I will say this much – one of my favorite products of the 2011-12 year so far has easily been Artifacts. I know Hockey Girl would say it’s one of her favorite products as well. Artifacts has a lot of the right conditions for a killer product. It is one of the first products of the year. It is the first product of the year that has big hits to pull. It is the first product of the year that has game worn jersey cards of the 2011-12 rookie crop. It has the first coveted rookie cards of the 2012-13 class. And it drops right when the 2012-13 season is beginning to ramp up and hype for the upcoming season is at its highest. Hopefully 2012-13 Upper Deck Artifacts can continue its success while adding some new things to satisfy returning collectors. Let’s take a closer look!
The base card design and base card parallel design may be the strongest selling point of 2012-13 Artifacts. The bottom two cards are part of the Base Set Memorabilia Variation sets. There are vertical and horizontal versions that are include jerseys, patches, and tags. There are also autograph versions. I think these cards are phenomenal and will be highly sought after by collectors. Hopefully Upper Deck will continue the trend of having great patches in these cards. These cards are the best of what 2012-13 Artifacts have to offer in my opinion.
I think the rookie cards will be another strong point of Artifacts. With the high amount of rookies who debuted after the All-Star Game (the cut off for a player to be included as a rookie in that year’s products) and the number of rookies who had HUGE playoff performances, I think the rookies in Artifacts will be highly desirable. The design of the rookie cards are fantastic. They are all serial numbered /999 with Emerald, Spectrum, and Black parallels being numbered less and less. The parallels could command a very high premium on the secondary market. Each box of 2012-13 Artifacts will include 2 rookie cards as well as 1 Rookie Redemption. The Rookie Redemptions are a fantastic idea, yet executed so poorly as Hockey Girl and I are still waiting on 4 Rookie Redemptions from the 2011-12 product. Along with the Rookie Redemptions, are the return of Autographed Rookie Redemptions. These cards will once again be numbered /99 and depending on how quickly they are produced and signed could do very well on the secondary market.
And this is where 2012-13 Artifacts kind of becomes just alright with me. The Treasured Swatches and Frozen Artifacts memorabilia subsets should feature some big name players as well as some lesser known ones. I’d imagine there will be patch versions as well. But the designs of both subsets are just feel incomplete and thrown together. Hopefully if you’re reading this, you’re more excited about these cards than I am and I will eventually come around and like the design.
Try and not focus on the tag patches and instead focus on the design because the majority of us will not pull a 1 of 1 card from this product. The Tundra Tandems and Tundra Trios memorabilia cards just frankly bore me. I like these cards. Dual player game used cards are pretty sweet in my opinion. Especially if you pull one of the patch or (if you’re extremely lucky) tag variations. But the font and colors on these cards are pretty bad if you ask me. Hopefully Upper Deck will change the design slightly from the preview pictures, but I doubt they would.
There are two new additions to the lineup for 2012-13 Artifacts. There will be a 25 card Team Canada insert set along with a 25 card Goalies insert set. I’m interested to see the design on these cards because both Team Canada and goalie cards are popular.
2012-13 Upper Deck Artifacts should drop sometime in September and expect it to be in the mid-end price point.
Box Break:
4 cards per pack; 10 packs per box; 40 cards per box
1 Autograph Card
3 Game-Used Memorabilia Cards (including 1 multi-player card)
2 Rookie Cards
1 Rookie Redemption
1 Numbered Parallel
2 Numbered Short Prints
Much love,
Hockey Boy
