Four 2015 Upper Deck football value packs

While at Meijer today picking up some other stuff I used some very timely rewards money to buy my first packs in quite a while:  a quartet of 2015 Upper Deck football retail value packs!  As many of you know I did UD's designs and college focus with this set so I was eagerly anticipating this release.  I'm showing these off with less than a week until the draft so it'll be fun to see how the guys I pull do come Thursday through Saturday.

I don't recall the exact price but these were something like $5.69, though I also got 10% off today, which was nice.  You get 32 cards with two of those guaranteed to be Heroes inserts of top-two QBs Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota; each has 10 different cards in their respective sets.  Vets in their college unis comprise #s 1-45 while the non-SPed rookies come in at 46-145.  Two levels of short-prints cover 146-215, followed by hobby and retail photo variations from 216-255.  As usual my main concern is the non-SPed rookies set, though if I can find a cheap 1-45 vets set I'll pick it up.

Here's a look at a base card front and back, both of which are essentially par for UD's course.  The Star Rookie logo's changed a bit throughout the years while the layout's been fairly static; if it works, don't break it!  As usual the photography is excellent and features great college action.

My one veteran pull from the four packs was RB legend Eric Dickerson, shown here with SMU; his card is #36.  My experience is that hobby boxes reverse the retail trend and skew way towards vets with a couple promised rookies; since my focus is on the latter, these retail packs are always the way to go, plus hobby boxes can get really expensive, even when there isn't a player like Winston to chase.

Out of four packs of 32 I ended up with 118 base cards, one of those being the Dickerson above.  From the regular Star Rookies group I pulled 88/100 with 29 doubles.  Those dupes all came in one pack and included a pair of dupe inserts and one new insert, so that tells you how collation goes with these.  I may try one or two more value packs if I find them, but it shouldn't be hard to track down the other 12 I need otherwise, hopefully along with the 1-45 set.

I picked nine of the biggest names to scan, and most of these guys figure to go very early.  As you can see I pulled both Winston and Mariota, and the best player I didn't get was USC's Leonard Williams.  Some of the other top names are unfortunately SPed (along with my Wolverines!) but I'm happy with the 100-card group available to me here.

I couldn't show off cards from this set without devoting some space to the cooler photography I enjoyed!

This is my group of Heroes inserts, coming in at 2:1 as mentioned.  In each case I got one of both players per pack so I'm guessing that's the standard, which is fine.  Because of the pack of dupes I got extras of Winston #5 and Mariota #7.  These are all available for trade though I'm setting aside the Mariotas for Kerry unless told otherwise.

My other two inserts were these purdy A Cut Above die-cuts (1:5 for rookies), both of outstanding players:  WVU WR Kevin White and Indiana RB Tevin Coleman, both of whom should be gone fairly early.  Naturally the White is heading to Morgantown to be reunited with Matt but the Coleman can be had by anyone who asks nicely.

I'm not posting a wantlist just let in case I decide to buy another pack or two, but if I do end up with one you'll see it here.  I'll also make my base doubles available soon to anyone who'd like to trade for them, though as usual I'll set aside cards for some of you based on school affiliation.

And of course this product gets my annual hearty endorsement.  Congrats to UD on another great college-themed set!

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!

One more Topps Olympic blaster

After grabbing a fun blaster of 2014 Topps Olympic Team and yadda yadda yadda last weekend, I picked up one more at Meijer on Friday for my final February purchase.  I had 15% off, making the price a slightly more reasonable $18.70, and I thought it would be worth taking a stab at completing the set while also scoring more trade bait or stuff to sell.

I'll spoil the fun upfront by saying that the one I picked this time couldn't live up to last week's, though that's not a huge surprise since that one went so well for me.  I also didn't complete the set or pick up anything all that big, but I still enjoyed the break.  Here's how I did:

Inserts:

Eight more Bronze parallels.  I once again pulled that many in seven packs, so, so far so good.  Jones is probably the most well-known here and was a decent pull.

