Upper Deck overpriced hobby edition vs the best set concept in the history of trading cards. Yep, we're fair and balanced on this here blog.
The packs:
2007 Upper Deck Hobby
8 Josh Fields RC
290 Brandon Phillips
93 Travis Hafner
158 Joe Nathan
468 Chad Cordero
143 Jered Weaver
344 Dan Wheeler
205 Jorge Cantu
247 Stephen Drew
115 Justin Verlander
89UD-DR Don Drysdale
333 Aubrey Huff
485 Brandon Webb \ Diamondbacks Checklist
69 Dustin Pedroia
2007 Topps Heritage (Hobby)
412 Billy Wagner
215 Ben Broussard
241 Mike Gonzalez
275 Jorge Posada SP
MHRC4 Mickey Mantle
84 Kazuo Matsui
220 Shea Hillenbrand
120 Greg Maddux
Number of Cards:
Upper deck had 7 more cards but the hobby pack also cost 2 more bucks.
Upper Deck 15 Heritage 14
Number of cards that are actually good:
Upper Deck's pack would make a good rotisserie team. You'd at the very least win the saves category and it has quite a few Keeper league gems. Heritage sports a Brave, an ex-Brave, a hall-of-famer and two all stars. Not bad.
Upper Deck 22 Heritage 19
Inserts and Short Prints:
The Don Drysdale 89 Upper Deck retro card is nice and all, but for 5 bucks I feel a little cheated. Heritage has an insert and a short print, and the short print is actually someone good. Every pack I've pulled a Mantle Home Run card (or an A-Rod home run card for that matter) from had a bonus SP card in the pack. I guess Topps is starting to feel bad for inserting so many Home Run countdown cards that all look alike and decided to throw us a bone.
Upper Deck 23 Heritage 24
Attractiveness of the design:
The silver borders on UD's regular design doesn't look as good to me as the gold ones in First edition. Using foil for the names also looks blah and is very hard to read. When the 5 buck a pack product looks worse than the buck a pop cheapo knockoff, you've got problems. 58 Topps is 58 Topps. Contemporary UD is no match for Classic Topps.
Upper Deck 24 Heritage 29
Best card in the pack:
Upper Deck: 333 Aubrey Huff
Heritage: 120 Greg Maddux
The second I opened the pack, I knew Aubrey Huff in the retro Rainbow Astros uniform was the winner hands down. Poor hassled Greg Maddux in his heavily (and badly) airbrushed Padres duds can't even compete with that.
upper Deck 29 Heritage 32
Spokesman on the pack wrapper:
Upper Deck has Cal Ripken Jr. up for a standing O on the front of their pack, while Heritage features a nondescript line drawing of a pitcher, possibly from the Kansas City A's bullpen.
Upper Deck 34 Heritage 33
Intangibles:
I realize I've whined incessently about this, but when you open a five dollar pack of cards, you shouldn't end up bored. Sure, I'd be a lot more excited if I pulled a jersey or auto or something, but the cards are still bland and as nice as the Drysdale insert is, it wasn't worth the money. I like collecting more than gambling and the Heritage pack had a lot more value in my opinion. UD would probably beat Heritage if I was opening boxes with their guaranteed hits, but individual packs are much more of a crapshoot. Upper Deck goes out with a yawn.
Final score:
2007 Upper Deck 35 2007 Heritage 38
No comments:
Post a Comment