2008 Upper Deck Timeline Baseball pack

Have heard varying comments about the 2008 Upper Deck Timeline Baseball series. However, was curious about the various card designs contained within the packs (basically a retro style design). As such, decided to get a couple of retail packs of the set. The retail packs contain 6 cards per pack and there are supposedly 2 insert cards in each pack (of course, with the caveat, "on average").



Ended up with the following in the first pack:

Commons
#88 - Burke Badenhop - Marlins rookie card
#36 - Jim Thome - White Sox
#9 - Mark Teixeira - Angels (yay, can add the card to my Teixeira PC collection)
#27 - Alex Rodriguez - Yankees

"Inserts"
#209 - Steve Holm - Giants - 2008 Top Prospects Rookie card
#172 - Max Scherzer - Diamondbacks - Rookie card

If going off the card designs, I have to say that I like the cards. The colours are good and the layout of the words/pictures works well. IMO, it's good to see some of the older style designs still working well (for example, the Scherzer card will the "floating head" in the bottom corner). However, I do see why many collectors have an issue with this series - there are just too many sets within the series.

Overall Score: 7/10 - designs and layouts are good but is building a set of this series really worth it?

2009-10 Cricket Box Break and Redemption Card

With the arrival of the southern hemisphere summer, Select have released their 2009-10 Cricket card set. In recent years, there has been a lot of discussion amongst collectors about the quality of the Select cricket cards. Whilst many were happy with the quality of their Football series, their wasn't the same amount of enthusiasm for their cricket series.

I have to say that I was one of them. After experiencing the various excellent Futera Cricket card series of the 90s, I felt that Select's attempts were not up to the same standard in terms of card design and variety.

However, after seeing what Select were offering for this season, I was impressed enough to buy a box from a case share on ozcardtrader.com.au. The box holds 36 packs which normally retail at $3.99 a pack. My box arrived about 2 weeks ago, and I ended up with the following inserts:

CA Foil Signatures (1:6 packs)
Michael Clarke, Callum Ferguson, Doug Bollinger, Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark, Brad Haddin

5000 Test Run Club (1:12 packs)
Steve Waugh, Mark Waugh, Matthew Hayden

Freshman (1:18 packs)
James Hopes, Ben Hilfenhaus

Masters Gem (1:36 packs)
Allan Border

Elite Signature Redemption (1:72 packs)
Shane Watson

Was very happy with the pulls I got - particularly the redemption card. A general search on the net will show pictures of the cards, but in general, I have to say that I'm impressed with the quality this season. The card designs are very good with good, bright colours. There is variety in the players features and there are just enough cards in each insert series to allow collectors to think "I can get the set".

Anyway, sent off my Redemption card and in about 1 week, I received the hand signed card back. Wasn't expecting it back that soon, but was very happy that it arrived - I ended up with card number 6 out of 300!

My overall rating: 8/10 - good release from Select. Hopefully they can back it up next season.