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2002-03 UD Artistic Impressions

Packs per Box: 20
Cards per Pack: 5
Cards per Box: 100
Base Set Completion: 75.5% (68 of 90)
Full Set Completion: 54.0% (73 of 135)
Duplicates: 0

The exact contents of the first pack scanned in and used to find insert odds:

Michael Peca #56
Bill Guerin #29
Alexei Zhamnov #17
Joe Sakic #22
Nikolai Khabibulin UD Retrospectives #R80

First Pack Comments: Wow, look, nothing in the first pack! Although I will break here and say these base cards look simply outstanding.
First Pack Rating: 3.0 / 10

Total: 37
Rookie Images (1:4) -- 5: Mikael Tellqvist, Jeff Taffe, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Curtis Murphy, Jim Vandermeer

Base Card Gold Parallel (#'d to 199) -- 1: Marian Hossa (6/199)
Rookie Gold Parallel (#'d to 75) -- 1: Scottie Upshall (17/75)
UD Retrospectives (1:1) -- 24 inc. Rick Nash and Stanislav Chistov
UD Retrospectives Silver Parallel (#'d to 99) -- 0
UD Retrospectives Gold Parallel (#'d to 25) -- 0
UD Retrospectives Signed Gold Parallel (#'d to 25) -- 0
Common Ground (1:8) -- 2: Mike Modano/Jeff Taffe, Wayne Gretzky/Jason Spezza
Common Ground Gold Parallel (#'d to 75) -- 0
UD Flashback (1:20) -- 1: Jaromir Jagr
UD Flashback Gold Parallel (#'d to 75) -- 0
Great Depictions (1:20) -- 2: Steve Yzerman, Gordie Howe
Great Depictions Gold Parallel (#'d to 75) -- 0
Artist's Touch Jersey (#'d to 499) -- 1: Sergei Fedorov (295/499)
Artist's Touch Gold Jersey (#'d to 199) -- 0
On the Right Track Jersey (#'d to 299) -- 0
On the Right Track Gold Jersey (#'d to 175) -- 0
Second Season Performers Jersey (#'d to 199) -- 0
Second Season Performers Gold Jersey (#'d to 75) -- 0

Box Rating: 7.5 / 10
Product Rating: 7.0 / 10

UD Artistic Impressions is really like many other UD products out there. You have the 1:4 or 1:5 rookies, there's parallels floating around, some standard-type numbered GU, a couple of ill-inspired insert sets to chase around. UD Artistic Impressions has all that the other UD sets do, with one glaring exception.

The base set.

This is one of the best base sets around. Very similiar to Topps Gallery in other sports. It's a great design idea that finally is brought over to hockey. All the base cards look very nice and that makes it a very collectible set.

As far as the other elements, the rookie cards are kinda disappointing just because they use actual photographs ... and not just actual photographs but mostly studio photographs. I suppose being rookies and all there wasn't enough time to get artwork of them in, but studio photograph cards next to the regular base cards just look dull. And at 1:4 their limitedness isn't going to drive the market.

Impressions offers one jersey card per box as well, although they are pretty standard UD fare ... the design is nonexsistant and the cardboard seems like it's just a vehicle for the fabric. The Common Ground cards are rather silly too, they just copy the base card images of two players in the set and slap them on the same card. I guess that's cool or something? Great Depictions brings in some variation, using real photography to capture each player, but again the design quality is rather lacking. UD Flashback is about the only insert worth worrying about, this set actually uses some different artwork (actually I think it just takes some old artwork from previous UD sets, but whatever, it's different) and really makes it look nice.

And what would UD be without parallels? The rookie parallels aren't bad, being numbered to only 75 they should be able to hold their own with their RC counterparts. The regular parallels add a bit of flair to the nice base set design ... now it's a sweet artwork base card that's serial numbered. Those should do fine. The UD Retrospectives is kinda silly though. It's basically the regular cards in a "fun size", as you can see above. OK, I guess, but I'd really rather have been getting more full size base cards. I suppose the Retrospectives are a bit tougher to pull (although the rookie Retrospectives are easier to pull than the RCs ... so ...), but I highly doubt they add a massice amount of value.

Basically what I'm trying to say is Artistic Impressions is all about the base set. Don't pay $5 a pack thinking otherwise. Find a sweet deal online (D&A has some nice weekly specials on these boxes right now at least) and do that. Don't expect much more than a base set, and don't pay for much more than one.

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Index	------	Drury Wantlist	Williams Wantlist	Stuart Wantlist	Cheechoo Wantlist	Lupul Wantlist	Hossa Wantlist	LeCavalier Wantlist	Gonchar Wantlist	Krajicek Wantlist	Robidas Wantlist