Cyber Week Breaks: Day 22 - An Appropriate Sponsor for An Old Racer

Today I feel like crud. I stayed up too late last night, but I think the real thing getting me down is that I have to go to work in the morning after ten straight days away from the office. I know I have some stuff I have to get pushed out this week, and I am already dreading getting back to the grind. I also woke up to the sound of one of my 6 year-olds pitching a fit about something. That always puts me in a sour mood.

Today I finish up the last 2 packs of 2016 Panini Certified Racing, the last 2 packs of 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles, and the last pack of 2017 Topps UFC Knockout. Tomorrow is the last day of Cyber Week Breaks, so then I'll have to start blogging about other stuff.

Here are the two big pulls from the Certified Racing packs. The Kahne die-cut is the base version of his Skills insert card. It's numbered # 055 / 199. That Mark Martin relic is the base version of his Famed Fabrics insert. It's numbered # 142 / 199. How appropriate is it that Mark Martin is sporting a Viagra sponsorship on his firesuit? On most of the pictures I've seen of him, it looks like he stepped right out of one of those ads. I guess it's a good move on Viagra's part to aim right at their target demographic.

The Chronicles packs weren't all that exciting. I like the idea of a set with a comprehensive checklist, but sometimes that makes for a bland break. I think we as collectors always clamor for a low-cost, big-checklist set, but I don't know how well they actually sell for the card companies. For better or worse, collectors are kind of conditioned to expect a certain number of hits or inserts in their breaks. This Georges St-Pierre Gold parallel is numbered # 83 / 88.

Joe Lauzon is kind of known for showing up as a token hit in a lot of products. It seems like he signed about a million stickers for Topps, and he tends to show up a lot in breaks. I guess that's good if you're a J-Lo collector, but otherwise it's less fun. That's the last hit from this box.

The Topps UFC Knockout pack gave me this Red parallel of Tony Ferguson, numbered # 15 / 25. I pulled a lot of Green and Blue parallels from the Knockout packs, so it was nice to get at least one Red out of the break.

The autograph hit from this pack was Pack War favorite, Ryan Bader, on the base Tier One Autograph design. This one is numbered # 167 / 199.

The final Knockout hit of these breaks is a Blue Jumbo Fight Mat Relic Card of Chuck Liddell. This one is relatively low-numbered at # 18 / 25. It also bears the caption on the front that this piece of mat is 'fighter-worn,' which seems kind of funny. I like to track down approximately where on the mat these relics come from if they've got a little bit of color to them. This one came from UFC 57, and in looking at pictures of the mat during the event, the swatch appears to be taken from the Amp'd Mobile logo on the fighting surface.

That's all for today. Tomorrow I'm taking my eldest son to see the new Star Wars movie, and I'll probably be finishing up the Cyber Week Breaks.

Darth Bader and Star Wars Sketches from Corky

Corky from the Pack War blog recently sent me a package full of some of my favorite things: UFC autographs and sketch cards.

I'll start off with the UFC autographs. Corky is one of the few bloggers I know of who collects UFC cards, and I believe his primary fighter collection is Ryan 'Darth' Bader. Apparently he's picked up some doubles over the years, and he sent them my way. This one is from 2010 Topps UFC.

The resemblance isn't really all that great when they are side by side, but whenever I see Ryan Bader, I think of Nick Frost, who played Simon Pegg's friend in Shaun of the Dead.

This one is from 2010 Topps UFC Knockout. It's on fancy thick stock, and also serially-numbered # 076 / 188. Even though Bader is the #4-ranked Light Heavyweight and has won 8 of his last 10 fights, he is currently looking at moving to Bellator due to the UFC refusing to renew his contract. There's always drama in the fight game.

Corky is an artist, and did up a Leia sketch for my collection. He even drew it on his own custom sketch card stock, with the artist's real name and blog link. It's always fun to add another sketch to my Leia collection.

He also included this Boba Fett sketch by artist John Soukup, whose work features heavily here on The Raz Card Blog. I remember seeing this sketch on eBay. I hope I didn't bid on it, as that would have been a bit rude on my part.

This was a pretty fun package to open, with plenty of good stuff for my various collections. Once again it is much too late for me to be awake, but I am trying to get through everything that other bloggers have sent my way. I don't want anyone to think I am ungrateful, because I am thankful to be surrounded (virtually) by so many generous folks. Thanks, Corky! I will try to get something decent put together to send back your way.

UFC 203: Recent UFC Acquisitions

I figured this was a good day to post these (sort of) recent pickups for my UFC card collection, as Urijah Faber is fighting tonight in UFC 203 and Ryan Bader fought recently in UFC Fight Night: Arlovski vs. Barnett.

This first one is a 2015 Topps UFC Knockout Primary Pieces Quad Relic card of T.J. Dillashaw, Chad Mendes, Urijah Faber, and Joseph Benavidez. I picked it up mostly because it has Urijah Faber on it, and also because the price seemed right for a nice-looking quad relic numbered # 23 / 50.

Next up are a couple of cards from 2011 Topps UFC Finest. This is an X-Fractor of Urijah Faber, numbered # 330 / 388. It's pretty cool, I guess. Ever since TeamBreaks.com stopped doing group breaks, I've gotten my UFC fix by seeking out cheap singles and lots on eBay. There is one seller in particular who posts cards for each UFC event, set to close on the evening of the fights. I don't win a lot of stuff, but I get a few things here and there. These cards probably came from him.

