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I am Titaaaaaaniiiiiummmmm.
January 8, 2014



One of the favourite products from 11-12 came back yesterday with the release of Panini's Titanium. As such, I am on my horse making up a guide for the product. I have only just started on Anaheim so I am a while away from having a complete guide but I hope to maybe have it done by the end of the week or middle of next. 

A little controversy this year as Titanium is a Canadian exclusive. Hopefully some American customers can use this blog as a service of getting the cards they want through some breaks if they don't have "hands-on" access to the product. 

I've put Select on the back burner yet again. I don't feel too bad about that right now though because 1) There are no current box break listings on eBay right now-- not a lot of breaking going on. 2) I've been doing a bunch of Panini products lately so they are fairly well represented. And 3) Select has too many damn parallels. Do they really need 10 versions of rookie jersey/auto/prime/gold/patch/etc. parallels? Boooooring. 

That's all for now!

Domin-done.
December 27, 2013




I'm happy to report that I was able to finish the Dominion guide this morning. Seeing as the product has only been out for a few days, and two of them have been holidays (in Canada at least) I hope that this will meet all of your breaking needs!
As for the product, not a lot different in rankings than most. The usual suspects are near the top with Montreal, Pittsburgh, etc. Dallas and Carolina pull suprisingly (perhaps) close to the top with some Hartford Whalers Gordie Howe hits going to Carolina and the strength of Dallas rookies. I'll probably go a little further into depth. I've almost hit the 200 post point for the blog and I'm going to push on with Black Diamond and Select eventually.


Merry Christmas!
December 25, 2013


Merry Christmas to all. Have a great day today. I am at work today but that won't stop me from working on the site a bit! I'm about a quarter through 13-14 Dominion. I'm going to see how far I get today. Have a good one!

2012-13 The Cup Done!
December 23, 2013


See what I can do when I put my mind to it? This year's version of The Cup is finished complete with star ratings which I have changed the colour scheme of from the green/yellow/red to gold/silver/bronze. Check it out here.

I doubt very much that I will get the Dominion guide done before Christmas but hopefully by the end of the week I will get it to you. I am also going to re-vamp my rating system from an out of 5 star rating to an out of 10 stars. It just gives me a little bit more room to differeniate between rankings especially seeing as there are four 5-star teams in this year's Cup.

Keep posted!

2013-14 Artifacts Done!
December 23, 2013




I have finished Artifacts. Working diligently on The Cup right now. Hoping to have it done by tomorrow. Then probably on to 12-13 Dominion since that will be a pretty hot product and there will be a bunch of breaks coming up!

Also, I have added a donation button. You can donate via Paypal or Bitcoin in the upper right corner of the sidebar. I don't expect anything but it'll at least let me know that my site is going to use by someone! Thanks.

To Boldly Go...
December 20, 2013


Well, I've been slowly getting Artifacts out of the way. Not quite as fast as I had hoped but it has been busy leading up to the holiday season. Then I have Select, The Cup and now Black Diamond. I think I will put series 1 on the back burner because it's not so much a "hit" product. So here is my bold plan: To get all of these done by the end of the year. I'm not sure if I can do it, but I'm going to try really hard to get it done. In the New Year, I would like to add on to the site somehow. I would like to make it more of a resource for collectors. I'm not sure how to go about that but that's my plan! Thanks for staying tuned.

Happy Black Friday
November 30, 2013

If you thought the slowness last time was bad, it's been nothing compared to the last while. I've really not updated the site in a long time. Since then, Artifacts, Select, The Cup and Series 1 have all released and I'm behind the 8-ball quite a bit. I'm very sorry about that-- I'm getting into my busy time at work and got a little discouraged looking at the Artifacts checklist with it's million parallels haha. Stay tuned for updates!

Quick Update
October 9, 2013

Sorry for the slowness on the site lately. I have not had a ton of time to do updating. I am still going through Trilogy from almost two months ago now-- not a lot of breaking going on for the product anymore so I'm trying to focus on the new stuff. The next big thing is Artifacts which released yesterday. I am hoping to have at least the star ratings for the product done on Friday night. There are a ton of new products coming out in the next little while-- Artifacts, the Cup, Series 1, Team Canada so I am trying to keep on top of everything while trying to keep the in depth checklists going!

