Review: Upper Deck Black Diamond Hockey 2013-2014

One of my favorite products that Upper Deck puts out continues it great ways in hockey. I wished this would expand to other sports some day, but while I wait for that to happen, it looks great on the ice.

This product has a lot to offer from it's base card chase to it's hard to find autographs.I like everything that Black Diamond has to offer. Read on to find out why!

BOX BREAK DOWN: 

• 20 Packs Per Box, 5 Cards Per Pack
• Two Multi-Swatch Jersey Puzzle Cards Per Box!
• 1-2 Quad Diamond Rookie Gems Per Box!
• 3-4 Triple Diamond Rookie Gems Per Box!

PRICE: You can find most boxes under $85 

WITHIN THE BOX:

Double Diamonds:
Cam Neely
Corey Crawford
Tony Esposito
Brad Marchand
Marian Gaborik

Triple Diamonds:
Guy Lafleur


Quad Diamonds:
Brett Hull
Dale Hawerchuk
Rookie Quad: Tyler Toffoli

Ice Premier Rookie:
Anton Belov 925/999


Inserts:
Ruby Parallel Mike Bossy 14/50

Memorabilia (non-autographed):
Multi-Swatch Jersey Puzzle Card Phil Kessel
Multi-Swatch Jersey Puzzle Card Martin Broduer

Autographs/Autograph Memorabilia
N/A

DESIGN:
I am a huge fan of the metallic look on the cards. The Puzzle Jersey cards are a unique concept I just wished they too were done with the metallic Black Diamond look as they are a little out of place when you have everything together.

COOL NOTES:
You can look for Golden Tickets good for Quad Diamond Rookie Gems Relics cards featuring four REAL Diamonds Embedded In The Card!! There will be 25 cards in all and they will all be 1/1's
In each case they contain Four Championship Rings showcasing the 2012-13 Blackhawks championship season.

THOUGHTS: This is the kind of product I am looking for. It is not all about the autographs and jersey cards. This is actually about the base cards and set building and it's in a fun way! The base set is broken up as follows:

1-100 Single Diamond
101-150 Double Diamond
150-175 Triple Diamond
176-200 Triple Diamond Rookies
201-225 Quad Diamond
226-250 Quad Diamond Rookies

And it's not that easy to complete as you only get the following per box:

- Get 1-2 Quad Diamond Rookie Gems
- Get 3-4 Triple Diamond Rookie Gems
- Get 1-2 Quad Diamond Regular Cards
- Get 3-4 Triple Diamond Regular Cards
- Get 6-7 Double Diamond Regular Cards

This is exactly what the hobby needs again.  More focus on set building. It would definitely take someone sometime to trade, buy and bust to put a master set together. It would also be a ton of fun as well.

I also like the fact inserts are rare finds. I only pulled one in the box. That helps values of the inserts and overall product. Same goes with triple and quad diamond base cards.

Another fun addition is the pack of Upper Deck Ice. I would say though it's a little misleading as it's not technically a "bonus" pack and counts as one of the 20 packs or that was at least the case in this box. And it was strange to find it hidden within a pack marked Black Diamond. I think they should have put 20 packs of Black Diamond along with the bonus pack of Ice and had the pack called that.

Overall, there is value to be had here. With hard to find inserts and parallels and the Ice pack that can produce up to triple digit book value cards with the harder to find top rookies, Black Diamond is a fun and good buy.