Collect call: Upper Deck Basketball 2009-10

Posted Sep 29, 2009 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Sep 30, 2009 at 11:05 PM

The 2009-10 Upper Deck Basketball set offers set builders an extremely good chance of completing the set, while picking up a few nice game-used and autograph cards in the process.

The set has 200 base cards, 40 star rookies and 55 Immortal cards. A hobby box, which contains 16 packs and 20 cards to a pack, should get a collector close to a complete set.

In fact, a recent hobby box I saw had 199 of the 200 base, 18 of the rookie cards and five of the Immortals. Not a bad haul.

The design does not deviate from Upper Deck’s standard baseball and football sets this year — the player’s name is stamped in silver and runs across the bottom of the card. The team logo, also stamped in silver foil, is in the bottom left-hand corner.

It goes without saying that Upper Deck’s photography remains top notch, but I’ll say it anyway — once again, some top-notch action shots dot the set. The back of the card features a large mug shot of the player, plus easy-to-read statistics. It’s very clean looking.

A typical hobby box promises three jersey cards and an autograph card on average. The box I sampled had two of each, which was a plus. The autos were Signature Collection cards of Joey Dorsey and Danny Green; the game-used cards included a Vs. Dual Materials card (Danny Granger and Tayshaun Prince) and a Dual Game Materials card (Yao Ming and Luis Scola).

Each box also contains two 3D Lenticular Stars, and there are other interesting inserts. There was a pair of Masterpiece cards, which have the same feel and look as the baseball and football cards bearing that product name.

Each box contains on average two “Now Appearing …” cards, which presents the player in a movie setting. The ticket design on the back is a nice touch. There are also Jordan Legacy inserts; the box I sampled contained eight of them.
If there is a negative to this set, it is that there were way too many duplicate cards — 75 from the base set, and a rookie.

For exotic set chasers, this product also offers a Sophomore Sensations autograph parallel, numbered to 199.
And, if you are lucky, there are selected “hot boxes” out there. These boxes contain a game-used or autograph card in every back. That would be quite a find.

This remains a solid offering from Upper Deck, which uses a tried-and-true formula to full advantage.