Friday, April 24, 2009

Announcing 2009 Topps UFC!

Yes the rumors are true; Topps will be releasing another trading card product this year. The plan is to have it available for all fans in attendance at the UFC Fan Expo happening the weekend of UFC 100.

So what will this product have? Who will be in it? How much will it cost? What will it look like? Many of these questions I can answer now.

The set, called 2009 Topps UFC, will feature many of your favorite UFC fighters past and present in their own card. It will also contain cards highlighting fighters who recently debuted within the UFC Octagon such as Jon Jones, Dan and Jim Miller, Dan Hardy, Ryan Bader, and Efrain Escodero.

In addition to the 150 card base set there will be several insert sets. Our Bloodlines insert with showcase fighters and their diverse heritage. The Greats of the Game insert will feature graphics and stats from the soon to be released video game from THQ, UFC 2009 Undisputed.

Each hobby box will contain 16 packs and guarantee 2 autographed cards and 2 memorabilia cards per box. The suggested retail price will be $4.00 per pack.

We are expanding our line-up of autograph and memorabilia subject to include fighters and personalities that were not in Round 1. For example, unique to this product will be the first autographed cards from all 16 competitors from The Ultimate Fighter: USA vs UK. These cards were produced and signed ON CARD while we were at the UFC Training Facility in January.

We will be releasing images of these cards over the next few weeks. Below you will find samples of Nick Osipczak’s and Mark Millar’s cards.

As always I welcome your thoughts and questions.


Edited on 4/27

26 comments:

  1. This is exciting. I have a few questions:

    -Will there be a "Round 2"? I would like to see that series finished properly with some of the big names getting represented. Example is the promo sheet showing Brock, Chuck and Dual Auto's.

    -Should this be considered a different series than ROUND 1?

    -The most collectible cards in Round 1 are not #'d and that should be changed. All auto's should be numbered.

    -Kinda lame that we will be paying for no-name contestants on a tv show. I want established fighters in these packs.

    Thanks for the info, I am totally hooked on this product and I am glad I got in on Round 1 when it was $100 a box and not $260+ like today. Please share more images when you have some stars and not lame show contestants w/o UFC contracts.

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  2. To answer your questions Bones, this is a different brand than the "Round 1" product. There have been discussions about continuing that brand with a "Round 2" but nothing has been set in stone. In regard to autos and relics, I assure you that there will be other "established" fighters featured on autograph and memorabilia cards. The TUF 9 cards were something brand new and I though people would be interested in seeing them.

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  3. So it says 165 base card set, so will that be #100-265 (since the first release stopped at 99) or ? How many total cards are in this next release?

    Thanks for the announcement, very excited about this next release, and like Bones I am hooked and it is the first thing I've collected since I was a kid.

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  4. Also, if this is a different "brand" than Round 1 will we see some of the same fighters on the autograph lists or was Round 1 taken into account so that you didn't duplicate signed cards?

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  5. Base cards for 2009 Topps UFC will be numbered 1 through 165.

    Some fighters that were featured in Round 1 will again be featured in 2009 Topps UFC as base cards, insert subjects, and auto and memorabilia subjects. There will also be plenty of new fighters and fights highlighted in this new set. The new fighters will be recent additions to the UFC roster as well as fighters from the UFC's past.

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  7. Any chance of getting a 100% solid checklist for the Round 1 set anytime soon with all the inserts and fight mat relics?

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  8. Thanks so much for the replies!

    How many boxes of 2009 Topps UFC cards will be produced?

    Do you know the ranges of limited cards included such as what limited numerical ranges can we expect (out of /5, /25 /100 etc.) will there be 1/1's again (if so will it be the entire set again like round 1?.)

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  9. Could you possibly spend more time on the autograph cards so that they will be in better condition? I love the round 1 product, I even bought 4 boxes. Every single autograph card I received was in less than good condition. If you look throughout many sites that have reviews/forums on your cards you will see that this was a serious problem.

    -Thanks!

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  10. The posed cards aren't nearly as nice as the action photos. I'll be buying a couple of boxes anyways because this price is hard to beat. Also, I think all hits should be serial numbered (even if there's 1000). Finally, there should be a legends insert set with auto parallels which shows the stats of retired stars' whole careers.

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  11. I'd like to see a tattoo subset. There are a lot of cool tattos in the game, that would be cool. Also, a subset of corner men would be neat as well.

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  12. Is there an MSRP price for the box? I notice that the individual pack is down $1 from Round 1 msrp so im hoping the box will be less as well, especially seeing as how there are less guaranteed cards this time around.

    And I also don't like the idea of having autographs from fighters that haven't even had a real UFC match yet. It would be more appropriate if they had their own subset of inserts.

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  13. A quick edit to previous info and answers to some questions.

    The base card set will be 150 cards (numbered 1-150). Each base card will be paralleled in gold (non-numbered), Onyx (Black) to 188, Ruby (Red) to 8, and Diamond to 1.

    Many of the insert sets will be paralleled as well to similar or smaller numbers.

    There is no set SRP for the boxes, but with 16 packs of cards with an SRP of $4 each you can do the math.

    Kerry - We have discussed your idea about featuring tattoos and it may be something we tackle in a future release. As for your suggestion in regard to corner men, we plan on releasing base cards of Stitch and Leon in this release.

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  14. I am most interested in just completing the base set. How many cards are planned per pack - would buying two boxes suffice?

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  15. How many boxes (total) will be released?

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  16. Exactly how many autograph cards are part of the set? And what are the different types? Do they follow the above mentioned Onyx/Ruby/Diamond? Or are there a different subset of limited autos like Round 1's red autos?

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  17. Can you show us pictures of the back of cards? Thanks!

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  18. stillwandering - We do not announce production runs for our products. We will be producing more of this product than we did for Round 1 to meet the increasing demand, but it will still be limited. The autos will once again have a red ink parallel numbered to 25.

    Jim S.- We are still finalizing the design for many of these cards. When they are available I will be sure to post more examples (including card backs).

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  19. The Round 1 cards were released with the notion that a person could get a set of the base cards by getting just one box. Was it basically split into two boxes or is it more random that that? Many casual fans will want to just complete the base set.

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  20. Sorry that wasn't totally clear, my main question in that quagmire is how many boxes will it take to make the base set complete or was it not approached from that angle, making it basically random per box.

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  21. It is random collation in the packs.

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  22. Will there be more of the dual autographed cards like the Silva/Leben mat card from Round 1? How about the ticket redemption cards like in Round 1?

    You guys have a great product going here and everyone is very excited for more cards to be available. Thank you for your hard work!

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  23. In the Round 1 set, each of the cards were Fighter A vs. Fighter B. For this set, will there be individual fighter cards this time around for the base cards?

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  24. Yea pretty bummed about some joe shoe who doesnt even fight in the ufc having an auto card. That is what made round one so great. No schwag cards. You could buy a box and get two auto cards of guys who lost there first fight in the house. Weak!!

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  25. I just wanted to add that I really love the round one product and appreciate you getting feedback from the collectors. Thank you

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  26. So boxes will be available for purchase at the UFC Fan Expo in Vegas?

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