2007-08 Upper Deck Premier Franchise Faces Autographs #FFHO Hakeem Olajuwon

Let's look at a high end product today, Upper Deck Premier basketball. Many people collected cards at one point in their life and don't realize the massive changes in the hobby. For those unaware, there are several tiers and price ranges for products. Upper Deck Premier is on the very high end of the hobby.

Check out Upper Deck's press release for this product. First of all, look at the suggested retail price: $300 per seven card pack. That's right. Not $300 per case or even $300 per box. $300 for seven cards. Luckily I don't open boxes or even packs usually because I only collect Houston Cougars, but even if I did, I'd never pay $300 for a pack of cards unless I win the lottery. The good news is that people open these packs, keep what they want, and sell the rest of eBay, frequently at a decent price. That's the only way I'd collect a product like this

So what do you get for $300? One, you get a very limited print run. Second, you are guaranteed to get autographs and relics which is pretty cool. But what if you get a player you don't like or not worth much if you want to sell it?

The seven cards break down like this:
1 - Regular base card or non-autographed rookie card
2 - Rookie card with autograph and relic
3 - Patch card, possibly with autograph
4 - Autographed card
5 - Jersey card
6 - Patch/jersey card or autograph/relic card
7 - Another card from group 4-6

That's really exciting to get very cool cards like that in every pack, but again, what if you don't like the players in the pack?

This week's Olajuwon card is 2007-08 Upper Deck Premier Franchise Faces Autographs #FFHO. This is a gorgeous card with Olajuwon as the face of the Rockets franchise. I don't think there's any question that if you could only pick one player to represent the Rockets' history, it would be Hakeem. The card is very limited with only 34 made.

There is also an autograph directly on the card, not on an attached sticker. There is a problem with the autograph since it is on a very busy background. The autograph should be the highlight of the card so the card could have been designed to make the autograph stand out more.