Upper Deck recently provided me with a couple hobby boxes to review. Instead of writing up each box individually, I thought I’d do a box battle and compare the pros and cons of each product! For your hobby reading pleasure, I present 2021-22 Upper Deck SP Authentic vs. 2022-23 Upper Deck Trilogy.
The Details
A sample of cards from 2021-22 SP Authentic Hockey.
Even through one of these is a 2021 product and one is a 2022 product, they both were released within about a month of each other in the spring of 2023.
At the time of this article, the SP Authentic box sells for about $160 and the Trilogy box for about $120.
2021-22 SP Authentic
The Authentic box has 10 packs, with 9 cards in each pack. The base set consists of 100 cards and each of those cards has one of three possible parallels. Red which fall 1:2.5 packs, Gold /99, and Black 1/1. In addition to the base set, there are an additional 99 Future Watch Rookie cards which are all numbered /999. The same tiers of parallels exist for these as well.
Each box promises 1 Autographed Future Watch card, with a typical box having an additional auto of some kind. The autograph checklist contains a wide variety of rookies, veterans, and legends.
You should also find plenty of the 8 different insert sets. Upper Deck does a great job with the design of their inserts and 2021-22 SP is no exception.
2022-23 Trilogy
The Trilogy box has 6 packs with 4 cards in each pack. Each box promises 1 autograph and 1 memorabilia card (on average).
The Trilogy base set consists of 100 veterans, however, this year the base set has three different levels of scarcity. In addition, 18 of the base cards have a tough to find rookie photo image parallel.
50 rookies have three different levels of scarcity for their base cards resulting in common Rookie Premiers cards being 101-150, uncommon 151-200, and rare 201-250.
Cards from seven different insert sets are found in each box and a variety of parallels exist for many of those sets as well.
The Battle
I opened one box of each product and in this section I’ll be comparing my thoughts on both the enjoyment from opening and the value I received in each box.
First up is the Trilogy box. It’s a quick rip with the six packs but each of those packs was full of variety. I received 23 total cards in the box so between the base cards, inserts, and hits I had a lot to look at. My box breakdown looked like this:
1 Auto (Noah Cates)
1 Jersey Relic (Kaedan Korczak)
1 Rookie Triptychs (Kent Johnson) which fall 1:120 packs
3 Rookie Renditions including 2 parallels
4 Trilogy Generations including 2 parallels
3 Rookie Premiers including 1 parallel
10 base cards
Next is the SP Authentic Box.
With ten packs of nine cards, this box provided a longer opening experience. Personally, I like that. SP Authentic also hits the nostalgia center of my brain, and while that may not matter for some, it definitely adds to the experience for me. I received 90 total cards in this box and while there are a lot more base, there were still a variety of hits, inserts, and parallels to enjoy. My SP Authentic box breakdown looked like this:
3 Autos (Yandle, Soderstrom, Phillips)
7 Pageantry
2 Die Cuts
1 Spectrum Fx (Hellebuyck)
3 True Leaders including one parallel
1 Retro Future Watch (Mctavish)
5 SP Top Rookies including two parallels
68 base cards including eight red parallels.
The Autograph, Relic, and Case Hit from my box of 2022-23 Trilogy Hockey.
From a pure financial perspective, neither box would have been that great. But also, neither was out of line with what you would expect. The Trilogy box probably returned an estimated 75% of the box price. The auto and case hit Triptychs insert carrying the most weight. The SP Authentic box provided less financial value and even though I got an “extra” auto, they were all pretty low value autos and none of the other inserts of parallels were of notable value.
So who won? Which provided a better experience to me?
The SP Authentic box!
The nostalgia, the longer opening experience, the three on card autos, the variety of inserts all added to my enjoyment of the box. Plus the product also adds the potential Spectrum FX Bounty Chase. Now depending on when you read this, the bounty may have reached its 50 set limit, but regardless it is an interesting twist.
You can see every card in the two boxes in the video below!
Did you open either of these two products? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below!