First Look: 2015-16 Upper Deck Buybacks
By Stephen Laroche | Beckett Hockey Editor
The hobby has seen its fair share of products where classic hockey cards are repackaged and sent out into the hands of collectors once again and the results have generated both positive and negative reactions from collectors. Upper Deck has decided to step into this part of the market with its own concept and the results could generate plenty of praise once 2015-16 Upper Deck Buybacks hits card stores in September.
Each pack will contain two cards and one of them will be a buyback from a previously-released Upper Deck product. Many of these hits will be hard-signed autographs, including signed Young Guns cards of the best freshmen from the past two seasons that are either limited to the player’s jersey number or a gold version that celebrates the company’s 25th anniversary and fittingly numbered to 25. It has been revealed that all non-rookie buyback cards featuring current and retired stars are numbered to five copies or less and there is also an opportunity to find hot boxes where every pack has a card signed by Wayne Gretzky.
What else will be in packs of 2015-16 Upper Deck Buybacks? Find out after the jump.
This release will also have a small 100-card base set and it will be highly sought-after since there will only be 49 copies of each card. There will be additional parallel versions numbered to 24 and five. Boxes will contain five packs and one of the buyback hits is expected to be a low numbered premium card from releases such as The Cup.
There will also be one-of-one signature cards from Hall of Fame players. Young Guns cards from 2012-13 and earlier will be hard-signed and none of them will have more than 25 copies inserted while some Young Guns Canvas hits (numbered to 10 or less) are present as well. More signed rookie content will come from Black Diamond and Artifacts releases.
Stephen Laroche is the editor of Beckett Hockey. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an e-mail to him at slaroche@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter @Stephen_Laroche.
This could be really fun!
And what will the outrageous price be for these limited packs? Only 10 cards in a box? 100 card base set, limited to 49 copies? My guess, $250-$500 or more per box. Who in the world can afford this stuff? Upper Deck could have inserted these cards across their product line for collector’s to chase. This hobby is going to kill itself with all the high end products. Kids don’t buy much anymore. Check out your local card shop (if you still have one.) There are a few kids, but it’s mostly guys 40 and upward buying boxes and packs. This used to be fun, and people actually traded cards. Now it’s all about the low numbers, cards you can flip to make a buck. It’s a shame.
I hope they do this product for football