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Index |
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Drury |
Williams |
Stuart |
Cheechoo |
Lupul |
Hossa |
LeCavalier |
Gonchar |
Krajicek |
Robidas |
UD Victory
Rookie Rating – N/A
It really wouldn’t be fair to judge Victory on any scale. It came out as a super early release and was designed as a way to give fans a nifty product at a lower price. Although it does contain at least one RC: Mikki Dupont. Even though he is technically a "leftover" rookie, he started the new season with a bang and being able to find RCs of him in 99 cent packs is great!
UD Top Shelf 
Rookie Rating - 3.0/5.0 Box Price: $55
Rookie redemptions that fell two or three per box should give collectors a good deal of the new top rookies. They are redemptions though, and that means not only a lengthy wait, but not knowing who you’ve got until you actually get your card. The biggest plus though is that the redemptions are considered part of the base set and thus should definitely earn the RC tag.
UD MVP
Rookie Rating - 2.0/5.0 Box Price: $28
There are a myriad of reasons to buy UD MVP, but rookies are not one of them. Most of the reason for this is obvious: MVP is an early season release, thus they aren’t going to be allowed to print up rookie cards of any draftees. Despite the early release, MVP did manage to get a few "leftover" rookies into this product, including young Calgary blueliner Mikki Dupont, who started the new season strong. Considering the early release and their ability to still get a couple of RCs in, I am willing to give this product a bit of a break on the rookie rating.
UD Vintage
Rookie Rating – 0.5/5.0 Box Price: $34
But no more relaxing ratings for Vintage. Vintage had a pathetic rookie showing: the checklists contains only four real RCs: Dupont, Ray Schultz, Adam Hall, and Kyle Rossiter. Pacific Atomic came out a week later and it featured all the rookie stars: Nash, Bouwmesster, Chistov, Kobasew … so obviously Vintage had enough time if Pacific came out with all of the new rookies (and parallels of them!) within a week of Vintage’s release.
UD Foundations
Rookie Rating – 3.6/5.0 Box Price: $54
The sell sheet for UD Foundations was not exactly accurate it seems. Nash and the gang HAVE showed up on UD Foundations RCs. Numbered to only 1250 and still falling at 3 per box, this changes this drastically. Looks like UD made a last minute change for the better. There are still a few fake RCs floating through the product, but for the most part, the rookies are here and in decent quantities.
UD Piece of History
Rookie Rating – N/A
Oops. Seems I got sell-sheet ricked again. Thanks to Vishal for informing me of the rookies via the guestbook. I never bought any Piece of History and it wasn't a big hit ... I don't know anyone who broke a box even ... just a few packs here or there. So I'm hardly qualified to rate them. I do apologize for the little UD potshot I had here before. Hey, I was still bitter about UD1!
Upper Deck Series 1
Rookie Rating – 0.7/5.0 Box Price: $54
So finally Nash and the gang pop up in a Upper Deck product. Well sort of … Young Guns are inserted 1:4, but hold your horses cause you won’t find Nash, Bouwmeester or even Ales Hemsky in there. Oh no, the 1:4 Young Guns are reserved for fake RCs, The real guys you want aren’t hiding in those common 1:4 SPs. No, they are in another subset … a super SP’d subset of 20 cards. This subset contains 10 Memorable Seasons cards and 10 top-quality rookie cards. The problem? These Super SP’d cards fall one per box. So your odds of getting any rookie card you really want? 1:2 boxes. Yep, only every other box will have a nice RC for you, the other will have a SSP’d Memorable Seasons card. Nash and the gang must be shy or something.
Upper Deck SPx
Rookie Rating – 3.3/5.0 Box Price: $95
Jeez, it’s about time a UD product did something right as far as rookies! Now, you’re not going to believe this, but SPx gives you two RCs per box! Yeah, I know, I was blown away too! And they aren’t just RCs, they are photo jersey and signed RCs. First, every box has a photo jersey RC. Now, there are some decent pulls here: Eminger, Hemsky, Frolov, Leopold, Dupont, but the majority of these cards are the littier rookies of this year: Blouin, Volchenkov, Sharp, Somik. Second are the pride and joy of SPx, the autographed jersey RCs. Now sadly, these have two levels, the commons (/1250) and the SPs (/500). Naturally most of the guys you want are in the SPs, making thems slightly harder pulls. Still, the commons have some nice young players in them (I think Spezza is a common) and make for nice cards regardless. Not perfect rookie coverage, but two nifty RCs … more than any other UD product can say … much more.
