Coming in at around $40 a box, Upper Deck MVP Basketball is one of the most affordable sets on the market for the 2008-09 season. Naturally, it's target audience is younger collectors and beginners, but that doesn't mean it's totally devoid of the kind of cards found in more expensive sets.
Boxes of 2008-09 Upper Deck MVP Basketball contain 24 packs with eight cards in each pack. Expect to find a rookie card in each pack and an autograph or memorabilia card in every box.
Base Cards and Parallels
MVP's 260 base cards help give collectors a look at the past, present and future of the NBA without shelling out tons of dough. That's because in addition to 170 veterans, there are also 30 Team MVPs, 40 MVP Rookies and 20 MVP Legends that make up the set.
Each of the subsets has its own design, but all of them feature bursts of color (especially orange) and irregularly shaped borders. It's all a bit busy-looking, especially when contrasted with the attractive simplicity of the 2008-09 Upper Deck base brand.
Parallels come in three levels for all base cards and add a foil facsimile signature over the player photo. Silver Script is the most common level, followed by Gold Script (numbered to 100) and Super Script (1-of-1).
I opened one random box for this review and found the collation to be good but not perfect, as I found 10 duplicates among my 159 base cards. Also on hand were six Silver Script parallels and a Gold Script Tim Thomas.
Autographed Cards and Memorabilia Cards
Not too long ago, it would have been unthinkable for a product at such a low price point to have an autograph or game-used card in every box. But card manufacturers have steadily added more of these elements to just about every brand, ensuring even sets like MVP can include them.
There's even some impressive variety among the memorabilia cards. Game Night Souvenirs are fairly standard jersey cards, with some lesser names mixed in with the likes of Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett and LeBron James. There are also Star Combos dual memorabilia cards, plus low-numbered patch versions of both sets.
The lone autograph set, Signatures Required, is a tough but satisfying pull as it puts two autographs on one card. This season's 50 pairings include Kobe Bryant/LeBron James and Kobe Bryant/Michael Jordan.
The About.com review box beat the 1:288 packs odds for an autograph. The Taurean Green/D.J. Strawberry Signatures Required card wasn't the greatest pull, but it was still cool to find it in such an inexpensive box.
Insert Cards
A pair of insert sets ensures there's something besides base cards in each pack. The first, Kobe Bryant MVP, celebrates Kobe's award-winning 2007-08 season with one card for every game he played.
The second set, Ultimate Victory, should sound familiar to long-time collectors as it was once a brand of its own. This version looks very much like those sets from past seasons, and it features both veterans and rookies.
My review box produced insert cards at the expected rate of one per pack, yielding 11 Ultimate Victory and 13 Kobe Bryant MVP cards.
The Last Word
When it comes to bang for your buck, MVP Basketball scores pretty high. Its only drawback is that it isn't the prettiest set around, because nice-looking cards are important even at the lowest price points.
That aside, MVP is a solid gateway brand for young or beginning collectors. It's also a good way for everyone else to satisfy a basketball card fix without destroying their budgets, which is an important consideration in the current economic climate.