2008-09 Upper Deck First Edition Basketball

It's opening night for the NBA tonight. 4 games on the schedule, including one featuring my Blazers against the Yao-less Houston Rockets. This pack cost me 50 cents at a card show. Enjoy!

51 - Richard Hamilton (I hear Rip even sleeps with that thing on his face.)

67 - Danny Granger

91 - Kwame Brown (Man, at least Sam Bowie could play.)

245 - Mario Chalmers (The NBA rookie card logo is really ugly.)

202 - Bob Cousy UD Legends

67 - Danny Granger Gold (Hey, it's him again. I guess this one is "gold"?)

SQ-5 - Kobe Bryant Starquest (Probably my least favorite professional athlete.)

143 - Louis Williams

174 - Chris Wilcox (Bring back the Sonics!)

154 - Brandon Roy (There we go... something to balance out the Kobe ugliness.)

2009-10 Upper Deck First Edition Basketball

NBA Opening Day or Tipoff Tuesday or Premiere Baller Day is just a week away. I'm not sure what it's called, to be honest. I bought this pack on Sunday and it was the right price (99 cents) for me. What's better is that I just got e-mail confirmation tonight that my tickets for opening night are being shipped. I even took the night off from work to see the Blazers face their nemesis, the Rockets, the team that knocked them out of the playoffs in June.

82 - Michael Beasley (Beasley had a pretty productive rookie season coming into the league at only 19, but made news over the summer by checking into some sort of rehab.)

32 - Jason Kidd (Here you can see what the backs look like.)

4 - Joe Johnson (Overall, I like these a ton better than the First Edition baseball cards, which kept the non-shiny gold borders that are based on the main set. I also have a pack of the regular set that I have not posted yet, so I may do that at some point.)

18 - Luol Deng

145 - Jerryd Bayless Gold (Nevermind that Bayless's first name looks like someone tried to type Jerry and made a typo. Bayless is fierce! He is coming into his second season having failed to prove that he could play PG in summer league play but is still hopeful of getting some backup minutes at the 2. He's behind All-Star Brandon Roy and Ladies Love Rudy Fernandez, but injuries often create opportunities.)

SD-2 - Dwight Howard Slam Dunk (This is the one-per-pack promised insert card.)

187 - Hasheem Thabeet (It's not mentioned on the front of the pack wrapper, but if this is like previous years, there's also a one-per-pack rookie card guarantee. At least there's little to no ambiguity in "rookie card status" of basketball cards. Normally I'd be pretty excited to get a rookie card of the #2 pick of the draft, but Thabeet seems like a project to me, especially on a team full of clowns.

167 - Mehmet Okur (Ugh, the hated Jazz... playing the even more hated Lakers, of course.)

103 - Brook Lopez (Brook Lopez, one of the Stanford twins, had a very impressive rookie season. I believe I heard that he was injured recently, however.)

169 - Andrei Kirilenko (Bleh.)

Let me know if anyone out there buys this basketball stuff. I'd love to get some of your Blazers. Of course, I'm not serious about it myself, or I wouldn't be buying First Edition.

2009 Cards One Historic Vintage Collection

I look for baseball cards anywhere I go. You never know where you will find a pack. I was at Dollar Tree on Friday and I spotted a rack of trading cards. They had football packs, basketball packs and hockey packs from recognizable companies.

I almost walked away disappointed, until I spotted something unusual. It looked like a baseball player on steroids and I didn't recognize the packaging. Then it hit me. This was the same type of deal that I had seen at Wal-Mart a few years ago. The package claims to possibly hold something of value, but it never does.

Historic Star Card in Every Pack

Packs may contain: Trading cards from the 1960's, 70's, 80's & 90's

What the heck, it's only a buck for 15 cards. How bad could it be?

All single trading cards included are a random selection of out of production trading cards, and are not guaranteed to include any specific person, player, team, manufacturer, brand, entertainment type or value.

No entertainment or value? Must be one heck of a Historic Star Card!

