How do you grade SPA?

[MGiuseffi1969]

Simple poll. On a scale of 0 to 5, 5 being best, how do you grade 2004-05 SP Authentic. Poll attached, and comments welcomed.

 

[Muffinz]

Although some of the SOTT and BuyBacks have been questionable, the design and cost of this product I approve of. The auto patches are nice, as well as the multiple auto cards.

 

[slckrsx]

I like it. A lot of sweet stuff to be pulled but all the local shops have uped the price to around $200cdn/box which I for one will never pay. I got my 3 boxes at $130cdn and that's the price it should be.

 

[quincy]

Standard UD:
Spend $160 for a box to get $60 worth of cards you can buy online for $20

OR

Spend $160 for a box to get one card which will cover your rent/mortgage for the next several months.

 

[MonoXiDe]

Quincy put it best.

I LOVE the design, although, doesn't make me wanna pay $115 to see them. lol

 

[mofo88]

Love the look, I've done great on my boxes. The buybacks are cool though we could do without anything worth less than $10. Like Q refrlected it's hit or miss, done about 10 boxes and have had about 5 great ones to 3 really bad ones everything else was in between.

If they can keep this concept going next year with rookies in it that will be a hot produt. My biggest concern is that I really love the patch auto set and thought about doing it but the sudden outflow of auto patches by UD in the last two products is gonna flood the market and soon you can get a auto patch of Gretzky for $100 and commons ones will sell for $3-8 on ebay just like jerseys. Second concern is the lack of Gretzky, Roy, Lemieux, and Yzerman in this product. We have yet to see a Gretzky auto patch which truly questiosn wether or not he's in here, also how come we have not seen a buyback auto of Gretzky or Lemieux yet?

My two cents.
Thanks!

 

[penguinsrock93]

In my opinion this product is a complete waste of money. As a penguin fan the only thing I can be looking for is yet another Marc Andre Fleury Auto. There are more Penguin players than him! As for the expensive price of a box vs what you get in return is pitiful at best. Hmmm, I just spent $150 on a box and pulled a common rookie buyback from 03/04 Beehive. A little more variety on players and teams would have been nice. I have not bought a box nor will I. The only card I bought from SPA was the Orpik buyback which I needed for his collection. I gave it a 1/5 since I will not be touching the stuff.

 

[slappy69]

Spa

I opened 2 boxes
Design of the base cards and the SOTT's is great. Quality look that is worthy of the price. 4.5/5
However there are too many dud's. 3.5 /5

I gave it a generours 4/5 should have been a 3.5

Tony

 

[WesM44]

From the breaks I've seen it's either a really good box or a Dave Papa break aka "a swift kick in the junk".
Gave it two stars and I'll be sticking to singles I like since breaking a box is too expensive and not a high chance of getting your money back.

 

[samiaa]

I gave 2 stars for it.

Sure it has some nice cards in it but most still are pure crap.

And then all the problems with it:
Rookie buybacks: they have 02/03 SPx cards in them, since when they have been rookie cards?
Redemptions: will there ever be any octographs? (goalies one for example since Roy seems to have stopped signing for UD)
Patches: Where is gretzky patch?

And so on, i havent bought any boxes and will not buy other than Ruutu singles i need.

-Sami

 

[brisco10]

I think everyone has seen what I got out of four boxes and will understand why I gave it five stars!!!
Real buyback 25/28
Saku limit auto 5/10
The Nash ETC. Quad

And the Nash in my sig.
Four pretty sweet boxes if you ask me!!!!

Thanks
Ken

 

[pssteve]

I generously gave it a 3.Was disappointed with the buybacks and I'm also leery about the long term value of patches and rookie redemptions.Best aspect to me was the timing.UD brought it out when I was feeling the need to rip new product.

 

[MGiuseffi1969]

OK guys, The average score is 2.75. I guess this means the set gets a C+. That seems a bit high to me, but that's what the results tell us. My $.02 is the set is a stinker. It is only good for the high risk pull. Yes, pulling a Octograph would be nice, but the chances are slim to none. Ask yourself this, how many $120 boxes have yielded $20 or less worth of cards. I would say at least half the boxes. The set builder is not interested in the product since the "SP's" are not really SP's. The rookie collectors are not interested in the product since the rookies are not really rookies. Even the "great" pulls are not bringing nice prices on the bay. For example, I saw a M-A Fleury Auto #/10 sell for less than the price of a box. SPA is UD's worst effort to date IMO. Thanks for all of the replies and participation in the poll.

PS- After all of my bitc*ing, I should mention I have several of the SPA Leetch cards on the way for my PC. Mike

 

[Themenace13]

I guess my question about UD in general is how long will all these "irregularities" leading to controversy last? I know that sounds stupid, but with no evidence of the Gretzky Rookie Review Patch existing, and all the countless let alone unwanted rookie buybacks and previously signed "buybacks", what was the point of this product? Compared to the other hockey products made by UD this year what was really different about SPA? I know in years' past, at least for me, the most sought after thing from SPA was the rookie card. THis time around, there is no such thing. HOw many different autos do you need of Gretzky, Brodeur, Leclaire, etc to be satisfied? One of the things they could have done to make this product a little interesting would have been to take a lot of the non-autoed rookies from past UD products (like Gaborik's SPA and Comrie's SPA, or how about Lehtonen's Premier) and inserted them into this year's SPA with an auto of the player. I probably would have bought more than one box. Fleer did this with 1986 Basketball and inserted the coveted Michael Jordan Rookie Card with MJ's sig on it, but I thought MJ had an exclusive contract with UD. Anyway back on track... It could have been better, and a bit more interesting. It's basically Hockey's version of SP Signature Series without the SP's... I could go on and on, so I should just get back to the voting. The design is nice, but that's it. They put a few extra autos in the boxes and added a few more auto patches to each case, and that was justification enough to jack up the price by nearly $20 compared to years past? UD Signature Series should be interesting as well, it'll just be SPA only with a different name. DOes anyone remember the movie Tommy Boy, and the exact same movie came out again with the same premise a few years later: Black Sheep... Ok, thanks for the rant. Ignore as necessary...

 

[jaywings19]

It's funny that Johnny brings up Tommy Boy. This SPA product reminds me of a great quote from that movie:

Why do they put a guarantee on the box then? Because they know all they sold ya was a guaranteed piece of sh*t. That's all it is. Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time. But for right now, for your sake, for your daughter's sake, ya might wanna think about buying a quality item from me.

I think that sums up UD's intent on this SPA product.

 

[sprague11]

The Redemption values are going to go the way of the SPX redemptions - Hot for a very brief period of time than fizzling down faster than a Ken Hodge Jr. collection