All-Upper Deck Community Break Sign-Up Is Now Open!!

It’s that time of year again!  To reward you all with sticking with the blog during out down spell (and we’re not quite out of the wood yet, but soon!), we’re bringing you a big ol’ patented COMMUNITY BREAK.

The past couple of years, I’ve held an All-Fleer break and an All-Topps break.  This time, it’s Upper Deck’s turn.

Just like the last couple major breaks, I tried to get a good mix of UD offerings that didn’t involve the main Upper Deck set.  I’m also avoiding and SP related products this time around.  There was more that I wanted to include, but the price was simply getting out of hand.  Maybe if this goes well, I’ll hold a second break down the line.

All of these boxes are in hand and courtesy of our good friends and Community Break Sponsor: BASEBALL CARD EXCHANGE

They’ve been instrumental in helping a lot of the card bloggers find great, fun, tough to find boxes for their group breaks so I’m sure you’re familiar with their website or ebay account by now.  If not, you have to give them a look. That banner ad isn’t lying about their inventory size. You’ll be amazed at the depth they have in stock, and they’re some of the best prices, customer service and fast shipping you’ll come across.  They’ll even try to help you find boxes that aren’t on the site!

So, what did I pick up from BBCE? Let’s take a look!

Who wouldn't want some CD cards? Should get almost the full set in the box

1999 Upper Deck PowerDeck

3 cards/pack (1 CD, 2 paper); 24 packs/box
PowerDeck (CD version) Powerful Moments – 1:7; Auxiliary (paper cards version) Powerful Moments – 1:7; PowerDeck Time Capsule – 1:23; Auxiliary Time Capsule – 1:23; 1999 Season Highlight PowerDeck – 1/box; PowerDeck Most Valuable Performances – 1:287; Auxiliary Most Valuable Performances – 1:287; Gold 1/1’s
Guaranteed Hits so far: 0 – just wait…

If I show any other side, it'd give away the player on the lunch box! This came in a sealed case even.

1999 UD Retro

6 cards/pack; 24 packs/collectible lunch box tin
Throwback Attack – 1:5; Distant Replay – 1:8; Inkredible – 1:23; Old School/New School (out of either 1,000 or 50); Gold Parallel (out of 250 & Platinum 1/1s); Parallels of inserts (out of between 100 and 500)
**The Collectible Tin will go to the team featured on the front unless they don’t want it for some reason.  I know who it is, but I’m keeping it secret. I’ll give you a hint and let you know it’s not a multi-player lunch box so no worries about needing to random it.
Guaranteed Hits so far: 1

I know...the box is jacked. If the cards are messed up, I'll give people a partial refund

2002 Upper Deck 40-Man

10 cards/pack; 24 packs/box
UD 40-Man Electric – 1:4; Mark McGwire Flashbacks – 1:24; Lumber Yard Wood Cards – 1:168; Electric Rainbow Parallels (out of 40); Various Jersey Cards (out of 40 to 500 – average of 1/box); Mark McGwire BuyBack Autographs (220 total)
Guaranteed Hits so far: 2

I have a soft spot for this game. Plus all kinds of parallels and inserts to be had should = fun

2003 Upper Deck Victory

6 cards/pack; 36 packs/box
Solid Hits – 1:4; Clutch Players – 1:5; Lay It on the Line – 1:5; True Gamers – 1:10; Run Producers – 1:10; Difference Makers – 1:20; Winning Formula – 1:20; Tier 1 Parallel – 1:1; Tier 2 – 1:8; Tier 3 (out of 650); Tier 4 (out of 50); Tier 5 (out of 25)
Guaranteed Hits so far: 2

Nearly the entire 300 card set has an autograph parallel. Should be interesting and plenty of HOFers

2004 UD Legends Timeless Teams

5 cards/pack; 18 packs/box
Autographed cards overall – 1:9 (includes possible parallels out of 1 or 5); Fold Open cards overall – 1:360 (includes Team-Terrific bat card, possible Legendary Combos autos, cut autographs); Parallel cards overall – 1:360 (gold out of 5 and platinum out of 1); Mutli-auto overall – 1:90 (includes Duals out of 150 and Triples out of 75)
Guaranteed Hits so far: 4

I'm excited about this one. Busting higher-end like this is why I do these breaks.

2004 Upper Deck Sweet Spot

4 cards/pack: 12 packs/box
Sweet Beginnings out of 799 – 1:12; Inserts overall – 1:12 (includes one of the following – Swinging for the Fences, Sweet Lineups, Pennant Fever, Diamond Duos, Wood parallels out of 99 and LTD out of 10); Game used overall – 1:6 (includes from single to quad jersey, single to quad patch, or single to quad bat relics); Autographs overall – 1:12 (includes Sweet Spot Signatures, Signature Barrels and Sweet Glove); Rare Autograph Parallels overall – 1:180 (includes Red & Blue Stitch, Black Stitch 1/1s, Dual Signatures and Historical Signatures) 1/1 overall – 1:360.
Guaranteed Hits so far: 7

And back to earth. Plenty of inserts and cards to go around. Not much more than that.

2006 Upper Deck First Pitch

5 cards/pack; 36 packs/box
Diamond Stars – 1:3; Goin’ Deep – 1:3; Hot Stove Headlines – 1:3; Autographs (no odds given – checklist is: J.D. Drew, Johnny Estrada, Rich Harden, Paul LoDuca, Victor Martinez, Yadier Molina, Guillermo Quiroz, Juan Rivera, Ian Snell, and Ryan Wagner)
Guaranteed Hits so far: 7

Cardboard Collections opened this in a group break and it was impressive enough to bring on board here

2007 Upper Deck Elements

3 cards/pack; 5 packs/mini box; 3 mini boxes/master box
One RC out of 650 per mini box; 1 Dual relic per master box; 1 Autograph per master box; 1 Autographed Relic card out of 13 to 350 per master box
Guaranteed Hits in total: 10

And there you have it. A lot of good stuff encompassing all kinds of Upper Deck craziness. We’re guaranteed at least 10 hits, but it could be more considering my past Community Break successes.

