This Collection Belongs in a Museum

That post title wasn't any good, but I am under a deadline here. I promised my kids that I would play a board game with them today, and they have been after me about it since they woke up this morning. The youngest of the twins has been especially persistent (annoying), asking me literally every three minutes if it's board game time.

2016 UFC Museum Collection is the latest MMA product release from Topps. It is, in my opinion, a great product. The checklist is pretty good, limited mostly to champions, fan favorites, and a few retired stars. It's still a loss most of the time if you're buying it in box form, but you can do pretty well in group breaks or by purchasing singles. I think I got these two cards in a group break. On the left is a Carla Esparza base card, and on the right is an Amanda Nunes Copper parallel. The parallel is numbered # 017 / 135.

The base cards are thinner than I remember Museum Collection cards being, but they still look pretty good. They look the part of a premium card. I think a box of Museum Collection usually contains three base cards, two parallels, and three hits, which include at least one on-card autograph, one relic card, and one autographed relic card (usually a sticker auto). I've seen a few boxes opened that have an extra hit in them.

Here are a couple of cards from the quad relic set, Primary Pieces. Both are the base version, with the Cat Zingano being # 11 / 99 and the Rafael Dos Anjos is # 77 / 99. These are pretty basic relic swatches, but I have seen some really colorful pieces on cards, too. 

Here are a couple of the on-card Archival Autographs. The Cat Zingano card is the base version, numbered # 49 / 99, while Jim Miller is the Gold parallel, numbered # 20 / 25. Again, these are good-looking cards, and most fighters make good use of the large blank area set aside for signatures.

This Cat Zingano Signature Swatches Triple Relic card is an example of the relic autographs. There are also single and double relic versions of this set, with parallels of each. I believe this is the base version of the Triple Relic set, numbered # 46 / 50. It's got some nice colorful swatches and a sticker autograph.

I like this year's Museum Collection set. It's got a nice look to it, and I've been chasing down cards of some of the fighters I collect. The relatively small checklist means that a lot of exciting fighters are excluded, but I think it also increases the value of the product overall.

Tonight is a pretty exciting card for UFC Fight Night, with Paige VanZant and Michelle Waterson headlining. The other big fights on the card are a highly-anticipated matchup between Sage Northcutt and Mickey Gall, and Urijah Faber's retirement fight against Brad Pickett.

My kids are about to tear the house down if I don't get the board game out, so that's it for now. That means I'll probably miss the Early Prelims, but you have to make sacrifices for your family from time to time.