Contested Shots 21: Contest Prizes from Sport Card Collectors

Back in December, I won a contest on the Sport Card Collectors blog for some parallel cards from their 2016 Topps UFC Museum Collection box break review. They were shipped out pretty quickly, but they got lost in a stack on my desk and I am not getting around until posting them until now.

The biggest of the prizes is this Ruby parallel of Anderson Silva, who just got done winning his fight against Derek Brunson in UFC 208. I thought the fight was closer than the judges scored it, but maybe his career has earned him some fanboy points. If you don't finish your opponent, you leave yourself open to the whims of the scorecards. Silva is an entertaining fighter to watch. He doesn't really look like anyone else in the Octagon. It'll be interesting to see where he goes from here. His post-fight speech sounded for all the world like a retirement speech, but he didn't announce anything. This card is numbered # 04 / 25. I imagine that if Topps does UFC NOW card for this event, Silva will be getting a card.

This is a Bronze parallel of current UFC Heavyweight Champion, Stipe Miocic. This one is numbered # 030 / 135. Miocic already defended the title once against Alistair Overeem, and has an upcoming title defense against Junior Dos Santos, a guy who beat him in a 5-round decision in their previous fight. Miocic is a pretty entertaining guy on the mic, and all these Heavyweight guys carry the power for exciting fights. I kind of hope he holds the belt for a while.

I was pretty excited to win this contest, as I'm pretty infatuated with the UFC Museum Collection product this year. I spent enough money on it; it was nice to get a couple of nice ones for free. Thanks for the contest Sport Card Collectors!

Museum Collection Mania

I think I've mentioned once or twice that I went a little overboard on 2016 Topps UFC Museum Collection. It just appealed to me, and I picked up quite a bit of it. This is going to be a picture dump, because I scanned a lot of stuff, but I don't have a lot to say about it at the moment because I want to get this written and posted so I can go to bed.

I kind of wanted to bust a box of the product, but I never could bring myself to pull the trigger on that. I did pick up a fair number of group break slots, though, which brought me a fair number of cards for certain fighters, like Rafael Dos Anjos here. Those are his base and Gold parallels. The Gold is # 05 / 75.

Cris 'Cyborg' Justino has finally been brought into the UFC, and I am pretty sure the new Featherweight division for women was created to give her a place to play, although Germaine de Randamie and Holly Holm are going to kick the division off in a couple of weeks, with the winner presumable getting Cyborg's next fight. I got her base and Bronze card here. The Bronze is numbered # 108 / 135.

I also got Cyborg's Gold parallel ( # 45 / 75 ) and this Rashad Evans Bronze parallel ( # 084 / 135 ), probably from the same group break.

I think these single-swatch Meaningful Material cards came from a mixture of group break slots and eBay purchases. I guess the foil color is different on these, which is pretty much the only difference I can see between parallels. It's pretty subtle. The Justino card is # 06 / 50, the Rafael Dos Anjos is # 01 / 10, and the Daniel Cormier is numbered # 12 / 35.

I think most of these Primary Pieces quad relics came from a single eBay lot. I got a good deal on it, maybe because it came from overseas. I think there are many bidders who have qualms about bidding on stuff from across the ocean. There are a couple that I purchased separate from that lot, though, probably the higher-numbered of the Stipe Miocic cards and the Carla Esparza. I can't read all of the serial numbers, but I'll give a go at saying what I've got here. The first Miocic is # xx / 99, the second one is # 10 / 10, the Chris Weidman looks to be # 04 / 25, the Carlos Condit is # xx / 99, and the Carla Esparza is # 69 / 99.

These Archival Autographs are all base versions. I am pretty sure the Antonio Silva card came from the previously-mentioned overseas lot. It is numbered # 40 / 99. The others were probably separate purchases, although at least one of them might have come from a group break. Anyway, the Jim Miller is # 02 / 99, the Julianna Pena is # 11 / 99, and Cat Zingano is # 13 / 99. Miller, Pena, and Zingano are all PC fighters for me.

These are all single-relic Signature Swatches cards of varying rarity. As opposed to the on-card Archival Autographs, these are all sticker autographs. Again, the parallels seem to be mostly denoted by small shifts in foil color. The Julianna Pena is # 107 / 149, which I believe is the highest of the print runs on these. The two Cat Zingano cards are # 07 / 25 and # 09 / 25, and the TJ Dillashaw card is # 02 / 25.

This Ovince Saint Preux card came from a group break. It is one of the dual-relic Signature Swatches cards, and is numbered # 04 / 25.

Closing things out, I've got a few triple-relic Signature Swatches cards. The Julianna Pena cards are numbered # 25 / 25 and # 23 / 50. The Anthony Johnson card probably came from the overseas lot, and is numbered # 134 / 149.

I would still like to open a box of this someday, but I just know the box I get will have three scrubs for hits and I will feel bad because I could buy three really nice hits I actually want for the price of the box. With new baseball cards coming out now, I imagine the urge to break a box of this will subside as it is pushed off my radar by newer releases.

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.