Pack of the Day 191: Three Boxes of 2018 Topps UFC Chrome

One of my favorite products to break from last year was 2017 Topps UFC Chrome, so this year I ordered in three boxes of 2018 Topps UFC Chrome to get a good look at it. I didn't take pictures of the packaging like I usually do for these posts. I anticipate that this will be kind of a bare-bones 'look at the pictures' kind of post, but sometimes I get unintentionally wordy. I started an MBA program recently and my brain is kind of fried. I took on a little too much in my first semester, with two 8-week courses at once. I won't be taking two courses at a time again, that's for sure. I don't know how I got through my undergrad while working full-time, but over the last three weeks I've realized that I can't pull all-nighters like I could in my twenties and earlier-thirties.

There are 100 cards in the base set, which covers most of the big names and rookies in the UFC. One notable name that is missing entirely from the checklist is Ronda Rousey, as she has moved over to the WWE. Rousey and Conor McGregor are both missing from the autograph checklist, so the primary drivers of UFC card prices over the last couple years are missing from the key draw in Chrome, on-card autographs on shiny stock.

You get about 70 cards from the base set in a box with no duplicates, so it will take two boxes to build the set. Demetrious Johnson was recently traded to another MMA organization, and UFC is shutting down their Men's Flyweight division.

Photo variations are one per box, with a 10-card checklist. One problem with my new method of photographing cards instead of scanning them is that my phone and hands are always reflected on the shiny cards.

The photo variations focus on UFC personalities with long-standing popularity and/or success. The only female on the variation checklist is Octagon Girl Arianny Celeste.

You get eight basic Refractors per 24-pack box. They are satisfyingly shiny. I took pictures of all 24 from my three boxes. At least it gives you a pretty good look at some more base cards from the checklist.

Most of the photography in this set is pretty good, with plenty of nice dynamic action photos. I guess it would be kind of weird (and weirdly awesome) if Topps did a 1992 Bowman Baseball throwback set featuring UFC fighters in dress clothing.

Just as I get done talking about the dynamic photography, here are three dudes just standing around, although Reyes is flexing pretty hard and Machida looks like he means business. We also get Aldo's flying knee for good measure.

These are all doubles from the first scan, so I guess I really didn't need to take this picture. I did anyway, and now you get to see it.

Doubles of Paulo Acosta and Dominick Cruz bookend a Refractor of Arianny Celeste, which is not a double.

Aldo's flying knee makes another appearance, this time on the one-per-box Xfractor. They are unnumbered. The Green Refractors are numbered # / 99, like that Anthony Pettis with the ghostly dude in the lower left.

The Brian Ortega card is a Gold Refractor, numbered # / 50, and the one-per-box Blue Wave Refractors are numbered # / 75. That's a pretty nice shot on Khabib Nurmagomedov's card.

Here we get into the second box's colorful Refractors. Out of this batch, I guess the Joanna Jędrzejczyk Green is the best card, although it has a larger print run than the Tatiana Suarez or the Anthony Pettis cards.

I also got a printing plate from this box, the Yellow plate of Ovince Saint Preux. It's cool to pull a Printing Plate, but Yellow is the worst color and Saint Preux isn't a huge name.

Box 3 produced five more colorful Refractor parallels, with the usual Green, Blue Wave, and Xfractor pulls, along with another appearance by Ovince Saint Preux, this time on an Orange Refractor with a # / 25 print run.

The Notable Knockouts inserts come one per box and the name of the set pretty much lets you know what it's about. It's too bad I got two of the Garbrandt vs. Dillashaw cards, as these actually look pretty cool. It would have been nice to get a look at one of the other cards on the checklist.

You get 2-3 1983 Topps Design inserts per box, with the usual cast of fighters represented on the checklist.

That shinier Tony Ferguson on the right is a Pulsar Refractor. They are numbered # / 50. All of the inserts have three parallel levels, the Wave # / 99, the Pulsar # / 50, and the Superfractor # 1 / 1.

