Box Recap: 2009 Upper Deck (Series 1)

I'm in the midst of my next Breaker's Club - last week we opened up our first four boxes which included a box of 2009 Upper Deck Series 1.  The '09 Upper Deck box was packed full of cards and while I won't show off everything I thought it'd be fun to show off a few of my favorites as well as some of the more interesting cards we pulled.

As a set collector, I value the look and design of the base cards more than anything else.  For me, the 2009 Upper Deck set has a solid design - and couple that with a fair bit of nice photography and you end up with a nice set that seems to have been mostly forgotten about over time!  I mean, take a look a few of the base cards that I pulled out to scan:

So much good stuff there!  Also, I love the easy-to-spot team logos...makes sorting for a group break so much faster!

Parallels are tough to find in this product but we did end up with one parallel which was numbered out of only 99 copies:

I don't know anything about Saccomanno but I was happy to pull a serially numbered card for Bru who has the Astros this time around!

Upper Deck packed a whole bunch of inserts into their 2009 flagship set - and some of them are huge such as the Yankee Stadium Legacy set.  We ended up pulling four cards from that set, all celebrating games in 2008.  

I guess it paid for Matt S. to have the Yankees in this group break since he ends up with all of these cards.  I can't help but wonder if anyone actually built the entire Yankee Stadium Legacy set?  It seems like I vaguely recall someone doing that but I could be wrong.  

Speaking of crazy sets to build, Upper Deck also included cards from it's huge 20th Anniversary Retrospective set.  We pulled eight such cards in our box.  

Interestingly enough, the eight cards we pulled began with card #250 in the set and then we got every fifth card up through card #285.  For group break purposes, the cards for which a MLB team is defined will go to the featured team (for exmaple, the Nolan Ryan goes into the Rangers' pile of cards).  The cards that don't have a MLB team assigned will be randomized at the end of the break amongst all team slots.

If those large sets weren't enough to chase after, Upper Deck also included a bunch of USA Baseball inserts (we pulled eight of those) and a 2008 Documentary set (we pulled four of those, three of which go to Michael P. who has the Phillies in the break).  I didn't scan them out of laziness (mostly) but if you want to see what we got you can always watch the recorded video stream (here) of the break over on my YouTube channel.

Getting back to cards I did scan, next we look at the lone Rivals card in the box:

That's a pretty sweet looking card if you ask me, though as group break host I do kind of hate multi-team cards.  We rolled a die to assign this one during the video and it ends up going to Michael P. who has the Twins.

The other shiny insert we found came in the form of a pair of Stars of the Game cards.

Nice to see a variety of teams get inserts/parallels in the box.  That's something I always hope for as a group break host, I want everyone in the break to be happy if possible!

Finally, here's what are probably my favorite inserts in the box - a pair of O-Pee-Chee themed cards:

I love the simple colors on those - only wish they were printed on "old timey" cardboard stock instead of the glossy stuff Upper Deck used.

Last for the inserts comes a pair of historically themed sets.  First up, the Historic Firsts Predictors.  We pulled only one but at least it's sports themed:

We also found two Historic Firsts cards, though neither are sports themed (and I'm guessing that most of us are sick of politics in our baseball cards now).

With that, we finally get to our three promised hits of the box.  Each box of 2009 Upper Deck Series 1 claims to contain two relics and one autograph.  I'm happy to report that our box had exactly what was advertised.  Our autograph was a Reds' signature:

That's a sticker auto but at least Keppinger's signature looks nice!  

And last but certainly not least, our two relics - both of which were serially-numbered which was a pleasant surprise to me!

The Buchholz is #/99 while the Hermida is #/149.  I certainly wasn't expecting a double-relic and a triple-relic but that's what we ended up finding!

Overall, I'd say this was a super successful group break box.  We got lots of base cards for pretty much every team and then the inserts and hits were spread out across many teams as well.  We found a number of neat cards for sure - and this is only the beginning as we have another three or four weeks to go full of box breaks!  

For those interested in my Breaker's Club, we are breaking on Tuesday evenings around 8:30 PM EST over on my YouTube channel.  Feel free to show up and hang out in the chat, it's usually a good time while we open up a bunch of cards!