Thoughts on Legends baseball

helionaut

For the first time since 2000, this set seems to be worth collecting, IMHO. Beautiful modern cards with a classy design you'd expect from UD. I'm not talking about buying boxes, but there are currently lots of singles from box breaks on ebay, and complete sets are going to be cheap. Buying boxes is still for the daredevils, as it seems like the case cards, the triple autos, 5 and 6-bat cards, etc., are mostly going for the price of a box or less. The autos you get are usually worth about the price of a pack, so that's probably 15 or 16 packs in a box that are worth bupkiss. However, that's the good part, as loss-leading card-rippers love UD stuff. Since this set was first mentioned over the summer I've been mulling over collecting the whole auto set. I've never been a big auto hound in the past, skipping Fleer Greats, Donruss Signature, SP Signature, etc., but I think this set is interesting because of the "Timeless Teams" angle they've taken. The 300 cards have a year built into the design, and you can go after certain teams based on that. For instance, if you like the 1977 Yankees, but not the 1980 Yankees, you can get those. This allows for a good connection to World Series teams, for instance, and in that context, getting the common-type players is more appealing, at least to me. It also keeps the autograph checklist more manageable. There are 300 cards in the autograph set, but as far as I can tell by my rudimentary count, there are actually only 141 players signing. Most players have more than one "timeless" year, and many have a "Memorable Moment" subset card, and some have more. There are at least 3 Sparky Lyle cards, for instance. So if you want a complete set, I'd say that one might argue a 141 card set would be good enough to have an example of every player, and the rest is just padding. Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

joestalin

UD filled this with "topps originals" type garbage. I think there are nicer sets with all great players in them. Buying singles
is the only way to go on this!

good luck
Kevin

envoy98

I picked up a few packs and pulled a Sal Bando auto...Not really what I was hoping for with my $40 investment but...hey, all modern is a gamble I guess. I was really psyched when another member posted the info about this stuff (KallMaloneSay IIRC) I was going to order a case and backed out shortly before it went live... I have mixed emotions about that...though, being unemployed certainly persuaded my decision.

Is anyone else opening this stuff? Anyone pulled anything stellar?

helionaut

I don't think there's anything really stellar to be pulled. The biggest cards are the ones with the 5 or 6 autos, and they are really short, like the 5 Cy Young winners card was numbered to 10. That looks like the best card so far, or the gold parallel autos. There aren't any Legendary Cuts, and even the HOFers are guys with loads of other autos out there, so that the best players seem to be going for around the price of a box, or much less.

I am wondering about the print runs, though. It looks like the gold parallels come out 1 per case, but even if we assume 1 every other case, there are only 1500 of those cards total. So if you assume a print run of 1500-3000 20-box cases, and assuming that there will be a lot more Blue Moon Odoms than Nolan Ryans, there are probably not more than 500-600 of the most common autos, most probably solidly under 500. That's if the 1:9 insert rate for autos is correct. If this product does have legs at all, it'll be from the people chasing the complete sets. If and when SPs are announced, if there are any outside the HOF-level players, there could be some nice chasing going on.

joker73

Does anyone know if these are clear band-aid/sticker autos, or are they actually on the card? It's tough to tell on some of the multi-player auto cards listed ...

joestalin

I opened a box and a half but it didn't exactly blow me away despite pulling a triple auto. The regular
autos are actually on the card,but the triples use stickers even though it is done in a nice way. The
stickers were very small and I was lucky that all three players stayed within the area.

The base set is ok, it looks like they stole the pics right from the topps files. UD just doesn't have the resources
to do great photos of the old guys. The backs are laim with a huge picture of the players stadium. Year
by year stats aren't given but they do have the career totals.

I think this would be a very nice auto set to put together. There are plenty of common graphs and even most
of the triples are of 3 common players.

As far as the parallels numbered to 5 the odds on the back of the pack are at 360 packs..so with that said there
are 1500 total gold parallel and that puts the # of boxes produced at 30,000, which by todays standard
is somewhat limited. My triple Jim Palmer/Mike Cuellar/Pete Richert is numbered out of 75. There are 33 of those
for a print run of 2475...saying the doubles are the same.. 45X75=3375......double/triple totals would be 5850.
That leaves us autographs not including the 5 cut cards.....if all the autos were equal that would
put us at an individual print run on the autos at: 190....fairly limited!

Good Luck
Kevin

joker73

Thanks for all the info Kevin! With a few different '80 Phils combo auto cards, the set has certainly caught my eye ...