I got two Tier One inserts per box, doubling up on Daniel Cormier. I'll probably set one of those aside for whenever I can get a package out to San Jose Fuji.

These are the UFC Knockout Chrome inserts. I got some nice Pulsar Refractors in this bunch, with 'Thug' Rose Namajunas and another appearance by Daniel Cormier.

The last insert set before I get to the autographs is Museum Collection. Stipe Miocic makes three appearances here, although one of them is the Wave Refractor # / 99. I also got a base and a Wave Refractor of Georges St-Pierre. I came pretty close to pulling an Arianny Celeste card from every insert set, only lacking the 1983 Topps Design.

As promised, I got two autographs per box from my breaks. Supposedly there are Hot Boxes out there with special parallels and a third autograph in them. The Daniel Cormier signature was the only colored Refractor autograph I pulled. It's an Orange # / 25, which is pretty cool.

Tyron Woodley is the current Welterweight Champion, and Dominick Cruz is a former Bantamweight Champion. He's still ranked as the #2 contender at Bantamweight, but in another month it will be 2 years since he last fought.

It wouldn't be one of my UFC breaks without a Demetrious Johnson autograph, although I guess that might change now that he and the UFC have parted ways. Paul Felder is currently the #15-ranked Lightweight, and this is his 1st Topps autograph, which is something that usually carries a premium.

That does it for this break of 2018 Topps UFC Chrome. I like the product, and it is always a fun break. This year it just lacks a little of the excitement that came from chasing Rousey and McGregor autographs. No one has quite stepped up yet and been as universally popular as those two, although there is still plenty of star power for people who follow MMA a little more closely than the general populace. I'm not sure yet if I'll buy more boxes on the hunt for rare stuff or just cherry-pick singles online. You can get boxes pretty readily for $55, and if you buy a few at a time you can get that down to $50 per box. You're not likely to get your money back in cards, but there's some fun stuff in here.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 13 - Another Pack-Pulled # 1 / 1

More UFC cards today, but I will be showing off another pack-pulled # 1 / 1 card later in this post, just a few days after I pulled one from a prize box of football cards from Panini. Today's break was 2 packs of 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles and a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact.

I got a few different parallels from the Chronicles packs. The Krylov is a Gold, numbered out of # / 88, if I recall correctly. The BJ Penn is a Black & White parallel, numbered out of # / 188. There are also buybacks in this product, stamped with a foil Topps Originals Octagon.

That Green parallel is numbered out of # / 288. I also pulled one of the hits from the box, a Dual Relic of Cain Velasquez and Fabricio Werdum. This one isn't numbered.

The Holly Holm Femme Fighters insert is a double for me, but I was expecting some doubles from that insert set. This is the third copy of that Al Iaquinta autograph I've pulled in this break. I'm getting kind of tired of seeing it.

One card I couldn't pull doubles or triples of was this one, because there's only one of them! This is the Gold parallel of Dominick Cruz's base card. I'm not much of a Cruz fan, but it's pretty cool to pull a # 1 / 1 from a pack.

That does it for today. I'm glad I pulled that Cruz card, because otherwise this was a pretty boring break. Maybe I'm just getting jaded. I'll be back tomorrow (probably) with some cool shiny cards.

Cyber Week Breaks: Arrival and Day 1

My big order from Blowout Cards arrived today, with a whole bunch of fun stuff for me to break over the next few weeks. I am really tempted to just start ripping it all open now, but this was a pretty big order and I want to make it last longer to stretch out the anticipation and entertainment value of my dollar.

Here is a picture of the order. I've got 13 boxes of 2015 Topps UFC High Impact, 4 boxes of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome, 1 box of 2016 Topps Star Wars Masterwork, 1 box of Topps Star Wars: Jedi Legacy, 1 box of 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles, 1 Jumbo Box of 2012 Topps Series 2, 1 box of 2017 Topps High Tek Baseball, 1 box of 2016 Panini National Treasures Racing, and 1 box of 2016 Panini Certified Racing. I also have 2 boxes of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout on the way from Topps and a box of Cryptozoic DC Bombshells on the way from eBay that I'll add to this pile when they get here.

