2012-13 Upper Deck Series 1 Box Break

As big of a hockey fan as I am, there is one thing, oddly enough, that I have never done: open a hobby box of Upper Deck. For hockey, Upper Deck is basically the flagship set, contains some of the most coveted rookie cards, and has some of the best photography you will see, but for some reason, I have pretty much relied on retail backs, blaster boxes, and the occasional trade to build my Upper Deck sets.

Until now.

With a little extra Christmas money, I got myself a couple of hockey boxes, one of which was 2012-13 Upper Deck Series 1.

I pulled five base cards of Penguins players.  I especially was happy to pull the Crosby, as I already got one from my blaster box, and with any Crosby card, I need one for the PC in addition to the one for the set.

The most waited for rookie cards are always the Young Guns cards from Upper Deck. With the lockout still in effect, the 2012 draft picks are not inclueded, and we are left with the players who came in late in the 2011-12 season. The rookie class isn't quite what Series 1 usually brings, but there still are a few winners. My six Young Guns cards were the YG Checklist (Chris Kreider, Sven Baertschi, Jaden Schwartz), Jake Allen, Mike Connolly, Robert Mayer, Mat Clark, and Jordan Nolan.

My two hits were jersey cards of Tuukka Rask and Craig Anderson. Kind of blah, but hey, they can't all be winners.

My four Canvas cards were of Brandon Manning (Young Guns), Magnus Paajarvi, David Perron, and Kyle Okposo. They introduced this insert last year, which features a canvas-like texturing on the front, along with an alternate photo. These are easily some of the best looking hockey cards out there.

I also got two Silver Skates insert cards, of Adam Henrique, Milan Lucic. My first thought when I saw these was how much they looked like an insert set we would have seen from Upper Deck in the mid '90s. As it turns out, these cards are basically a tribute to an insert set they had in 1993-94. I was right.

My two Hockey Heroes cards were of Marcel Dionne and Gilbert Perreault. These are both decent cards, but I liked it better when Hockey Heroes just focused on one player, and showed them at various points int heir career.

My four MVP cards gave me two good ones (Taylor Hall and Ryan Miller) and two not-quite-as-good ones (Keith Yandle and Brayden Schenn)

Lastly, I received one UD Exclusives card, which is basically the base card with "UD Exclusives" on the side and a serial number. The cards has the "Ebay 1/1" number of 100/100, which should get me some extra scratch on Ebay, but it's Saku Koivu, so probably not.

Well, there you have it. Nothing ground breaking, but I got the box primarily to try and build the set, so mission accomplished. I still have a few that I need, so go and check out my needs list and let me know what you can do.