From Santa Claus: A Box of 2012-13 Rookie Anthology

I know it has been a while since I have posted on here, but a lot of that has to do with the attention I have been giving my autographed memorabilia collection, which is written about on Not Pulled From Packs. I also spent Cristmas driving from Moorhead, MN to Houston, TX with my wife and three girls (ages 6, 3, and 3 months), so my attention (and money) has been focused elsewhere.

Still, I do like to pick up some cards every now and then, and received an assist under the Christmas tree from "Santa Claus" in the form of a hobby box of 2012-13 Rookie Anthology that he may or may not have found at my LCS for a discounted price.

Anyway, I've opened up plenty of boxes of this in the past, so I'll save you the full narrative of what comes in Rookie anthology and get right to it.

I'm not sure if there's a point to posting base cards, as I've pulled each Penguin multiple times, but this box gave me Marc-Andre Fleury and Brandon Sutter from my favorite team.

My bonus pack of Prizm gave me a Jarome Iginla, which is kind of a Penguin card, as well as a Torey Krug rookie and a Riley Sheahan rookie refractor.

I got mostly the same garden-variety inserts that I had in the past, with one exception, the Wendel Clark Intensity card, numbered 155/500. It's a great looking card, printed on acetate, and gives a close-up view of a player's face as he eyes down his opponent. It isn't the most rare of cards, but for some reason, I don't think I've ever pulled one.

The first of my hits is a Cameron Gaunce Titanium Metallic Marks Bronze card, which I'm pretty sure was a sticker dump. Gaunce played for the Colorado Avalanche for 11 games in 2010-11, and didn't get back to the NHL until 2013-14, when he played 9 games for the Dallas Stars.

Speaking of Titanium, I also pulled a Roberto Luongo Game-Worn Gear jersey card. I thought that I already had this card, but looking through what I have, I must have traded my old one away, so it's nice to have it again.

This Slava Voynov All the King's Men jersey card may have been cool at one point, but not so much anymore.

The one per-box-guarantee is a Rookie Treasures autographed dual jersey card, and I did pretty good here. I pulled one of Torey Krug, numbered 29/99, featuring two multi-colored patch pieces. Krug payed just 3 NHL games in total between the 2011-12 and 2012-13 NHL regular seasons, but made a name for himself in the 2012-13 playoffs, scoring 4 goals and 2 assists in 15 postseason games.

My last hit of the box is a big one, with this Crown Royale Rookie Silhouette card of Brandon Bollig. The card features a jumbo patch piece behind a cut-out of the player, right above an on-card autograph. Bollig is currently playing for the Calgary Flames, but made his mark in Chicago while he was there, winning the Stanley Cup with the team in 2013.

Overall, this was a pretty good box. There were plenty of great inserts and a total of five hits, including TWO autographed patch cards. Some boxes can be quite risky, but there have been very few boxes of this particular product that have left me disappointed.