2009/10 Upper Deck Fleer Ultra Hockey Blaster Box | 12 Packs | Factory Sealed

A factory-sealed blaster box of 2009/10 Upper Deck Fleer Ultra Hockey — 12 packs of 5 cards, 60 cards in total. Base set of 200 cards.

Upper Deck published these under a dead competitor's name

Fleer Ultra, EX, Jambalaya — none of those are Upper Deck brands. They belonged to Fleer, one of the great American card companies, which went bankrupt in 2005 after more than a century in business.

Upper Deck bought the trademarks out of the wreckage, and then did something more interesting than shelving them: it brought them back. So a box from 2009 carries the branding of a company that had not existed for four years, made by the competitor that outlived it.

Jambalaya is the sharpest example. It began as an insert set in Skybox basketball in 1997/98 — a wildly coloured, instantly recognisable design that became one of the most chased inserts of the decade. Reviving it in a hockey set twelve years later is not a design decision; it is an appeal to people who remember the 1990s.

It is an unusual business: you do not buy the company, you buy the memory of it, and sell it back to the same collectors.

What the odds actually mean in twelve packs

Worth stating plainly, because most published rates for this set describe the 24-pack hobby box.

Ultra Rookies fall 1:4 packs — so roughly three per blaster. EX Hockey inserts at 1:8 give about one or two. The four superstar insert series — Scoring Kings, Crowning Achievements, Go-To Players and Total O — combine to 1:4, another three or so. Gold Medallion parallels run 1:1, meaning one in every pack.

The serious hits are long odds at this size. Ultra Uniformity jersey cards fall 1:12 — about one per blaster if the distribution is kind. Fresh Ink autographs and EX Jambalaya are both 1:288, which is one per case rather than per box.

Ice Medallion parallels are numbered to 100, with ten per case.

Who is on the good cards

Ultra Uniformity jersey cards feature Sidney Crosby, Carey Price, Marc-André Fleury, Eric Staal, Alexander Ovechkin, Ryan Miller, Jason Spezza, Kari Lehtonen and Mike Richards.

EX Jambalaya covers Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Crosby, Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr, Jonathan Toews, Jarome Iginla, Ilya Kovalchuk, Patrick Kane and Patrick Roy — a checklist that reaches back several generations rather than covering one season.

Specifications

12 packs per box · 5 cards per pack · 60 cards · Base set: 200 cards · Factory sealed · Manufacturer: Upper Deck · Brand: Fleer Ultra · Season: 2009/10

Stated insertion rates reflect an average across the entire production run; no ratio is guaranteed in any individual box.