Monday, November 28, 2016

Pack War: 2015-16 SP Authentic vs. 2016 Topps Update


Back at the end of October, my family and I visited my aunt and uncle up near Akron. While my wife, my mom and everyone else went shopping, my uncle offered me the invitation to head out to the card shops. I gladly obliged. The first place we hit up was Medina Sports Cards. There were really no singles to be had so I settled on some packs ... two packs of 2015-16 SP Authentic hockey and two packs of 2016 Topps Update. I've decided to match these against each other in a pack war of sorts. Let's see what is contained within ...


Since SP Authentic only yields five cards per pack, I'll just show everything. The first pack presented two Ducks, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins of the Oilers and Dustin Byfuglien of the Winnipeg Jets. The insert card was an authentic moments insert of the Islanders. Not the best pack, but not bad either.


The second pack of SP Authentic wasn't much either but these are still some nice cards to add to the hockey binder. The Upper Deck Update card in the middle threw me off when I saw it but then I realized they're insert cards in this particular product. 



Here's the best from the packs of Update. Aside from the gawdy All-Star jerseys, there's a few things of note here. The Mike Clevinger card is one of those fancy image variations and the Chris Capuano is a foil parallel. As far as the inserts go, I personally think the Franklin card is pretty much useless but I really dig the Mike Trout Fire insert. I could be wrong but I believe that was actually issued as one of Topps' last football products earlier this year.

These weren't the best packs but they scratched the itch to rip so I won't complain too terribly. As far as a winner goes, I'm going to call it pretty much a draw. SP Authentic, while only having five cards per pack, lead in the quality department with some really nice cards. Topps won in the variety department with the image variation, the foil parallel and the Fire insert.


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