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It’s time for another Upper Deck Box Battle!
This time we are going to take a look at 2022-23 Upper Deck Ice and 2022-23 Upper Deck Credentials. Whether you like to open boxes or buy singles, I will give you some info to decide which of these products is right for you!
2022-23 Upper Deck Ice
Hobby Boxes of 2022-23 Upper Deck Ice contain 12 packs with 6 cards in each pack. At the time of this post, they can be found on eBay for about $85 per box.
The base set is broken up into three subsets. First, cards 1-100 are made up of veterans and are the most common of the subsets, cards 101-150 are rookies and fall roughly one per pack. Finally, the Ice Premiers acetate cards make up 151-250. They fall 2 per box and have scarcity levels from /99 to /1299. That means, there are only 99 potential complete sets out there if you want to build the full 1-250 set!
There are 7 different base card parallels ranging from unnumbered green to black 1/1s. There are multiple hobby and retail inserts, including a line of Exquisite cards, some of which have both a veteran and rookie component. Several of the insert sets only fall about 1 per case, so they can be tough to complete!
Finally, each hobby box promises one autograph or memorabilia card.
2022-23 Upper Deck Ice base and insert cards
2022-23 Upper Deck Credentials
Hobby Boxes of 2022-23 Upper Deck Credentials contain 8 packs with 6 cards in each pack. At the time of this post, they can be found on eBay for about $85 per box.
This is another challenging set to build. The core base set of 100 veterans is fairly simple, but cards 101-200 are Debut ticket access rookies and are all serial numbered. They range in scarcity from /999 to /399.
Ten different parallels exist for rainbow collectors to chase, and the 7 insert sets show Upper Decks strength in design. Year after year, they use quality inserts in their products to add some variety! Each box promises one hit which could be an autograph or an acetate card.
2022-23 Upper Deck Credentials base and insert cards.
The Box Break Battle
I had the opportunity to open one of each hobby box courtesy of Upper Deck.
2022-23 Upper Deck Ice Premieres Samuel Fagemo Auto
The Ice box contained the following:
Ice Premiers Auto: 1
Ice Premiers Base: 1
Frozen in Ice Insert: 1
Cool Cuts Acetate Insert:1
Ice Crystals Insert: 5
Base Parallels: 15
Base Cards: 45
This box provided a nice bit of variety with about 1/3 of the cards being some kind of insert, hit, or parallel. Collectors who purchase a few boxes should have a pretty good start towards a 1-150 base set, although as always, buying the set on the secondary market is a more cost effective way to obtain it.
2022-23 Upper Deck Credentials Andrei Kuzmenko Auto
The Credentials box contained:
Debut Ticket Auto: 1
Inserts: 10
Parallels: 4
Debut Ticket Access RC: 3
Base Cards: 30
The Credentials Box also had about a third of its cards being inserts, parallels or hits.
The price of these boxes are virtually identical, so from that perspective it’s a wash. I liked the overall design of both the Ice base cards and inserts a little better, and the fact you get more Ice cards per box make it a winner for me!
Both products have some great looking singles. So if you are more of a player or team collector, heading to eBay, Sportlots, or COMC to find some singles could be a more cost effective way to build your collection.
Do you have any Ice or Credentials cards in your hockey card collection? Let me know if the comments below!