Product Review: 2014-15 UD O-Pee-Chee Hockey Hobby Box

If your looking for a large set to collect and love hockey, 2014-15 O-Pee-Chee is the perfect fit for you. Since I was a little kid trading cards at the playground, O-Pee-Chee has been one of the most popular names in Canada for trading cards.

500 Regular Base set cards plus an additional 100 Marquee Rookies and Legends make up the 600 total card set. Both the Rookies and Legends are Short printed and slated to come in at 1:2 packs.

Upper Deck didn't stop at just a large base set. They also have added in very nice parallel sets to collect. Each base/Rookie/Legend comes with a Retro, Rainbow Foil. and Black Foil parallel to chase down. Rainbow Foils are 1 in every 4 packs, Black Foil cards are serial numbered to /100.

Stickers make a return for 2014-15, these are 1:3 packs while a new Insert V Series A are introduced and come at 2 per box (1:16 packs).

Autographs are back in the form of O-Pee-Chee Signatures, Team Canada Signature, Sport Royalty Autographs, and Buybacks. In O-Pee-Chee releases these autographs are always tough pulls and are seen 1 in every 3 boxes or more.

A very popular insert that of course is back this year are the Team Logo Manufactured Patches. These are 1:96 packs (on average but seem to be higher odds), a really great secondary market value is always seen on these cards. Collectors love these to collect of their favorite team as well as the sets.

In Canada we're fortunate to have our own Pack Redemption program that requires 50 Packs in order to receive a 5 card pack of Red Border and 1 Tall Boy. Most collectors break as much as they can in the first week and try to collect as many packs as they can for re-sale.

Being a traditional product we bought a box to break for the review, lets see how we did on our Hobby Box:

Base Cards: 177 (0 doubles)
Marquee Rookie: 9 - Rattie, Trocheck, Knapp, Gormley, Knight, Hishon, LeBlanc, Halmo, Visentin
Marquee Legends: 9 - Yzerman, Oates, Linden, Roenick, MacInnis, Beliveau, Damphousse, Roloson, Forsburg
Retro Base: 27 - Crosby, Checklist
Retro Rookie: 3 - Ortio, McKegg, Knapp
Retro Legends: 2 - Linden, Forsburg
Rainbow Foil Base: 5 - Nyquist, Johnson, Vanek, Gonchar, Lucic
Rainbow Foil Marquee Rookie: 1 - Paquette
Rainbow Foil Marquee Legend: 1 - Fuhr
Rainbow Foil Black: 2 - Stepan, Backstrom (both /100)
V Series A: 2 - Nugent-Hopkins, Brodeur
Stickers: 11 - Lemieux, Forsburg, Sitter, Yzerman
O-Pee-Chee Signatures: 1 - Daniel Girardi
Manufactured Patch: 1 - Winnipeg Jets 2011-12 to Present Alternate

Being this is a retro feel and look product you can't get excited over the Base card design. It's pretty plain but does give you the feel of Retro with the backing and non-fancy design. The Marquee Rookies and Legends are better designs than the base look.

If you think the Base card design is basic, don't look too far for a worse design. The Retro design is one of the worse we've seen. The front of the cards are weak and not appealing anyway you look at it. Same as the above, Rookies and Legends do tend to look a little better but still are very plain.

 With the Rainbow Foil parallels you can't go wrong. Base, Rookies and Legends all look great. Anything shinny these days always look great. Nice to continue the Black Foil numbered out of /100 to increase the value of these parallels.

We pulled two V Series A inserts. Kind of like Mini cards for the set, they are a nice retro touch. The Stickers are very colorful and very thin. Be careful pulling these out, you might end up using them as stickers instead of collecting the set.

We managed to pull two very hard cards in this product. The Daniel Giradi Autograph is found in 1:272 packs. It is a sticker autograph but the design and surprise of pulling this in the box was cool. Additionally we pulled a Team Logo Patch for the Jets. It's part of the Modern Era patch and found 1:123 packs. Its a really nice patch and should do well in the secondary market. Pulling both of these within one box is pretty amazing. You typically would pull one at the minimal in every three boxes or so.

Overall I did very well with this box. Of course a lot of this had to do with the Autograph and Patch pulls but the product is pretty decent. The down side to the product is the Retro design parallels. Hopefully next years will be much better to look at. Foil parallels are again great and having the Rookies and Legends as short prints is very smart. Set collectors will enjoy putting this set together and will have fun with the box. For a 32 pack box at around $70-80 your getting very good value for your money. If your as lucky as us you'll get even more bang for your buck.

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

Gambler Overall Rating: 4.2 out of 5

Cost: 5/5

Autograph/Patch: 4.5/5

Design: 3.5/5

Parallels: 4.5/5

Inserts: 3.5/5

Fun Aspect: 4/5