Silvers, Gold, and others.  This time I won the coin flip by pulling four Silvers instead of three.  By the way, that Deneen is a great shot from what was easily one of my favorite events this year!  My one Gold, Geopper, was the Bronze winner in the US sweep of men's slopestyle, which rocked.  The Olympic Heritage card celebrating the 2006 Turin games is my first from that set, while I pulled another "Games" card of Bronze-medalist luger Erin Hamlin.

The hit (just one this time!):

After the auto/three-color relic combo I pulled last time, this was a bit of a letdown for me, but still not terrible since it's not a plain white swatch.  Aaron is apparently quite accomplished in the sport, though hasn't participated in the Olympics.

The base:

Finally, I ended up with 27 new base cards I needed (out of 61, so not bad), putting me just 12 cards short of the set:  1 7 11 17 24 33 47 51 62 74 75 85.

I also now have these doubles to trade (as well as everything else I've pulled):  3 4 8 9 10 15 18 21 26 29 30 39 42 48 49 53 57 58 59 61 65 67 68 69 76 80 82 84 87 90 94 97 100.

If any of you would like to do any trading, please let me know!

Blaster break: 2014 Topps US Olympic & Paralympic Team and Hopefuls

Since I had some "free" Meijer money to play with (rewards programs are great!), I made an increasingly rare decision to pick up a retail blaster, but only a very specific one:

I'd seen some fun breaks of this year's Olympics set, the hits look fun, plus there's a nice Michigan connection thanks to the presence of five Wolverine figure skaters in Sochi.  For a typical blaster price of about $22, you get seven packs of 10 cards and a guaranteed hit, which can be an autograph, relic, one of two types of manupatch, or a pin.  My goal was to pick up some of skater Meryl Davis' stuff since it's so expensive after she won the pairs gold with partner Charlie White, but I'd be getting into the Olympics enough this year to be excited about some of the other athletes too.

First up, here's highlights from the base cards:

Bronze medalists

Silver medalists

 Gold medalists (except for Shibutani, who I included with fellow Wolverine skaters Davis and White)

And while I'm at it, here's a back for completeness:

I ended up with 61/100 of the base set with ZERO doubles.  Wait a minute, this is a fun, interesting set with excellent collation?  Hmmm....

I landed a total of 15 inserts in my seven packs, which was pretty cool, even if I tend to favor base set completion first.  Here they are:

First up are the Bronze parallels, which feature a Bronze logo stamp on the bottom-right corner.  These are apparently at least one-per-pack since the odds don't list them.  I pulled eight from seven packs, so you do the math.  As you can imagine, I was happy to pull the Meryl Davis.

Here we have the rest of the inserts.  The top three are Silver parallels, which are 1:2 pulls, so I "lost" the coin flip for the fourth, which is no big deal.  Side note:  "Sled Hockey" sounds like an amazing Paralympic sport!  Wagner, meanwhile, is a 1:8 Gold parallel, while Daly is the Gold Rainbow version, which comes in at 1:24, which is a tad tougher than one per three blasters, so I really lucked out!  The Brown curling card is from an insert called "Games of the XXII Olympiad" and falls 1:8, and the insert showing off the Iceberg Skating Palace is from "Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games Venues," and was a bit tougher at 1:12.  Overall I did very well in beating the odds, and I'm very happy with this haul.

Ok, onto my promised blaster hit:

Actually, it wasn't this autograph of figure skater Evan Lysacek, which was certainly an exciting pull.  At least, I consider it a bonus hit because as usual I sorted through the packs until I found the "thick"one so I could open it last.  This card showed up in the penultimate pack, much to my surprise!  He wasn't part of the 2014 team but did win gold in Vancouver four years ago, so this looks like an especially nice pull, and a tricky one at 1:38 packs.

Well this certainly explains why that last pack was so thick!  It really was a fantastic pull, not just because it's a tri-color relic (and a 1:22 pull), better looking than most I've seen around the internets.  It's also nice that Mancuso is a pretty well known skier, and I was happy to see her win a bronze in her sport this year, even though she surely considers her lone medal a letdown.

