Monday, February 09, 2009

Coming Soon: 2009 Upper Deck Icons Baseball

The only 2008 football card I bought was an Upper Deck Icons Autographed Letterman Patch of Mr. Lando Calrissian - Billy Dee Williams. The set has a couple of other celebrity signatures that I had some moderate interest in, but I pulled the trigger on this one character actor mainly because of the cheap $10 price tag.

The formula and brand have now gravitated over to baseball with 2009 Upper Deck Icons Baseball. The SP Authentic-esque checklist includes 100 base cards, 30 rookies numbered /999 and 30 autographed rookies numbered to a maximum of 600 copies.

Boxes consist of 10 six-card packs, with 12 boxes in each case. With a box expect the following: five numbered inserts or parallels, two Lettermen cards (not necessarily signed), two jersey cards and one autograph. Does anyone else get the feeling Upper Deck really is channelling the SP Authentic vibe here?

Autographs will fall about one per box. There's 60 Lettermen (up to /99), 75 MLB Icons (up to /99 - something tells me guys like Steve Pearce and Glen Perkins are going to be the majority of the 'icons' but I merely speculate), 15 MLB Future Foundations (up to /199) and 10 Legendary Icons Autographs (up to /50). Lettermen Autographs are two per case, or one in six boxes and will include some celebrities.



Game-used cards fall two per box with one being numbered /149 or less. The memorabilia line-up includes 15 Future Foundations, 75 MLB Icons, 10 Legendary Icons and blue and gold parallels for rainbow seekers. There will also be one 20th Anniversary Memorabilia card per case.

Personally, I'm not too excited. It looks like a chase set, which isn't really my cup of tea. If there's a good celebrity or two, I may go after singles but I'm not counting down the days by any means.

2009 Upper Deck Icons Baseball is scheduled for a July release.

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