Retail Review - 2011-12 Upper Deck Series 1 Tin

2011-12 Upper Deck Series 1 Retail Tin

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Notable Commons:
11 Michal Neuvirth $1.00
15 Roberto Luongo $1.00
26 Steven Stamkos $1.25
80 John Tavares $1.25
99 Carey Price $1.00
126 Taylor Hall $1.25
160 Jonathan Toews $1.00






























Young Guns: 3, 1:6 Packs
203 Greg Nemisz $6.00
207 Brandon Saad $6.00
243 Matt Frattin $12.00












EA Sports Ultimate Team: 2, 1:8 Packs
EA5 Jonathan Toews $5.00
EA12 Dion Phaneuf $3.00














All-World Team: 1, 1:12 Packs
AW23 Patrick Kane $5.00















UD Canvas: 2, 1:6 Packs
C45 Tomas Pickanec $2.50
C80 Roberto Luongo $4.00















Hockey Heroes: 1, 1:12 Packs
HH3 Andy Bathgate $2.50
















Winter Classic Oversized: 1 Per Tin
WC8 Semyon Carlamov $4.00

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Design: 4/5

Pros: Nice clean design with a different face shot on the back and full stats.
Cons: Some of the photos are pretty boring and the silver foil names over white background, while hockey themed, is hard to read.

Set Building: 4/5
Pros: 200 base cards, 50 rookies! Young Guns tend to hold alot of value with collectors.
Cons: The rookies are short printed as they usually are with UD. Thankfully there are no -super shortprints- like with Pinnacle. That value the cards hold will mean lots of $$$ spent finishing your set.

Rookies: 5/5
Pros: 3 Young Guns per tin is pretty decent and they hold alot of value.
Cons: With 50 of them to collect, you'll be spending alot on the secondary market.

Inserts: 4/5

Pros: They have a pretty good variation this year. I really like the Hockey Heroes and the Canvas cards. Whatever they're using for an art filter looks great! The over-sized card looks amazing also.
Cons: EA Sports ads on my cards.

Autos/Relics: 1/5

Pros: None.

Cons: 1:24 Packs for a Jersey, no autos at all inserted. Pretty ugly.

Value: 18/25
I was really impressed when I opened the tin. The first thing you see is the oversized card in plastic. When you take the card out, the packs are inserted into a plastic tray. It really made me feel like I was opening a 'box' and gave alot of value to the pack ripping experience.

I'm a big fan of Young Guns and they where smart enough to put 3 per tin. Just the right number. However I would me much more happy if you got a jersey per tin, especially since there is no chance for an autograph! I might pick up another tin, but I'd really want to hit a jersey or one of the canvas Young Guns next time!

Retail Review - 2011-12 Pinnacle Hockey

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2011-12 Pinnacle Blaster

Commons:
4 Taylor Hall $1.25
8 Alex Ovechkin $1.25
19 Tyler Seguin $1.25
31 Carey Price $1
53 Jeff Skinner $1
62 Michal Neuvirth $1
87 Sidney Crosby $2
91 Steven Stamkos $1.25
196 John Tavares $1.25
219 Jonathan Toews $1










Rookies:
273 Alexei Emelin $3











Rink Collection:
20 Chris Pronger $4














Breakthrough:
7 Ryane Clowe $1.50
20 Loui Eriksson $2

Fans of the Game:
8 Pressly $4



















Foundation Tandems West:
7 Halak/Pietrangeld $n/a (one sold on Ebay for $5)











Game Night Materials 35 Drew Doughty (Black Swatch) $10

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Design: 3/5

Pros: The photography is pretty great. Blows most of the competition's cards off the ice. (Just look at the couple I scanned for front and back base card scans. Card backs have alot of interesting text to read.
Cons:Boring card back design. No stats whatsoever and it re-uses the front image.

Set Building: 1/5
Pros: Tons of players to collect, 250 total!
Cons: The rookies #251-280 are short printed. Not too bad considering Upper Deck does the same thing, however Pinnacle made the last #281-290 autograph versions. Putting this set together will be near impossible without spending a ton of cash.

Rookies: 1/5
Pros: You get at least one per box... I mean it could be worse right?
Cons: 40 rookies total in the base set, 30 of those are short printed, the last 10 are super short printed autographed cards. You'd have to be extremely lucky to pull one, at least in retail! Rookies have the 'foil' finish and don't blend with the rest of the set.

Inserts: 3/5

Pros: Plenty to collect. I'm not sure how rare the Foundation inserts are but they seem to sell well on Ebay and I don't see many listed. They could be retail exclusive? The foil cards don't scan well, but they do look nice!
Cons: Boring designs. All of the inserts have the same picture on the front and back. Has anyone ever cared about Fans of the Game? Also nothing is serial numbered.

Autos/Relics: 3/5

Pros: One per box, the only reason the box wasn't a complete bust!

Cons: No serial number again!

Value: 11/25
I don't think I'd buy this again. It seems like the perfect product to build a set, with the outstanding photography and decent insert/jersey to pack ratios. They had to screw it up by making the rookies impossible to get though!