Is 2023-24 Upper Deck Allure Hockey A Good Investment?

The Upper Deck Allure Hockey release heavily features a chrome rainbow, which is not typical of hockey releases and makes this product stand out. However, aside from that one differentiating feature, it has failed to stand out in the Upper Deck hockey annual schedule.

Few people sit around anxiously awaiting the release of Allure. Does this new release do anything to move the needle? Or will it soon be forgotten as well? Find out in our 2023-24 Upper Deck Allure Hockey review.

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The history of Upper Deck Allure Hockey

Upper Deck Allure Hockey’s first release was in the 2019-20 season. Yes, that means it came out in 2020. But it was not a COVID release, strictly speaking. The first box dropped on February 5, 2020, a month before the world crashed.

The idea was to get a hockey product with a vast rainbow, something that had been lacking in hockey released up to that time. Each box of the 2019-20 version came with a guaranteed autograph, a rookie jersey relic, a rare parallel, or an additional jersey card.

In addition, you could find five parallels and eight inserts. It’s not a bad haul for a hobby box. The next release was similar, though the 2020-21 box had a more generous smattering of inserts.

Each box came with 5 guaranteed and also a promise of 8 rookies in each. The following year, the number of parallels grew to 9, while the inserts were lower at 4.

The release last year was particularly excellent. It included a set of rookie rainbow cards known as Color Flow. If you get each of the cards in the series, you can place them side by side, and they form a flowing rainbow, with colors completing each other.

I think this was an original Upper Deck idea. Either way, it’s gorgeous, and it gave fans hope that Allure was starting to come into its own, using its colorful designs to open new vistas in card design. That brings us to the current release. As we will see, the guaranteed cards have deteriorated.

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2023-24 Upper Deck Allure Hockey release date

Much like Panini, Upper Deck has been having severe issues with its release dates in recent years. How did 2023-24 Upper Deck Allure Hockey do in that regard? The box came out on July 24, 2024.

That is a massive improvement over the previous date, October 11, 2023, when Upper Deck released the 2022-23 version. But it’s still pretty bad, considering the NHL season ended in April. We like the progress made, but Upper Deck still has a lot of work to do.

Hopefully, next season, more of these releases come during the regular season. The improvement suggests that they will.

2023-24 Upper Deck Allure Hockey formats

The hobby boxes for this product are already out. We don’t yet have the details for the retail releases. However, Upper Deck also released blasters in previous years; we believe the same thing will happen this year.

I provided the specifications for the last release there. In some years, they also made retail boxes and fat packs available. However, since there were none for the 2022-23 season, there probably won’t be any for this release.

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Hobby Box

• 8 cards per pack.
• 8 packs per box.
• Look for 8 Base Set Rookies Cards, 8 Black Rainbow, Red Rainbow, and Orange Slice Base Set Parallel Cards (Includes Rookies), 8 Color Flow and Color Flow Stanley Cup® Cards, 5 Bar Down, Golden Goalies, Iced Breakaway, Lumber Masters and Polished Pros Cards, 2 Printing Plates, Serially-#’d Cards and Ratio’d Short Print Cards, and 1 16-Bit, Autograph or Doubloons Card per box on average.
• Each box sells for $149.95
• Cases come in two formats. An 18-box case that sells for $2,649.95 and a 9-box case that sells for $1,329.95.

Blaster

• 5 cards per box
• 5 packs per box
• Sells for $29.999

2023-24 Upper Deck Allure Hockey pros

Of course, the best thing about Upper Deck Allure Hockey is the rainbows. That remains a strong feature here. We are also delighted to see the return of the gorgeous Color Flow. You have five cards in this set for every player.

It is a great chance to collect the rainbow for your favorite player and put them together. It’s a great series that increases the appeal of Upper Deck Allure Hockey. There is no question that some collectors will buy in because of this.

The 2023-24 release is the first time Wayne Gretzky releases have appeared in the product. It’s about time we got the great one in complete rainbow form. More importantly, there will be Connor Bedard rookie cards here. The opportunity to get a rainbow of this incredible talent is undoubtedly alluring.

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2023-24 Upper Deck Allure Hockey cons

The early incarnations of this release had a guaranteed auto. Removing guaranteed autos from the 2023-24 edition is a real kick in the pants for collectors of this release. To add insult to injury, Upper coupled this with a price increase. The combination of these two things has lowered the usefulness of the release.

Sure, no one is buying this stuff for the autos. But they are still technically the top hit in the hobby box. However, some people will not miss the sticker autos.

Aside from the rainbows, this release offers little for most collectors, especially now that there are no guaranteed autos. Making things worse, some autos in this release are redemptions from what we see in breaking; it is significantly more than usual.

That raises a lot of questions. One Blowout Forums user put it best when he wrote, “What I find weird, I know it’s hard to change if a checklist is already completed beyond extreme reasons, but if you aren’t even guaranteed an auto now, why not just give one of the two other hits (Doubloons/16-Bit) instead of a redemption? The new format makes it easier not to have redemptions, but UD is like, “Nah, fans will love redemptions” lol.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

The rookie class of 2023-24 Upper Deck Allure Hockey

There is one name that stands way above any other player. Connor Bedard is still considered the most incredible talent to emerge in the sport in a generation. Indeed, he exceeded expectations.

