1998-99 Upper Deck Gold Reserve Hockey Forum

So, I was at Wal-Mart last night and decided to check out the trading card section for hockey cards.  New there were boxes of 1998-99 UD Gold Reserve Series 2 for $29.99/box.  Since I had very few cards from that set (less than 30), I decided to gamble on one of the two boxes there.  I couldn't argue with the price, especially since the majority of their recent blaster boxes are running at $24.95, whereas in the '98-'99's we're talking about 48 packs of 10 cards -- should be easy enough to complete a set that goes from No 211-420 (209 Cards), right?

Two-thirds the way through the box, and I'm down to 12 cards.  Up to this point, I had run into typical poor Upper Deck collation, with packs that were very similar to one another content-wise, i.e., four or five cards that were found together in a subsequent pack -- and this happened about three for four times up to then with different little groups of cards.  Another thing: every pack contains three cards from the "Program of Excellence" subset and one "Calder Candidate", which really cuts down on one's chances of completing the regualar cards, which run from 211-390.

Anyway, starting to open the last third of the packs, and again, I'm getting all duplicates (and duplicate bunches again), until I hit a pack that contains 8 of the 12 cards I need; three packs later, and I open a pack that has all four of the remainder.  This leaves two unopened packs, which I open to check for the Chase cards, but of course, I'm skunked.

All in all, the box was a good value.  Most, if not all, of the "Program of Excellence" cards are rookies.  In the regular cards is the Martin St. Louis rookie (which I got four of).  And, I was able to build the whole set.  Any box that lets you do that is worthwhile.  This box pretty much paid for itself, never a bad thing.

Now, the downsides:  the collation situation I mentioned, plus the fact that there was very little available in the way of chase cards:  Gretzky Game-Used Stick Cards (200 in total plus 99 hand-numbered and autographed ones) and Yzerman Game-Used Stick Cards (also 200 in total plus 19 hand-numbered and autographed ones), and that's it.  Mind you, I did gain a huge pile of trading stock... 

Over all, I would give this box 8 out of 10, and recommend it if you come across them for $29.99 or less.

Glad to hear you were able to build the full set from just one box. Now days with all those dang parallel cards and thousands of insert subsets it takes more than just one box to build a full base set.

Funny story Glenn, I too found some old stock of the very same at my Walmart here on the praries (Lloydminster), they had three so I grabbed all of them to be safe (lol), I hit basically the same as you but with only two St Louis cards, finished the set and no luck on the chase cards either. After a bit of thought I figured I would return the other two for others to have the chance as at 29.95 I did not want to have the "stock" of two more sets and all the doubles when I could put that $60 into something else, did much better on the one box of 99-00 UD hockey that was there as well (and at the same price) so felt no remores in taking them back, share the wealth I say. All in all a fairly decent set.

I have purposely avoided wal mart due to past card fails.  I would probably go back now to see if they have some older stock cards, but my experiences with them are bleak. full pack of ten of the same card, doubles of cards within packs... I don't know where one should point the blame, (probably the card co's lol,) but when I'm spending anywhere from 2 bucks up to 50 on packages of cardboard.... the LEAST you can do is ensure there aren't doubles in the packs