Upper Deck 2009 NFL Draft Edition

I ordered 6 packs of UD's Draft edition (retail) mainly because they were dirt cheap, with cheap shipping. I wasn't really expecting much, and apart from a few nice parallels, I was right (as I understand this is to be expected from retail).

What struck me about these cards (aside from the fact that there's more colours on one card than in a childs crayon box) was the fact that there was a large amount of players represented in the small sampling of the base set that I got. It's nice to see guys who aren't at the sexy offensive poisitions, or first round picks being represented.

The ratio of inserts to base was quite impressive (even if non were numbered). Overall I was really impressed with the packs, lots of inserts and plenty of USC and Steelers player based inserts for the PC

Post No.2

I seemed to have started this blog at the worst possible of the year. After my first post my free time shrank and any spare moment I had seemed to revolve around Christmas. I did however manage to have a few spare moments to pick up some packs of cards.

Most of the ebay auctions I'd won at the end of November/ beginning of December came, and I placed my first order with Dave and Adams card world. My experience ordering of www.dacardworld.com was great, first rate communication, some great prices, and fast reasonably priced delivery. I cannot recommend them enough, especially if your an international collector.

Over the next couple of days I will be updating the blog with my opinions on the cards and my finds. Most of the packs were from sets I hadn't ordered before (e.g. Rockies and stars, Upper Deck Draft Edition, Classics) and on a whole I was pretty impressed.

On Christmas eve. I received a tweet from them saying I'd won a card through a promotion they are running to gain more followers on twitter. I hadn't even realised the promotion was running, so it was a nice surprise, I was also surprised that they had no issue with shipping the card to the UK. I'll keep the blog updated with on when it comes, and what the card turns out to be (Keeping my fingers crossed it's the Jahvid Best freshman fabric signature)

A beginning

At the time of writing this I've been collecting cards for a little over a month (still very much a newbie). I've been a huge American sports fan for many years, but because of the very limited presence of American sports in the UK I wasn't aware of the world trading cards and collecting. The sports culture over here is extremely different, with die hard fans more likely to spend their money on pints at the game instead of collectables, so while this new hobby is very exciting to me it is also very alien and confusing.

My introduction to cards was more by chance than anything else, when an American friend of mine sent me a couple of packs of Topps football 2010, after that I've been hooked, scouring eBay for the cheapest way to get cards over to this country and learning everything I can. So far I've opened about 10 packs, all of them football retail packs from the past 4 years. Mostly pulling base and a couple of inserts, nothing spectacular as of yet.

This blog is going to be a documentation of an Englishman's take on this addictive hobby and my attempts to get friends and family to see the allure of collecting.