Eight Packs of 2012-13 SP Authentic

Like with yesterday's Rookie Anthology post, 2012-13 SP Authentic is another set I was hoping to purchase a box of, only to discover there were no boxes left at my LCS. They did, however, have a few packs left, so I picked up the last eight out of the box, just to give the product a good sample. 

I won't go too much into the base cards, but I will say that my only Penguin out of eight packs of five cards was Evgeni Malkin. 

SP Authentic also featured updates of previously released sets, inserting rookie cards from MVP and what would have been Upper Deck Series 2 at a rate of 1:Box for MVP and 1:6 packs for Series 2. I got one of each, with a Guillame Latendresse from Series 2 and a Jake Allen Rookie card from MVP.

Upper Deck also paid tribute to their original "SP" set from 1994-95, with current players on the classic design. These are inserted 1:6 packs and I got 2 of them with Gabriel Landeskog and Jordan Eberle.

I also got 2 Authentic Moments cards, which recognize great performances of a player's career, like when Ron Francis took the Hartford Whalers to their only playoff series victory while the franchis was in Hartford and Taylor Hall's hat trick in a blowout vs. Chicago.

Autographs are inserted into packs of SP Authentic in every eight packs, so grabbing eight packs out of a 24 pack box, I was bound to pull at least one, right? Well, the odds were on my side, and I was lucky enough that the collation gave me one, a Riley Sheahan Sign of the Times on-card autograph. Apart from playing in only one NHL game in each of the past two season's, Sheahan is most famous for being pulled over while driving drunk at over 4 times the legal limit, while wearing a purple Telletubbies costume.

All in all, I'd say I did ok here. Nothing epic, but the risk of buying loose packs is that depending on how the collation goes, you could get lucky, or you could get unlucky. I was just happy to meet the odds.