Hobby box vs Blaster - You choose

Today's experiment tries to answer the age old question, Hobby box or Blaster? A couple of weeks ago, I picked up a blaster of UD Hockey Series 2 at wally world. At the card show last weekend, I grabbed a hobby box of the same. Let's crack 'em open and compare value.
The Blaster. 12 packs of 5 cards each. They stiff you right off the bat with only 5 cards in each pack, unlike the 8 cards in Hobby boxes.

51 Base cards

0 duplicates

1 Young Gun SP
6 Victory cards, inserted at one per pack

2 insert cards from UD's many, many insert subsets...

0 Jersey/ Swatch cards

COST: $25

The Hobby Box

24 packs, 8 cards per pack (that wrapper says 5, it's the only pic I had)

123 base cards

32 duplicates

7 Young Guns SP's
24 Victory cards, inserted one per pack

6 insert cards from UD's many, many insert subsets

and

2 Jersey / Patch cards, one numbered /100

COST: $75

A review;

Blaster
51 base cards

0 duplicates

1 Young Gun SP

6 Victory cards

2 inserts

0 Jersey / Patch

$25

Hobby Box

123 base cards

32 duplicates

7 Young Gun SP's

24 victory cards

6 inserts

2 Jersey / Patch

$75

The Young Guns are the key here. These babies sell anywhere from $5 to $35 depending on who you're after. For a set collector like I am, I need to go Hobby here. If you go 3 Blasters, the base cards, Victory, and inserts all wash... but the Young Guns and Jersey cards put Hobby out front.

2008/09 Upper Deck Hockey box break

You've seen the base cards in some of my other posts here, and here... and here. So I'll skip that part and get to the hits you find if you buy by the box. 24 packs, 8 cards per pack.

Young Guns - Short Prints... 1 in 4 packs

Winter Classics - 1 in 12 packs

Captains Calling - 1 per box

Hat Trick Heroes - 1 in 12 packs

Sophomore Sensations - 1 per box

Sidney Crosby Heroes - I have no idea the insert rate for these....

Checklist #199 - Yes, the checklists are SP's...

UD Exclusives Joe Corvo #'d 046/100 - these fall approx. 1 every 2 boxes...

Jersey Cards - 2 per box on average..

( I hate the Leafs)

( almost as much as I hate the Bruins)

I'm down to 17 cards needed in the base set, not including the SP Young Gun set.... packs at this point will be pointless, unless I want to get more SP's...

I done been screwed again....

As most of you know, I've committed to collecting the 2008/09 Upper Deck Hockey set. I've bragged about this set here... and here. It's been going pretty well. I've opened three of those FatRackBlister thingies, and am about 2/3 of the way through my first wally world blaster. Scott from Hand Collated has been patiently waiting for me to update my list so we can begin trading.

I've even put my partial set in pages, enjoying the 121 cards I've pulled with NO DUPLICATES. I have card #1. I have card #198. I have 119 cards in between. Everything is awesome. And then I pull this:
Hmmm.... this is the fifth different insert set I've come across. Let's take a look at the back.

A rather benign card. Not exactly a snazzy insert set is ...... WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Card #249????????? It's not an insert???? But in all these packs, I don't have anything over #198!

Upper Deck Short Prints 1

Waxaholic 0

I need to lie down for awhile....

I did it again.....

I've been working on my wantlists, desperately trying to get some trades going and finish off some sets before the 2009 stuff hits.
Well, the trades haven't been forthcoming, and it looks like I've committed to another set. I love these cards.
So now I'm working on Series One, when Series Two hits in mere days.
Perfect. Why do I always do this? Derek Roy - Buffalo (Flying through mid air... nice effort.)
Brad Richards - Dallas
Drew Stafford - Buffalo
Anze Kopitar - Los Angeles ( pronounced like it's spelled, a great player on a crap team)

Niklas Kronwall - Detroit

Peter Budaj - Colorado (pronounced Boo-DIE)

Ryan Smith - Colorado

Henrik Sedin- Vancouver (no, you haven't been drinking too much... you're not seeing double, that's his twin brother Daniel beside him)

Mike Smith - Tampa Bay (All Rookie Team last season, also the rare, sideways printed version)

Tomas Vokoun - Florida ( this is one heckuva goalie pack!)

Zybnek Michalek - Phoenix (pronounced .... oh hell, I don't know...)

Joffrey Lupul - Philadelphia

Jean-Sebastien Giguere - Los Angeles Ducks of Anaheim (just seeing if you're paying attention)
Look at his eyes following that puck! Awesome.

Simon Gagne - Philadelphia

Guillaume Latendresse - Montreal ( finally! a Canadien)

Henrik Lundqvist Masked Men

Wow. A great pack. Not a lot of stars, but a lot of goalies, and superb photography. this was half of one of those FatRackBlister thingies that I busted first here... I've bought three of those so far and no doubles or damaged cards........yet. I love 'em...

