My Two Cents

[chakhae1]

Hello all!!

Back in the mid 2000s when I was a heavy collector hockey was one of my primary necessities. I bought boxes from all of the major releases and I was active in trading on here and on other sites as well. However, as the market got more saturated my desire to collect every product grew less and less and over the years I would buy only a couple of hockey boxes a year and I would focus my attention elsewhere. That changed until this season with the Maple Leafs becoming relevant once again in the hobby world. I have once again made hockey my collecting focus and haven't bought anything from the other sports except a couple of soccer boxes earlier last year and maybe a basketball box here and there.

In total out of the 2016-2017 hockey releases I have purchased 4 boxes of Upper Deck Series One and four boxes of 2016-2017 Trilogy and am extremely happy with my results. In my UDS1 boxes I was able to pull every Leafs young gun except Zach Hyman and in my Trilogy boxes I lucked out and got two Hall of Fame pucks of Orr and Roy along with a bunch of Leafs rookies and a Matthews game used! Trilogy as some of you might remember was a total disaster last year in terms of design and simply put the product was just bad. It has come back with a vengeance this year and in my opinion is the best product Upper Deck has released in a long, long time. Here are my reasons.

1. The Price: You can get up to four hits per box, but the boxes with 3 hits have a better auto hit, so really you can not lose either way. The four hit boxes have two game used and two autos and the 3 hit boxes have two game used and 1 premium auto. I got my boxes for approximately $140 CDN and compared to the other products that have been released over the years, this is a bargain. Take for example UD ICE last year which is almost twice the price, but way less the value. Out of all the Trilogy breaks I have seen, most boxes offer something in the terms of value and collectibility and very few boxes have given that upset stomach feeling.

2. Design: The puck autos are done very well and the Hall of Fame pucks look really cool. The ones with the logos are innovative and sharp and they look solid overall. The rest of the product is very clean as well. The rookie autos look nice, the TRYPTICHS patches and patch autos look really nice and the addition of the triple patch cards are a new addition as well. Ice Scripts continue to be a Trilogy staple and an innovative and sharp design as well.

3. Player Checklist: All the rookies are here, hall of famers and veterans to meet every collectors needs. It might be easy to say that this product is nice to me because of all the Leafs that are in the checklist, but that is not the case. It is a bonus and one of my better pulls was a Mantha parallel rookie/99 which also looks really nice. The puck auto checklist is very deep and has hall of famers from most teams I believe and the base puck auto set has multiple player and sps for collectors to chase.

4. Value: What I love most about this product as I mentioned earlier is that no box is a dud. With the higher end products such as Black Diamond it is very common to open a box or case and wonder to yourself what you just did. A common Black Diamond box for example costs approximately $100 more but the layout of the box is pretty much the same with 3 hits and 1 auto. High end products such as this focus on the big hit and with Black Diamond it is the gorgeous looking diamond cards, but these are extremely rare and usually 1-2 per case and most boxes don't yield much of a sale value return. Not bashing products such as this, but they are for the high spender and not the average joe collector such as myself.

So, there you have it! Trilogy has been a blast to bust so far and I was thinking of trying some SP Game Used soon, but the issues I mentioned about other products hold true for this as well. Very nice looking cards with the new Banner Season patch and patch autos, but limited value and this is another product you are looking for the big hit with the true rookies and true rookie autos which are even tougher to pull than the diamond cards in black diamond. I also do my research before buying any kind of card product and from my opinion Trilogy has the best bang for your buck!

[YoungGuns1988]

In my experience (limited) trilogy is quite feast or famine. Ive opened a couple boxes and got nothing that really excited me. That said I do agree with your logic and certainly from a value standpoint it seems to be less risky then Black Diamond. The trilogy cards also look really sweet IMO, especially the level one rookies. Just completed my line of Leafs:

[RGM81]

I dare say that's more than two cents' worth of great opinion! Nice post!

[10-4 collector]

I respect your opinion but you got lucky. UD will come back and bite you in the ... don't worry!

[chakhae1]

ahha yes I know the nature of the hobby and I expect to be bit in the butt sooner than later! That's a sweet collection of Leafs rookies! I was lucky enough to pull a Nylander/99! Another thing I noticed about this product that I like is the exclusion of the dreaded redemption! The only one that I have seen is Mantha and maybe a couple of TRYPTICHS veteran autos, but other than that none at all!!

When comparing Trilogy to SPGU I forgot to mention one more thing as well. I am aware that SPGU is a game used focused product but in the hobby most game used cards have extremely minimal value. Even for a game used auto jersey of a semistar player such as Henrique(no offence to Henrique fans) you are lucky to get $5 for that. Again it's the nature of the business and the hobby. UD seems to have limited those $5 autos in Trilogy and the ones that do exist in this set, such as the puck autos and TRYPTICHS, look really nice and offer something different than the typical auto jersey card that looks plain and dull.

[piper1]

Thanks for coming out.

[Maggot]

Good read. It's useful for me, someone recently back from a hiatus, to read opinions/reviews on the high end products like these. Thanks!

[fleurycollector]

It seems the current leafs roster has brought many collectors out of their comas. LOL I haven't bought anything since 2010!!! I quit for personal reasons not any dislike of the hobby or sport. And while I don't collect Leafs cards per-say (MA Fleury), Leafs are my team and nice cards always catch my eye. I can't help but want one of these Matthews YG's. Just browsing all the stuff I missed in that time has been truly awesome!

Thanks for the feedback on current products, a purchase may be in my near future.

[chakhae1]

For sure! I would try a couple of boxes of SP Authentic and one of a couple of other products over the past few years, but this year it has been all hockey all the time. I don't know how costly SPA will be, since that will most likely be my last of this years products I will shell some money on. Not a fan of the new SPX pack out, being only one pack and 4 hits. I like busting packs! Glad to be of help :)

[chakhae1]

Well damn, I tried another box of Trilogy and this box had the most anticipation of all five! It was another 3 hit box, meaning one of the hits would be decent and it was, but it could have been SO much better. There was no thick cards out of my packs so I knew it wasn't another puck or TRYPTICHS auto so I was thinking a nice Leafs auto or one of those nice sps/49. The auto wound up being Jessi Pool Party which is nice and he has a LOT of potential for the Oilers, but meh. Can't say I am disappointed though since I like holding onto my cards and a couple recently have sky rocketed to crazy heights(Cody Bellinger Bowman Chrome RC Auto and a Gianniis Panini Signatures RC Auto/199) so here's hoping Jessi does something similar!