And he wasn’t the only one. Brock Faber of the Minnesota Wild and Luke Hughes of the New Jersey Devils were also outstanding. So, Beddard alone would be enough to keep this box at a substantial value. But others will help as well. Therefore, this is going to be a classic year for wax investment.

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2023-24 Upper Deck Allure Hockey checklist

The base set is not particularly big, standing at 150 cards. Out of them, 50 are rookies, and 100 are veterans. A small checklist is good for this product; the rainbow is the biggest draw. Speaking of the parallels, here is the full list:

• Black Rainbow – 1:3 packs, Rookies 1:5 packs
• Red Rainbow – 1:6 packs, Rookies 1:12 packs
• Orange Slice – 1:12 packs, Rookies 1:24 packs
• Pink Lemonade – 1:75 packs, Rookies 1:150 packs
• Gold Glitter Bomb – /199
• Green Rainbow – /99
• Blue Line – /35
• Purple Diamond – /10
• Golden Treasures – 1/1
• Printing Plates – 1/1

Some base cards also have autograph versions that highlight color:

• Red Rainbow Autographs – 1:32 packs
• Blue Line Autographs – /35
• Blue Line Autograph Jersey – /75 or /35
• Purple Diamond Autographs – /10
• Purple Diamond Autograph Patch – /10
• Pink Lemonade Autographs – /5
• Golden Treasures Autographs – 1/1

Autos

As we noted, autos have become more rare. But they are still out there, primarily as autographed versions of inserts, bases, and rainbow parallels.

Inserts

The coolest inserts are the Color Flow cards. I wish other products had something similar. Hopefully, Panini and Fanatics are paying attention. There is also a fun addition in the 2023-24 version. You can get Color Flow Stanley Cup cards, which feature the ultimate trophy. It is tough to get these:

• Red-Orange (1:200 packs)
• Yellow-Green (1:267 packs)
• Blue-Purple (1:800 packs).
• Spectrum parallels are numbered 99, 50, and 10
• Full Rainbow Autograph 1:2,160 hobby packs.

Here are the Color Flow cards available.

The standard rainbow includes the following cards:

• Red-Orange – 1:3 packs
• Orange-Yellow – 1:5 packs
• Yellow-Green – 1:9 packs
• Green-Blue – 1:13 packs
• Blue-Purple – 1:25 packs
• Golden Treasures – 1:1 packs

Serial-numbered Spectrum parallels:

• Red-Orange – /299
• Orange-Yellow – /199
• Yellow-Green – /99
• Green-Blue – /50
• Blue-Purple – /25

16 Bit

We don’t usually think of Allure as an excellent insert product, but they have an awesome one which makes up for the others. The 16-Bit Insert series features some of the biggest stars in super-pixelated versions of 1980s video game video games.

I’m not sure if it is for everyone, but I bet a lot of collectors will love these. I certainly do. And as we will see below, the best ones have great value.

2023-24 Upper Deck Allure Hockey value

This year, the price of Upper Deck Allure Hockey has risen. Meanwhile, the guaranteed auto is gone, so the value of these boxes will theoretically be lower. However, it probably won’t work out that way.

The presence of Connor Bedard cards means the prices will probably go up somewhat, tempered by the auto element.

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Upper Deck Allure wax prices

Let’s examine the value of boxes from previous years. How do they compare to the $150 value of the 2023-24 box?

For the last two years, Allure hobby boxes have been going for meager prices. However, there is reason to believe the 2023-24 box will go for more. The Connor Bedard effect is nothing to sneeze at.

However, even if it triples the value of recent boxes (which it might), that will do little more than help make a small profit on it. And in non-Beddard years, this looks like an investment to avoid at all costs. But then again, the initial prices will probably be lower.

Upper Deck Allure single prices

The draw in the Allure release is undoubtedly the rainbows. But that is generally because they look fantastic. Do they hold any value as well? Let’s look at some of this release’s most significant single sales.

The numbers don’t lie. Allure is a sneaky good product for singles. The 1/1 rainbow cards and some of the 16-bit cards go for great prices. The reason for the high value is simple: Allure cards look great. You have to hand it to Upper Deck for making a relatively cheap (at least until this year) product look so fantastic.

Final word on 2023-24 Upper Deck Allure

Allure doesn’t have the best reputation in the hobby. People don’t usually talk about it at all. But it has great uses. The wonderful rainbows it offers, especially the Color Flow cards and the 16 16-bit case hits, have a lot of charm. And considering the price of the boxes, they also garner excellent value.

That means that Allure is an excellent product for two purposes. First, it is a beautiful rip. Trying to complete the rainbow is fun, and you might hit some valuable cards for a relatively low entry price. Second, it’s a pretty good product for buying singles for rookies you like.

The cards don’t have the markup some other products have and still get good values. I am surprised to say this, but Allure gets a genuine thumbs up from me as a rip and source for singles.

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