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2008-09 Black Diamond

Packs per Box: 24
Cards per Pack: 5
Cards per Box: 120
Base Set Completion: 46.7% (98 of 210)
Notable RCs: Alex Pietrangelo
Duplicates: 18

The exact contents of the pack scanned in and used to find insert odds:

Bryan Little #3
Marco Sturm #4
Alex Kovalev #39
Erik Cole #30
Wade Redden #57

First Pack Comments: Umm ... yeah, not a whole lot there.
First Pack Rating: 1.0 / 10

Total: 18
Double Diamond Subset (1:4) -- 6: Chris Pronger, Teemu Selanne, Patrick Sharp, Chris Osgood, Sam Gagner, Olli Jokinen
Triple Diamond Subset (1:8) -- 3: Thomas Vanek, Daniel Alfredsson, Nicklas Backstrom
Triple Diamond Rookies (1:8) -- 3: Ilya Zubov, Alex Goligoski, Robbie Earl
Quadruple Diamond Subset (1:24) -- 0
Quadruple Diamond Rookies (1:24) -- 2: Mikkel Boedker, Alex Pietrangelo

Ruby Parallel (#'d to 100) -- 1: Cristobal Huet (32/100)
Gold Parallel (#'d to 10) -- 0
Diamond Parallel (#'d to 1) -- 0
Parallels combine to fall 1:36

Regular Quad Jersey (1:13) -- 2: Brian Gionta, Chris Higgins
Ruby Quad Jersey (#'d to 100) -- 0
Gold Quad Jersey (#'d to 25) -- 0
Diamond Quad Jersey (#'d to 10) -- 0
Quad Jerseys combine to fall 1:12

Perimeter Cut Die Cuts Single (1:24) -- 1: Alexander Frolov
Perimeter Cut Die Cuts Double (1:24) -- 1: Martin St. Louis
Perimeter Cut Die Cuts Triple (1:170) -- 0
Perimeter Cut Die Cuts Quadruple (1:1015) -- 0
Perimeter Cut Die Cuts combine to fall 1:12

Gemography (1:48) -- 1: Mark Mancari
Run for the Cup (1:288, #'d to 100) -- 0

Box Rating: 6.0 / 10
Product Rating: 6.0 / 10

This year's version of Black Diamond just didn't have it. Black Diamond is traditionally known for eye-popping design, for having something that makes you stop and go "WOW". Nothing even close to that was here in this installment.

The design is alright, although fading the background of the pictures into silvery stripes makes the base cards a little boring it's still passable. The thing is half the hits in the box are double, triple, and quadruple diamond subsets which look exactly the same as the base card save for two little things: a different number in the diamond pattern at the bottom and a name printed on the card that you may actually recognize.

Rookies are fairly stagnant in this product, and although that may be more the fault of this year's rookie class than Upper Deck, pulling a Robbie Earl rookie still isn't going to wow anyone. The Quad Jersey inserts are surprisingly straightforward and truth be told aren't that interesting. They are dangerously close to just four pieces of cloth stapled onto a piece of cardboard and with a somewhat watered down checklist are a longshot to excite. The Premier Cut Die Cuts are a nice quirky little addition to the product, but not enough to save it. In fact, the only real card that wowed me was the Gemography I pulled. The look and feel of the Gemography cards is far superior to any previous version and they are the saving grace of this year's Black Diamond. But, falling only 1:2 boxes, half the people won't get a chance to even see them ... so much for that.

My box just wasn't all that exciting. After most of the hits, instead of being excited I was left shrugging and moving on, hoping to maybe find some miracle card to spice things up. The Mancari was a sweet pull once I realized he was a Sabre (yes ... it took even me a few seconds to process that). The design of the Gemography cards is awesome and to get the Sabre design (even if it was a player I barely recognized) was awesome. I also ended up with two quad rookies, which certainly was a plus ... even if I've only barely heard of one. The jerseys disappointed though, and so while this box had a few decent things going for it, overall it was a very bland experience.

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