Breakin Wax: 2013-2014 Upper Deck Black Basketball Pack Break

After some hiatus, UD Black made it's return to the hard court and I was able to break one pack to show you what the product is about.

Every hobby box of UD Black comes with two packs. In each pack there are three cards and each box has four hits with two hard signed autographs per box. However, the price is a bit steep if you were to buy a full box as it falls a little under $200. A one pack break may suffice or it may not.

The base cards in UD Black are as expected. They are black. The base cards are also numbered (they have low numbered parallels as well) and have a "canvas" texture to them. They are also very thick. I think the design is nice and the cards stand out.

The player I received was Glen Rice. Someone as a Knicks fan I didn't like to face when he played for the Heat.

The "canvas" texture also carries on to the hits. My first hit of the pack was this on-card autograph of Calbert Cheaney. Not the biggest player to pull, but the design is nice and the gold ink looks amazing against the solid charcoal black.

The card is numbered to 75.

My second and final hit of my pack I think was the most impressive. It wasn't Michael Jordan or LeBron James, but the design did it for me. Check out this card...

BOOM! An Arena Art Booklet of Kenny Anderson #'d to 65.

I think this card looks amazing. However, I think silver ink might have worked better on this card since the autograph gets lost amongst the crowd. Despite that, it's very nice and even better looking in person. Sometimes a card isn't valuable because of an autograph or the player on the card, you sometimes have got to appreciate it for the card design itself. I appreciate this card for that reason and will keep it in my PC because of that.

Overall, I am a bit concerned on value vs price, but as for design, Upper Deck was spot on. This is one of those products where a risk is a risk but a return is a big return.