To sum up, the set looks nice and is well-done, the collation is flawless, I beat the odds with the inserts, and got twice the number of expected hits, both of which look great.  Ok, all the evidence is in, and this is clearly NOT a Topps product, as it literally meets the opposite of each requirement.  In all seriousness, congrats to the company for making a worthwhile product, and I can only hope they apply what they did with this set to the rest of what they make!

I haven't decided if I want to pick up another blaster yet, but I will be working on the remaining 39 base cards one way or another.  Everything else except for the Bronze Davis is available for trade, and my main interests here are picking up the remaining inserts and hits of Meryl Davis--so if you ask me what I'm looking for in return for the autograph or relic, there's your answer!  I may eventually try to sell those, but as usual, my preference is to trade.

It's always worth waiting until sale prices on these, but if you're at the store eyeing blasters and see these available, they carry the TMV seal of approval!

USA!  USA!  USA!

2013 Topps Football Value Box

Over Black Friday weekend I took advantage of one of Meijer's infrequent 20% off deals to go along with Saturday's Santa Bucks promotion, which offered more discounts.  I haven't had a ton of luck with retail over my collecting career, and you all know I'm not a huge fan of Topps, but for the price (less than $15 after everything was said and done, original price $21.99), I thought I'd give one of these a try:

That's a very blurry phone picture of a 2013 Topps Football value box.  As it states, you get six packs of 2013 flagship, two hobbies of 2013 Platinum, and three OMG EXCLUSIVE!!!1!1 Refractors.  I'd seen some pretty good stuff come out of these on Blowout, plus I couldn't resist the urge to bust a few packs.

In the end, I didn't land anything all that exciting, but I think I got my $15-worth out of the eight packs and bonus cards:

The Wolverines:  a Chad Henne Jags base, and Brady appearing on the Pats' AFC East title card.  Keepers, obviously.

The inserts from flagship.  Nine from six packs was pretty good, I think, though I rolled my eyes at the Peyton double.  All are available.

From Platinum I pulled a couple base rookies, and these were the insert in each, apparently a thick Sapphire parallel.  Meh.

Finally, here's the EXCLUSIVE Refractors, which do look pretty nice.  I'd hoped to land the Denard Robinson, but at least I got a decent trio, even if it includes QB bust Geno Smith.  Ball just had a nice game against KC, and Lacy's had a pretty good year himself.  Again, all are available, especially if you can flip me the Denard.

Naturally I also have a bunch of Topps base available, so feel free to shoot me wantlists since I'm always happy to help.  Everything else besides the Wolverines is also up for grabs, as stated, and I'll surely be including a nice amount of stuff in future trade packages as well!

11/10 card show report: wait, that's it?!

I made the trip down to Taylor, MI, once again this afternoon for a card show, and if I expected it to be even more disappointing than usual, I wasn't disappointed!  The lack of quantity and quality is just apparent from the moment you walk in.

Still, it wasn't entirely fruitless.  I made two purchases for a ridiculously low total of just $25 (plus a bit more for some top-loaders, which are supplies and don't count towards my card spending).  The second haul can be seen over on TMM this evening; here's what I got for $5 from another dealer:

They're the six 2013 Score rookies I still needed, leaving me just 39 base cards short of the set (not taking into account the contents of a trade package yet to be posted!).  The guy basically quoted me $1 per card I needed, and since he had all six, I snagged them for his $5 price.  On a related note, I tried to package in a 2013 Topps Denard Robinson variation auto, hoping to bundle everything up for $15 or $20.  This guy's older, more clueless partner explained that "It books at $40, so I'm asking $24."  I don't know on what planet that card goes for $40, or even $24, but it sure ain't this one.  I think the highest eBay price I found was $10 or $12, and that was in the minority.  Congratulations, clueless card show seller, you're an idiot.  Anyway, it's great to have that rookie subset completed.

