Product Grade: A-
Neither of us like the idea that a lockout may keep the NHL from playing a full season in 2012-13. It’s incredibly disappointing and a complete bummer. But 2012-13 Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee was just the product we need to take our mind off that and focus on how great a collecting year is on the horizon. It was a great first product of the year and you will be short changing yourself if you don’t try at least one box and spend an hour or two opening all the packs and taking time to look at each and every card. It’s that fun of a product. Don’t take our word for it, try a box for yourself!
Base: B+ (174 of 500 [34.8%] with 0 doubles)
HB: I cannot hide it – I love retro designed sets. They’re awesome. I loved Upper Deck’s UD Champs sets and I’ve always been a fan of Topps Allen and Ginter as well as Gypsy Queen. As a 90’s kid, it’s fun to see the retro designed sets. I dig it. So I LOVE this year’s O-Pee-Chee design. Upper Deck nailed it. Both the regular base set and the retro base parallel set are phenomenal. It’s a set collector’s dream. The base sets are each 500 cards with an additional 100 cards of Marquee Rookies and Marquee Legends. So if you’re looking to build both the base set and the retro base parallel set, you’re looking at 1,200 cards. Insanity, pure insanity. But quite the fun chase. I say well done to Upper Deck. If I was going to put together one of the sets, either the base or retro base set, I would choose the retro base set. There is something about the design of those cards that just stands out and pops. The way I know I enjoyed the base cards is the amount of time spent looking at each base card, turning it over and reading the stats on the back. I felt like a kid again.
HB’s Grade: A
HG: This product is unlike any other I have ever opened. The retro design of all of the cards makes me feel like I am catching up on some of the things I missed out on by not collecting as a kid, so that nostalgic aspect of it was very fun for me! If you are looking for fancy and sleek cards, this is not the product for you. The cards are made of low grade cardboard and the design definitely isn’t trying to be too fancy. However, I can appreciate that they committed to their concept and stuck with it. I like these base cards. There are a few parallel base sets as well. The Retro base parallel feels even more vintage than the base set. While I typically wouldn’t be a fan of the plain white background with the simple player photo, for what it is in this set, I like it. It is cohesive with the concept for the set. It is a cool collection of base cards and I can see what the draw is to the many set collectors that this product has.
HG’s Grade: B
Inserts: A
HB: Haha this is where this review will get all jumbled. There are a lot of different sets and parallels in 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee that are tough to classify, but here it goes. The first thing I will say about the inserts in 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee is that there are a lot of them, they are incredibly well designed, and they are all very different. The 100 card sticker subset is awesome. The cards are brightly colored but somehow all the colors blend really well to make one, cohesive set. The player choice and player photos are both phenomenal. In one box, we completed 11% of the set so it’s definitely do-able while still being a challenge. Next up, are my second favorite (or tied for my favorite) cards in the product. The Hockey Pop-Ups are AWESOME. We pulled a Tim Thomas and an Alex Ovechkin. Obviously Hockey Girl was thrilled to pull a Tim Thomas and that card went straight into her collection. The Pop-Ups look awesome in person. The 50 player checklist is filled with the best in the NHL and would also be a really fun set to put together. The Ovechkin Pop-Up is awesome. I can’t stop staring at it. I’m really not sure where to classify the rainbow and black rainbow parallels s0 the rainbows will go in this “Inserts” section and we’ll put the black rainbows in the “Hits” section. Hope that works for you all! Enlarge the scan of the rainbow parallels above. The cards just pop and stand out. I don’t know what kind of process is done to make the cards look like that. But the combination of the rainbow and the great base design make these cards look GORGEOUS in person. All in all, there are a lot of fun pulls in a single box break of this stuff.
HB’s Grade: A-
HG: There are a lot of different parallel and insert sets in this product. My favorite of all these is the Pop Up die cut inserts. So I was super excited when we pulled the Tim Thomas Pop Up card, which I have now added to my personal collection! Another cool set of inserts is the Sticker inserts. This is a card I would have absolutely loved as a kid, so I am a fan of it now too. I love the bright colors and the fact that it is a sticker just makes it that much more unique and fun. There is also a rainbow parallel of the base card which is a much nicer quality card than the base cards. It is essentially the same design except that the background is shiny metallic instead of flat cardboard. I think it is a cool idea for a parallel for this product. The unique, throwback style of these cards is what makes them fun to pull and collect and I really like them.
