Round 1, 2, or main event?

[windmortal]

As far as collecting goes, Round 1 is the best investment set. There weren't too many produced and MMA collectors are doing what they can to pick them up, especially the numbered /288 cards. I pre-ordered the Upper Deck Art of War early last year, and when they announced the set wasn't going to be produced, I moved those funds over for Round 1. I got them for $65 a box. :)

Also, for collecting for investment, the Pride Grand Prix cards from 2006 are getting harder and harder to find. Once in awhile, they will pop up on Ebay. I've been lucky enough to pick up a few of these XRC, including my favorite, Wandy.

As far as the second series goes, I enjoyed the cards when they first came out and I enjoyed breaking boxes, but, they just didn't do it for me. Their design isn't all that great and there were TONS produced. I put together a base set, gold parallel set and all the inserts. Just picked up relics and autos as I needed for my collection. My LCS and I have a good relationship so I was picking these up at $70 per box.
(On a side note here, and I don't know why it rubs me the wrong way, but there is no "Round 2." The correct name of the product is Topps UFC 2009. I know it's picky, picky, but as an editor of a newspaper, I need to see things correctly, especially if I know it is wrong.)

Main Event too was fun to open, but really, how much of this product is actually out there? An awful lot. I put together a few base sets and I'm still finishing up the gold parallel set and the insert sets. Like Topps UFC 2009, I'm just grabbing the relics and autos that I want in my personal collection.

Now, there's also the Donruss Americana II Ring King inserts that were released in late 2008. There's some really neat cards in this set, but from an investment standpoint, the verdict is still out. There are only 30 cards I think in the set, but so many parallels. Some aren't numbered. Others are numbered to things like 451, 238, 500, etc. Doesn't seem there is any rhyme or reason.

A few other MMA cards have popped up here and there: SportsKings, Allen and Ginter and UD Goodwin Champions. They've been fun to collect.

I hope some more companies get on the MMA cardboard bandwagon. Topps cards are nice, but I'd like a little more variety.

My couple pennies ...

[DarkEssence]

Thanks a lot for your information. I gladly appreciate it.

I am deffinitely loking more towards getting cards that look nice. I want to have a nice looking collection before having one that's worth something. I'm sure 20-30 years down the road they will all be worth something anyhow.

So I think so far I still stand at completing the second round and main event sets, before I do anything else. Thanks again. for all your opinions ad info guys.

[es_19]

between round 2 and main event...i would have to say the base cards from main event looks the best. however, i am starting to like the look of the round 2 autos more and more - the base autos from main event don't look as good IMHO.