VERSUS: Dan Cloutier Hit VS. 2012-13 Certified

Money in my pocket. Oh why do you taunt me?

With some pocket change to spare this week, I passed by my overpriced but extremely welcoming LCS to pick up some cards. I decided to pace myself...really I did! Of course, things don't always go as planned.

I was talking to the husband (it's a husband and wife that own this shop) and he was telling me one day when I have more time to stop in to see the massive binder of Cloutier cards he has. I agreed and asked him to quickly show me some of his GU and AUTO's of my favourite player.

Turns out he had two on hand. One was an AUTO from the most recent BTP (the one I already have) and the other was a high serial numbered GU card of his.

I asked the price of the GU piece of cardboard and to my utter shock it was a whole 20 bucks! No way José, he knew I wasn't gonna pay anywhere near that price. He then brought it right down to it's BV of 15 bucks.

I politely said "I was thinking more like 5." He smiled and said we could package something up. In the end I bought one pack of Certified and the Cloutier card at a clean 20 bucks total. Perfect for another edition of "VERSUS!"

So let the battle begin:

DAN CLOUTIER HIT

Like I said, high numbered GU card. It's pretty basic and I believe on eBay I could have probably nabbed it for 3.99 plus shipping, but the owners a nice guy. I think that's what it's all about in the end, meeting stand up guys and gals in the hobby. 

What I really like about this card though is actually the info on the back. It says "In 2003-04, Dan wore this Canucks sweater and recorded his 100th win." Now that's cool! 

To think that this jersey is actually a hallmark in Cloutier's career is crazy!

This ten bucks was well spent, but did it beat out my single pack of Certified?

FINAL SCORE: 8.5/10

2012-13 CERTIFIED

This one pack out of ten was a long shot for anything good, but for ten bucks it was worth the gamble; and boy was it worth it!

I won't get into the base cards too much, but I like them. I'm not going crazy over them, but I do think they are really cool. It may not seem like this in the scan but you can see the background through the foil. 

The BIG hit of the pack was this beauty...or soon to be beauty!

My very first redemption! I'm not sure why I'm excited because these things are a huge pain in the arse, but hey it's my FIRST ONE! 

Now let's dissect this bad boy. It's a DUAL Signature numbered to 100 copies and the player selection is of the Adam Henrique and Taylor Hall variety.

WOWZA! This is gonna be a good one!

I already redeemed it via paniniamerica.net and I put my time frame as 4 months. So hopefully this card shows up before then. 

My question is should I raise the time frame to 8 months (if possible)? What do you guys think, from experience, will be the time frame between my redeeming it online until I see it in my mailbox?

By any means this 10 dollar pack of cards get's a well deserved high mark of...

FINAL SCORE: 9.5/10

DAN CLOUTIER - 8.5/10     <     CERTIFIED - 9.5/10

This was certainly a fun one!

Because of that redemption goodness, I bought two more packs of the 2012-13 Certified product.

I'm weak.

More on that tomorrow!

GO NUCKS GO!

VERSUS - Score Vs. OPC/SpX/Donruss (Part 2)

In the conclusion of the very first "Versus" post at C4K. We will be considering the other end of the 35 dollar purchase. Here's how we came up with that total in terms of loose packs:

5 OPC Packs - $15
1 Pack of SpX - $9
1 Pack of Donruss - $8

TOTAL - $32 + tax

Let's see if any of these packs could beat the 7.5/10 score of "Score Hockey".

OPC

The base set from OPC is impressive with the most obvious difference being that UD shrunk the gigantic OPC logo on the front of the cards.

What I really do like about the OPC product is the all cardboard brown backs. I know OPC had always had colour in their backs but for some reason this raw cardboard feel is really quite nice. But, look at all that wasted space on the lower third of the Fedotenko card! Score - 1; OPC - 0. Nonetheless, an attractive build.

Speaking of attractive, these cards are beautiful. Simple, vintage and very collectable! The backs are really impressive IMO. I like the big honkin' retro OPC logo along with that cursive font for the players name. I pulled 5 of these bad boys.

The rainbow parallels are seeded one every four packs. I bought five packs which gave me a better chance at pulling one and voilà! I'm not the number one fan of rainbow parallels but whatcha gonna do?

I can't say I'm a supporter of either of the Rookie or Legend cards this year. The fronts look like a hodge podge of fonts and cheesy "Price is Right" designs. The back of the RC's on the other hand, look neat. I like those 3 logos in the middle stating year of draft, round and selection. Much more interesting than putting them tucked in the corner nowhere to be found.

Stickers! My question is, are they actually stickers? Theoretically, could I actually peel off the front of the card? I don't wanna damage the card so I didn't jam my nail in between the cardboard, but from what I can see, I think not. If UD made real stickers, with team logos, numbers etc. I think I could get behind it, but for now it's kinda a dud for me.

This card was definitely the card of the break. The idea is spot on, the design is intriguing and the overall feel of the card is awesome. Great idea! I have a feeling someone else my want this card more than I do though...

DONRUSS

This pack contained 5 cards and set me back almost an entire 10 dollar bill...

Not what I had in mind. Five base, no parallels, no inserts, no GU hit and no AUTO. This was a bust any way you look at it. But what can I expect, I only tried one pack; the odds were always against me.

