S
nagged a pair of 2000 Upper Deck Baseball Ser. 1 boxes on eBay over the weekend for $16 delivered, and they arrived on Wednesday. How could I pass up the chance to bust two hobby boxes and have an outside shot at a Hank Aaron signed memorabilia card for less than $20?
Personally, I do not have a ton of interest in the base cards from this set. The design is mediocre, and there is so much damn gloss on these cards that they were all stuck together in the wrappers. I basically had to peel them apart as I opened the packs. After opening two boxes I was still about two dozen cards short of the 270-card Series One set — not good. But the base cards were not why I went after these boxes, it was the shot at pulling one of those Aaron cards, which are part of the revered 500 Home Run Club insert set.
In short, I didn’t strike it rich with these boxes. There was no signed Aaron card within. But the boxes contained had their allotted inserts and I even managed to beat the odds and pull a game-used jersey card that was seeded one in 2,500 packs. Of course the jersey swatch belonged to Greg Vaughn, but they can’t all be worth a small fortune.
I did notice a few things while opening these boxes. Many of the packs contained the same series of cards. For example if one pack in one box contained a Manny Ramirez and Steve Cooke card, there was an identical pack in the next box. Also, all inserts including the game jersey and PowerDeck CD cards were placed at the back of the pack; they were the first things you saw (and felt) when you opened the wrapper. Again, not good.
And speaking of Power Deck, these inserts were a joke in the fashion they were inserted. There was one per box (1:23 packs) but the “cards” are CDs that are housed inside a little plastic slip. And these slips are a little wider than the base cards, so all one had to do was hold the pack and they would instantly know one of these was within.
Anyhow, here are images of the inserts. I kind of dig the “Power Rally” cards because they have etched foil. And while the Vaughn jersey is pretty much worthless, it was still cool to pull a card that had incredible odds.
Welcome to the 2009 Cardboard World Series. I am your host, Newspaperman. We’ve got an on-the-field competition pitting two of the most powerful lineups in all of baseball in the American League Champion New York Yankees and the National League Champion Philadelphia Phillies.
