Box Review: 2000 Upper Deck SPx (hobby)

This past week, I started up my next big Breaker's Club group break.  For those that don't know, I basically sell team slots off and then we open a whole bunch of different boxes (usually spread across many different years and brands).  It's a fun time - and it also offers me the chance to do the occasional box review for some older products, such as today's subject:  2000 Upper Deck SPx.

The 2000 Upper Deck SPx box contained 18 packs with 4 cards per pack.  Right away, I should note that I don't have any historical or emotional attachment to this set because it was always outside of my price range growing up.  That said, I was excited to rip my first-ever box of SPx so let's see if the excitement was warranted.

Base cards:

The base card design is par for the course for Upper Deck sets of this particular era.  I actually like the card fronts quite a bit, other than the vertical text (of which I am never a fan of).  The cards are undeniably shiny, but happily they didn't stick together in the packs despite this box being nearly a quarter of a century old!

Our box produced 60 base cards with no duplicates which was good.  The full base set contains 196 cards, though a bunch of those are serially-numbered short prints.  Those short prints are split into two subsets, autographs #/1500 and Rookie/Young Stars #/1600.  I fully expected that we'd pull one of the rookie autograph short prints (as I believe those are the most common autographs to find) but as you'll see in a moment, our box yielded something much better for the lone promised hit).  We did not find any of the serially-numbered Rookie/Young Star cards either.  We also got shut out on any of the base parallels (called Radiance #/100 copies or Spectrum #/1).

Inserts:

Our box produced a total of 11 different inserts spread across five different insert sets.  Of those, the most common was the SPxcitement set for which we landed five cards including a pair of Atlanta Braves.

The design of these definitely reminds of Pacific Revolution cards - sparkly shine and all!  As someone who loves flashy Pacific stuff, I mean that as a compliment to Upper Deck.  According to the pack wrapper, the SPxcitement cards are seeded 1:4 packs so we came out slightly ahead here seeing as how there are only 18 packs in a hobby box.

Next, we landed a pair of Heart of the Order inserts:

I love the simplicity of these coupled with the solid execution.  It's an incredibly obvious idea (just list the lineup of the featured team and highlight the star player) and yet it's still fairly unique among baseball card releases.  Add to it the satisfying gloss and shine and you've got yourself some rather nice inserts!  The Heart of the Order cards are seeded 1:8 packs.

If the Heart of the Order cards were too mild and tame for your tastes, perhaps I could entice you with these crazy Power Brokers cards?

Our two cards were of Albert Belle and Matt Stairs, neither total slouches but also not the two biggest names possible to pull.  That said, as a group break host it was nice to see teams like the Orioles and Athletics get in on the insert action!  The Power Broker cards are seeded 1:8 packs.

The other two insert sets that we found both produced only a single card each.

We have a Foundations card of Ken Griffey, Jr. and a Highlight Heroes card of Randy Johnson.  The Griffey, Jr. card reminds me of late 90s Flair while the Highlight Heroes is decidedly Upper Deck looking!  I like both for different reasons though as a Reds fan I'm definitely partial to that Griffey!  The Foundations set is seeded 1:32 packs while the Highlight Heroes are seeded 1:16 packs.  Nice to beat the odds on the Foundations card for sure!  The only insert we didn't find was the Untouchable Talents (seeded 1:96 packs).  

Autograph:

Finally, we get to the lone hit of the box.  Each hobby box promises one relic or autograph - and while I was expecting the worst we ended up with a truly nice hit:

Yeah, a Roger Clemens autograph from the SPx Signatures set (an insert set populated with some of the biggest names of the era):

(Checklist from TCDB)

That's a rather loaded autograph checklist, isn't it?!  Pretty sweet to have pulled a card from that set, definitely unexpected!  The Signatures set cards are seeded a whopping 1:112 packs!!  

Conclusion:

Overall, I give the 2000 Upper Deck SPx box the following rating:

Set Design:  B

Collation:  A

Opening Thrill:  A-

Overall:  B+

This was undeniably a fun box to rip.  There aren't a ton of packs (and with only 4 cards per pack, it does go quickly).  That said, when you get a box like we did with one of the rarer Signature series autographs, it makes for an undeniably exciting rip.  I like the base card design and I enjoyed most of the inserts as well.  Overall, a solid box that I'd happily open again for a future group break (even if Barry Larkin isn't featured on a single card in the set, boo to Upper Deck for that)!