Flashback Friday: A Box of 2001 Upper Deck Vintage Baseball

My birthday was back in November and one of the things that I've been holding on to since then is this box of 2001 Upper Deck Vintage.  For basically all my life, my birthday has always kicked off the holiday season - from there it was Thanksgiving, then my brother's birthday, then Christmas, and then New Year's.  As usual, this past year was a busy time for me during the holidays and so it's only now that I'm finding an opportunity to open up my birthday box at my own, calm pace!  

The 2001 Vintage box contains 24 packs with 10 cards per pack.  The box advertises a bunch of possible goodies that I could find including:

• Matinee Idols (1:4)
• Glory Days (1:15)
• Retro Rules (1:15)
• All-Star Tributes (1:23)
• Timeless Teams Bat Cards (1:72)
• Timeless Teams Combo Bat Cards (#/100)
• Timeless Teams Jersey Cards (1:288)
• Timeless Teams Combo Jersey Cards (#/100)
• Fantasy Outfield Combo Jersey Card (#/25)
• Mantle Jersey Card (#/100)
• Mantle/Maris Combo Jersey Card (#/100)

and there is also a "Mickey Mantle Bonus Pack" which features "a random assortment of Mantle cards including Mantle Bat Card (#/100), Mantle Bat/Cut Card (#/7), and Mantle Cut Card (#/7),"

I asked for this specific box not because I'm expecting to pull a rare Mickey Mantle card (I almost assuredly won't) but rather because I am currently working on the 2001 Vintage set and I needed enough cards yet that I figured opening another box might be the most efficient thing I could do (plus, who doesn't like opening up boxes of card for their birthday)?!

I'm not going to post every card from every pack here.  Instead, my plan is to space out my pack ripping over the next few days - so I'll simply show off some of the highlights from each batch of packs on my blog as I rip them!

Special Mickey Mantle Pack: 

Nothing much to see here besides three Mantle base cards (as expected, of course)!  I'm not collecting this particular portion of the Vintage set so these are all available for trade.  Eventually, they'll end up listed on TCDB!

Packs #1 - 6

The first three packs yielded three inserts, two Matinee Idols (1:4) and one Glory Days (1:15).  

If you ask me, that Randy Johnson card is cardboard gold!!

I enjoy the very much "vintage-y" look to these cards, even if the base cards are essentially a rip-off of 1963 Topps!  Speaking of base cards, I ended up with five different pairs of duplicates from the box within the first six packs...that doesn't bode particularly well for set-builders such as myself!  

On the bright side, I did manage to land four new cards for my set build.  

I'm not exactly convinced that I did well in terms of new base cards for my set, but given how some box breaks go for me, I'm not going to complain so long as I'm able to make some progress for each set of packs!

Overall, I like this set quite a bit - and I think it holds up well over time (if you can overlook Upper Deck ripping off a rival's set design, of course).  Hopefully I'll be able to carve out some more time before long to rip the next bunch of packs from the box!