ITG Forever Rivals Dream Pack Break... Kind of...

a couple of weeks ago, I posted my ITG Forever Rivals Dream Break. If you didn't read it, go now, it'll explain what I'm doing here.....

Now for this pack, it's not exactly my Dream Pack, but the cards are still pretty good. Probably better than what I would pull knowing my luck.

12 cards per pack, 3 base, 3 autos, 3 relics and 3 base inserts, costing around $90 - $120 per pack.

Here's what I came up with for pack two. (all prices in Canadian)

Base Cards

Guy Lapointe $1

J.C. Tremblay $1

Chris Chelios $1.50

Base total - $3.50

Autographs-

Charlie Hodge $7.40

Rick Wamsley $7.77

Dougie Jarvis $4.20 (The best face off guy I have ever seen. Period.)

Autograph total - $19.37

Relics

Claude Lemieux Silver /30 - $5.43

 

Shayne Corson Silver /30 - $5.33

Steve Shutt Red /20 - $4.05   Are you kidding me? A game used Shutt out of /20 for $4???

 

What's this??? Bonus card!!!

 

Found this at a local card shop....

 

Guy Carbonneau Silver /30 - $3.00 

 

Relic totals - $17.81 (including bonus card!)

Now you should know by now that I don't like the base inserts... so I replaced them with autographs. Hey, it's my pack.

Jean-Guy Talbot - traded an auto that I bought at a card show for .50 cents.

Borje Salming - A Leaf sighting! $4.92

Jiri Crha - one of the autos I keyed in on when the checklist came out.  $7.61

Second autograph group total - $13.03

Grand Total of entire pack - $53.71


Yikes. Looks like I saved money on that one.

ITG Forever Rivals Dream Pack Break....

ITG recently came out with their Forever Rivals set. It featured the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs. Most of you are familiar with it by now.

A high end product, packs cost anywhere from $95 to $120 depending on where you shop.

Each pack is configured the same, 3 base cards, 3 base insert cards, 3 relic cards and 3 autographs.

Initially I was going to be all over this. A set featuring my team? AND autos of hard to get players from the '70's? Oh yeah. I'm in. But the more I thought about it, the more I held back.

Why?

I just couldn't see myself taking a gamble on what I would pull. What if I got a bunch of Leafs??? Or what if I blew my card budget on packs and didn't get the cards I really wanted? So I decided to wait, and build my own packs off of the secondary market.

So here is the first (and best) of my Forever Rivals Dream Packs. The rules are simple. Build a pack using the same configuration, getting the dream cards you really want, while keeping the cost the same.

Up first, the base cards. Shiny foil. Meh, not really my thing... but I like the design.

Gumper was $1.00 at a card show.

Jacques and Carey I traded for... costing me cards that I bought at a show for $1.50.

total base cost $2.50

Autographs-

Rogie Vachon - $6.50

You know I had to have my boys in my dream pack!
Knuckles was $5.16

and Odie was $3.99

Autograph total cost - 15.65

Relic cards. I went hard here... went after some rare ones. All three are Gold version which means they are /10

Mike Keane Cup winners - $7.56

Carey Price - $17.37

and the card of the pack, one of my most prized possesions....

Chris Nilan, Stick Rack - $52.97

I love that card.

Relic card total - $77.90

That leaves the three base insert cards. The problem is that I don't really like the base insert cards. And since this is my dream pack, I can call an audible and substitute...................

with three more autographs!

Jacques Lemaire - $2.87

Richard Sevigny - $6.51

and finally, to show a little something for you Leaf fans...

Bernie Parent - $7.27

Second auto batch total - 16.65

For a grand total of $112.80


I guess that's why I held back. There is no way in heck that I would've got a pack that good, let alone one with 6 autographs, for that price.

I had fun building this pack. And I managed to acquire a couple of really cool cards for my player collections that I never dreamed I would.

2012-13 Upper Deck Hockey Pack Break Review

No hockey? Who cares? We'll just keep making cards anyways.

 

I had planned all week that today was the day I visited my local card shops. Including the one that's an hours drive. I did all my chores (the Honey-Do list) and was raring to go this morning. Until I looked outside.

18 inches of snow on my driveway, and still coming down hard. It's 5:30 pm as I write this and the snow hasn't let up yet.....

 

So no grand city tour of card shops. I snuck into the one closest to me and grabbed two packs of

the latest set, Upper Deck flagship, that was released today. The usual from what you would expect from UD. 24 packs per box, 8 cards per pack. This year we have none other than Jonathan Toews on the packaging.

But wasn't he on the packaging for OPC as well? Apparently if you aren't placing Gretzky or Crosby on your labels, you must place Toews. Out of thousands of hockey players... there are only three worthy.

 

 

Moving on to the actual cards..... They're a little bit simpler this year. I like that.

 

First card, a friggin' Leaf. Go figure.

 Less foil this year, which is a great thing. The usual full bleed photos, with both vertical and horizontal cards.

 And yes, that is wood grain you are seeing on the fronts. Wood grain! It's like sitting inside a 1972 Oldsmobile!

 There are several different insert sets to chase this year... Canvas, Exclusives, Silver Skates, MVP, Heroes, etc... but the only one I pulled was MVP.

 Not as good a design as previous years.

The photography is good again, as you would expect.

 Lars is either stretching or he just scored...

 I'm fond of shots that have the puck visible in them, like this card...

 Pack Two

I have to say, the more I look at the fronts with the simpplistic design and the wood grain... the more I like them.

 That shot of Burmistrov is rather cool...

in my second pack, I got another MVP card... so you don't get to see anyof the other inserts.

 Early nomination for card of the year... Craig Anderson. Craig is well known for his facial expressions, and this year's does not disappoint.

 Matt Cooke looking creepy as ever.... and James Reimer praying to the goalie gods for salvation from the Leafs.

 Sorry James... you're stuck there. The gods took pity on Jonas Gustavsson instead. He's in Detroit now.

The backs are pretty standard. Complete stats, both personal and game. Although the write ups on the younger players could be a bit longer to use up more of that space.

Different pictures on the back which is a must! If you don't go different, don't bother doing it.
And more wood grain!

Just going off what I see in my two packs, I give it a solid 8.5/10

First new product of the year - 2011/12 Upper Deck Victory

 Hey look! An Upper Deck hockey product with Sidney Crosby on the wrapper!!! Sid is kind enough to tell us that there are 6 cards in each pack and you'll get a rookie in every other pack. What that means is every other pack, other than the one's that I buy.

Let's see what I got for my $1.
Nicklas Backstrom- Washington Capitals.

 Hmm. I could do without the massive Victory logo behind the player. The large logo on the bottom left is more than enough.

Dan Cleary of the Detroit Red Wings

 Let's see the back... different photo, that's very good. Are you listening Panini? UD does this on their .99 cent product. Monkey see, monkey do???
Career stats, also a big plus.

 Mike Fisher - Nashville Predators
I also don't like how the circle goes out into the border. It looks like the editor missed something.

 Kris Letang - Pittsburgh Penguins.

 David Krejci - of course I would get a Bruin. Why wouldn't I?

 and instead of a rookie, I pull a Game Breaker insert of Taylor Hall. Okay. Not bad. I can sell or more likely trade Taylor for something useful.

All in all not a bad product, although I will not be chasing this set this year. I'll still try and trade for all the Montreal cards... but not the whole set.

All of these are up for swap if any of you feel the need.