Product Review: 2013 In The Game Hockey Draft Prospects Hobby Box

So went into the LCS and saw the latest product from In The Game on the shelve 2013 Draft Prospects. I never bought a box of ITG before but have always liked their designs and relics cards that I've seen. This box wasn't on the radar but did standout among the boxes on the shelve. So I looked at the sell sheet and noticed that it's only 12 cards per box. This peaked my interest even more and decided to bust open the box.

Before we get into the box hits here are the basics of the box. Each box will provide 7 Premium Base Cards, 3 Hard-Signed Autograph cards and 2 Game-Used Memorabilia cards. The focus as you couldn't tell already is around the Draft of 2013. The base set is 180 cards deep with three different parallels to chase down, Emerald /50, Gold /20 and Onyx 1/1. The parallels are not printed serial numbers but stated print runs from ITG.
The Autograph checklist is pretty deep with each player having 2 different cards. All are on-card autographs and include Parallels of Gold /20 and Silver Short Prints of Drouin, MacKinnon and Jones. Game Used Relics come in Single, Dual and Triple players along with Patch's and Nameplates. These range from /110 to 1/1 print runs. being that you find 2 per box you should hit something decent in your box.

This is a pretty good box to pick up when you have the potential of all of this for around $100 per box. So I decided to rip it open and see what our first box of ITG would deliver:

Base Cards: 2 - Jared McCann, Jackson Whistle
First Round Pick: 2 - Mike Bossy, Grant Fuhr
First Round Pick Emerald: 1 - Kari Lehtonen (Print Run of 50)
Draft Surprises: 1  Doug Gilmour
Draft Surprises Emerald: 1 - Patrick Roy (Print Run of 50)
Draft Prospects Teammates Dual Relic: 1 - Eric Roy / Ryan Pulock (Print Run of /90)
Autograph: 2 - Nikita Zadorov, Mirco Mueller
First Round Pick Nameplate: 1 - Joey Hishon "2nd H" 1/1
Autograph Silver Short Print: 1 - Nathan MacKinnon

Lets catch our breath for a second and start at the top. The base cards are a nice design with a foil technology on normal stock. They are a little sensitive on the corners so be careful when pulling them out of the box. The First Round Pick design is nice as well. ITG doesn't have an NHL license so they used the Minor league team logos and hide the NHL logos on the photos. This doesn't take away from the cards at all and are very nice.

We pulled two Emerald base cards of Lethtonen and Roy. You can't tell from the scans but the foil is Emerald on them and again they do not have a serial number printed on them, but they are /50.

Love that the Autographs are all on-card. This makes the secondary market high on these players. Not sure if there are redemption's for players or if they are all in. Either way great to have them on-card. The design is the same as the base but they do not have foil technology.

ITG is famous for providing really nice relics and in our case we pulled a Teammates Dual Relic. Happy with the different colors for each player which I believe always make a difference to collectors looking to fill their PC. The Roy and Pulock is decent, not serial numbered but the stated run is /90.

This box just kept giving as we worked through it. Next up was a beautiful First Round Pick Nameplate of Joey Hishon which is a 1/1. What ITG did for this release was they cut the letters in half and have 1st/2nd (Top/Bottom) of each letter from the players jersey. Interesting way to do it, and add an extra chase to find all of the letter pieces to complete the nameplate. On the back of the Nameplate it is printed 1/1 which is nice to have instead of the stated print run.

Now the last card in the box was this amazing pull of Nathan MacKinnon Silver Short Print On-Card Autograph. Just could not believe this hit comin after a Nameplate 1/1 in the same box. There is not a stated print run for these so no way of knowing how short this run is, but to pull the potential 1st Pick overall in the 2013 Draft is pretty special.

This was an amazing box to bust and couldn't have asked for anything more from it. With only 5 cards from the base set in each box it would be tough to put a complete set together and should provide a very good secondary market for the cards. The emeralds being /50 also have good secondary value and have seen them already selling for around $10. On-card Autographs and Relics guaranteed are always a great thing and ITG doesn't disappoint. If your a hockey fan and have a chance to pick up one of these boxes I would highly recommend it. Very good value for what you get per box. 

Most cards/hits pulled in our breaks end up on our site storefront www.packgambler.com, our COMC account ThePackGambler, or our eBay account thepackgambler. If you are interested in any of the cards we have mentioned please send us an e-mail at packgambler@gmail.com

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.67 out of 5
Cost: 5/5
Autographs: 4.5/5
Relics: 4.5/5
Parallels: 4/5
Concept: 5/5
Fun Aspect: 5/5