Thursday, January 7, 2010

an alternative to a hobby box

Even if you don't collect hockey, most of you know that Upper Deck's latest version of their flagship set came out awhile ago. In it, you may find RC's of young phenoms John Taveres, Victor Hedman, Evander Kane, etc...

I dare you to find a Young Gun of John Taveres selling for under $60 on ebay. Yeah. UD does the hockey RC right. You can actually get your money back off a box break. Who knew?

Anyways, when they came out here in Calgary, three stores carried them. The cost? $85, $75, and $64.75 per box. You know which one I shop with.

The problem. He is an hours drive from my house. It's two weeks before christmas. Ain't gonna happen. Still hasn't happened. Life is just now returning to my version of normal.

What to do.

Enter Wal Mart and their Boxing Day sale. The had these wonderful little tins on sale. 8 packs per tin, 8 cards per pack, plus an oversized card in each tin. $15 each.

Hmmm... that's 24 packs, 196 cards, for $45. A hobby box is 24 packs, 196 cards for $65. What luck! I'm a genius! (Well, my wife is, she found 'em)

Now with each hobby box, you get 6 Young Guns, 2 jersey cards, and a chance at the case hit. An oversized jersey single colour patch card.

Let's see what you get with these retail tins.

The base cards are of course based on their '09 baseball release. The photography was not as good as last year's set. But it would've been tough to top that effort. Out of the three tins, I got 128/200 in the base set.
Holy Crap! Young Guns! In a retail pack! Two per tin! Woot!

Young Guns I found, Evander Kane, Antii Niemi, Michal Neuvirth, Brian Salcido, Ivan Vishnevskiy, Joel Rechlicz.
Now, Joel is pictured in his blue Islanders jersey, just like Tavares. When I pulled Joel, I thought it was Tavares. What a let down.
All World team; Patrick Kane, Henrik Lundqvist, Anze Kopitar, Daniel Alfredsson
a hobby box would only have two of these.
I pulled two Marty Brodeur Heroes inserts, but they were both the same.

Top Guns Evgeni Malkin, Alexander Semin
I also got the usual smattering of other insert sets that infect the hobby these days. But I was really pleased to be able to buy retail, save $20, and still get the 6 Young Guns that a hobby box would provide. Losing out on two jersey cards is not a big deal to me. Especially for a $20 savings.
Unfortunately, this is a one time deal, as these tins are normally $24.95 each. In which case, hobby wins out every time. But as the planets aligned during the Boxing Day Sale, i was able to fake it with retail no less.
If anyone wants to trade their doubles, I have my list up HERE, along with everything else I'm looking for. Thanks in advance.

7 comments:

TJ said...

What the hell is Boxing Day? No, wait. I don't really want to know.

Hackenbush said...

Toews, Kane and Niemi, OH MY! Toews, Kane and Niemi, OH MY!

Good deal!

Collective Troll said...

You can't beat a good boxing day sale! I have no idea who any of those guys are, but I read that whole post and for some reason want to go out on Groundhog Day and look for a sale on one of those tins to rip myself... That is the power of an awesome blogger my friend!

shoeboxlegends said...

Blasters are about the same deal if you can find them. $20 and you're guaranteed 2 Young Guns per blaster. Will send you an email today with my wants from the set. I can probably help you out as well!

Motherscratcher said...

Boxing Day...man...F*#@in' Canadiens.

PatsCards said...

I busted a box of this last night, which I will feature on my blog this weekend. I will say that you got a great deal and beat my hobby box as far as the young guns go.

Mark Aubrey said...

Boxing Day is explained here.