Nachos Grande Review: 2009 UD Goudey (Hobby Box)

Oh sure, I might be 6 months late on the review...but it allowed me to grab a hobby box of Goudey off of eBay for a much more reasonable price than I would've had to shell out back in the spring. Plus, I shared a blaster opening experience back in May, so it's not like I completely missed the boat.

No matter, it's time to review the 2009 Goudey set!

What I opened: 1 hobby box of 2009 Upper Deck Goudey

What I got:

106 base cards (No duplicates):
I always appreciate opening a box up that contains no duplicates. Even better for me, the box included the last base card that had eluded me up until this point (#116, Joe Nathan).

9 short prints:
209 Whitey Ford
214. Johnny Bench
221. Cal Ripken Jr.
228. Johnny Bench
229. Mike Schmidt
254. Rollie Fingers
280. Chase Utley
286. Grady Sizemore
293. Brandon Webb

For me, that's an awesome collection of short prints. I needed eight out of the nine, including both the Johnny Bench cards!

Now that the "regular set" is out of the way, let's see what else the box held:

Mini cards:

2 Blue backs:
62. Travis Hafner
155. Ryan Howard

4 Green Backs:
59. Kelly Shoppach
173. Matt Tuiasosopo
185. Carl Crawford
291. Alfonso Soriano

Once again, not a bad collection of minis. The short print Alfonso Soriano is nice, as is the Howard and Crawford minis. I don't are much for Tuiasosopo at the moment, but I guess they can't all be winners.

The 35's:

9 Red:
35-1. Lyle, Niekro, Bench, Jackson (Sweet!)
35-13. Haren, Drew, Young, Gonzalez (Boring to me)
35-25. Ripken Jr, Smith, Jeter, Reyes (Two of my childhood favorites)
35-37. Cabrera, Ordonez, Granderson, Guillen (Lots 'o Tigers)
35-49. Soria, Papelbon, Lidge, Wood (Proof you can't trust closers for very long)
35-61. Guerrero, Lackey, Ethier, Kershaw (West coast madness)
35-73. Soriano, Lee, Ramirez, Soto (Lots 'o Cubbies)
35-85. Rodriguez, Wright, Ramirez, Longoria (Lots of hype here folks)
35-97. Reyes, Wright, Jeter, Rodriguez (The all New York card)

2 Blue:
35-64. Beltran, Berkman, Rollins, Jones (I don't see what the tie in here is)
35-76. Griffey Jr, Dye, Quentin, Thome (The almost all White Sox card)

1 Green:
35-56. Martin, McCann, Doumit, Soto (The men who don the tools of ignorance)

1 Black (#ed16/21):
35-23. Yount, Braun, Gallardo, Fielder (Lots 'o Brewers. Certainly not a bad "super rare" card to get!)

Relic:
GM-ME. Melvin Mora

Not much to say about this relic, besides the fact that it's up for trade.

and finally...
The autograph:
GG-LM. Lou Marson

Heh.

Oh yeah, there were also a bunch of those retrospective crap cards. Nine of them to be exact, I'd rather have gotten 9 more base cards...even if I already have all the base cards. Blech.

Bottom line:
Pros: Fun box break, enough variety to keep each pack interesting. The different variations of the minis and 35s allow each pack to have a "hit" in it. The relics are quite classy. The autographs are on card which should never be overlooked. There were no duplicates.
Cons: Retrospective cards stink. Card stock a bit flimsier than I'd prefer. The hits weren't of players of much caliber. Some of the photos are downright scary and/or disturbing!

Final score: 70 / 100.
This set is everything a $40 per hobby box set should be. A nice variety of cards, on card autos, two hits of varying fame, and a whole slew of cards. The set doesn't score higher though because it simply doesn't resonate much past the value aspect.

As always, I'm looking for plenty of the Goudey cards to finish off my set - check out my want list and make an offer. Also, you can find all of my extra '09 Goudey cards available for trade here.