2002-03 Bowman Youngstars Hockey Review

Box Details: 24 packs per box, 7 cards per pack, $40
From: Baseball Card Exchange

Base set: 140/165 (85%), 2 duplicates

The base set is comprised of 165 cards. The veteran to young star/rookie ratio works out to 104:61. The veterans in this set, such as Nicklas Lidstrom, have red base cards while the young stars/rookies have yellow cards.

Here’s a look at your typical young star/rookie card. In addition to Ryan Miller, I also pulled rookies of Henrik Zetterberg, Jason Spezza, Rick Nash, Jay Bouwmeester, and Ales Hemsky, among others.

Bowman Silver (1: pack): 20
Notable Players: Markus Naslund, Jeremy Roenick, Chris Osgood, Patrik Elias, Jose Theodore, Jason Spezza (fake RC)

If there’s one negative about this product, here it is. These Silver parallels are found in every pack that does not contain a game-used or autographed card. That’s right, a decoy parallel. I don’t care much for the appearance of these cards and the fact that these will almost always come out of the pack with significant damage to their backs (lots of chipping around the edges) doesn’t help out.

Chris Osgood sure looks funny without the Winged Wheel on him.

Bowman Gold (1:11 packs, numbered to 250):
Marco Sturm (124/250), Jeff O’Neill (109/250)

Much like the Silver parallels, the Golds also have that glittery effect to them. Thankfully, these cards are the standard card size and aren’t particularly prone to damage.

According to the odds stated on the box, game-used or autographed cards are seeded 1 in every 6 packs. Sure enough, my box yielded 4 such “hits.” The first such hit was a Fabric of the Future jersey card of Brian Sutherby, a former first-round draft pick of the Washington Capitals (before they were the “cool” team to like). The great part about all the hits I received is the fact that jersey swatches are from uniforms used during the 2003 NHL YoungStars Game in Sunrise, Florida. Sutherby tallied 3 points and was named the game’s MVP as the East defeated the West 8-3. Unfortunately, his career never really panned out, unlike this next player….

I managed to pull one of the best possible FOTF cards in Rick Nash (Miller is the other). To sum things up, Nash is a former #1 draft pick who was an All-Star on multiple occasions, co-Rocket Richard Trophy winner in 2003-04, and has enjoyed great success in international play, representing Canada in the World Juniors, World Championships, and Olympics. And at age 25, he’s just starting to pad an already impressive resume.

Fabric of the Future Rivals (13 cards, 1:139 packs, numbered to 250):
Ossi Vaananen/Henrik Tallinder (093/250)

Not all of the FOTF cards are single jersey cards. Here’s an example of a Rivals dual jersey card of Ossi Vaananen and Henrik Tallinder out of 250. Each FOTF variation has its own unique color scheme as evidenced above. Vaananen is currently playing in the KHL in Europe while Tallinder remains with the Buffalo Sabres.

I don’t know about all of you, but I find this card unintentionally hilarious. The two of them look like they’re guilty of something (especially Tallinder).

Fabric of the Future Patch (27 cards, 1:333 packs, numbered to 50):
Niko Kapanen (28/50)

In addition to single jersey, stick, jersey/stick, and double jersey/stick combinations, each FOTF card has a patch variation as well. I pulled Niko Kapanen, a former NHL player now in the aforementioned KHL. Kapanen has plenty of international competition experience, earning medals in the World Juniors, World Championships (4 times), and each of the past 2 Winter Olympics.

Meh, a pretty boring patch card, but still a hard pull.

Final Thoughts/Grades:

Collation: A+

I was very pleasantly surprised to pull only 2 duplicates in the entire box. Plus, I got my 4 hits as the odds suggested, with a couple of them being long shots.

Condition: B-

The condition of these cards was about what you would expect with black bordered cards. Overall, not too many base cards were damaged, but those Silver decoy/parallels brought the grade down a notch (though it’s not like anyone cares anyway).

Pulls: A

The pulls earn an ‘A’ for the rookies alone. I hit all of the major RCs in this box and did pull a superstar jersey with the Nash. It was also nice to pull some of the rarer game-used variations even if the player selection wasn’t the best. I was very happy overall.

Value: A

Once again, I went to the Baseball Card Exchange for a hockey box and seem to have bought the last one in stock. While they may be out of this particular product, they do have boxes of 2001-02 Bowman Youngstars in stock. The makeup is very similar (4 hits/box), but the rookie class may not have as many marquee names despite the presence of Ilya Kovalchuk and Pavel Datsyuk. Those boxes are selling for just a little less than what I paid for this one. In any case, both boxes are worth the purchase for that particular price point, especially for the rookie/set collector who doesn’t care about the “big mojo hit.”

Overall Grade: A-

2000 E-X Baseball Box 2

I have a total of five boxes that have been busted and are awaiting review (yes, there will be more hockey!) so I thought I’d start things off with an old favorite of mine, 2000 E-X baseball. I broke a box of this product when this blog was brand new. In fact, this post comes nearly two years to the day that I broke that last box! Here’s a quick recap of box number two.

Box Details: 24 packs per box, 3 cards per pack, $29
From: Baseball Card Exchange

Base set: Each base card has a unique color theme, based on the team of the player depicted. Altogether, there are 60 short set base cards (I pulled 56/60, 93%), followed by 30 shortprinted prospect cards which are numbered to 3499….

