Box Break: 2009 Upper Deck Icons (Retail)

As mentioned yesterday, Upper Deck was kind enough to include a box of Icons along with the other cards they sent to me. I wasn't expecting a whole lot out of the box but was pleasantly surprised with what I pulled. The base set is extremely small (100 cards) so there was plenty of star power in each pack, and I pulled the requisite Ichiro, Griffey, Pujols, Jeter and Halladay from the box. I thought there was only supposed to be one jersey card per box, but I pulled two along with some rookies and plenty of shiny parallels. Here are the highlights:

Roy Oswalt Icons Jersey Card: A nicely designed card that focuses on the jersey swatch, I seem to be like a magnet to Oswalt insert cards (I pulled an Upper Deck X jersey of him a few weeks ago and my brother pulled a mini #1/1 wood card of Oswalt from A & G). Any Astros collectors out there?

David Freese RC #529/999: I am actually a big fan of these rookie cards. I prefer this design to that of the base set (even though it's not much different) and there is a fairly strong checklist headlined by Matt Weiters. Freese finished the season strong for St. Louis and looks like the Cardinals third baseman of the future. It's already bound for Cards on Cards (or will be soon).

Joe Mauer Silver Board Parallel: I'll never complain about pulling a shiny card, especially not when it's one of the game's best players. I think there were six of these total in the box and it is impossible not to fingerprint them. Still, a nice card of Mauer.

Brett Anderson RC #422/099: That's no typo, this card is actually numbered 422/099. I'm sure it was just an error in printing, but I still got a good laugh out of it. Does that make it an eBay one-of-one?

Tom Glavine Icons Jersey Card: I pulled this in the second to last pack of the box and it was a complete surprise because I thought there was only one game-used inside. I always liked Glavine. He was a consistent winner and seemed like a great guy.

Thanks Upper Deck! I sure got quite a haul from this box and the other cards.