RULES OF THE BREAK

Sign-ups
Now that you know what’s all included,here’s how it’ll all work. I’m going to keep sign-up open until October 21st for people to join and buy up a team. After that,I’ll just keep whatever teams are left and hopefully trade them off for more quality stuff.

Cost of the Break
The cost for each team will vary for a couple reasons. 1) I want to make it a little more fair to the people buying the normally unfilled teams. 2) We have a lot of classic players in a couple of these boxes including autographs, and those situations should be reflected in the pricing. The pricing is now in four Levels (which will also pay for the shipping).

Level 1 is accounting for the Mark McGwire guarantees in PowerDeck and the overall Yankee dominance. The rest of the levels are based on when the team originally formed (taken and slightly modified from I Am Joe Collector’s old system). There are four teams that don’t fit into their natural levels because I’ll be keeping some of the cards for my personal collections.

Braves: (I’ll be keeping the Greg Maddux cards –back to the Cubs in 2003)
Cubs: (I’ll be keeping any Maddux, Ryan Dempster and Kerry Wood cards)
Padres: (I’ll be keeping the Tony Gwynn cards –retired after 2001)
White Sox: (I’ll be keeping the Frank Thomas cards –with the White Sox the entire run of these boxes)
Reds and Marlins: (I’ll be keeping the Ryan Dempster cards, if any, but won’t be reducing the price for the time being)

Since we’re opening 8 boxes total, even at the highest level it works out to less than $4 shipped per box opened. Not too shabby, right? But you can earn yourselves a discount! I would love to fill this one up, so if you promote this on your blog, you get $2 off! Just leave a comment with the link (after you claim is perfectly fine).

I’m also going to institute a two team maximum for now, but the second team you claim is $2 less. If it’s still out of your price range, perhaps I’ll accept cards as additional payment to make up the difference. All I’m saying is go ahead and claim now and payment is secondary until we get closer to the deadline.

Fine Print
-I reserve the right to reduce the price for unclaimed teams as the deadline approaches, or allow people to claim more than 2 teams at that time.
-Any cards featuring multiple teams will be given to the team without a hit after the break is finished, or randomed off between those teams if neither/both have a hit. Any cards featuring no team will be randomed amongst all teams without a hit.
-If it’s between me and someone else,the someone else gets it (the only exception is if it’s one of my player collection guys, which I will take and compensate you for in other ways).
-If some other unforeseen circumstance arises,we’ll take a community vote as to how it should be handled.
-If we get an expired redemption, it will be submitted to Upper Deck’s new lottery system (if eligible).  Any prize won will go to the team that would have claimed the original expired redemption.

Video
The box breaks will be done on video where you can see the cards and not my ugly mug. I won’t be able to swing a UStream feed because I’ll be scanning in between boxes. I’ll be opening them during the day on a weekday, so most people wouldn’t be able to watch anyway.  All videos will be shown on the blog here and on YouTube.  The plan is to post each box video and scan recap on it’s own throughout the following week.

Payment Due Date
******Payment is due on the closing date of October 23rd. Paypal is cracking down on “gift” payments, so feel free to send it as “goods” to avoid the hassle. That will help with shipping labels anyway.  This is coming from my own pocket (not the business, so please send it to:djibuti80 at yahoo dot com (or email me through our communitygum at gmail address to arrange something else). I will be breaking these on video on October 26 during the day and uploading the results and scans hopefully shortly after that, so payment must be in before that for sure.*******

Enough yammering, claim your teams!

Special Circumstances are Level 1 — $30.00

New York Yankees – DUTCH CARD GUY (PAID)
St. Louis Cardinals – MADDING (PAID)

Any other teams older than 1961 are Level 2 — $24.00

Baltimore Orioles – ANOTHER ORIOLES BLOG (PAID)
Boston Red Sox – DADDYOHO (PAID)
*Cincinnati Reds – NICK M. (PAID)
Cleveland Indians – BASEBALL DAD (PAID)
Detroit Tigers – THE CARD BANDIT (PAID)
Los Angeles Dodgers – GCRL (PAID)
Minnesota Twins –
Oakland Athletics –
Philadelphia Phillies – ARFMAX (PAID)
Pittsburgh Pirates –
San Francisco Giants –

Any team started between 1961 to 1976 are Level 2 — $18.00

Anaheim Angels –
*Atlanta Braves –
Houston Astros – FIELD LEVEL VIEW
Kansas City Royals –
Milwaukee Brewers –
Montreal Expos/Washington Nationals – TRICKYANKLES (PAID)
New York Mets – DUTCH CARD GUY (PAID)
Texas Rangers – PLAY AT THE PLATE (PAID)

Any team newer than 1976 are Level 3 — $12.00

Arizona Diamondbacks – BUCKSTORECARDS (PAID)
*Chicago Cubs – TIL NEXT YEAR (PAID)
*Chicago White Sox – MY SPORTS & SPORTS CARDS (PAID)
Colorado Rockies – JOE AVERAGE COLLECTOR (PAID)
*Florida Marlins –
*San Diego Padres –
Seattle Mariners – NICK M. (PAID)
Tampa Bay Devil Rays –
Toronto Blue Jays – DAVE (PAID)

*Teams with asterisk, please see above for details on which cards I’m keeping for myself

The All-Upper Deck Community Break is open! Tell your friends and leave a comment if you’re in and for what team. Also feel free to call dibs on teams for trading if no one picks it up.

Ready????? BREAK!!!