Showing posts with label Icons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Icons. Show all posts

Saturday, March 16, 2013

2009 Upper Deck Icons (Retail)

Another one of those packs that's been sitting around for almost four years.

Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
36 Edinson Volquez (Camo is not a good look for the Cincinnati Reds organization.)

99 Vernon Wells

1630 20th Anniversary Retrospective New England Patriots (Every time I clicked on Yahoo to check my email this week, there was a headline suggesting that I feel sorry for Tom Brady, Wes Welker, whoever will be replacing Wes Welker, and anyone living within 500 miles of Boston. What's up with that?)

97 Tim Lincecum

7 Alfonso Soriano

Grade: B-

Saturday, January 12, 2013

2009 Upper Deck Icons Football

Let's open a pack of football cards. I've had a retail pack of 2009 Upper Deck Icons lying around for years. Let's see if this will be a crystal ball into this weekend's future. Let's say the likelihood of a team winning is increased by the presence of a card in this pack. The chances double if the player is still active for that team.
Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
61 Eddie Royal
The Broncos gain a slight advantage, but Royal played with the non-playoff Chargers this year.
89 Andre Johnson
The Texans are guaranteed victory over the Patriots on Sunday. Andre Johnson pulls in 26 catches for 417 yards.
44 Earnest Graham
Retired. The Buccaneers never make the playoffs again.
7 Brandon Jacobs
The Packers dodge a huge bullet here, with Jacobs being released by the 49ers this past New Year's Eve. Jacobs reportedly celebrated the holiday by retrieving a box of noisemakers from the basement and eating three Banquet brand pot pies, alone. The Giants insignia on this card ensures that for the 2013-14 NFL season, Eli Manning will squeak a 6-10 team into the playoffs and then tear through them by an average victory margin of 39 points.
5 DeMarcus Ware
No prognostication from this card, other than the offseason strangling of Tony Romo by a defensive teammate.
Well, the pack had little to say other than predicting the Texans' upset of the New England. Have fun this weekend. If you get a chance, build a time machine so UD can make their '09 Icons baseball cards look as good as the football brand.

Saturday, May 14, 2011

Repack Resurrection: 2009 Upper Deck Icons

I won't bore you with another retelling of the circumstances surrounding the purchase of this repack pack, but I did allow a reader to choose the first pack I would open.


Let's tear in.

Top to Bottom:
53 Jim Thome

26 Cole Hamels

15 Carlos Lee Silver Board Parallel

16 Carlos Quentin

79 Michael Young


Silver board...
Silver board...
This Icons pack's kinda shitty.


Actually, not that bad a pack. Just none of my favorites here.
Nine more to go.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

2008 Upper Deck Icons Football


Almost immediately after I posted a long rant on how hobby wax is for suckers, I went out this weekend and dropped 30 bucks on a hobby wax binge. Yep, I'm a sucker. I watched some dude pull three jersey cards out of three straight packs and got caught up in the excitement. Plus there was a dearth of Braves stuff to buy so I had a little extra cash to blow. On the plus side, I have a week's worth of packs to share. I'm still a sucker. Today's pack is the most egregious of the bunch, an EXPENSIVE football pack. Some nifty stuff was coming out of the product so what the heck. Let's open 'er up.

7 Ray Lewis

I'm not sure how to describe these cards. It's kinda like if UD Legends and UD Artifacts had a crack baby. I guess there's like a leather thing going on... the foil (which is tough to see here) is simultaneously subtle and awkward...the photo looks like the player is about to be guillotined... and weirdest of all, the spot UV coating has a football pebble texture to it. VERY weird looking cards. Ray Lewis isn't my favorite, but he's a damn good player.

53 Ted Ginn Jr.

It's not worth wasting pixels on a scan for this card.

RS15 Roger Staubach Immortal Letterman #35/64

Wow, this is what I meant by nifty stuff. Thick, shiny, numbered, and a letter that barely fits. The back says to collect them all to spell COWBOYS, so it's a manufactured patch and not the S off a jersey or anything. Can you imagine if Upper Deck cut up 64 Staubach jerseys? They could put regular Staubach relics two per pack. No, this is definitely manufactured and unfortunately not autographed, the kind of thing that drives Gellman insane. Gellman is like the Mikey of the blogging world, he hates everything and that's why we love him. This is actually my very first letter... thingy... ever and it's of a Hall of Famer so what the heck. These cards are not at all hard to pull, the odds are 1:5 packs. Heck, the Hollywood Icon cards are a much tougher pull at 1:20. I'd surely love to pull a Billy Dee Williams card!

RB1 Donnie Avery Rookie Brilliance #81/99

Forget it Donnie, you're out of your element! Sorry, I watched about a half hour of Lebowski before game two of the Braves - Mets doubleheader started. You know, I can't tell if this is a legit rookie or a rookie insert. Or if there's even a difference. Ok, let's go over the pluses and minuses for this card. Rookie card: +3. Maybe an insert: -2. Rookie of a wide receiver: -3. Wide receiver for the Rams: +5. Below the trainer on the WR depth chart: -7. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiny!: +11. One in 5 pack odds: -2. Serial number under 100: +1. Not Matt Ryan: +398563798571. Eh, not a bad card. In two years when he's driving a beer truck it's won't be that good but right now, not bad.

This pack was way too expensive and if I had pulled four of the atrocious looking base cards I would have been throwing things at the wall. I gambled though, and hit the come bet. Somebody out there better kick me in the nuts if I ever think about buying a second pack of this stuff.