Upper Deck

Upper Deck First Edition

The idea behind Upper Deck First Edition is a simple, but effective one.  Take the Series 1 cards, strip ‘em down and remove all of the shiny foil.  You’re left with a couple Upper Deck 20th anniversary cards per box, and a Starquest in every pack.

Stick a tiny little price tag on ‘em, and you’ve actually made it enjoyable for a kid to collect cards.  A Pack of 12 Cards runs you, 1 Canadian Dollar.

89 Cents, plus tax!

You can actually give your kid a handful of quarters, and he’ll have a blast. He was a mistake anyways, right? You don’t want to spend any more money on him than you have to, at least until you can put him to work mowing the lawn or rounding up local fowl for your illegal cock-fighting ring.

The Photography on these cards is the same as Upper Deck Series 1, and thus, amazing.  I’ve went on for endless paragraphs praising Upper Deck’s photography, and at this price point you can’t go wrong.

The Cards also LACK the glossy finish.  This probably saved Upper Deck a good chunk of money, and some collectors enjoy non-glossy cards.  Unfortunately, this set isn’t targeted towards those collectors, it’s targeted towards kids.  Kids Like Gloss! Kids like SHINY!

The lack of gloss means that these cards are terrific for autographs, whether it’s through the mail or in person.  You don’t have to rub these cards down with an eraser prior to getting them signed.  The cards soak up a sharpie pretty well, and there’s no beading.

With the good out of the way, onto the ENDLESS faults with these cards:

Awesome! I got a David Price Rookie Card! Unfortunately, we’ve got a problem, an inexcusable problem.

Cards are simple to make, you just follow these easy steps:

1. Design

2.  Print

3. Cut

CUT

While you’re never going to get these cards graded, centering is one of the 4 components in grading a card.  Whenever I buy cards, I don’t even consider the centering; cards nowadays are almost always perfectly cut — until now.

The cutting machine is off about an eighth of an inch.  This problem rears it’s ugly head on about one-third of the cards that I purchased.

David Price is missing a chunk off the top, and you can see a rather large chunk of the next card on the bottom.

Card, after CARD, after CARD!

I bought a blaster box of the 2008 First Edition, and not a single card was noticeably screwed up.  Obviously with 2008’s design, it’s a lot harder to tell — but the backs all look fine.

DESIGN

Same design as Upper Deck Series One, except that awful gold bar on the left side.  Throw in an off-centre brand-name, and bingo-bango-bongo.

I hate to speculate, but it’s almost as if Upper Deck went out of their way to make these cards uglier than Series 1.

In 2008, it was simple; instead of printing the players name in foil, it was printed in white ink.  One less step in the printing process, meant Upper Deck saved cash-money and thus, the consumer saved money.

So, while you can’t expect perfection from Upper Deck’s most affordable option, you are still giving them you’re god-damn money:  Money for CARDBOARD, CARDBOARD with PICTURES.

Conclusion

I didn’t expect much from these cards, but I did expect something.  These cards are less than a third of the price of Upper Deck Series 1, but I can’t help but feel ripped off.

I thought the StarQuest were nicer than last year, but I can’t help but fixate on the major screw-up in the production process.

When you’re attempting to hook a kid on your trading cards for the next ten years, you should at least offer them a nice card.  For 1 dollar more, the kid could grab a pack of Topps Series 1.

I have no clue why the Production Line over at Upper Deck is so off this year.  I’ve had creased inserts, bent cards, broken corners and chips in the middle of cards.

What happened to Upper Deck’s production line this year?

They’re turning good cards into garbage, and garbage cards into Mariah Carey albums.

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