My two cents on 2008 UD Goudey

Since everybody else seems to be doing "Second Thoughts" columns on UD Goudey, here's mine.

What I like about 2008 UD Goudey

• The size. It's 2008, not 1934. We like our cards 2.5" X 3.5". This was the main flaw of last year's UDG. We get the authenticity of the mini cards, but save 'em for the parallel.
  
• The larger size of the base set. The bigger the base set, the better. You can't complain about 42 extra cards.
  

What I don't like about 2008 UD Goudey

• More SPs. Unfortunately, all those extra cards were added short-prints. Now I wouldn't mind a set with 130 SPs. But the base set is only 330 cards, and the insertion ratio is only 1:2.571/packs. As it is, nearly 40% of the cards in 2008 UDG will be SPed.
  

Here's a rule of thumb for those of you at Topps and UD who are reading this (and I know you are), so you might want to take notes. 25%. No more than 25% of the cards in a base set should be short-printed.

• The Presidents and Sportkings Sports Royalty subsets. This is an instance of UD making cards that they think collector's want, instead of what collector's actually want. Yeah, we get it. It's an election year. But it's time to put this gimmick to bed already. As for the Sports Royalty, this is a subset that would work better as an insert.
  
• The $5 pack price. $5 seems a bit steep for a product like this. Heritage has been at the $3 since it's inception and TA&G has an MSRP of $4 -- although it rarely sells for that.
  

What I'm indifferent about 2008 UD Goudey

• The one-per-box autograph and gamer. Of course, this is the reason why UDG is $5/pack.