Upper Deck Series 1 is the backbone of the hockey card market. Collectors chase the numbered autos out of The Cup, but Series 1 is where the hobby actually lives. The Young Guns subset has produced the defining rookie card of nearly every star for two decades, and that has not changed.
The reason is simple. Young Guns is the rookie card everyone agrees on. Other brands print rookies, but a player's Young Gun is the one the market treats as the standard. Print runs are large enough to keep the base cards liquid, yet a clean Gem Mint 10 of a top name still carries real money. That tension between supply and grade drives every price in the set.
The Marquee Rookies Carry the Set
Macklin Celebrini is the headliner of this rookie class, and the comps show it. His Young Guns base sits around $323 raw, and a PSA 10 runs about $1,704. That is the card the entire set orbits, and the volume behind it confirms the demand is real, not a flip-driven spike.
Ivan Demidov is the clear second name. His base rookie trades near $91 raw with a PSA 10 around $498. Both prices have held up across heavy sales volume, which is what you want to see before you commit. A card that is expensive on thin volume is a trap. A card that holds value across thousands of sales is a market.
After the top two, the value gets interesting. Artyom Levshunov's base rookie is roughly $5.55 raw and about $85 in a PSA 10. Sam Dickinson sits in the same tier, near $6.44 raw and $55 graded, with a PSA 9 around $32. These are the names where smart buyers do their work, because the entry cost is low and the upside is tied to NHL production rather than hype.
Parallels Are Where the Hidden Money Hides
The base Young Guns get the attention, but the colored parallels move differently. Levshunov's Outburst parallel jumps to about $40 raw and $223 in a PSA 10, several times the base card. Dickinson's Outburst Silver tells the same story at roughly $37 raw and $219 graded. The base might be a $6 card, but the rare parallel of the same player is a $200-plus chase. That gap is the part most casual buyers miss.
Veteran parallels work the same way. A standard Connor McDavid Dazzler is a $4 raw card that grades to about $47 in a PSA 10. The Black Dazzler of the same player runs $85 raw and nearly $377 graded. Same player, same set, wildly different ceilings. If you want a McDavid card with room to run, the color matters far more than the player.
Why the Old Young Guns Still Set the Bar
If you want proof of what a Young Gun can become, look back. Connor McDavid's 2015 Young Guns rookie trades around $803 raw, and a PSA 10 sits near $2,803. Sidney Crosby's 2005 Young Guns pushes a PSA 10 past $4,400. Those are not anomalies. They are the template every current rookie is measured against, and they show why a $300 Celebrini does not look expensive to a collector with a long memory.
How to Actually Buy the Set
Retail blasters are entertainment, not strategy. The odds on the true chase parallels are stacked against you, so treat a blaster as a fun rip and nothing more. If you want to build or invest, buy graded singles directly or commit to hobby boxes with eyes open.
The raw market runs hot at release. Everyone floods eBay with fresh copies, prices spike, then they cool. The patient play is to wait a few weeks, let the early hype settle, and buy raw rookies of mid-tier names once the dust clears. The top two cards in any class rarely get cheaper, but the depth players often do.
For grading, weigh the spread. When a PSA 10 carries a large premium over a PSA 9, like Celebrini or McDavid, a clean raw copy of a top name can justify the submission. When the gap is thin, the safer move is to buy the grade you want already in the slab. Run the math on the comps before you spend a dollar on grading fees.
Series 1 is not a flashy product, and that is exactly the point. It is the foundation the rest of the hockey market is built on. Buy the right rookies, respect the parallels, and let the proven track record of Young Guns do the heavy lifting.