Box Break: 2017-18 O-Pee-Chee Blaster Box

Yeah, I should really stop buying blaster boxes if I want inserts like autographs and jersey cards, but at least with O-Pee-Chee, I know I'm getting affordable, (mostly) current cards that are easy to get signed because they don't come over-coated, instead offering a matte finish reminiscent of cards from the 1970s and 1980s.

Which brings me to this box break for 12 packs from Upper Deck's 2017-18 O-Pee-Chee set.

Not only are they great cards to get signed but, this year, the design is actually nice and modern, no longer a parody of the odd-coloured sets of old, as can be attested by these two base cards:

Of course, there were nausea-inducing parallel cards mimicking eras past (find below Oliver Bjorkstrand and Mitch Marner, but I also landed Zach Branford, Riley Nash and Cam Atkinson):

I was also treated to three regular-issue Marquee Rookie cards, Valentin Zykov, Dan Renouf and Mike Vecchione:

And there was one Marquee Rookie card that mixed both, featuring the very talented Tyson Jost:

There are the regular checklist cards, a staple of my youth:

But there were also Team Checklist cards, which are more reminiscent of Panini stickers from when I was a kid:

My box was very Carolina Hurricanes-heavy, including both of my foil parallels, Joakim Nordstrom and Brett Pesce (they look blue here but are silver to the naked eye):

I was also thoroughly impressed with how awful the translation was on this Ryan Suter card (it should have read Meneurs De La Ligue (the French translation of League Leaders), not Les Dirigeants De La Ligue (which stands for League Executives):

Of course, one of the coolest insert sets OPC has put in its boxes these last couple of years is the Playcard variants, of which I landed Patrick Kane:

And this year, they added Mini Cards (reminiscent of the late-80s League Leaders mini-set, or of recent Champs sets), of which I landed young stars Mark Scheifele and Matt Murray:

I hope I get those signed!

Another OPC staple is the fact that they usually re-print two of the set's cards on the reverse side of their boxes - which also shows potential customers what the cards look like.

This year, however, they even went out of their way to include different pictures on the back than inside the packs, as can be attested by the Connor McDavid one:

12 packs of 8 cards each - 96 cards in total - for $29.92 plus tax(es), so roughly $35.

I would have ranked this a 9 or 9.5/10 had it been $20 plus tax, it comes at ten cents per card higher than ideal, but I truly do love the set anyhow.

I'll give it a solid 8/10.