Upper Deck Series One was released in November 2012. A box will cost you roughly $70 or $80, and contains 24 8-card packs. You can pretty much expect 6 Young Guns, 4 Canvas cards and 2 memorabilia cards in every box.
Here are the results of my most recent box break.
168 base cards – This box yielded almost a complete base set. The photography is always stunning on the base card, and the back contains the player’s entire career statistics–and not just the past 5 years like other sets (click here to read my review of Series One).
6 Young Guns – The rookie cards I got in this box are Mark Stone (Senators), Maxime Sauve (Bruins), Cody Goloubef (Blue Jackets), Jakob Silfverberg (Senators), Lane MacDermid (Bruins) and Jason Zucker (Wild).
4 MVP cards – Ondej Pavelec, Mike Richards, Martin Brodeur and Evgeni Malkin.
4 UD Canvas cards – Corey Schneider, Ryan Getzlaf, Erik Karlsson and Patrick Kane. The picture used on Kane’s card is awesome–notice the puck at the very bottom of the photo.
2 Hockey Heroes 1970s – Borje Salming and Larry Robinson.
2 Silver Skates – Marian Gaborik and Thomas Vanek.
2 UD Game Jersey cards – Bobby Ryan and Saku Koivu. Two Ducks’ jersey cards in one box? That’s underwhelming. And really, Upper Deck–what’s with the red-colored Montreal Canadiens’ swatch on the Saku Koivu card? Koivu hasn’t played for the Habs since 2008-09. This is 2013–save the red swatches for some retro product where you show Koivu with Montreal.
1 UD Exclusives card – Alex Pieterangelo, numbered 018 / 100. These “UD Exclusives” parallels replace the silver foil with gold foil.
1 Requisite Radiance card – Another Duck, but this one is die-cut and shiny! I haven’t seen these inserts before. They fall 1 in every 432 packs.
Overall, Upper Deck is a fun break–but don’t expect any real big “hits” in this product–the jersey cards are usually pretty run-of-the-mill, and autographs fall 1 in every 288 packs (that is, 1 in every 12 boxes). But the photos on the base cards themselves is worth the price of admission. You can almost get a complete base set from one box, and you should be able to sell off or trade the Young Guns and inserts you don’t want.
Special thanks to Upper Deck for providing the box for this break.
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The Requisite Radiance card is awesome! While the Young Guns are pretty weak this series, those low numbered inserts (Requisite Radiance, Pride of a Nation) add to the fun of opening boxes and can really add some value.