…..and they look something like this. I pulled two prospects: Wily Mo Pena (1522/3499) and Cesar King (1302/3499).

Generation E-X (15 cards, 1:8 packs): Rick Ankiel, Nomar Garciaparra, Pat Burrell

E-Xciting (10 cards, 1:24 packs): Mark McGwire

I love the creativity of this insert. The player….not so much.

E-Xplosive (20 cards, numbered to 2499): Sammy Sosa

E-Xceptional (15 cards, varied numbering): Pedro Martinez (0539/1999)

These cards are available in Red (/1999), Green (/999), and Blue (/250) variations. I love these cards. Some day I’ll make a master set of them….maybe.

Autographics (1:24 packs): Bobby Abreu

Here’s a solid piece of Phillies tradebait. Anyone interested?

Final Thoughts/Grades:

Collation: B

The collation was about what I expected. I received one more duplicate from this box than I had the last one. I’m used to far worse.

Condition: D

The base cards are very subject to peeling. In some cases, it may just be a corner. In others, much worse. I didn’t experience too much of this in the last box I opened, but I wasn’t as lucky this time. Keep this fact in mind when deciding whether or not to try a box. (For the record, the inserts were flawless).

Pulls: B

Nothing to complain about here. I was especially happy that my autograph was of an established veteran and not someone with 5 career games.

Value: A

I was happy to find this box for around the $30 mark, about $20 less than the typical asking price. For that price, I’d still recommend the box regardless of what I said about potential condition issues. The cards are brilliant overall and if you pull any damaged base cards, just let me know and I can replace them for you as I have nearly 3 sets worth of this stuff!

It’s great to be back.

Overall Grade: B

Random Night Owl Awesomeness

A little while ago, I responded to a Night Owl post, expressing interest in a certain Mickey Mantle X-Fractor he had. I don’t do a whole lot of trading, but once in a while, Greg and I usually end up making a pretty hefty Dodgers/Yankees exchange. With that said, I had yet to put together a Dodger package together for the Mantle (and what was sure to be a whole lot of other goodies) so it came as a quite a surprise when I found a package in my PO Box with his return address yesterday.

Greg had sent me nearly 90 cards, many of which were Yankee Team Set cards from 2009 and 2010 Topps. There were also cards from Topps Heritage, OPC, Topps Chrome, Opening Day, and Stadium Club. The package also contained a number of Mickey Mantle inserts that I know none of you are sick of seeing (*cough*) so I tried to limit the Mantles in this scan:

The Wang and Pettitte are Topps Chrome refractors if you couldn’t tell by the scan. It’s also a rarity when I am sent a card I’m not familiar with, but that was exactly the case with the New York, New York insert of Hideki Matsui (I also received a Wang NYNY insert). That’s what I get for not touching that OPC set I suppose. Anyway, thanks a lot Greg for another deal! Your package will be sent out early next week, when I’ll hopefully find time to actually write up a box review.

Looking At My Calendar…

Today is April 10, 2010, which means it’s been exactly two years since this, my very first post here on Old School Breaks. Later that day, I also wrote my first review, 1998 Flair Showcase. I honestly can’t believe it’s been that long already. Thanks again to everyone who has been following the blog for the past two years and helped me close in on the 50,000 hit mark. I’ll tell you all right now another contest is coming when that time comes. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that it’s been a while since I’ve opened any boxes and for the moment, things don’t appear to be changing. I’ve just been way too busy as of late to buy anything, write up reviews, or even look at cards (sometimes even card blogs). 

The worse news is that I’m strongly considering retiring this blog. I’m not making anything official yet, but I have to admit, even before life started getting hectic for me, writing this blog hasn’t nearly been as fun as it was two years ago. Sorry guys.

(UD) Retro Mailday: Eddie Mathews

Alright, so maybe a single-card acquisition shouldn’t be labeled as a “mailday,” but this new addition to my autograph PC surely deserves its own post!

The card on the right is a Sign of the Times autograph of Eddie Mathews. This card was just one of thirty different autographs that could be found in packs of 1998 Upper Deck Retro. Inserted at a rate of 1 in 36, the print run on these cards ranged from 100 to 1000 and while none of the cards are serially numbered, this Mathews is limited to 600.

The remainder of the checklist is pretty loaded. Some of the names include:

Al Kaline, Bob Gibson, Brooks Robinson, Carlton Fisk, Ernie Banks, Kirby Puckett, Lou Brock, Nolan Ryan, Tony Gwynn, Tom Seaver, Willie Stargell, Willie McCovey, Warren Spahn, Yogi Berra, and the rarest of them all: Ken Griffey, Jr.

Mathews signed his share of autographs for card companies before he died in 2001. If anyone’s looking to track one down, some sets to consider include 1999 SP Signature, 1999 and 2000 Greats of the Game, 1999 UD Century Legends Epic Signatures, and 1998 Donruss Signature Significant Signatures. None of those should run over the $40-50 mark (unless you’re looking at BIN store prices). In any case, those autographs are twice as cheap but yet twice as attractive as any cut signature of Mathews I’ve seen, and that’s a shame.