Box Review: 2002 Leaf Certified (hobby)

We recently opened up a box of 2002 Leaf Certified as part of a larger Breaker's Club group break.  As such, I thought it'd be a perfect opportunity to write another box review since I haven't done a proper box review in quite some time!  

The 2002 Leaf Certified (hobby) box comes with 16 packs with 5 cards per pack.  Each box also comes with a checklist (but not other "box topper").

The relic checklist is huge in this set!

The 200-card base set is divided up into two sections, the first 150 cards are "common" base cards while the final 50 cards are short-printed rookies called "New Generation."  Each New Generation card is numbered out of 500 and includes a bit of a game-used memorabilia (either a jersey or a bat).

Our box produced 79 base cards (52.67% of the full common base set).  We did not pull any duplicate base cards which was good!  With just over half of the base cards in a single box, you'd need two full hobby boxes (and a lot of luck) to complete the base set!   The set is a little bit strange in that it's mostly current players but there is a smattering of retired legends scattered throughout the base set as well.  I kind of think the set would be better off ignoring the legends and focusing more on current players -especially with the heavy foilboard treatment...those retired players look strange on the card design!  On the other hand, I do appreciate the large team logos on the card fronts!

Of course, if you want to complete the full 200-card set, then you also have to track down the 50 serially-numbered, relic cards.  Our box produced one such card - a game-worn jersey card of the Angels' Alfredo Amezaga (#022/500 on the back of the card).

You may have done the math above when I mentioned that we pulled 79 base cards and yet a box should have 5 x 16 = 80 total cards.  Well, our 80th card was our lone (non-relic) insert of the set - a All-Certified Team card of Alex Rodriguez.

Despite being quite rare, the All-Certified cards are not serially-numbered, kind of strange for this era of Leaf products!

It's probably also worth noting that the relics don't appear to count as "cards" in the set.  Each pack truly contains 5 cards and then one more "chunky" card - either a dummy card or an actual hit.  In addition to the New Generation relic shown above, our box produced three other hits (all of which were serially-numbered).

Going in order of serial-numbering rarity, we begin with this Mirror Red relic of Toby Hall (#049/150).

The Mirror Red cards certainly have a nice sheen to them, but I think I prefer the look of the Mirror Blue cards even more.  Speaking of those...

That's an awesome relic of Manny Ramirez (#31/75).  It's kind of interesting to see how much smaller the bat relic window is on the Manny card as compared to the jersey relic window on the Toby Hall card.  Also, notice that the Leaf Certified logo color is done in the matching color of the relic parallel (blue or red).

Finally, we pulled a single "Fabric of the Game" relic - a really nice C.C. Sabathia relic #15/52.

The number 52 is Sabathia's jersey number (hence the front design and set name as well as the choice of serial-numbering).  

Overall, I give the 2002 Leaf Certified box the following rating:

Set Design:  B+

Collation:  A

Opening Thrill:  A

Overall:  A-

This was certainly a fun box to rip!  There's not much to dislike here (unless you like boxes full of inserts I guess).  The base set is a mix of current players and legends though I don't like having the final 50 cards be serially-numbered rookie relic cards, that's just weird.  Our box ended up producing four relics which felt satisfactory to me, especially since we pulled a variety of designs/parallels.  I do think if you end up with a box of nothing but "standard/base" relics then it'd be a bit more disappointing.  There is also the chance of pulling autographed cards in this set but we didn't get any...had we pulled an auto I'm guessing I would have given the box a solid "A" rating but even an "A-" rating is great!