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.

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.