Approximate odds per pack: Historic Star Card 1:1 Packs: Vintage Baseball Trading Card 20 years or older 1:5 Packs: Vintage Baseball Trading Card 30 Years or Older 1:10 Packs: Vintage Baseball Trading Card 40 Years or Older 1:100 Packs.

So the odds of me getting a Nolan Ryan rookie card are about the same as me pulling a 1967 Vic Davalillo?

Stated odds reflect an average of the entire production run. No ratio is guaranteed to exist within a single pack, display box, or master case.

Does that mean that I may not even get a Historic Star Card?

Cardsone does not make, in any manor, any representations as to the present or future value of trading cards inserted into any of their packs.

Me thinks there's nothing but junk wax in here.

This product is not sponsored, endorsed, or affiliated with the Topps Company, Inc, The Upper Deck Company, LLC, Donruss Playoff, LP, Fleer/Skybox International, LP or any other trading card company.

Stolen junk wax?

Cardsone is a registered Trademark and is not affiliated with any sports league, team, player or organization(S).

Kinda just sucks the life right of you, doesn't it?

After all that pleasantry, let's see what cards were in this dollar pack from the dollar store.

1990 Topps #225 - Jim Deshaies
1988 Fleer #451 - Bob Knepper
1990 Topps Traded #1T - Darrel Akerfelds
1992 Score #173 - Mike Pagliarulo
1991 Topps #385 - Mickey Tettleton
1991 Topps #456 - Charlie Leibrandt
1989 Topps #317 - Jack Armstrong
1989 Topps #129 - Terry Clark
1992 Score # 850 - Bob Zupcic
1994 Stadium Club #58 - Jeff Gardner
1988 Donruss #561 - Lester Lancaster
1988 Donruss #568 - Bill Wilkenson
1990 Score #646 - Kevin Blankenship
1990 Score #518 - Scott Scudder

And the Historic Star Card.....


1993 Donruss #119 - Roger Clemens

Even though it was only a dollar, I feel dirty. And cheated. The company spent more on the legal mumbo jumbo than on the actual cards that fill the pack. I should have known better, but how tempting is 15 cards for a dollar? Even the "star" card is junk wax. Yuck!

2006-2007 Upper Deck MVP Hockey

More random hockey packs. The only thing hard than pronouncing some of these players names is reading their scribbled signatures.

#179 Jamie Langenbrunner


#82 Rostislav Klesla


#70 Joe Sakic


#360 Peter Forsberg Checklist


#77 Pierre Turgeon


#276 Mikael Tellqvist


Upper Deck didn't seem to have the signatures on file for these last two so instead we get their name in italics.

#185 Trent Hunter


#352 Ryan Caldwell Rookie

My promised rookie card.

2008 Bowman Football Retail

This is one of the packs from a 50% off blaster I found at Target.

The results: one pack, two Packers rookie cards...I couldn't have planned this better. Of the Brian Brohm/Matt Flynn competition, I went with Brohm when I was looking for rookies & relics but Flynn won the position this year and Brohm's on the practice squad.

#167 Brian Brohm


#177 Matt Flynn


#72 Lee Evens [Gold Version]


#163 Justin Harper


#BC38 Robert James Chrome

2008 Upper Deck MLS

If for nothing other reason, I'll use this pack break as an opportunity to learn a little more something about my local team, the Kansas City Wizards. They're not doing so hot this year but maybe things will change when they permanently ditch Kansas City, Missouri for Kansas City, Kansas. What a difference a few miles can make.

I guess they were originally just called The Wiz...which makes me need to stop to take a potty break right now.

The cards:

#75 Jon Conway
New York Red Bulls


#87 Kei Kamara
San Jose Earthquakes


#57 Claudio Lopez
Kansas City Wizards


#62 Alan Gordon
Los Angeles Galaxy


#189 Tyrone Marshall
Toronto FC


#GS-24 Juan Pablo Angel Goal Scorers
New York Red Bulls


#103 Bakary Soumare
Chicago Fire


#200 Fabian Espindola
Real Salt Lake


#124 Brian Mullan
Houston Dynamo


#144 Ryan Pore
Kansas City Wizards