2013-14 Upper Deck Artifacts Box Break #3

So, over the weekend, we made a trip to the mall, so that my wife could stop by Gymboree and pick up some dresses for our girls for some family pictures. Since me LCS is located in our local mall, I had to make a pit stop, and while I was there, I picked up my third box of 2013-14 Upper Deck Artifacts.

As far as the base cards go,  this box, gave me three Penguins, including my second Sidney Crosby, which is perfect. I need one for my player collection, and one for the set, so if I was going to get doubles of anyone, he would be the one I want.

My two serial-numbered non-rookie cards were a goaltender card of Jean-Sebastien Giguere of the Colorado Avalanche and Devante Smith-Pelly of the Anaheim Ducks. Giguere is famous for winning the Conn Smythe Trophy in 2003, despite his team falling short in the Stanley Cup Finals, and Smith-Pelly is (in)famous for using a stamp to sign many of his 2011-12 rookie cards.

My box was loaded with rookies, as I ended up pulling five in total. The first four were base cards of Jared Staal 56/999, Christopher Nilstorp 721/999, an Emerald parallel of Thomas Hickey 37/99, and a Columbus Blue Jackets Rookie Redemption, which will likely be 2012 2nd overall draft pick Ryan Murray.

My first hit is a dual jersey card of Avalance forward Matt Duchene and Paul Stastny, who seem to share a lot of two-player hit cards. Either way, I'm a fan of Duchene's, which makes it a good pull, plus almost all jersey card of Avalanche players look fantastic, due to the great colors of the team's sweaters.

I also picked up a Ryan Getzlaf Treasured Swatches dual jersey card, which I'm sure will soon be heading to Greg at Plaschke, Thy Sweater is Argyle. The puzzling thing for me, though, is the gold swatch, which appears to be a single-colored patch, despite it just being labeled "jersey." I'm sure once Greg gets is, he can compare that material to other patch cards of it, but the material is different from regular jersey swatches, that's for sure.

My last jersey card is a base parallel of Dominik Hasek, numbered 78/125. It's simply just a great card of a future Hall-of-Famer, and features two jersey swatches of two different colors, that match the uniform work in the photo. Apart from adding patches or an autograph, you can't do much better than that.

My last hit of the  break was an Autographed Rookie Redemption IX card. Like the base Rookie Redemption cards, these card represent players who have not made their NHL debut yet. Artifacts has been doing this for years, as a way to release this product early, and still be the first product to include the rookies that collectors will be chasing throughout the year.

There are 24 Autographed Rookie Redemptions in 2013-14 Artifacts, most likely due to the Double Rookie Class. Some of the rookies from the class were used in 2012-13 redemptions, as XRCs, but I'm not sure if those players will be used this year, or if they'll be going for 24 fresh faces. Typically, Upper Deck releases the names of the redemption players in late December, so in two months, I should have my answer.