The Pack Gambler Retro Break: 1997-1998 Pinnacle Certified Hockey Hobby Box

Every once in a while we love busting older products. And by older we're talking over 10 years, remember those products? Odds that were crazy, no game used or rarely having autograph cards. Sometimes there is no point on buying these products but now and again we come across one of those retro boxes and decide to rip it and review it.

Well this time we have a 1997-98 Pinnacle Certified Hockey Hobby Box. We found this box at a local Walmart (believe it or not) and thought of having some fun ripping it open. The price was really expensive for something old but we took a chance on it to see what we might find.

Here is what we pulled:

Base Cards: 112 (7 doubles)
Certified Red: 4 - O'Neill, Nieuwendyk, Green, Robitaille (1:5 packs)
Pinnacle EPIX Redemption - 1 Unknown player
Pinnacle Rookie Redemption - 1 Player C (would have been Patrick Marleau)
Certified Team - 1 - Mark Messier (1:14 packs)
Mirror Red - 1 - Mike Gartner (1:99 packs)

Well this was no surprise on opening this box. Not much here in the box, we did hit the major base cards like Gretzky, Roy and Brodeur. The base card designs are really nice with the refractor look and always been attracted to them. Would have been good if we opened this box when it came out with pulling the Marleau Rookie Redemption (even though you had to pay for the shipping of $2US or $2.50 CDN). The EPIX redemption is unknown and states it would be a Random player selected by Pinnacle that you would receive. Funny enough you didn't have to pay for that redemption. The Mike Gartner Mirror Red was the best pull in the box with odds of 1:99 packs. Money wise it's worth the same as the Gretzky high book value base card nowadays but would have been a decent pull in 1997.

If your in the mood to just open a retro box for fun this was a good one to rip open. Again the price wasn't great but you would probably have better luck at a card show to pick one up cheaper. We plan on putting these and the other base cards up on COMC in the coming month to add to our port.