Based on my ratings and box prices (found at dacardworld.com) a box that I would give a rookie rating of 5/5 from UD would cost $122.14
Pacific
Rookie Rating – N/A
Pacific Heads Up
Rookie Rating – N/A
Both of these were released much too early for any sort of new rookies to be expected in them.
Pacific Atomic
Rookie Rating – 4.7/5.0 Box Price: $99
Atomic delivers big time on rookies. First of all, the checklist contains real 25 rookie cards, at least half of whom can be considered top notch rookies. Even better though, they fall on average 4 per box. That’s right, they all have the same odds, you won’t find the scrub rookies ten times as often as the top notch rookies. Which means that in any box you have a 1:6 chance of finding any particular rookie card you are looking for. And don’t forget that these rookies are also numbered, every one is out of 775. Excellent rookie coverage from Atomic!
Pacific Exclusives
Rookie Rating – 4.5/5.0 Box Price: $84
One of the main draws to Exclusives is the inclusion of an autographed rookie card in every box. And looking at the checklist this is a BIG deal. The worst pulls are probably Alexei Smirnov (12th overall pick in 2002) or Alexander Svitov (3rd overall pick in 2001) … that translates to "You’ll love your autographed rookie card"! The downside is that Nash, Zetterberg and the other big namers have their only RCs in that subset, which means you have one shot to get any particular rookie you are hunting for. But, you are guarenteed one sweet rookie card and Exclusives doesn’t stop there. "Lesser" rookies like Hemsky, Bouchard and Eminger are also inserted 1:11 and numbered to 699, meaning chances are every box will contain two of them on top of your sweet autographed big name rookie. That’s pretty nice!
Based on my ratings and box prices (found at dacardworld.com) a box that I would give a rookie rating of 5/5 from Pacific would cost $99.45
BAP First Edition
Rookie Rating – N/A
Another early season release that came out much too soon to expect new rookies.
BAP Memorabilia
Rookie Rating – 4.0/5.0 Box Price: $82
All the rookies are here for this one, the top 30 rookies around all found their way into BAP Memorabilia. According to BAP the rookies were short printed, but based on selling levels they are still very attainable, I’d guess maybe 1:8 packs for the rookies. Not extremely difficult to pull but not simple to pull either to give a nice level of collectability. Considering everything else BAP Memorabilia gives, this is certainly more than adequate.
Based on my ratings and box prices (found at dacardworld.com) a box that I would give a rookie rating of 5/5 from BAP would cost $102.50
Topps
Rookie Rating – 3.7/5.0 Box Price: $61
Topps was also out of the gate very early, but unlike the other early releases Topps did provide on the rookie cards with a Rookie Redemption card. These cards came about one per box and allowed you to redeem it for a set of the top 10 rookies to start 2002-03. Looking at the checklist that is quite a card, and a pretty nice way for Topps to bring the rookies to collectors in the early season. Still, it was only 1:36 and was only one card with promise of rookies in about 6 months.
Stadium Club
Rookie Rating – 4.0/5.0 Box Price: $53
Rookies in Stadium Club are very similar to BAP Memorabilia: they are short printed, but still attainable. Like BAP Memorabilia all the top rookies are here, one is just as easy to acquire as the other, whether his name be Nash or Sharp, and based on selling levels I’d also say that Stadium Club rookies probably come about 1:8. And just like BAP Memorabilia, this works very well for Stadium Club in giving collectors some nicer RCs in every box.
Topps Heritage
Rookie Rating – 4.0/5.0 Box Price: $68
Almost a carbon copy of the RCs from Stadium Club. Same short-printing idea, similar insertion rates. The only difference (besides the brand!) is that Heritage has a checklist of only 25, meaning that 5 of the lower RCs have been dumped, making a tad bit easier to pull the top rookies. Hey, every little bit helps!
Based on my ratings and box prices (found at dacardworld.com) a box that I would give a rookie rating of 5/5 from Topps would cost $77.77
Upper Deck
2.2/5.0 average, $122.14 for a box with 5/5 rookie content.
Pacific
4.6/5.0 average, $99.45 for a box with 5/5 rookie content.
Be a Player
4.0/5.0 average, $102.50 for a box with 5/5 rookie content.
Topps
3.9/5.0 average, $77.77 for a box with 5/5 rookie content.
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Index |
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Drury |
Williams |
Stuart |
Cheechoo |
Lupul |
Hossa |
LeCavalier |
Gonchar |
Krajicek |
Robidas |