Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category

Exquisite Football is the Mac-Daddy of all football products. At around $500 for a box of 6 cards its also one of the priciest products out there. So what do you get for your money? Here’s what 2007 Exquisite Football has to offer:

Card #1: Base Card

Card #2: Rookie Signature

Card #3: Rookie Signature Patch

Card #4: Maximum Jersey

Card #5: Patch Card

Card #6: Random Autographed Card

The order may be different in each box but you are guaranteed to get 1 card from each slot.
Now let’s get down to the nitty gritty of each card slot.

[Read more…]

This post is aimed at newer collectors who are starting out in the hobby. As we all know, patch cards are hugely popular because of their scarcity and general eye appeal. Oversized, multi-colored logo patches fetch huge premiums on eBay.

Unfortunately this has led to a large number of Fake Patches. Unscrupulous patch fakers will insert nicer looking patches into cards in order to jack up the prices. This is especially common with cards with large patch windows, such as the Absolute Memorabilia Jumbo Patches.

If a patch looks too good to be true, it probably is. You want to be careful, so here are some things to watch out for:

[Read more…]

In 2007, Upper Deck introduced a set of manufactured patch cards in UD Premier Baseball. The Premier Stitchings set was also included in UD Premier Football and will return in 2008 UD Premier Baseball and 07-08 Premier Basketball.

Von Glitschka, a graphic designer and illustrator, designed the Premier Stitchings patches for Upper Deck. Check out his homepage and his art blog. He does some really neat stuff, including the logos for Orbit Gum (which I chew constantly).

Here’s how Von went about designing a Kevin Durant patch for 07-08 Premier Basketball.

[Read more…]

Here’s my 2007 UD Black Baseball Analysis. It’s similar to the 2007 Topps Sterling Analysis that I did before. Information is based on the full UD Black Checklist found at Upper Deck.com. Numbers are based on the entire baseball card print run and do not reflect any cards held back from distribution by Upper Deck for NPN programs or other reasons. All percentages shown are chances of getting a card out of a 2 pack box.

First, some comments:
Obviously, UD Black Baseball is a high-end product so I was really surprised when I saw the shear size of the checklist. 149 different players appear on at least one baseball card each. The “base set” is 42 veterans and 30 rookies. That leaves 77 players that only appear in insert sets.

Some players only appear in the Pure White Packs, including big names like Roger Clemens, Pedro Martinez, and Albert Pujols. Bottom line, there is no player that appears in every set, so if you are a player collector consult the checklist before you go chasing after cards that don’t exist!

For the most part, every card has a gold and pearl parallel. However, there are some cards that don’t… and there are some parallels of cards that aren’t in the regular set. Weird. Also, the gold versions of the Prominent Numbers set are #’d to 10, but the regular cards in that set are #’d to the player’s jersey number, so some of the gold parallels are actually more common than the regular cards.

There are 10 mystery dual cut redemptions included in UD Black. That gives you a 0.057% chance of getting one if you buy a box.

There are 1,432 one of one’s, giving you about a 8.2% shot at pulling one.

Now, let’s get to the complete analysis…
[Read more…]

Ok, by popular demand here is part 2 of my 2007 Topps Sterling Analysis. In this part of the analysis I will list out the chances of getting specific cards when opening a box of a given player. Warning: This is the longest post in the history of the internet. Just zero in on what you want, or if you have some time to kill, read the whole thing!

Again, this is based on information found in the Topps Sterling Sell Sheet and the Topps Sterling Checklist, provided by Topps. My numbers are only as accurate as the underlying numbers from Topps. All numbers DO NOT take into account the cards that have already been pulled.

If this info is way over your head check out Part 1 of my Topps Sterling Analysis, or my basic Topps Sterling Review.

Finally, links to active auctions for player specific boxes on ebay are provided, if you want to test your luck. If not, feel free to ignore them.

Remember, the percentages shown are for boxes where the player has been revealed, not sealed brand new boxes.

Here we go!

[Read more…]

Here are some numbers on 2007 Topps Sterling Baseball. This is based on product info and checklists found in the Topps Sterling Sell Sheet. Now while the calculations that I came up with cannot be guaranteed to be 100% accurate, I am certain they are close enough to be useful for prospective buyers. This guide is for informational purposes only. So don’t blame me if you open 10 boxes based on this and get 10 Justin Morneau triple jersey cards…

[Read more…]