SPX 

This is my last hope, with four cards per pack there has to be something good in it right?

Waaan, waaan, waaaaaaaan! Another bust, the only positive being a Daniel Sedin card.

So when it's all said and done, the only positive from this second break was the OPC cards. Donruss and SpX gave me the shaft pretty good.

So without further a due, here are the final scores...

OPC - 8/10

Score - 7.5/10

Donruss - 2/10

SpX - 3/10

OPC/Don./SpX - 4.5/10   <   Score 7.5/10

The winner is most definitely Score, but it was still a fun break. Can't wait to do it again!

GO NUCKS GO!

VERSUS - Score VS. OPC/SpX/Donruss

This starts the first ever Versus post here at C4K. The idea is pretty simple, I buy multiple products for the same price and pin them against each other against in a battle to the death. Wait, let me rephrase that. We pin them against each other and see which gives the better "bang for buck". That's better

Today we start with...

SCORE

Score costs me 35 bucks for a box (not 30 like a lot of other card shops). It contained 36 packs at 7 cards a pack, which works out to about 250 cards. Unfortunately, it also contained 5 doubles which is definitely a minus. 

First let's take a look at the base:

I'm really impressed with the photo selection this year. There are some really cool shots in this set. Some nice pics of shots from the point, celebrations, saves and sticks breaking mid shot. Some cool stuff.

The design is simple yet effective. You get a full shot of the player in action and is not cluttered by cheesy logos or over bearing designs. The player name is at the top along side the classic Score logo, the bottom right has the team logo. What I do not like is pretty obvious, the Conference logo at the bottom. I feel like it's a bit childish and unnecessary.



The gold parallels are the exact same as the base but with a gold border along both sides. Score got rid of the glossy and replaced them with these seeded one per pack. Good idea Panini.

The regular base set is sandwiched between two subsets. Season Highlights and Award Winners (right). I showed that Messier card for two reasons. One, to show you what the Season Highlight cards look like. Second, to say "I hate Mark Messier!". Phew! Got that one of my chest.

 

The "Stanley Cup Champions" logo is on every LA Kings card on the base set. They've continued this small yet critical touch from the past two years. As well Panini included once again the "Signed by..." words on the bottom of traded or signed player cards.

What really impressed me though, were the back of all the base cards! What a creative way to showcase stats on a low-end product. Panini used 6 different variation of backs on this years Score products to make sure there was NO wasted space. The two above are similar and are from the Season Highlight and Award Winners subsets.

The other four variations are shown above. The bottom left is of a player with only one season played. Since he has little stats, they have a healthy write up on him as well as a creative way of showing his height, weight and other stats. In contrast to the Ryan Smith card that has a wide range of stats, showing his full career stats. 

I know many think that the Hot Rookie cards have down graded but I think the opposite. Score is no longer some cheesy set with flames behind a rookie's head with 90 different fonts on the front. It's simple and effective. They still used flame in the "Hot" word and the design in the back compliments the front well. Thumbs up!

Inserts this year were similar to lasts. Net cams have lost their spunk and interest for me. The photos aren't as captivating as they use to be and the deigns haven't really changed. I agree with Brett from "My Hockey Card Obsession" when he said this set needs an overhaul!




Team Score is really unnecessary. That's really all I can think of to say about this insert set. Just, why? There really is no point to it.

The franchise is close to my favourite set from this years Score. The legends variation of Franchise is really appealing to the eyes and the photo selection is really nice. The inserts set is small at only 6 cards, but definitely effective. The write ups are informative and interesting. I agree with the Real DFG when he said this is definitely worth a small build, it's easy and worth the spare change.

















The new franchise cards are even cooler IMO. The huge futuristic team logos are really nice and modern. Plus there is actually foil on the card. Something a little more fancy for a low-end set, I appreciate the effort. Team colours are definitely a plus on any card for me. I'm a sucker for it!

This insert set is a great idea and I've commented on this in a past "Insert Ideas" post. The idea is phenomenal, the rookie selection is great and last year the photo selection was fantastic. BUT, this year I'm disappointed for one reason and one reason only. That Landeskog card above; the picture is not of his first goal but instead of him roaming around the ice. Why? I'm sure there is a picture in this day and age of him scoring his first NHL goal, if not at least of him holding the puck after the game in the dressing room or at the very least a random goal celebration. I know you have one of those! Just scroll up to the Landeskog "Gold Rush" parallel I posted at the beginning!

We finish off the break with my favourite card in the box. This "Check-It" insert that was inspired from past insert sets from Score in the 90's. The Real DFG did a write up on this set, but IMO this is a great insert. I'm not quite sure why they used Wendel Clark as he's long gone and retired, but hey, I'm not complaining. 

Although I didn't hit that SSP RC, or AUTO in this box as I have in the past. This box was still a ton of fun for only 35 bucks and yielded some nice inserts. Therefore I give this break a...

7.5/10  

This break was really enjoyable and deserves the score it got. I didn't hit that "wow" card that would make this a 8.5-10 but, it gets a moderately high score anyways.

Can OPC/SpX/Donruss beat that? Stay tuned!

GO NUCKS GO!