Sunday, October 27, 2013

Football '13 Week 8: Complete Set Sunday - 2010 Upper Deck New Orleans Saints Super Bowl Champions.

       This week I am bringing back one of my few recurring topics.  A little while ago, after my trip to New Orleans, I decided to augment my Saints collection to fill in a few holes. While I was there I found out there was a commemorative set from the Super Bowl win that I did not have.  I went on to eBay and  got into a bidding war for this 2010 Upper Deck New Orleans Saints Super Bowl Champions set.  Turns out, this is a pretty rare set.  I mean, some of these kinds of sets are still on the shelves today from 5+ years ago.  But of course, for my favorite team, it is rare and hard to get.  Well, I didn't win that one from the bidding war and believe me, we took the closing bid far over the actual retail price.  My collection would not stand for this, so I found another one with an even more ridiculous Buy It Now price.  Luckily, it also had a Make An Offer, so I did.  Sadly, this also turned into a nasty bit of negotiating, but after a bit of back and forth we agreed on an exorbitant price.  Dammit thought, it is all mine so lets take a look.

The design integrates the bright bright orange and blue of the Super Bowl XLIV logo, which is a jarring contrast to the black and gold of the Who Dats.
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The font for the player name is really tiny, but believe me, they included a lot of the players from the 2009 roster/
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They certainly got a lot of nice action shots.
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Did you know that technically, Scott Fujita is the first Japanese-American to play in the NFL?  You can look it up.
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OK, enough of those garish fronts, let's see the backs...
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Whoa, just as bright.  Nice mirror reflection of the picture on front, though.
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The page placement splits the regular season highlights and the post-season highlights quite nicely.  I still have the call from the Porter interception on my ipod and smile every time it comes on.  A sad oversight is the lack of a card for the onside kick from the start of the second half of the Super Bowl. Still the ballsiest call I have ever seen (especially since it worked).
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The only other drawback?  50 card set...leftover spaces...nooooooooooooooo!

The set also came with an oversized card.  I have left it in the little cellophane sleeve just because. 
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I watched this Super Bowl up in Boston with my usual party crew.  Oddly enough, I had won the lottery for season ticket holders for the chance to buy tickets for Miami but I would have had to get a certified check in person to Metairie LA on a Tuesday morning.  It just wasn't gonna happen.  It's just as well. 

One last thing.  The set came nicely packed and padded in bubble wrap and still got crushed by the USPS.  Look at that box:
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Luckily, the cards inside were safe.  Stupid post office.

1 comment:

Ana Lu said...

Great box! Everything with Saints is just great. Remembering the Super Bowl is even better.