I divided all of the stuff into lots for each day's breaks, but since today is the first day I made the break a little bigger than the others. I've got a Jumbo pack of 2012 Topps Series 2, two packs of 2016 Panini Certified Racing, a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact, a pack of 2016 Topps Star Wars Masterwork, and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. I'll probably just be scanning the highlights rather than going through and scanning everything.

The baseball pack didn't offer much in the way of highlights, so this Ken Griffey Jr. 1987 mini insert is the representative from the pack. 2012 Topps Baseball has some of the uglier inserts out there, and I mostly bought the box 1) because I felt weird making a big order without much baseball representation and 2) to chase a Bryce Harper rookie card.

The serial-numbered insert from the Panini Certified packs was this die-cut Famed Rides card of Richard Petty's car. I've never been much of a Richard Petty fan, but he's pretty famous and had a lot of success in racing. This one is numbered # 065 / 199.

The other pack of Certified had this Kurt Busch autograph in it. This is the base version of his Certified Signatures card, and my copy is numbered # 038 / 139. I've actually been toying with the idea of collecting the Busch brothers now that most of my favorite drivers have retired, but I haven't quite talked myself into it yet. This would make a good start to a Kurt Busch collection. It's a sticker auto, but he has a pretty nice-looking signature.

The Topps UFC High Impact box promises one autograph, and this Joe Lauzon card was it. It is odd to me that the back of the card says it's a 2015 card, but the boxes call it a 2016 product. I guess maybe there was a delay in the release or something. Joe Lauzon autographs have a bit of a reputation for being set fillers, and I think I've probably got at least one of these already.

Each box of High Impact also promises a Femme Fighters insert. I am trying to complete the set, and I only need four more cards. Ronda Rousey isn't one of the ones I needed, but it is one of the better cards to get doubles of. My other copy is currently on the way from the COMC order I had shipped during the free shipping promotion.

I scanned everything from the Masterwork pack. The Count Doku and R2-D2 cards are base cards. The TIE Fighter Pilot is a Silver parallel, and the Yoda card is a Rainbow Foil parallel from the Force Display insert set. The TIE Fighter Pilot is numbered # 36 / 99, and the Yoda is numbered # 123 / 299.

The promised hit in the pack was this base autograph of Matthew Wood as General Grievous. I don't know what else to say about it. It's a Star Wars autograph that I didn't have yet, but it's not exactly what you dream of pulling from a pack of Masterwork. I've still got three more packs to go, though, although at least one of them is going to hold a manufactured medallion relic.

The UFC Chrome packs didn't have any of the two hits from the box in them, but I did find three serial-numbered cards. This Blue Wave Refractor of Stephen Thompson is the first. I think these fall one per box, and they are numbered # / 75. This one is # 20 / 75.

The other two big pulls were Refractors from insert sets. This Joanna Jędrzejczyk comes from the Fire insert, and is numbered # 89 / 99. I thought this was a pretty decent pull.

The next Refractor was this Museum Collection parallel of Dominick Cruz. I'm not a huge Cruz fan, but he's still one of the bigger names in the sport. Even without pulling a hit, I still feel like UFC Chrome is a fun product to break. The autograph checklist isn't all that strong, but I still feel like you get a decent amount of fun stuff for your dollar. I didn't scan any of the other inserts or base Refractors I pulled, and this was just 1/3 of a box. I thought about ordering a half case or full case of the stuff, but I wanted to leave room in the order for a little more variety in my break.

So that's Day 1 of the breaks. I have my spreadsheet broken out into about 25 days of stuff to open, so there will be plenty more. Tomorrow is one of the bigger days, as I'll be tearing into that box of National Treasures Racing.