Upper Deck’s popular buyback program returns this summer when the company places eight autographed Alexander Ovechkin Young Guns rookie cards into 2024-25 Extended Series Hockey.
Acquired by Upper Deck on the secondary market, the eight cards were recently signed and hand-numbered by Ovechkin. The final card in the sequence is hand-numbered “Gr8” as a nod to Ovechkin’s nickname and jersey number.
The buyback Young Guns cards will be spread across the e-Pack platform and hobby boxes of Extended Series Hockey, which is scheduled to release June 4.
“We’re constantly looking to infuse some cool content into our flagship brand ...” Upper Deck director of sports brands Paul Zickler told cllct. “We thought that this was a really unique component that we could introduce to the Extended flagship brand.
“[Ovechkin] was a good candidate — not only is he featured on the Extended box, but there’s obviously the timing of him breaking the goal record.”
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Ovechkin scored his 895th goal earlier this month to pass Wayne Gretzky as the NHL’s all-time leading goal-scorer. In the days since, merch and collectibles have flooded the market celebrating the historic moment.
For Upper Deck, Ovechkin’s record chase presented the opportunity to celebrate one of hockey’s all-time greatest players as well as expand one of its flagship products.
The Young Guns rookie, which first debuted in 1990, has long been considered one of the most important cards in the trading card category. An avid collector himself, Ovechkin was happy to add his signature to each.
“We’ve been celebrating Young Guns for over 30 years, and those are some of the most sought-after hockey cards on the market. So that is a natural sort of extension of this program,” Zickler said. “We’re building Extended Series — everyone usually talks about Series 1 or Series 1, but we’re excited to really introduce some new things into our final installment of the flagship brand, and we thought that this was a perfect fit for that.”
The Ovechkin Young Guns buyback is the latest in the program for Upper Deck, which has previously re-inserted key rookies for all-time greats such as Michael Jordan and Derek Jeter into new products.
According to Upper Deck, the last comparable buyback from the company came in 2017 when it released autographed Connor McDavid Young Guns rookies numbered to 97.
Like everyday collectors, Upper Deck had to search for Ovechkin Young Guns on the secondary market and reacquire them for the Extended Series Hockey release.
According to Card Ladder, raw examples of Ovechkin’s rookies have recently trended between $500 and $1,000.
Similar to other key rookie cards for all-time greats, high-grade examples of Ovechkin’s Young Guns are extremely expensive on the secondary market.
The record for any Ovechkin Young Guns Base at public auction is the $13,000 paid at PWCC in October 2023. More rare variations have sold for more, with a High Gloss BGS 9 numbered to just 10 fetching $54,000 in March 2023.
An Ovechkin 1/1 Buyback from 2019 Upper Deck Hockey, which celebrated the flagship product’s 30th anniversary, sold for $21,947 on eBay last week.
The high sale logged by Card Ladder for a signed Ovechkin Young Guns rookie appears to be the $6,000 paid on eBay in April.
“We had to go out and acquire those just like any other collectors that wants to find some of these older Young Guns — we had to go through the same process,” Zickler said. “There is a little bit of a price tag there, and if he continues to do what he’s doing, I suggest collectors scoop those up because his prices are only going to go up.”
According to Zickler, the Ovechkin Young Guns buyback will also serve as a test for the program moving forward. If collectors respond well, don’t be surprised if Upper Deck makes buyback cards a more common occurrence for key players.
“We’re excited because our flagship brand appears to the full range of collectors, and they’re all going to have a chance at this unique card,” Zickler added. “But reading between the lines, if it's a successful springboard, maybe there are roots to do this and continue this.”
Ben Burrows is a reporter and editor for cllct, the premier company for collectible culture. He was previously the Collectibles Editor at Sports Illustrated. You can follow him on X and Instagram @benmburrows.