Goodwin Champions 2011: 1 box break

Recently I won a box of Goodwin Champions from Upper Deck's Facebook fan site. This is a product I had not originally intended to purchase but now that I won one I may just pick up another box!

Goodwin Champions is an odd product to say the least. The word 'champions' should be used loosely as many of the cards feature people that are or were considered champions. It would seem that all major sports in the word are represented, except for perhaps cricket, as there are Olympic athletes, soccer players, and of course the North American big 4: baseball, basketball, football, and hockey. All of the athletes from these sports are certainly champions, however the addition of cards featuring people such as Annie Oakley is bizarre to say the least. Regardless, it is fun breaking this product and being absolutely surprised as to who you will find. Besides the unexpected individuals, this product also features three exceedingly rare and equally bizarre case hits. The first are the Museum Collection Relics, which features portions of historic objects such as a piece of Lord Nelson's battle flag. Second are the Goodwin Masterpieces which are hand painted portraits of American presidents, with only 10 made for each of the handful of presidents represented. Lastly are the Entomology cards that have rare and exotic insects housed within thick and over-sized cards.

What I pulled:

Base Cards

Base Cards: A total of 80 base cards, without duplicates, were pulled from the box. The base cards are printed on thick cardboard stock with the backs being lighter or darker in color depending on the paper quality. Personally I like this difference as it reminds me of how cards used to look when I was a kid. A short bio and one-line condensed career stats are listed on the back for each card. I greatly enjoyed these bios but did feel that the font could have been cleaner looking; for example the t's appear very odd. The front of the cards sport a painted portrait of the individual in question, with the person striking a candid or framed pose. The quality of the art varies and I would guess that some of the artists were rushed into finishing the pieces. Some of the faces were painted sloppily and lack necessary detail, some of the paintings also have incorrect body proportions, and some of the backgrounds are slapped together with little thought put into them. However, some of the paintings are very well done and are often portraits of the more famous individuals.

SP's black & blue

Eight base card sp's were pulled. These have black or blue bottom borders, unlike the red borders on the rest of the base set. The sp's have a much smaller print run but UD is not stating what this print run is, however the black are supposed to be more rare than the blue bordered cards. There is no difference between the regular and sp base cards other than the color of the border. With the sp's included, the base card set comprises a total of 200 cards.

Die-Cut Subset: I pulled one Figures of Sport die-cut card, which average one per box. The card I pulled is a decent painting of Lebron James. The card appears to be in the shape of a tin can, which is another remarkably odd feature to the Goodwin Champions product. The card does not have a serial number.

Memorabilia: Despite Goodwin Champions featuring athletes from a variety of sports, I managed to pull memorabilia cards of two basketball players. These cards have a small swath of material fitted under a cut out of an 'M' on the card. The cards are not serial numbered and the same image shown on the player's base card but slightly smaller. One of the memorabilia cads was of Derrick Rose, and has a bright red swath of material. The second card features a yellow mesh swath from Magic Johnson. The pulling of a Magic Johnson memorabilia card made everything worth it, even if the card is not worth vast sums of money.

Autograph: On average there are three autograph or memorabilia hits from a box of Goodwin Champions. This autograph constitutes the final hit. The design of this card is identical to the memorabilia cards and is autographed by Kasey Keller. At first I had no idea as to who Kasey Keller was, but upon googling his name I came to find out he was one of the pre-eminent US football goalies. I can't say I follow soccer, but it is still an interesting card that adds depth to my card collection. What is also nice about this card is that it is a hard sign with a blue auto.

Minis: A parallel of the base cards were produced where the cards were shrunk down to a 1/4 of their original size, hence the name mini. The Minis are a fascinating idea but do not fit well with the other cards so I usually lump them all into one soft plastic sleeve. In all I pulled 7 minis. In addition, I also pulled 2 variants of these minis. These variants have a smaller print run, but again UD is not saying exactly how many were produced. The variants have the same fronts as the regular mini except that the border is black. The back of the minis have 'Lady Luck' written across the back in red, replacing the bios and stats found on the regular minis.

A third version of the minis was also pulled. This was a case hit as it is a black foil version with the word magician on the back. These cards are incredibly scarce as they had a print run of only 9, and the print is hand written onto the back of the card in red (see photo)! The card is of Kyle Parker, who I really don't know much about him as he plays for Colorado, which is not by a long shot one of my favorite MLB teams. Nonetheless, the Parker card was very exciting to pull because of its scarcity but will likely be put up on the auctioning block of E-Bay!

Overall the Goodwin Champions 2011 product is hands down one of the weirdest products I've ever had the pleasure of breaking. There were some good hits and lots of surprises. The product is entertaining and offers something a little different to the world of cards. For these reasons I give this product a pickle with googly eyes and a sombrero, because that makes as much sense but is just as fun as this product is.