2009 Upper Deck A Piece of History Player Collector Case Break

About once a month, I participate in a case break with the other team collectors. This case break, however, was the first I had participated in outside of the group. The case break of 2009 Upper Deck A Piece of History was run from Markakis8 at the Freedom Card Board forums.

I had bought in on the following players and cards:
Joe Mauer (base, parallels and possible jersey)
Justin Morneau (base, parallels and possible jersey)
Jose Mijares (base, parallels and possible autograph)
Jason Pridie (base, parallels and possible autograph)
Francisco Liriano (possible jersey)
Justin Morneau/Adrian Gonzales - Cut From The Same Cloth

I received my share of the break last week and here are how they look.

The usual base:





Of course, I would have loved to see more Twins in the set, but we always seem to get shorted on our regular players. I'm glad Upper Deck is using Mijares and Pridie as Rookie Cards, because they are not found in any Topps products.

Jose Mijares does not quite look like himself on his A Piece of History card. He looks about 50 pounds lighter. Here is the Mijares that Twins fans know and love.



The parallels:



I was glad to get two parallels from the case. I would have liked to have seen the parallels distributed more evenly between cards. One collector received eight Vladimir Guerrero blue parallels and three green parallels.

The Cut From The Same Cloth insert:


There were also Joe Mauer/Russ Martin Cut From The Same Cloth insert, but those cards were reserved by someone else.

Now for the hits!





I felt I was pretty lucky with the three jersey cards. Liriano is only in the set as a jersey card. Upper Deck advertises one autograph and two MLB memorabilia cards per box on average. However, every box contained only one memorabilia card... hardly on par.

I do find it a little bit exciting when I see a picture in a card I recognize. If you look at the Joe Mauer Stadium Scenes card, it is a picture inside the Metrodome. The picture appears to have been taken from 1991.

A Piece of History also includes history moments base and parallel cards and one Piece of Hollywood card per each box. Not sure what the deal has been with the card companies, both Upper Deck and Topps, but I am really, really hating non-baseball cards in baseball card product. Those 50 cards of history moments could have been 50 additional players and the Piece of Hollywood cards are worthless to baseball cards collectors and Hollywood memorabilia collectors alike. This is the reason why I do not buy the product for myself.