Learning how to collect hockey cards — whether you are new or returning to the hobby — can help you add another layer to your awesome sports card collection!
How To Collect Hockey Cards: A Complete Guide!

Knowing how to collect hockey cards in this new era can improve your entire sports card collection greatly!
As many of you know, hockey is the coolest sport on ice and it is the most exciting sport to watch. For the card collectors out there, you also know there is nothing like pulling a superstar rookie’s Young Guns card from Upper Deck packs! If you don’t know what I am talking about, you are in the right place to learn the ins and outs of how to collect hockey cards.
You can check out our list of all the Best Hockey Rookie Cards Ever from every season dating back over 70 years to see which cards are worth picking up!
Understanding the Different Hockey Card Brands
A great place to start for sports card collectors is understanding who makes hockey cards and what has changed over the years. If we look at the ‘70s and ‘80s, the two main brands producing hockey cards were Topps and O-Pee-Chee (OPC). The only difference in these two cards were the audience they were intended for.
Topps produced cards in the U.S., while OPC produced for Canadians.
The pictures of the players on each were the same and the stats on the back were the same. The main difference was on the back of OPC, sometimes the writing was in French and the shade of orange on the back of the card was a little bit brighter when compared to Topps.
You can search on eBay for a specific player’s Topps card and/or OPC card and you will see exactly that. Values for each remain close over the years, however, OPC is usually worth a little bit more.
How To Collect Hockey Cards in the 2020s
In 1990, Upper Deck entered the hockey card market and by the mid ‘90s, both Topps and OPC were already gone. Currently, the OPC brand still exists under the Upper Deck brand, but Upper Deck is the main hockey card manufacturer.
Upper Deck Hockey Cards
Upper Deck releases several different lines of hockey cards now for all types of collectors. There are entry level, mid-level, and high-end products for every collector’s budget.
Entry Level Hockey Cards For the Collector on a Limited Budget
The two main entry level products out there for budget-minded collectors are Upper Deck MVP and O-Pee-Chee Hockey. Hobby boxes of both products cost around $60.
A hobby box of Upper Deck MVP typically includes 20 packs, each with 8 cards. The appeal of MVP is that it is the first release of the year.
A hobby box of O-Pee-Chee Hockey is usually way more popular among collectors. There are better hits in OPC when compared to MVP and the OPC line carries the long-term history and nostalgia of the ‘80s and earlier that MVP doesn’t have. OPC hockey has a mid-level platinum version as well that will be discussed later.

Mid-Level Hockey Cards (Flagship)
Upper Deck’s flagship cards are most popular among collectors, including Upper Deck Series 1, Series 2, and Extended Series. These three products are where collectors find the world-famous Young Guns cards. Hobby boxes usually cost about $125 each, but that price will increase if the more valuable rookies exist in a particular set, like in 2023-24 when Connor Bedard’s Young Guns rookie card was included.
Young Guns are the only version of rookie cards you will find in this product line and each series usually contains 50 of them. Despite being mass produced, these are highly sought out each year and they are the most collected hockey cards presently.
While Young Guns are part of the base set, and numbered as such, they are more limited than the rest of the base cards. Each hobby box includes a minimum of 6 Young Guns, along with various other inserts and base cards.
Of note, when looking for your favorite players Young Guns card, players must play in at least one NHL game before a card can be produced, which means top draft picks will not have a card until at least Series 2.

Mid-Level Hockey Cards (Others)
Other products in the mid-level price range of $125 to about $200 include:
- Upper Deck Allure
- Upper Deck Artifacts
- Upper Deck Credentials
- Upper Deck Ice
- Upper Deck O-Pee-Chee Platinum
- Upper Deck SP Authentic
- Upper Deck SP Game Used
- Upper Deck SPx
- Upper Deck Sky Box Metal
- Upper Deck Stature
- Upper Deck Synergy
- Upper Deck Trilogy
- Upper Deck Ultimate
Each of these lines offers collectors something different. Some boxes will only contain 1 card, some 4, some up to 100. The boxes with fewer cards usually feature autographs and relics, while the others offer no such guarantees.
Among the lines listed here in this range, SP Authentic and OPC Platinum are typical favorites of collectors.
SP Authentic offers Future Watch rookie cards and Future Watch autos, right up there in popularity with Young Guns.
OPC Platinum is the same line as OPC hockey, just in a chrome version with many numbered parallels and autographs. (Think Topps and Topps Chrome in baseball or Donruss and Donruss Optic in basketball and football.)
The best way to see what you may like is to read the details on what is in each box by checking out sites like Dave & Adam’s Card World, and reviewing the checklists for players you are interested in at Beckett.com.
Watch a few videos on YouTube to see how nice the product looks, and get an idea of what you might get.
My personal favorite set of hockey cards to collect from this mid-level group is Artifacts. I enjoy the smaller base set while still getting some guaranteed hits in each box, along with some redemption cards of players to be named later.

