That's 39 Rookies, and there's 50 in the set. I did have the good fortune to pull a McDavid, so that made things easier for me. My brother, who also wanted to complete a set, bought 5 of the same blasters (also got a McDavid) and had 15 of the rookies.

I was able to sell some of the cards I didn't want, and trade others. All done on this site (though a few sales were elsewhere). I've now got a complete 50 Rookie Card set, and my brother has 48 of the 50. I'd have to crunch the numbers, but I got more cash selling cards I didn't want, than I spent on other Upper Deck Series 1 cards I did.

Just using that as an example of good way to use this site. Lots of member that want to trade, sell, or buy.

I'm hoping someone can help me out with another question.

I've just gone through itemizing my sons cards, as well as his duplicate listing and when I take a look at the Upper Deck Checklist, it lists cards 101-130 as "Base Set - Stars".

We don't have any of these in his collection, so I'm wondering if you can buy them separately from Upper Deck, or where do these cards come from? Do they just come from the larger retail box sets?

Same with the "legends" and "rookies" - we don't seem to have any of those either, but he's got a few Rookie Redemptions, and a Material card... I'm guessing they're just super rare and most people likely auction these then?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as it turns out his favorite player is in the "stars" series (Taylor Hall) and if it's a next to impossible feat for him, I might have to look to the auctions...

Thanks!

[ellford]

So let me get this straight...

There are a total of 30 "Base Set-Stars" cards... An $80US ($116 CDN) box will net you 4 of these (let's assume they're all 'stars' to make this easy)...

Assuming not a single double of the 'Stars', it would require 4 boxes = $464CDN...

Yikes...

Upper Deck sure doesn't make this easy...

[30ranfordfan]

lol, no.

And you won't get 4 of those stars in a box. You'll probably get one of them..... along with a Rookie, a Legend, and a parallel of something.

My bet is if you opened 30 Boxes, you still wouldn't have a set.... but would be close.


collecting an entire set like Artifacts, by busting boxes, would get very expensive. Yes. An online forum, eBay, COMC, local card shows or stores.... buying & trading for the singles you need, that's a pretty efficient way to do it.

So let me get this straight...

There are a total of 30 "Base Set-Stars" cards... An $80US ($116 CDN) box will net you 4 of these (let's assume they're all 'stars' to make this easy)...

Assuming not a single double of the 'Stars', it would require 4 boxes = $464CDN...

Yikes...

Upper Deck sure doesn't make this easy...

[ellford]

OK thanks... I checked out that Comc site and that might be a better way to go...

I'll figure out the SCF inventory thing and start creating our list of cards and duplicates so hopefully we'll find people that want to trade for stuff... Failing that I'll look to pick up some cards on sites like the above or here if people are selling them...

[creasecollector]

My opinion is that if you want to collect the Star Base set from Artifacts, you buy each card individually or trade for them. The 30 cards won't my that hard to track down with some eBay, COMC, or SCF Inventory searches. Should be able to track them all down very easily.

Best of luck!

[RGM81]

Again, great responses here!

[subban7677]

I find sportlots.com great for base cards or really low end stuff. It's the best site to use if you are just looking for a few base to finish off your set. Helped me finish my Tim Hortons set :)

[visigoth]

good info