Ultimate Checklist: 2008 UD Heroes

Let's keep chipping away at '08, shall we? Especially while we're under my self imposed spending ban? UD Heroes is a set that I did not expect to like. When it first came out I thought that it looked dated (it was), I thought the base card coloring was ugly and I thought that the parallels were blinding and tacky. I didn't really both to pick any of these up until months after the original release. I was able to put together a few Grandersons, including a game used jersey or two, and before I knew it I was hooked. Has this happened to anybody else?

You see, while Heroes feels like it would be death for somebody trying to complete a set (even a team set--ugh, it seems so boring), it is absolutely tremendous, albeit a little frustrating, for a player collector. All of those "blinding" colors turn out to be awesome--way better than just the base card. Now, with the majority of the variations under my belt, completing "the rainbow" in this set has risen up the priority chart. Can't you see why? I realize that's not the best picture (I'm still getting used to this "internet" thing--and I don't have a current version of photoshop on my computer) but hopefully you get the jist. Putting all of those colors together is fun. It fills out pages nicely and is so much better than chasing down nearly indistinguishable parallels like Gold, Bronze, Copper, SilverManganese, and Hyper-Polonium. I'm sure that I'll regret saying this as I stare at blank holes in an otherwise colorful page, but it is rather enjoyable chasing down these cards.

Anyway, for those of you who may be interested in joining me on this quest, or starting one of your own, there are Grandersons a-plenty to be had. He is card #60 in the set.

Base
Charcoal
Emerald (#/499)
Black (#/399)
Beige (#/299)
Red (#/249)
Navy Blue (#/199)
Brown (#/149)
Sea Green (#/99)
Light Blue (#/49)
Purple (#/25)

There are also some game used options which, for reasons that I'll never understand, do not follow the same color/number magnitude pattern as the regular cards. They look the same as the regular cards, with the inclusion of a square piece of jersey:

2008 UD Heroes #60 Curtis Granderson: Emerald Jersey

The game used jersey cards fall into the following categories:

Light Blue (#/200)
Black (#/125)
Red (#/100)
Navy Blue (#/50)
Emerald (#/25)

Huh? Does somebody want to explain to me why the Light Blue game used is numbered to 200 while the non-GU version is numbered to 49? aka, the second rarest parallel is the most common game used? Maybe they want to give people a chance of putting a "rainbow" together by substituting game used cards, where appropriate. Anyway, the swatches on those cards are your typical plain-jane jerseys--three out of my four are grey, for what it's worth. But that's not all! There are some patch cards as well, complete with their own incomprehensible numbering scheme:

Light Blue (#/25) --Back to being rare-ish, so far, so good
Beige (#/10) -- 10?!?! for a beige card? Ugh.
Purple (#/5) --another fitting color/number pairing.

So, that's all she wrote on 2008 UD Heroes. Definitely a fun set for a player collector to take a crack at, providing plenty of surprising variety for a release in which every card basically looks the same. I can't imagine having too much fun with this if the same basic design is released again and I have to chase more Grandersons, but I guess if Thorzul can do it, than it can't be all bad.

For those of you keeping score at home, there are only 6 more sets from 2008 left to talk about. Once I've wrapped it up (with a little "Best Of" post, hopefully), I'll be doing the same things with his cards from 2002 to present, with plenty of present day scans and insight mixed in. Again, I apologize for the somewhat sporadic posting--who knew that house hunting and "working for a living" would take up so much time?