Since I spent so little at the show and had to stop at Meijer, where cards at 20% off this week (as well as around Black Friday again, fellow midwesterners!), I decided I'd finally get back into the retail pack game:

These three 2012 UD Football racks set me back just $9.58 on sale, which I thought was decent considering the number of cards I was getting.  Your highlights:

Up top you have Wolverine David Molk (I think I already have one or two of those) as well as young standout QBs Case Keenum and Russell Wilson.  Next you see four of my guaranteed six (two were dupes) inserts of Tim "Megabusting for Jesus" Tebow.  Finally, I landed a pair of SPs, both '93-style:  one of Arkansas WR Joe Adams and the other of former Oklahoma QB and Heisman-winner Jason White.  SP featured some cool designs back in the day so those are a nice touch.  And of course I love the college unis, which is why I skipped over everything else in the card aisle today.  I may put together the Star Rookie set, you never know!  The inserts and SPs are all available, though, as are any doubles I pulled if you have a wantlist handy.

As I mentioned, please check out TMM for the bulk of today's card show haul.

2013 Score Football rack packs (x4)

I've been searching high and low for 2013 Upper Deck football packs at my various local Meijers, and while I haven't found them yet, I did turn up some racks of 2013 Score today instead.  From what I'd seen get pulled from these, they were worth a flier, so I nabbed four of them for $4.99 each.

Score promises 52 cards in each pack, which appeals to the set-builder in me, though to be fair, a ton of those are rookies.  Here's the pair of Wolverines I picked so I can show off vertical and horizontal fronts:

I like the design again this year (as usual), which actually incorporates foil for the first time in a while--that can be found in the bottom score logo and designs around that part of the card, though it comes up darker in the scans.  I don't love how the name/position/team/logo bars come out when oriented vertically on horizontal cards because they just look dumb, and I also think they take up too much real estate overall, but those nits aside I think Score did well here.

Here's a look at a card back.  Quite a few look like this due to players having been in the league for quite a while, but kudos to Score for getting every year on there.  On cards where space isn't at quite so much of a premium, the card numbers appear in horizontal ovals.

One thing I tend to love about Score is that the way they arrange their sets, and as is standard, teams are grouped and sorted alphabetically, starting with the Cardinals.  This year, they incorporated a few subsets, two of which used to be (lame) inserts:   "Franchise" and "Future Franchise."  "Airmail" shows off top QBs while "Road to the Super Bowl" focuses on last season's champs.  Cards 1-220 are normal base, the Airmails fall 221-252, Road to the Super Bowl 253-266, Franchise 267-298, and Future Franchise 299-330.  Again, I love how these are grouped instead of strewn about the set all willy-nilly (TOPPS).

This year's set features some truly outstanding photography.  Topps usually seems to have some nice enough photos, but these are just crazy good--look at that action!  This is where the horizontal cards especially shine, and shots like those are enough to overcome the terrible layout of the components next to them.

I pulled 13 "regular" rookies, and you see the first nine here.  As is traditional, these are card #s 331-440, making for a huge rookie set.  Every image appears to be a close-up shot of a player in his (airbrushed) college unis, and while the lack of logos is a downer, the throwback to Score's old rookie design is a plus.

I included the back of Fisher's rookie here, plus the other four normal rookies, a pair of Blue parallels, and the two other inserts I pulled, "Hot Rookies."  I don't understand why inserts have the "RC" logo on them, but if someone wants to believe that's what they are, more power to them.  I didn't really care about the relative dearth of inserts here because I appreciate the base set more, and Score's inserts have traditionally been pretty low-end anyway.

Out of my four packs, I pulled 161 base cards of the first 330, plus an additional 13 rookies, for a total of about 40% of the set--not too bad from four racks.  I also ended up with 31 dupes, which isn't awesome, but not quite Topps bad either.  I'm thinking I may grab a few more of these, maybe if I can wait until Meijer has cards 20% off again.  I would like to finish up the set, though I'm sure I'll take my time with the rookies as they surely won't come cheap.  You know I'll want to grab Denard Robinson's soon, though!

