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 10 - Red Racing Cards and Some Punchy Folks

Today's breaks are pretty good. I'm starting things off with a 2 packs of 2016 Panini Certified Racing and 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome. Also, I'm excited about the boxes of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout I got in the mail yesterday, so I'm opening one more pack of that product. Tomorrow I might take a breather and post about something other than my Cyber Week Breaks. We'll see.

Here are the hits from my 2 Panini Certified Racing packs. On the left is a Mirror Red Certified Signatures autograph of Justin Allgaier. This one is numbered # 43 / 75. He spent 2014 and 2015 at the highest NASCAR level, then dropped back to the Xfinity Series for 2016 and 2017, finishing 3rd in the standings both years. As with the quad autograph card I showed off a few days ago, the certification hologram isn't as obtrusive in-hand.

The other hit in these packs was a Complete Materials Mirror Red parallel of Ryan Blaney, numbered # 22 / 75. It's got four swatches of material, including red and white firesuit pieces, a gold chunk of sheet metal, and a bit of tire. Blaney is doing pretty well for himself in NASCAR's top circuit, finishing 9th in the standings this season with one win.

Neither of these hits really matches up with my personal collections, but they are still pretty decent pulls. Both are names that I recognize, which is a step up from many of my racing breaks.

Here are the biggest cards out of the 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome I opened today. The Arianny Celeste Topps Fire insert is the Refractor version, numbered # 48 / 99. The Luke Rockhold Blue Wave Refractor is a one-per-box insert, numbered # 59 / 75. The autograph is a base auto of Mickey Gall. He had a couple of big fights in 2016 and 2017 that rocketed him into popularity, a win against WWE wrestler CM Punk and a defeat of the a fighter the UFC was pushing pretty hard, Sage Northcutt. He lost a decision last month to Randy Brown, so he's still got some work to do before he's a real contender.

That closes out the second of four UFC Chrome boxes from this order. So far I am still pretty happy with the product. It seems like there are enough Refractors, inserts, and autographs to make it a fun break. People complained that the autograph checklist is relatively weak, but I haven't felt ripped off by this product yet.

I got two numbered parallels in the second pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout. Again, I pulled a Green and a Blue. The Green Aldo is numbered # 055 / 215, while the Blue Werdum is # 13 / 99. Neither really moves the needle for me, but they're all right.

As far as hits go, I pulled a Knockout Autographed Relic of Jim Miller, a fighter I collect. This is the base version, numbered # 056 / 149. I've already got a copy of this card, but now I have another. I also got a Knockout Relic card of Joanna Jedrzejczyk. It's a Red parallel, though, so it's numbered # 01 / 10. The Red parallels only show up about once in thirteen boxes, so this is a pretty good card. It probably would have been even better if she still had the championship belt, but some other # / 10 relics of hers have still sold north of $30 recently, so I still 'made' money on this pack.

Cyber Week Breaks: Day 5 - Uncle Creepy Makes an Appearance

I know that my UFC posts don't always get a lot of site visits, but I got a lot of UFC cards in my Cyber Week orders and there are going to be a fair number of posts with just fighting cards in them. These days the only sporting events I set time aside to watch are fights and baseball, so that's where my head is at when it comes to collecting. I'll try to mix in some other stuff from mail days when a break is slow. Today's breaks are 8 packs of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome and a box of 2016 Topps UFC High Impact.

The first 8 packs from the 2nd box of 2017 Topps UFC Chrome held quite a bit of good stuff. That Jose Aldo Museum Collection insert is the Refractor version, numbered # 94 / 99. The Green Refractor of Mickey Gall is numbered # 48 / 99. I almost flipped right past the Tyron Woodley card, but something about it looked a little different. You can see Refractors in this product from the side of a card stack, because they have white edges while the base cards have colored edges.

Those thick white lines are all Refractors. The Tyron Woodley card is a Black Refractor, numbered # 08 / 10. Black refractors fall only once per 7.5 boxes, so that's a pretty good pull. It will probably be the lowest-numbered Refractor I pull from this break. I also got another Demetrious Johnson autograph. This one is just a base autograph, though, unlike the insert autograph I pulled the other day.

The High Impact box had an autograph of Ian McCall and a Femme Fighters insert of Joanne Calderwood. You might notice that Ian McCall's signature doesn't say his name. His nickname is 'Uncle Creepy,' and it sure looks like that's the name he signed on his sticker. He hasn't fought since 2015, although he's been scheduled for several fights over the last couple of years. One fighter has always pulled out of all his scheduled bouts. He's now signed to the Rizin promotion out of Japan.