Finally, here is a 2011 Topps UFC Finest Autograph of Ryan Bader, who won his fight last week after landing a massive kick on Ilir Latifi. It's a nice shiny on-card autograph. That about does it for this post. I am having a hard time watching the fights and typing this post anyway. I'm hoping for Urijah Faber to win his bout, but we'll see what happens.

Pack of the Day 127: 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles

I bought a pack of the new UFC card product, 2015 Topps UFC Chronicles. It's a comprehensive set that explores the history of the UFC. Chronicles is packed out in a Jumbo-box format, with each box containing 10 packs of 40 cards each. A box contains 5 hits and various inserts, parallels, and stamped buyback cards. With 5 hits per box there is a 50/50 chance that a pack will contain an autograph or relic card. The checklist is 275 cards strong, so it's pretty big for a UFC product.

Here are the pack odds for those who are into that kind of thing. I don't see all of the parallels listed on the pack here. Sepia are # 1 / 1, Red are # / 8, Gold are # / 88, Black & White are # / 188, Green (unlisted) are # / 288, and Silver (unlisted) are unnumbered. Maybe it's assumed that you are going to get Silver and Green in each pack? I don't really know.

I didn't scan all the base cards in the pack, but I scanned a good number of them. One thing I noticed right away was that there are a huge number of repeat photos. One glaring example of this is that Shogun Rua card in the bottom row, as it was the first photo in the 2015 Champions product and sat on top of the stack on my desk while I was building that set.

The card backs are pretty typical of these products, with some demographic data at the top, the fighter's Twitter handle, and a biographical paragraph. I should have scanned some of them, but throughout the checklist there are cards highlighting landmark events in the UFC's history like their 1,000th fight, adding the Women's divisions, and the crowning of different champions.

There are a lot of horizontal shots in the checklist, which probably works better anyway for this sport. My one real complaint about the cards outside of the rampant reuse of photos is that it is sometimes unclear which fighter in the photo is the one named on the card. I guess a true fan would be able to see it right off, but someone learning about the UFC would have to look it up. I guess I did scan one of the 'event' cards, as that Hughes vs. Trigg II card features their fight from UFC 57. I pulled some pretty decent names among my base cards, like Conor McGregor, Jose Aldo, and Holly Holm.

I think I scanned that Ronda Rousey card thinking it was a Silver parallel. It's not, but it can sometimes be tricky to tell with these. The Rory MacDonald and John Dodson cards are Silver parallels, and the differences are minute. The borders on the Silver cards are just a little more silver and a little less transparent than the white borders on the base cards. The Black & White parallels are probably the best-looking cards in the product. It would be cool to build a whole set of them, but I can't be taking on projects like that.

I got two Black & White parallels in this pack, so I guess one of them bumped the Green parallel I might have gotten? I didn't pull a hit in the pack, but I did get three inserts. Victorious Debut is a set that celebrates fighters who won their initial fights. Most Topps UFC products have a fight poster insert set, and this one is no different. Finally there is a set that celebrates rising stars in the sport (by reusing photos from old inserts), Climbing the Ranks.

Here are the backs of the Victorious Debut and Climbing the Ranks inserts. The Victorious Debut set lists the date and circumstances of the fight and the Climbing the Ranks cards describe the fighter's career trajectory so far.

The Black & White parallels (and other numbered parallels) carry their serial numbers in foil on the back border and the Fight Posters discuss the results of the event pictured on the front.

There isn't a lot of new ground covered in this product. I guess the retrospective cards are a nice look at the history of the UFC, but this would have been so much better without all of the repeat photos. It might also be nice to have a little more differentiation between the base and the Silver parallels. 2015 Topps UFC Champions had a similar issue, with the difference between base and Silver parallels being a slightly darker patch in the border design. I guess I prefer flashy parallels over parallels I have to strain to see.

Pack of the Day 126: 2010 Topps UFC

The dude who runs TeamBreaks.com does giveaways after his weekly breaks sometimes, and the odds of coming away with something are generally pretty good. Some prizes are better than others, but they make for decent additions to a break haul or a nice consolation prize for those nights when you don't pull anything in the breaks. I think that's how I got this Hobby pack of 2010 Topps UFC cards. He might have just added it to one of my packages because I'm a nice guy.

There's not a lot here that grabs my attention among the vertically-oriented base cards. I take note of Ryan Bader cards because Corky over at Pack War collects him. He unfortunately got knocked out in his most recent fight against Anthony Johnson at the end of January, breaking up his streak after 5 straight wins.

The notable card for me here is Matt Mitrione, who is a former professional football player and current UFC fighter. But what makes it notable to me is the eye injury he sustained last month in a January 17th fight against Travis Browne. Browne poked him in the eye a couple of times (which is something I hate), but the ref let the fight continue and Mitrione took a punch that fractured his eye socket. It swelled up like a golf ball and looked pretty gruesome. So every time I hear Mitrione's name I think of his grotesque swollen eye. I won't post a photo here because it's gross. Anyone who wants to see it can probably find it quite readily.

I am assuming that the James McSweeney card is a Gold parallel because it is unnumbered and also printed on very thick card stock. That creepy-looking Brock Lesnar card is some sort of tie-in to a UFC video game. The front features his digital avatar and the back shows his ratings in the game.

Nothing too exciting in that pack, but I can't complain too much about a free pack of cards.