Five Packs of 2016-17 Upper Deck MVP

Back in the summer during National Baseball Card Day, I stopped into Maverick's card shop with some friends. To get the coveted Kris Bryant card, I was supposed to spend $10 on Topps products. However, seeing as Topps had nothing out that I wanted to spend $10 on, I opted on five packs of the first hockey release of the year, 2016-17 Upper Deck MVP. 

MVP has really been sort of hit or miss for me, some years I like the design (like two years ago), some years I don't (like last year). This year happened to be one of those years where I liked the design. It's not a hit based product and is geared mainly towards set collectors. Here's what I got ...

The nice thing when you are done opening packs with a product like this is that you have a nice fat stack of base cards to sift through. I pulled out most of the cards of the stars to show off the base cards. Fleury started the season back as the top net minder for the Pens due to an injury to Matt Murray. Once Murray is healthy again, that should be a real interesting battle to watch, especially if Fleury is playing at a good level again. I'll always think of Rick Nash as a Blue Jacket since he was one of their first homegrown stars even though he's been a part of the Rangers for a few seasons now. It's still strange to me to see him in a Rangers uniform. I've also added him as a hockey PC guy just because.

Despite the fact I opened a sizable number of Upper Deck Series 1 packs last year, I wasn't lucky enough to pull a Connor McDavid Young Guns card. Oh well, I'll just have to settle for his second year card. I seem to get a new Tuukka Rask card everything I get a batch of hockey packs, not that I'm complaining as I really enjoy watching him when I get to see Boston games.

Believe it or not, these are actually puzzle pieces. The backs form some sort of puzzle but I'm not sure what. These are a bit strange too as the card number, legal print, and other stuff normally found on the card backs are on the front. Personally, I think it's a little distracting.

I got these nice shiny die-cuts. The one nice thing about MVP is that even though it's not hit based, there's still some really neat stuff to be had, such as these. I couldn't tell you one thing about either of these guys, mainly because there is exactly zero coverage of any Canadian teams where I live, unless they're playing Columbus on the local Fox Sports network.

I consider myself somewhat lucky when it comes to opening MVP packs. The first year I got some packs, I pulled out a Mario Lemieux silver script parallel numbered to 25. This year, it's a Jake Allen silver script parallel. Allen is going to have a good chance to prove himself as the number one goalie for the Blues, with Brian Elliott having been shipped off to Calgary. 

All in all, opening these was a lot of fun. Sure you won't get any big hits but you'll get a lot of fun and enjoyment out of it. After all, having fun is what collecting is all about, right?

National Baseball Card Day Recap

Apparently last Saturday there was this thing called National Baseball Card Day. My wife, son, and I had already made plans to go up to Dayton to have lunch and go shopping with some friends for the afternoon. Luckily for me, one of our friends wanted to go to Mavericks to get some comic books. I wasn't sure if they were a participating shop or not as they weren't listed on the official Topps list of participating shops but sure enough, I walked in and right on the front display case was a sign stating they were a participating shop.

I knew a free pack was involved and I also knew I had to spend at least ten dollars to get the coveted Kris Bryant card. I asked if the ten dollars had to be spent on Topps products and the owner, a nice old fellow, said technically yes but since I'm a regular customer any purchase of ten dollars or more would do. So I scanned the display cases with the baseball packs but nothing really caught my eye. However I did manage to grab a few things while I was there.

First up, these five packs of 2016-17 Upper Deck MVP hockey. I was completely unaware that this was out so I was pretty excited to see the first hockey release of the year already in stores. The last few years the design of MVP hasn't really done much for me but I needed to get above the $10 quota for the Kris Bryant card so I asked for five packs. Normally, the shop owner doesn't let people behind the counter to pick out their own packs as a way to keep people from pack searching, but he let me grab the packs I wanted since there were only a few left. I'll show off the results of the packs down the road as I've got the remainder of this month already scheduled and September and October are already set aside for Project Halloween content.

I also spotted a good selection of Starting Lineup figures with more than fair prices in another display case. I was surprised there were some hockey ones, mostly of Wayne Gretzky, along with a few others. I purchased the Gretzky figure above to go with my hockey packs simply because it was the only one that stood out to me. It doesn't hurt that it's also a Starting Lineup convention exclusive from 1999 and has him in an unfamiliar New York Rangers uniform.

So, I got free baseball cards, bought hockey packs and a Wayne Gretzky Starting Lineup figure to get over the $10 for another exclusive card. I'm not sure Topps would have been pleased with my purchases somehow. As for the National Baseball Card Day pack, here's what I got ...

As I opened the pack, my wife asked me if there were any autographs or jersey cards that you could get. I told her yes, but they were extremely hard to pull. Funny thing though, the moment I said that, I pulled this out of the pack ...

I'd say it was a pretty successful day.