I needed the Femme Fighters insert of Calderwood for my set, too, so that's another one off the need list. I'm down to needing just two cards for that set. Hopefully the cards I need are somewhere in the stack of unopened High Impact boxes sitting on my desk.

2017 Topps UFC Chrome Hobby Box Break

The box containing my Gint-a-Cuffs box of Allen & Ginter arrived the other day, along with several other things I'd ordered. Most of the breaks were pretty good, but the Allen & Ginter box was pretty disappointing. I am having a hard time getting myself motivated to scan the cards and add up the points for the contest, but I will try to get it done by the deadline.

The product that held up the order (I placed the order in July) was 2017 Topps UFC Chrome, which got bumped back quite a bit from the original release date. I ordered a box of it, as Chrome is something that Topps hadn't done yet for UFC. The box has 24 packs in it, with 4 cards per pack and two autographs per box.

The pack design mirrors the box design, so there isn't much to talk about here.

Here are the odds from the back of a pack. Based on this, I am expecting 8 base Refractors, a Blue Wave Refractor, a Green Refractor, an X-Fractor, 4 each of the Top of the Class, Museum Collection, Tier One, and UFC Fire inserts, and the two promised autographs.

Here are the front and back of Neil Magny's base card. The design is pretty familiar to anyone who collected Topps Baseball this year. The backs feature social media handles and a paragraph about the fighter. The cards look pretty good overall, although I noticed a fair number of reused images.

I got 64 base cards total in the box with no doubles, so if collation is decent you could build a 100-card base set with two boxes. This is a selection of 8 base cards I chose to scan. Randa Markos and Jim Miller are two of my primary fighter collections. Jessica Andrade and Ovince Saint Preux put on quite a show in their fights last night. I kind of collect Liz Carmouche and Stipe Miocic's cards, although I don't usually chase them down specifically. Paige VanZant is popular and I thought the Derek Brunson card had a cool image, so I included them to fill up the scan.

I pulled the expected 8 Refractors from the box. The fighter selection on these is all right, with Rose Namajunas, Mickey Gall, Nate Diaz, and Amanda Nunes being the bigger names of the group, in my opinion.

I got the expected X-Fractor in Nate Diaz, a Green Refractor of Robbie Lawler, and a Bule Wave Refractor of Raquel Pennington. The extra parallel in the lower right is a Red Refractor parallel of Matt Hughes, numbered # 4 / 5. That's a 1:359 pack insert, so I did pretty well there. The Nate Diaz is not numbered, the Robbie Lawler is # 51 / 99, and the Raquel Pennington is # 44 / 75.

The UFC Fire inserts are based on an insert called Fired Up from a previous Topps UFC Fire internet-exclusive product, but they are given the Chrome treatment for this iteration. They are pretty cool. I especially like the way the American flag pops on that Frankie Edgar card.

Again, Mueseum Collection takes the design from this year's Museum Collection product and applies the Chrome treatment to it. These look all right, although that's a lot of silver on the front of them.

I pulled the expected four base inserts from the Tier One insert, and I also got a couple of extras in the form of parallels. The Cody Garbrandt card is a Refractor and numbered # 86 / 99. That's maybe a relatively high print run, but these are a 1:73 pack insert, so not extremely easy to pull. The Anderson Silva card is even harder, being essentially a 2 per case hit at 1:144 packs. That one is a Pulsar Refractor, numbered # 23 / 50.

Closing out the inserts are four Top of the Class cards, which again take a previous UFC product and make the design shiny. There was a lot of Arianny Celeste and Chuck Liddell in this box. I also pulled the insert of Conor McGregor, who may eventually return to the Octagon after his stint in boxing.

Finally, I got my two promised autographs. These are signed on-card. I guess I could have pulled better names, but at least my base autograph is a 1st Autograph of Thomas Almeida and I got a parallel autograph of a fighter from the Women's Division in Joanne Calderwood. Both fighters display some pretty good penmanship here.

I believe Green is the most common of the autograph parallels, seeded at 1:57 packs. The Joanne Calderwood card is numbered # 43 / 99, while the base autographs are not serially-numbered.

Overall, this was a pretty good break. The cards look really good, and I got some neat stuff like a Red Refractor and a 2 per case insert. If I had $800 to blow, I would totally love to bust a case of this stuff. I know there aren't a lot of UFC collectors on the card blogs, but if you're interested in a cool UFC product I would give Chrome a shot.