Article: 12-13 The Cup
September 29, 2013








          Upper Deck has announced plans for a 12-13 release of their ultra high end product The Cup. The product is set to release on October 22, 2013. You can view the sell sheet here.
          Upper Deck is including some new cards like a triple shield booklet and they are also including a 2-card Ultimate Collection pack with the product. A lot of the old favourites return like Draft Boards, and of course the Autographed Rookie Patches.
          Now, recently Upper Deck has released some more information to clear up some confusion and assumptions made about the product. Here are some that I found interesting:


  • "The wholesale price for tins of this year’s Cup will remain the same as what we sold tins of 2011-12 Cup to distributors and dealers."
          The misconception in this case was that the product would be going up in price from last year. Even though UD cleared this up, I think it may have a lot of collectors shaking their heads and hobby shop owners struggling. The 12-13 rookie crop isn't great. It's been sort of limited on the secondary market to Kreider, Baertschi, Schwartz and recently Krug. But even players like Kreider have lost some of their shine with the release of the 13-14 products (his Young Guns card is selling in the $8 range whereas it was selling in the $15-$20 earlier this year.)
          There are a lot of great cards but, by far, the biggest sellers are the ARPs-- especially the /99 SPs. This isn't that year. As per UD: "only three (Kreider, Baerstchi and Jaden Schwartz) are #’d to 99"  It's probably better than overdoing it, but it means that the product is going to have to rely on a lot of something else to sell it.
          I think they made a mistake of not lowering the price. I have a feeling it is going to be a wait and see product for a lot of people and if they are not seeing the value, they are going to hold off for a year. Because of that, hobby shop owners are going to have a tough time selling the product at a price that collector's find appealing but that also gives them a cut as well. Collectors are going to buy The Cup-- it's what we do-- but I can see the hype dying off pretty fast especially when it is also being released in the midst of 13-14 products.
  • "each tin will have one base set card and most tins will have an additional auto or memorabilia card as the 6th card" and "All of the Ultimate Collection “hits” are limited to autograph cards or patch cards"
          They do say afterwards in brackets that limited tins may actually have two base cards. Collectors in this case were worried about being stuck with base cards in their $500 (I'm guessing) tin (which, apparently, is a very real possibility). I find the Ultimate Collection announcement to be a pretty big one and I am glad they made the decision for autographs and patches only.
          I bought a lot of 11-12 Ultimate and got really lucky sometimes (ARP of Nugent-Hopkins #ed /25 and a Couturier of the same thing within a week of each other) and really depressed other times (multiple Bobby Ryan Ultimate Signatures that sold for $0.99 or didn't and nobody jersey cards with white swatches #ed /300). I think UD had to do this to keep up with what Prime did for Dominion where also get a patch or autograph. There are also some Ultimate shields as well.


         Final take: it's going to come down to the veteran content which UD says will be good with players like Bure, Forsberg, and Sundin. Along with the UD exclusive Gretzkys, these are the cards that are going to sell the product. If they are underwhelming or are too hit and miss, I can see collectors taking a pass at this product and saving up their money for the Young Guns of 13-14 that release just a few weeks after.

Comment in the archive.
 

Guide: Panini Prizm Update
September 29, 2013

Star ratings are completely done as well as the list of all of the players in the product. Link here.

Guide: Panini Prizm!
September 27, 2013

It's been a month since I did a big update to the blog and it was about time I stop making little tweaks and get you going for 2013-14 Prizm from Panini! It's a product that sees it's first hockey release this year.



Currently, only the hit percentage breakdowns and the star ratings are up. I am hoping to have most of the teams broken down by player by Saturday morning and for sure by early next week. Good luck and happy breaking!


Guide: Happy Prime Day
August 27, 2013




In about an hour and 45 minutes, one of Panini's hottest products releases: 2012-13 Panini Prime. I've just finished the guide. You can check it out by click on the Guides button and following the year to Prime. 


There's a breakdown of every card included and the distribution for the Hits in the product. More information will be added as some breaks surface including sale value and the average price for a spot in a group break. Happy breaking!