Mixing stars of the past with stars of the present, the Upper Deck Company is releasing its latest football card set this week: 2009 Ultimate Collection Football. An impressive 219-card regular set, Ultimate Football includes some of the hobby’s most-sought-after inserts including a special retro collection sporting the same design as Upper Deck’s well-received 1997 Legends Football set. The throwback lineup includes first-time autographs on the ’97 design from some of yesteryear’s biggest stars including Dan Marino, Randall Cunningham, Bruce Smith, Darrell Green and Tim Brown.

“With a high-end product like Ultimate Collection, we’re always looking for new ways to excite our customers, drive greater value, and bring collectors closer to the athletes,” said Brandon Miller, Upper Deck’s Football brand manager. “We’ve got great game-used memorabilia in the set and put an added twist on inscription cards to make it fun for both the collector and athlete.”

Beyond the callout to the ’97 Legends Football release, which includes assorted autographs from 16 NFL greats, the 2009 set includes an all new autographed insert entitled “Ultimate Personal Touch.” This collection features unique inscriptions (crash-numbered to 3) from each of the players pertaining to their all-time favorite hero, food, movie, musician and actor. Super Bowl MVP Drew Brees, for instance, wrote “Ted Williams” as his hero and “charbroiled oysters” as his favorite food. Running back LeSean McCoy of the Eagles indicated “Bad Boys” as his favorite movie, while Seattle linebacker Aaron Curry wrote down “Batman” as his hero. Another linebacker, Rey Maualuga of the Cincinnati Bengals, spelled out “Will Smith/2 Pac” as his favorite actor/musician combo. Different strokes for different folks, as they say.

And to make this year’s offering extra special, Upper Deck has made sure that every single jersey card in the set has either at least six swatches or sports an oversized jersey swatch or is autographed. Whichever the case, collectors will not be disappointed upon cracking a pack of Upper Deck’s latest gridiron offering. The entire base set consists of 100 regular cards, 50 “Ultimate Legends” cards, 50 “Ultimate Rookies” cards and 19 “Ultimate Rookie Signature” cards (varied numbering per player).

Upper Deck’s 2009 Ultimate Collection Football (four cards per pack, one pack per hobby box) is currently on store shelves.

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