2014 Upper Deck football retail fat packs (x5)

Back on Sunday I showed off a break of a box of last year's 2013 Upper Deck football, which I was quite happy with.  Fast forward to today and I have some news that bookends that set.  For one thing, I recently grabbed a few more racks of 2012 UD football that were on sale, and if you'd like to see my wantlist, head right here; I also have lots to trade if you're still working on that set.

Also, while I was out today I used more of my Meijer discount magic to score the last five racks of 2014 UD football in the minuscule card section there.  They were $4.99 a pop for 32 cards, which is pretty standard with them right now.  I'd been looking forward to busting these because of my love for Upper Deck and its gorgeous college-heavy flagship set.  Here's how I did:

Here's what the fronts look like.  I really, really like the design once again this year while at the same time appreciating how it's different from past releases.  The full bleed photos are typical UD A+ quality (more on that in a minute), and I love how they worked in the team colors in the name/team area.  Here I went with four QBs who may or may not go in the first round in a couple weeks; for my part I'm not sold on any of them as quality pros, including "Football Jesus but not an overrated preachy dumbass like Tebow" Johnny Manziel, who may find the transition to the NFL tough!

And here's the back of Bridgewater's card.  Once again, the vets take up #s 1-50 and are hobby exclusives while the non-SPed Star Rookies go from 51-150.  We get a good rundown of career stats and a brief writeup, both of which probably could have been larger if things were thought out better.

In addition to the group of QBs above, I made several custom subsets out of the rest that I like to call:

Super catches!

Players that are excited and/or happy to be here, you guys!

Players that eschew gravity like Matthew Stafford eschews non-stupid throwing motions

Players that just wanna give you a hug, you guys!

WOLVERINES!  Under the lights!

Hmmm...ummm...guy slowly being devoured by several octopi and guy literally carrying a Big Stick!

Those really do look great, don't they?  Speaking of the base set, how'd I do on collation?  Couldn't have been that great, right?  I mean I literally just grabbed the last five racks they had.  Even with upwards of 30 base cards times five packs and a 100-card set, I must need at least a couple to complete the set, naturally.

NOPE!

From these five racks I pulled exactly 100% of the base set, 47 doubles, and just one triple.  That's simply incredible, and my hat's off to UD for this perfect experience.  I'll note what's for trade below in a minute, and rest assured some of these are already set aside for those of you who collect college teams.

Finally, here's my inserts:

The Luck Heroes are Fat Pack exclusives and come two-per-pack.  Out of the set of 10 I pulled eight different ones, with dupes of #s 4 and 9, and was missing only #s 1 and 8.  Meanwhile, the Tomlinson as a '94 UD Tribute insert, which is done in the style of--you guessed it--1994 Upper Deck.

What's for trade?

All of the inserts above, including the dupes of Luck, plus these base cards:

52 55 61 64 66 67 71 76 77 80 81 82 83 84 85 91 92 93 96 97 99 105 106 107 108 116 117 120 121 122 123 126(x2) 127 129 131 135 140 141 142 144 146 150

Overall:

Go grab these if you see them!  I won't promise you'll have the same outstanding collation I did, but you can clearly see the potential is there.  I was happy that many of the better players weren't shuffled off to obscurity in SP land this year as I studiously ignore those.  When prices come down I'm sure the hobby boxes will be a nice deal too, though I said before I'm not quite as high on the Lettermen designs this year.  Anyway, I landed a complete set from retail packs plus some non-terrible inserts and plenty of dupes to trade, all for under $25 before my discounts.  Buy buy buy!