PACK RIPPING - 2012/13 OPC

Well, I'm finally getting around to posting my big purchase from last month's traders night.  And by "big purchase" I mean....

EIGHT WHOPPING PACKS OF O-PEE-CHEE!!!

That's right.  I was a big spender last month.

In all seriousness, this product has been on my radar for a little while now.  For the past few years, OPC has pumped out a nice solid product.  Decent bang for your buck (and an inexpensive buck too), big sets, nice parallels and the occasional big hit.

This year, there's a lot of the same - but some difference.  I think they made some good steps forward while they fumbled the ball (or puck) in a couple spots.

Let's take a look.

2012/13 O-Pee-Chee
(8 packs)

How sad that I can't even remember how much I paid for these packs.  They were under $2 per pack though.  And I bought eight so that makes it.......less than $100 for sure.

Upon checking my Visa bill, it says $28.  I'm sure I bought something else but I don't know what.

Anyways......moving on.

The base cards are a nice design.  They finally got that OPC logo to be not so in-your-face.  See how easy that was.

I really like the retro fonts they used and the overall design is simple, clean and effective.  Say for one glaring addition.

The yellow pastel border they decided to push out around the border.  It looks terrible.  A nice solid white would have saved on ink - and my headache.  Sometimes less is more.

In this instance, less is not more.  Less is less - a lot less.

Talk about another swing-and-a-miss.  Too much blank space.  Toss in a tidbit or a cartoon - anything, but don't leave it blank.

And to further kick dirt in my face, they used a darker brown cardboard making the card backs tougher to read.

Nice design, not so nice execution.

Now when it comes to the base cards, there are often a range of photos used from one card to another.  In some instances it's a headshot (like in Captain-C), other times it's a medium shot.  With this year's OPC, it's the good ol' head-to-toe.

And bland it gets quick.

Here are six goalie cards.  Change the jerseys and masks and they are the exact same.  Nobody's even making a save.

We need better than this.

(a quick note....in the advertisement for this product, they used a great pic of Ovechkin.  It really made me excited for the base cards.  Seeing the selection I pulled it's clear to see that they used their absolute best to plug the product)

In fact, out of all 50 of my base cards, I pulled only one that didn't use a wide shot.

Kipper saves the day.  Now why not give me a few more of those eh?

As has been the trend over the past few releases, OPC included a retro parallel for each base card.

At first, I wasn't really impressed with these, but the are growing on me.  I can appreciate attempt from OPC to give their buyers a unique product.

Now on to the subsets and inserts.

Here's what the Legends look like (both base and retro parallel).  I like the photo selection on the Francis, but am screaming for the green.  Where's my green?

The Gartner is nice too.  Amazing what some simple colors, shapes and letters can do.

The Rookies are nice (but not as nice as the Legends).  A little too busy on the regular card design and a little too simple on the retro.  It took me a few seconds to figure out what I had.

Now, here's a card that I can't quite figure out.

It's a Marquee Rookie......of a Legend.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great looking card.  I've never seen that photo of Pelle before (action shot to boot), but I don't know why he's included in the rookies.

I've heard that there just weren't enough rookies to properly fill that chunk of the checklist so they just filled in the last few slots with these Rookie Legends (I've seen a Lemieux as well).

Odd.  Confusing.  Moving on.

On to the inserts.  Again, a neat little addition to this year's offerings.

Stickers!

I haven't actually tried to stick them to anything.  I wonder if they are like the ones from the 80's that instantly fall off your helmet when it's minus 30 outside?

As it is, I don't know if I'd look very cool with this Subban sticker on my lid to begin with.  It's not really helmet-sticker material.

Nice card though.

I left the shiny stuff to the end.  There's regular shiny, numbered shiny and probably shiny shiny ones.  I got two and neither rock my world.

That means all the good hits are still in the box at the LCS.  Hits like manufactured patches and black & white autos.  You know....stuff I never pull.

Anyways, although I may have sounded like a big complainer during this post, I actually really enjoyed ripping into these packs.  OPC is one of the most fun products of the year for me.

No Linden this time around so not quite as fun, but fun nonetheless.