Firstly, thanks to Upper Deck for providing me with a box of this product to review, it is much appreciated. Artifacts has been a staple Upper Deck release for a good 15 years now and the formula really hasn’t changed that much. Year in, year out Artifacts relies on numerous memorabilia hits and plenty of parallel sets. As such, this product is not for everyone. At one stage, memorabilia hits were a very big deal but these days, not so much as they have flooded the market for years now. However, the design of this product is always pleasing on the eye and accordingly, it does rather well every year.
Last season, they introduced a new chase element to the product with the Aurum cards. Quite simply put, this is a challenge to collector to find the 48 cards, scratch the back and input their code to have a full set, the first 25 collectors to do so will receive the last 2 cards of the set, a special 2005-2006 special retro Aurum set (9 cards) and a 2005-2006 Retro Aurum Auston Matthews autograph. Those who complete the set later will only be receiving the last 2 cards. While this may sound like a relatively simple endeavour, it really isn’t. Arum cards fall 1 per 20 packs meaning that you’re not even guaranteed 1 a box since there are 8 packs of 4 cards per box. Furthermore, some of the Aurum cards are even tougher to find,the Aurum Holdover Rookies SP (1:320), Aurum Veteran All-Stars SP (1:640) and Aurum Legends SP (1:640).
The checklist includes a 100 card base set as well as 3 SP sub sets; stars (numbered to 699), legends (numbered to 599) and rookies (numbered to 999). Parallel wise, the following variants are available; Copper (/299 for the regular cards and /399 for the short prints), Emerald (/99), Aqua (/45), purple (/20) and Black (/5).
Each box of 8 packs should yield 3 hits on average and 4 numbered cards numbered to 99 or less while every Hobby case should include one rookie redemption autograph and at least 4 Aurum inserts.
Hobby case should have one rookie redemption autograph and at least four of the UD Bounty Aurum inserts. There are also four numbered cards per box, with one limited to 99 or less.
Looking at the odds and at the checklist, we did pretty well with the box provided by Upper Deck for review purposes. Our 8 packs yielded the following hits:
Dante Fabro base material gold jersey relics 84/499
Ryan Poehling base material gold horizontal relic 94/199
Nicolay Goldobin Autofacts (group B, falls 1 to 137 packs)
Cale Makar Aurum (SP Rookie 1:320)
Wild Card Rookie Redemption RED216 (1:9)
Mikko Rantanen Copper Parallel (295/299)
Teuvo Teravainen Emerald Parallel (85/99)
Vitaly Abramov Rookie Copper Parallel (125/399)
While this is a solid collection of hits, there was unfortunately some damage issues on two of the cards. The top left corner of the Ryan Poehling card is in really back shape and the bottom right edge of the Makar Aurum is also kind of lifted. As per usual when this is the case, you can either bite the bullet and keep the card as it is or email the Upper Deck customer care to obtain a replacement at
[email protected] .
Grades
Design: 4/5
Value: 3.5/5
Resale value: 3.5/5
Variety: 4/5
Break enjoyment:5/5
Final grade: 80%
As always, Artifacts has a kind of “royal” look to it with the gold motifs and it sorts of make the cards pop out. My one issue with the design lays with the crease line pattern that is in the background, that’s a sure way to make collectors nervous, is it a pattern? Is it damaged? It’s not a fun game...As I’ve said earlier, there’s a lot of memorabilia hits around and consequently both the value and the resale value have gone down, those chasing the Aurum set are however willing to pay a pretty penny for the rarer cards but that only lasts until so many people have completed the Aurum Bounty challenge. There’s plenty of colours and different designs in this product and it makes it all the more interesting to open, of course scoring some nice hits always brings up the enjoyment factor. Overall, Artifacts gets a solid 80% and at a price point of around 125$, you do not have to break the bank to get a box. For those considering undertaking the Aurum bounty mission, all 25 sets are still available, this is hardly surprising considering the product only launched on September 25th.
Montreal Canadiens Blogger • 
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