2011 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions

Excellent product– top-notch athlete hits, fun collectible cards (Entomology, Animal Kingdom, Thoroughbred Hair Cuts), and fun base set mixing current and retired stars. Love the lighting SPs and the “reveal card” concept. Great value.

Fun break, I would give it 3.5 stars if I could. It’s above average, but falls just short of excellent. The card backs are unimaginative and they could have done more with mini variations, but there are some solid autos and the bug cards and hand painted presidential cards add a nice twist.

The problem is that because UD doesn’t have any licenses outisde of the NHL, judging from the preview photos, none of the players are going to be features in team uniforms. OK if you are going to feature tennis and golf players, but not if you are going to features baseball, basketball, hockey, or football players.

And I didn’t see any tennis or golf players (aside from Bubba Watson) in the previews.

I disagree with “Ryan’s” comments. First off, because anyone who uses Billy Zane or the movie Titanic in an analogy loses all credibility with me immediately. Ryan, you cried during Titanic didn’t you? Secondly, who wouldn’t want to pull a card with a scorpion embedded in it? Maybe Ryan would prefer a relic card with a plain white jersey piece like so many non-Upper Deck products on the market. My thought is, most true fans of the hobby and avid collectors will always appreciate the core, sport focused products, but as their tastes begin to broaden they explore some of the more interesting products like the Goodwin’s, Gypsy’s (2011), Ginter’s etc…There is room for both in the hobby and I tip my hat (TB Rays) to UD for creating one of the most interesting products out there for the hobby’s more sophisticated collectors…those who prefer a glass of Bourbon rather than Mike’s Hard Lemonade and when making a Billy Zane reference they refer to the movie Tombstone (not Titanic) when he was killed by the cowboys.

Upper Deck is like Billy Zane from Titantic. Running around, trying to save himself while trying to screw others over. When will they realize that collectors don’t want rodeo and flyfishing cards? Please, please, please, just declare bankruptcy and move on.