Here's a quick summary of what I thought was good and bad:
+ Pros:  GREAT photos, pretty good design, nice backs, solid player selection, very few lame inserts, set grouped by team and subsets, pretty good value.
- Cons:  Horizontal design is weird, bottom/right portion of card takes up too much space, TOO MANY ROOKIES.

The four inserts are available for trades as well as my dupes, some of which will head out in future trade packages.  Don't forget I may have more in the future as well!  If you're working on this set now, though, please feel free to shoot me a wantlist.

While I'm talking about Score, I also picked up some 2008 clearance racks in the last couple of weeks and you can find my current wantlist on the football wantlist page.  I also have a TON of extras from those and would love to trade!

2013 purchases #1: 2008 Score football value packs (x2)

I was at Meijer yesterday for the usual reasons, and as always I stopped by the card aisle, though I rarely purchase anything there anymore due to the relative futility of pulling anything good from retail packs, and mainly because I was resolved not to repeat my mistake of excessive retail spending from last year.

These two discounted fat packs of 2008 Score football caught my eye, though, and I figured for less than six bucks I could have fun ripping a couple value packs of a set that included my favorite ever NFL draft class.  It also didn't hurt that each pack comes with 52 cards, making those a nice value even at their original $3.99 cost.

Score has traditionally been and continues to be a low-end set targeted towards younger collectors--a not-so-crappy version of Topps Opening Day, if you will.  That explains the low price despite the huge number of cards per pack, plus the simple base set and inserts.


Speaking of the base set, here's what they look like, front and back:

It's a nice enough looking set that I think anyone can enjoy, and the card backs are better than some of Score's other versions, including a reasonable amount of stats and a quick blurb.

I pulled a few doubles, but I didn't really care because I wasn't picking these up for set-building--there's 440 cards in the set, including 110 rookies, which aren't so abundant in packs.  In fact, even in these value packs, you only get four at a time, meaning I ended up with eight:

These would be a pain in the ass to compile via wax, especially considering the ridiculous number of doubles you'd incur.  The design of these, though, with the simple addition of a "rookie" indicator along with pretty good photography, is reasonable enough.

While I'm still discussing the base set, I'll take a page out of Spankee's book and attempt to predict the Super Bowl tomorrow based on the number of Ravens and Niners in these two packs:

Yep, that was it, except for a pair of inserts you'll see in a minute, one of each team.  I sure hope this pack proves to be wrong!

Speaking if inserts, I pulled a total of 12, what essentially amounted to six one-per-pack inserts in each:

Bruschi is numbered 391/400 and Wayne is 273/400.  The Anderson is a Scorecard version #d 753/999.  You only see one of the stickers, called "Donruss Decals," because you'll see the other in a minute.  Those tattoos represent the other Super Bowl entrants in my packs, and I literally laughed out loud when I pulled one of each.

Speaking of the Derek Anderson, I also laughed my ass off when I read the back of the card:  "The Browns have a unique situation with two potentially elite starting quarterbacks in Brady Quinn and Anderson."  That could only have been written by a Notre Dame homer since anyone with a brain knew Quinn hasn't been "elite" for a single day of his life.  Also, try to say "Derek Anderson" and "elite" in the same sentence while maintaining a straight face, I dare you!

The last of the inserts.  The Carlson and Stokley are the Glossy parallel, one of the kinds I consider to be extremely useless and wasteful, but whatever.

Finally, I managed to pull six Wolverines from these packs, which was pretty exciting for me:

Yep, my other sticker was a Henne, which I thought was pretty cool, though the only place I'm gonna stick him is with the rest of his cards in my Michigan PC.  Not a bad group at all!

So I had fun busting a couple packs for less than $6 and got a few keepers in the process.  The rest of the stuff will go towards trades, but for now, not likely by request as I'll probably be including it in current and future trade packages (plus I don't feel like listing out everything I pulled).  If you do have a set wantlist for these, though, please feel free to send it my way.

And now we wait and see how long I go without giving in to the temptation of retail packs again!