High-End Hockey Cards
In the $200-$250 range, you can find hobby boxes of Upper Deck Black Diamond and Upper Deck Premier. Both products will include less than 6 cards (not packs) per box. These are going to be autographs and relic type cards, which is great, but the boxes are very risky since you might not hit a top rookie.
At the other end of the spectrum is Upper Deck The Cup. This is Upper Deck’s premium product that usually retails for around $1,000. These boxes include 6 high quality cards, with at least one rookie patch auto (RPA) card. Again, if you do not hit on a great RPA, your value will be nowhere near what you spent on the box.
Check out some YouTube breaks of these cards — they are fun to watch!

Comparing Hobby vs. Retail
Many of the products listed above in the entry and mid-level lines have retail products available in local stores. Hobby boxes will need to be purchased online or in a local card shop.
Like other sports, the big draw of a hobby box are the guaranteed hits and potential value. Retail does provide some benefits, depending on what you are collecting.
If your main focus is Young Guns, like many collectors, you can buy Upper Deck Series 1, Series 2, and Extended Series in retail version for around $60-$70 a few months after release. These retail boxes will still include 6-7 Young Guns each, but you cannot get parallel version of Young Guns.
Hobby products can drop in price over time if the rookies in the product are deemed to be just average level players by collectors, so waiting can sometimes get you a better deal on cards.
Evaluating Which Hockey Players to Collect
Hockey is just like other sports with respect to position played and how it impacts value. In hockey, offensive players carry the most value. Goalies and defensemen are in the next level. However, there are exceptions for the few elite goalies and the defensemen who score goals at a high level.
When trying to value a player, it is important to understand a little bit about hockey to see where players fit in. During a game, you will typically see four lines of offensive players, each line includes a center, left wing, and right wing. These lines are broken up into the top 6 and bottom 6. The top 6 are the top two lines, and the bottom 6 the bottom two lines.
Players that are part of the top 6 carry way more value as they are the more elite players, and they typically make up the two power play units, which increases goal scoring opportunities.
Defensemen work in pairs with each team usually working with three lines of 2 defensemen each. The top two lines make up the top 4 defensemen. These two lines will play most of the game, while the third line will still get some action, but not as much. Top defensemen typically man the power play as well, so there are opportunities for them to rack up some points.
When evaluating a rookie on a team, it is crucial to see what line they are playing on and if they are part of the power play or penalty kill units. A rookie on the third line is not necessarily a bad thing as they will typically spend less time playing against the other team’s top defensemen. However, the talent on their line might not be as good.
There is way more to understanding the game of hockey, but some of this will help you to understand how to value a player, like with baseball when considering position players, pitchers, and catchers.
Using eBay For Hockey Card Collecting
A great place to buy and sell hockey cards is on eBay, just like for collecting cards of other sports.
For new collectors and sellers, one thing to watch out for is overseas sellers and buyers. Also, a large portion of sellers and buyers of hockey cards on eBay are from Canada.
I have never had an issue with this, but you should watch out for increased shipping prices coming from Canadian sellers. A more detailed search may yield you a cheaper seller elsewhere.
If you are shopping for graded cards, you will see some from a company called KSA. I have purchased a KSA card before and it looks great, but they do not have the best reputation among grading companies.
If you decide to sell cards, make sure you understand how international shipping works with eBay. They have a pretty easy shipping process, and I have used it many times, but it is worth reviewing the process before allowing international sales.
How To Collect Hockey Cards: Overtime
Collecting hockey cards is a blast! If you are looking for a break from baseball, watch a game, find a team or player you like, and see what is out there. Once you find something interesting, check out some YouTube videos on a product or head to your local card shop and chat with the “hockey guy” — there is always one in every store.
Like everything else, understanding how to collect hockey cards takes some time, but if you start slow and see where the hobby takes you, you’ll really enjoy yourself!
Don’t forget our list of all the Best Hockey Rookie Cards Ever from every season! This will really kickstart your hockey card collection! Please, let us know in the comments what we are missing or what we got wrong about how to collect hockey cards — and whatever you do, have a #HappyHobby!!!
Comments
Patrick Imhoff
For anyone interested in a cheap entry to the 2025 hockey world, you can get a hobby box of OPC for about $60, pre tax and shipping. https://www.dacardworld.com/sports-cards/2024-25-upper-deck-o-pee-chee-hockey-hobby-box
David Gonos
I want to buy one, just for the fun of tracking down some rookies, but I need my Lightning to have a decent player to chase, haha!
Patrick Imhoff
Yeah, not a ton of rookies in the product for Tampa. Probably the best one i would expect is Emil Lilleberg, Defenseman on the bottom pair. 11 assists so far through 45 games. The price you pay for being so good for so long is that lower draft pick.
Patrick Imhoff
Also, if you want to start by grabbing an individual card, let me recommend Jaromir Jagr. #2 all time in points scored behind only Gretzky, multiple stanley cups, best hair cut ever, and still playing hockey today in Czechia, which is the only reason he isn’t in HOF yet. You can find his RCs (upper deck, OPC, score, pro-set) all for under $20, even graded ones are around that price.