Review: 2008 Upper Deck Timeline (Hobby)

I bought a box of 2008 Upper Deck Timeline (hobby) off of everyone's favorite auction site last week. It arrived the day after Thanksgiving - which meant I could sort cards and eat leftover turkey at the same time!

The box contained 18 packs with 8 cards per pack. According to the box, I should expect to get 2 autographs on average. Would my box prove to be average? (Hint: yes.)

What I opened: One 2008 Upper Deck Timeline Hobby Box
What I got (with pictures to keep 'em straight!):

* 26 of the 50 "regular" base cards

* 18 of the 50 "regular" rookie cards

* 18 of the 30 "1992 Minor League Set style" cards

* 18 of the 50 "1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes style" cards

* 18 of the 30 "1995 SP Top Prospects style" cards

* 18 of the 100 "2004 UD Timeless Teams style" cards

* 6 of the 25 "1993 SP Rookie Card style" cards

* 5 of the 25 "1994 SP Rookie Card style" cards

* 3 of the 25 "1995 SP Rookie Card style" cards

* 2 "1994 Upper Deck All-Time Heroes style" cards with gold "20th Anniversary" stamps

* 3 Gold parallel base cards

* 1 Gold parallel rookie base card (not pictured)

* 1 "1995 SP Top Prospects style" autograph (Brandon Boggs - sticker auto)
* 1 USA Baseball National Team autograph (Micah Gibbs - sticker auto)

* 6 Yankee Stadium Legacy cards (not pictured - if you don't know what these look like by now you haven't been buying Upper Deck this year and probably won't be reading this blog entry this far anyhow...)

Overall, I have to admit I like the set. The base cards are ok, the short prints are kind of neat (especially the variety - perhaps because I never collected any of the SP sets during the 90s). I liked pulling two autographs in my box (as advertised), though I didn't like the fact that the autos were stickers. Each pack is kind of exciting because each card is completely different than the last...

Since Upper Deck refuses to put insertion odds on their packs or box, I can only guess at the rarities. It seems that the 1994 and 1995 SP Rookie Card style subsets are the most difficult to find (each have 25 cards). I have no idea how anyone will actually complete this set by buying packs however... A full hobby box nets you roughly half the base cards, a little less than 40% of the rookie base cards, and only a small fraction of most of the short print subsets.

The bottom line:

I give the 2008 Upper Deck Timeline set a 75/100.

Pros: Each individual pack is fun to open. You get a plethora of card designs within each pack, including the possibilities of autographs, gold parallels, and random foil stamp cards (?!). I enjoyed busting my box, which is the most important thing when buying cards in my opinion!

Cons: The set seems to be begging to be a collector's set - except it's essentially impossible to collect given the TONS of short prints. In addition to the short prints, the player selection is basically poor. There are many players that are repeated in each of the different subsets - that's a shame. This set would earn higher marks with me if each subset had different players featured.