HG’s Grade: A
Rookies: B+
HB: One of the most exciting things about 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee for me was that it was the first time in over a year there would be Boston Bruins’ rookie cards for me to chase after. The Bruins had absolutely no rookies in 2011-12 year products, so I’ve been itching to pull some Bruins rookies. I think Upper Deck did a good job on the rookie designs. My favorite are the retro rookies, but the base and rainbow base rookies look great as well. There are 44 different rookies for collectors to pull. My only complaint about the rookies in this product was that there were not enough of them! We pulled 11 rookies in 32 packs. I would have liked to see that number bump up to 16 rookies in the 32 pack box. But that is a very minor complaint!
HB’s Grade: B+
HG: I like the design of the rookie cards in this product a well. I like that they are different from the base cards, with the green, yellow and blue around the border, letters and team logo. I appreciate that, even if some of the designs aren’t my favorite, you can tell that effort went into designing all of the cards in this product, including the rookies. We also got two rookie rainbow parallels, of the Panthers’ Colby Robak and the Islanders’ Matt Donovan. I haven’t heard of these players yet, but I like rainbow cards and these are cool cards.
HG’s Grade: B
Hits: A-
HB: I’m not sure if most people would consider the Black Rainbow Base Parallels /100 “hits,” but I sure as heck would! The cards are absolutely B-E-A-utiful and they look awesome in person. The Schneider is by far my favorite card we pulled in the box. It really does look like a piece of art. It’s gorgeous. 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee did a great job in adding value to the boxes by inserting a lot of autographs as well as the manufactured logo patches. Both are tough pulls, but both will make people extremely happy to pull. I loved that we pulled the manufactured Rangers patch, but I would have loved to see the patch take up more of the card, there’s too much white space. Upper Deck did a great job with their Animal Kingdom manufactured patches in their Goodwin Champions products. I would have liked to see these patches mimic those. But once again, that’s a pretty minor complaint.
HB’s Grade: A-
HG: For hits, we actually got more than I was expecting. We got three black rainbow parallels numbered /100 which are really cool. One of these cards was a Cory Schenider which I was excited to see. Yes, I know he plays for the Canucks, but he is a good goalie from our home state so I actually like him. I like the design of these cards. The other hit we got is a Team Logo patch card of the New York Rangers. I was surprised to see even a manufactured patch in this product so that made it a little more exciting when we pulled it. I think this is a really cool idea for a hit in a lower end product. The card is very simple, with the only color coming from the patch. I like the minimal design though because it really shows off and highlights the patch. If you can get this card with your favorite team’s logo, I think it would be a neat addition to anyone’s collection.
HG’s Grade: B+
Satisfaction: B+
HB: When I first saw the release price of 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee, I thought $58 was a smidge too high. I thought somewhere in the $50 to $55 range would have felt more right to me. Well, when I got to one of our local card stores and saw the price tag of $69, I was a bit disappointed. We wanted to get the box for the review so we bought it. Almost $70 is high for a product like 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee. But I still had an absolute blast opening the packs which speaks highly in favor of the product. I would have had even more fun if the product price was $55 or we paid the $58 MSRP. Despite only being a Canadian promotion, for every 50 wrappers a Canadian collector sends in to Upper Deck, they will get 1 special pack which includes red border parallels of the base cards as well as a special All-Star insert card. Although I can’t take part in it, I love that Upper Deck is doing this for collectors! I would highly suggest buying a box of 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee. With the threat of a lockout looming over the month of September, a box of O-Pee-Chee helps you escape to your childhood where looking at the back of cards at stats and getting stacks of cards was what collecting and hockey was all about. Don’t miss out on that feeling!
HB’s Grade: A-
HG: Satisfaction: This box was a fun box to open. You get to open a lot of cards, and there are so many neat parallels and inserts that you can get. My complaint with this product, however, is the price. As Hockey Boy explained, it isn’t a fault of the product itself, but for me it still affected my satisfaction a bit. I feel like the $70 we paid for our box was a little steep. So even though I like the cards that we pulled, having to pay so much for them took away some of the fun. I still think that you should check out this product because it is fun and unique, but just try to find a box on sale if you can. Overall, I had fun and it was a great to start to the collecting year!
HG’s Grade: B
Much love,
Hockey Boy & Hockey Girl
