AHL Upper Deck cards

[wild4life]

I haven't kept close enough tabs on the hobby the past few seasons, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered UD is now making AHL cards. Have any of you busted open much of it? What are your thoughts? I'm particularly interested in what team collectors think of it.

[creasecollector]

Haven't busted any of the product, personally. But I love how Upper Deck has focused their attention on the AHL. It gives us some new players a chance to shine in this hobby and, as an added bonus, if your PC player happens to play in "The A", you could find some nice autographed base parallels of these players. Gives some nice exposure. I liked UD's approach with the AHL release, great for the hobby IMO.

[wild4life]

That's kinda my line of thinking, as well. Would love to see NWHL/CWHL cards from UD someday.

[creasecollector]

That's kinda my line of thinking, as well. Would love to see NWHL/CWHL cards from UD someday.

I would love to see that as well. Something tells me we won't have to wait too long !

[Sharky94]

I am sure you will be able to find them nice and cheap in a couple years. Just like minor league baseball cards, they will hold no long-term interest from collectors. The only people that will collect them are favorite player collectors who will only be interested in their one or two players. Since 90% of the players will have no long-term career, the cards will not hold any value. Sorry to disappoint anyone (I have been told that there is not much sun in my life). But minor league cards never hold value in any sport. History has shown that time and time again. The only people to make money on those will be the one person who stockpiles the one player who goes on and becomes a superstar and wins a bunch of Cups. The rest of the cards will collect dust in the bottom of storage boxes.

[wild4life]

I am sure you will be able to find them nice and cheap in a couple years. Just like minor league baseball cards, they will hold no long-term interest from collectors. The only people that will collect them are favorite player collectors who will only be interested in their one or two players. Since 90% of the players will have no long-term career, the cards will not hold any value. Sorry to disappoint anyone (I have been told that there is not much sun in my life). But minor league cards never hold value in any sport. History has shown that time and time again. The only people to make money on those will be the one person who stockpiles the one player who goes on and becomes a superstar and wins a bunch of Cups. The rest of the cards will collect dust in the bottom of storage boxes.

This is the problem with the hobby today. We've begun to focus way too much attention on long term monetary value, and not what makes the hobby fun: set collecting, player collecting and team collecting. As far as I'm concerned, the AHL cards cover all three of these, which makes it a fun product to at least think about IMO.

[30ranfordfan]

I don't dislike the product, per say, but my interest in UD's AHL product is next to nothing.... where as I always liked H&P from ITG.


If you're interested in minor league teams / players - I can see this being a fun set to collect. Yes. For the most part, I am not. I'm interested in a handful of my own team's prospects, but that's about it.

The autograph content in last year's set, I thought, was under-whelming. Did Upper Deck go out and acquire NEW autographs for this set? Or did they just use stickers they had left over from years past.... or from guys who did the rookie photo shoot with them, and hadn't yet been in an NHL product? I don't see any evidence that the autographs in the product are anymore than a sticker dump for them.


Not sure if they're going to do another set this year or not (I have not heard anything) but I'll use the Bakersfield Condors to illustrate what I mean:

If you were to pick 5 players off that team, to get auto'd cards, I think I'd probably go with:

Matthew Ford (their leading scorer)
Brad Hunt (top defenseman, 2nd leading scorer)
Andrew Miller (3rd leading scorer)
Laurent Brossoit (starting goalie)
Driasitle / Nurse / Reinhart - Depending on what time of year you looked at the roster.... these are the actual top prospects that the Oilers had on the farm.


Of course the only ones on that list that would actually be included in an autograph checklist would be Laurent Brossoit & the prospects I listed below him. Why? They've all signed stickers for UD already. If UD still has stickers kicking around for Ryan Hamilton, David Musil, Dillon Simpson, or anyone else on the roster.... they might get included too, but that's where it will stop.



So I guess my problem with last year's AHL set was that it offered next to nothing in the way of a unique item to add to my collection. There wasn't any autograph content that interested me..... it's not a set I was interested in building.


The way ITG used to do Heroes & Prospects - There'd be a mix of CHL / AHL / NHL players. Made for a good break (not always... obviously some boxes would be busts) and there was interesting stuff in there.


UD AHL? I don't want to sound cynical.... but like was already said: Unless there's a specific player you're collecting they've included - I don't get the appeal. I will add to that, if you're really interested in minor league hockey..... maybe this is a nice set to do? I just don't see it for most hockey collectors.... because most of the top end prospects go directly to the NHL, and skip the AHL. It's why interest in the AHL (in Canada, at least) has never seemed to be as big as for the CHL. It's a collection of "not top tier" prospects, and minor league journeymen. Some real good hockey players, and entertaining game to be sure, but it's not the big leagues... and it lacks the real cream of the crop prospects.

[jogesc2]

I opened a couple of boxes at $50 CDN each, which was the most I was willing to pay for a box of it. I liked the team stickers and it was a fun set to collect.

[Tripredacus]

Oh are the AHL sets now not just a box set with an Auto in it? Actual packs now?

[RGM81]

I picked up a couple cards from last year's release. Was a nice way to get a cheap auto of future Canadiens players that may or may not ever turn out to be long-term NHL'ers.