A trade/want list will be up soon...

2008/09 Upper Deck Hockey FatRackBlaster thingy

I stopped by my local card shop after work today... ( I say local.. there's only two in a city of over a million people...) to pick up a couple of boxes of pages. I try to buy wax from this guy. Really, I do. $99 for a box of Timelines? $140 for a box of Documentary? And no packs to speak of, as he only has one box of each...
But what are these??? RackFatBlister packs of '08/09 UD Hockey? I've never seen these... I must have one.
Okay, so near as I can tell... you get two packs of 16 cards with no shot at ever getting a hit. I'm cool with that. Oh, and it was $5. He had wax packs for $4... only 8 cards. Maybe a hit. (yeah, right)
A FatRackBlister it is!!!
It's a battle between Top and Bottom! Who will win? Top? The heavily favoured, used to winning, bright and popular? Or the Bottom? The underdog... the dark, racy, seedy underbelly you turn your nose up at in public....

Let's find out!

Top:
First card - Jarome Iginla - Flames!
Down goes Frasier! Down goes Frasier! A first card knockdown! Bottom is dazed... takes a standing 8 count. - 10 points

Stephen Weiss - Panthers - meh. 1 point
Ray Witney - Hurricanes - a solid veteran. 51 goals last season and on my fantasy team. 4 points
Steve Ott - Stars - meh. 1 point
Chuck Kobasew - Bruins - a former Flame 2 points
Dion Phaneuf - Flames! Dion is celebrating after turning some Minnesota guy into goo... 5 points. and Dion is dating Elisha Cuthbert. 10 points. (hey, it's my game)
Erik Christensen - Thrashers - ZZzzz 1 point
Bill Guerin - Islanders - pretty good player for a long time. 2 points
Stephen Valiquette - Rangers - 1 point. A golie in action shot. 1 point.
Carey Price - Canadiens - the hottest young goalie in hockey! 10 points. Deleting the damn scan of him and not being smart enough to be able to "insert it" back into the middle of my post... -5 points
Mark Knuble - Flyers -2 points. (I'm still mad at losing my scan of Carey Price)
Brad Boyes - Blues - good defenceman. 2 points
John Madden - Devils : 20 points!!!! Oh. Not that one. This one. -18 points

Peter Mueller - Coyotes Decent young player 3 points, playing for the Coyotes, -2 points
Sidney Crosby!!!

another standing 8 count! 10 points for Sid the Kid!
Kari Lehtonen - Masked Men Insert

if you're French-Canadien or from Finland, you either are, or you know, someone who is a goalie in the NHL. It's true. Look it up. It's like that whole Six Degrees thing... 2 points.

58 points for the Top! That's gonna be tough to beat.... Let's see how the Bottom responds...

First Card:

Robert Lang - Black Hawks - a sniper... 8 points. Pronouncing his last name "Long" -6 points

Henrik Zetterberg - Red Wings - an awesome player. 7 points

Colby Armstrong - Thrashers - meh. 1 point

Jay Bouwmeester - Panthers 2 points

Bobby Ryan - Ducks - Bobby was picked second in the draft, immediately after Sidney Crosby. Pittsburgh, may I present you with lifetime passes to Chef Gordon Ramsey's restaurant. Anaheim, may I give you a $25 gift certificate to Denny's. -5 points

Francois Beauchemin - Ducks - 1 point

Milan Micheluek - Sharks - 2 points

Mikko Koivu - Wild - Younger brother of Saku, whom I think is an awesome player for Montreal. 10 points. My buddy actually got Mikko in the 12th round of our 12 round hockey pool. That, my friends, is called stealing.

He's beating me in the pool...... -4 points.

Alexander Semin - Capitals (that's with an "I" folks, I double checked) 8 points

Marc-Andre Fleury - Penguins. A goalie... 3 points

Ryan Kesler - Canucks 1 point

Jussi Jokinen - 5 points

Marc Staal - Rangers One of the three Staal brothers in the NHL right now. 8 points

Daniel Carcillo - Coyotes... remember that Coyotes thing? 0 points

Mike Ribeiro - All Star subset - 3 points

Roberto Luongo - One of the best goalies in the game today, 15 points. Playing for the Canucks, -5 points ( I said, it's my game )

Bottom remains standing to score a 53. Close, but no hockey stick. Top remains tops thanks to Elisha Cuthbert. Who is to hockey players what Alyssa Milano is to Dodgers starting pitching. Those of you who know what I mean, good. Those of you who don't, it's probably better that way.

These packs are awesome! Anybody seen these anywhere? Is $5 too much? Now I have to go and build this set dammit! Anybody got doubles to trade????