Part one:
Part two:
Five cards per pack, 24 packs per hobby box. Here's a quick breakdown of what I got:
- Autograph: James Parr, Future Watch rookie #'d 486/500
- Autograph: Kenshin Kawakami, Future Watch rookie #'d 292/425
- Autograph relic: Dexter Fowler redemption, By The Letter Rookie Signatures #'d to 715
- 3 serial #'d base cards: Chad Billingsley (FX variation) to 59, Curtis Granderson and Chipper Jones (Gold variation) to 299
- 4 Faces of the Game inserts: Manny Ramirez (Gold, #'d to 299), CC Sabathia, Johan Santana, Josh Hamilton
- 1 Future Watch Flashbacks insert: Alex Rodriguez to 495
- 10 Short-Print base cards: 6 Rookies (one Gold #'d to 299), 4 (Emerging?) Stars
- 85 base cards (14 duplicates)
Not much to say here... 2009 SP Authentic is a pretty decent, but still middling release by Upper Deck. The base cards have a rather appealing and clean design, but are ultimately kind of boring. The inserts are merely OK, nothing special - kind of dull, really. It shouldn't be too difficult to complete the whole set of base cards and standard short-prints (though you won't be able to do this with one hobby box). I'll be honest though... I have no clue what all the various Regular, Rookie, and Emerging Stars short-prints exactly are or how they are actually organized.
I did get this product for the "hits" - that is, the autographs. The autographed rookie cards are actually quite nice, and I got a redemption for one of those "By The Letter" patch autographs - not sure what they look like, but I'm stoked to get at least one (apparently there are two letter patch signatures per box, on average). However, other than the rookie autographs, rookie cards, and the hope of pulling one of the Derek Jeter 1993 SP Rookie Buyback Autograph cards (hand-numbered to 93), there is not much value to this product. Especially not for the $93.99 pre-order price. Also, it seems like the prices have only gone up since it was released.
Seriously, it's not worth it unless the price drops more. First, there are better and nicer sets to complete, ones with better inserts (even then, it's hard to make a good insert; and too many base variations and short-prints can get annoying). Second, the only draws (for me) were the autographs and rookie cards, and one should not pay too much for this spread. One pack I opened even had 4 cards only. Ugh. D: Anyway, here are some cards I got:
The three "hits." Sick. What's with all the Braves?
Serial-numbered Base variations. The gold looks nice with the design.
Faces of the Game inserts. Manny is gold.
On the left, a Future Watch Flashbacks insert of A-Rod. On the right is my boy Swisher, short-printed.
The rookies. Top picture, middle, is a Gold Shairon Martis #'d to 299. Yea, rookies!
Wait for the price to drop! Peace.
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