Another day, another box break of 2014-15 Upper Deck Series One. A box has 24 packs, and each pack has eight cards.
168 Base Cards
Kris Versteeg had a three-point game yesterday (1G, 2A) so he seems to be an appropriate choice as the base card du jour. (See my previous box break for more info about the base cards).
6 Young Guns Rookie Cards
Fortunately, none of these were repeats from my last box. Here I got Adam Lowry, Victor Rask, Oscar Klefbom, Griffin Reinhart, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and Vladislav Namestinkov.
3 Shining Stars Inserts
Alexander Steen, Anze Kopitar and Claude Giroux. Apparently, if you do not get a Shining Stars Legends card, you get a third Shining Stars card in its place.
1 Shining Stars Royal Blue Insert Card
Well, I have absolutely no complaints about this card. Moving along…
2 Hockey Heroes 2000s
A decade I am still not yet nostalgic for, so I probably won’t build this insert set. The two cards in my box were Perter Forsberg and Sidney Crosby.
3 UD Canvas insert cards
Taylor Hall, Logan Couture and Cam Fowler.
1 UD Canvas Young Guns insert cards
Here we have Patrick Nemeth.
2 Game Jersey Cards
Two guys who played in the Stanley Cup Finals: Drew Doughty of the L.A. Kings and Chris Kreider of the New York Rangers. Both are pictured in their road white jerseys, but both cards have colored swatches. Things that make you go hmmmm.
But wait…there’s more.
I got an UD Exclusives of T.J. Brodie. It is serial-numbered 63 of 100.
What the…? Why….? Who…? You got to be kidding me. Upper Deck has taken a 5-cent card from their 1990-91 Upper Deck card, stamped a silver “25th Anniversary” logo in the lower left corner, then hand-numbered it 13/25 in blue Sharpie marker. What makes this card even more ridiculous is that it came in a penny sleeve, to keep it “mint.” Now, I could understand if the card was autographed by Uwe Krupp…but this is just dumb. I have like 10 of this card already. I don’t need one with a silver logo stamped on it.
What I like about 2014-15 Upper Deck Series 1: The base cards look great. The 200-card base set can usually be completed from buying two boxes. You get six Young Guns per box. Enough people tend to collect the inserts, so you can easily sell or trade off what you don’t want.
What I don’t like about 2014-15 Upper Deck Series 1: The insert cards are not all that inspired. Shining Stars? Canvas? Hockey Heroes? And the 25th buybacks are just laughable.
The inserts are redundant, and the jersey cards found in UD Series 1 are never really worth much. And frankly, I thought any 25th Anniversary insert card would be way cooler than just re-purposing a card from 25 years ago. But I like the base card photography and the range of Young Guns offered. Even if you just go after the base set, you won’t be disappointed.
Question: Is anyone else collecting Upper Deck Series One this year?
Related Posts:
I just picked up collecting once again and decided to start things up by working on the Upper Deck set – I still have a few left to gather to complete the base set but I also have intentions on collecting all the Young Guns. Nice set, great photography although the inserts aren’t anything to write home about.
I enjoy your blog, good stuff.
That Krupp is terrible, disappointing to see Upper Deck doing this again. They already did a 20th anniversary buyback “foil stamp job” on the 90-91 cards for the 2010-11 French flagship set, and now they’re recycling the same garbage again 5 years later, only this time hand-numbered to 25!
The base cards do look great though, as they seem to every year. Thanks for the detailed box breaks Sal!
Hi Sal,
Nice box break! I’m collecting UD Series One and Two every years, and this year is not exeption. I’ve bought 3 boxes but didn’t even finish opening the first one. I’ve also got a Blaster box and a Tin.
Yet in my half opened box, I got a Clear Cut Leaders cards numbered on 10 featuring MacKinnon, Palat and Johnson.
And yes, I also remember UD doing the same exact thing with the 20 anniversary issue… stamping 1990-91 cards. I got the Patrick Roy / Montreal Canadiens drawing checklist… I was happy since I’m a Montreal fan. They were not hand numbered at that time.
I have to say that I miss the MVP insert this year… it miss something without it. I guess we have more Shining Stars insert instead. What do you think?
Congrats for you site again! Love reading you!
Thank you!!!
Good boxes so far! I am going to go out on a limb here and say if you pulled a buyback Roenick rookie we would have heard more favourable reviews. Even better an auto Roenick rookie 😉
Wow, that last card might have dropped my opinion of this set down a grade to “4”. That is just uncalled and lazy. I’d write a letter to them and send their card back to them, tell them to do a better job! This is an important anniversary for them and this is a let down in the eyes of collectors. Just sad.