Upper Deck

WaxHeaven.com Contest Bounty

My dedication to just about everything, can be questioned.  By no means do I lack enthusiasm; I’m full of piss and vinegar, but I’ve got some issues with dedication.  I’ve maintained interest in a couple of things for more than about 6 months, both of which cost too much money and would have terribly adverse effects if I ever planned on quitting.  Chain smoking’s obviously one of them and my lovely girlfriend is the other.  Other than those, I realistically can’t think of a single thing that’s stood the test of time.

Card collecting is approaching that magical six month mark, and it’s still fairly enjoyable.  Nothing, of course, is more enjoyable than getting free things.  Mario over at WaxHeaven.com, held a contest sponsored by the Upper Deck company.  The entire autograph set from UD’s Spectrum of the Stars was given away in a contest.

Spectrum Contest

Cheech and Chong, or Cheech Marin and Tommy Chong of Up in Smoke fame were my bounty.  This is absolutely wonderful, and I couldn’t be anymore pleased.  I remember discovering Up in Smoke for the first time in high-school and loved it.  Smoking up wasn’t my thang per se, but the movie itself is hilarious.

Cheech Marin’s still tearing up the acting scene and while born in California, I feel safe entitling him the Mexican Sam Jackson.  Marin’s been in absolutely everything and recently finished “The Perfect Game,” the story of the first team that wasn’t American to win the Little League World Series. In 1957 Angel Marcias managed to throw a perfect game to lead Mexico to the title.  Good movie? maybe…

Tommy Chong hasn’t acted nearly as much, but the majority of you will know him from his recurring role on That 70′s Show.  Chong took to promoting pipes and bongs on the interwebz for his son, which apparently isn’t exactly legal in all American jurisdictions.  Chong was sentenced to 9 months.  Josh Gilbert detailed the entire saga in his docu-pic  A/K/A Tommy Chong.

On Ebay, the Cheech card is selling for about 10 dollars more than the Chong card, which befuddles me.  Tommy is by far the more interesting of the two, but I guess Marin’s more in the spot-light.

It’s always nice to get something that you love but probably would never buy, like new underwear with an elastic waistband that still holds it form, or white socks that are still white.

Thanks!

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.

2009 Upper Deck SPX: A Couple Packs, A Quick Review.

Upper Deck, 2009 SPX Baseball:

I bought a pack of SPx today, actually two packs — two loose packs.  I’ve really grown to trust this hobby shop, but there’s no way I’m dropping money on a box, yet.

Maybe later though, because I really like this product. I’ll have to look through the insert list, and the pull – odds, but I’m sure they’re fine.  I’ll take a pack of this over Spectrum, any day of the week.

Even the packaging to the left is sharp, I like it as much as I can like shiny packaging.  Anyways, onto the fun stuff:

I pulled a double Game Used of two of the best pitchers out there.  The Card says Sabathia is a Yankee but he’s wearing a Brewers outfit, and I actually think the material is Cleveland Indians Grey.

Peavy is wearing a batting helmet.  Top-10 Pitcher, and he’s pictured…hitting.  This literally ruined the card for me, ruined it.  I was excited when I opened it up and saw the beautiful white that informed me that this was an insert and not a decoy — and then, BAM!

Speaking of the Decoys, they no longer tell you how much you’ll save off Upper Deck Memorabilia. It’s a mystery amount, ooooh -aaaaah. I bet it’s 20 percent.

Then I pulled me a numbered Joe DiMaggio, from a series of probably 8-trillion.  I like Joe DiMaggio, and I like these cards.  Unfortunately, I still do not like the Yankees.

I was very happy with this pull other than those bloody 20th anniversary cards.  Morneau, Hernandez, Rios and Wells, and a couple more keepers.  I’ll post a gallery to follow.

Upper Deck Spectrum: How To Play With Fire, and Hopefully Not Get Burnt

This is the most expensive product I’ve reviewed so far, and boy is it shiny.  I wouldn’t open a box of these around the Organ Grinder and his monkey.

As the Organ Grinder would play his little barrel organ around the turn of the century, his little monkey would scour the crowd and surrounding sidewalk for cash-money.

Occasionally, the monkey would get distracted by other shiny things and perform the first victim-less crime — theft of shiny things by a trained monkey.

This is why instead of paying the $115 CDN for a box of spectrum which contains 14 packs of 5 cards, you should spend about $50 on an illegally imported monkey, $20 on a hat, and the remaining 45-dollars using negative reinforcement to train the monkey.  In addition to your 70 cards, you’ll have enough empirical data to get published in the Journal of  Anthropological Research.  Seems like a win-win to me, a noted monkey expert.

So you’ve stolen your box of 2009 Edition Upper Deck Spectrum, what should you expect? Upper Deck says:

Content Highlights

• Two Autograph cards per box, one of which will be a Spectrum of Stars celebrity autograph card, on average!
• 20th Anniversary Memorabilia cards one (1) per hobby case, on average!
• One memorabilia card per box, on average!
• Two autographed cards per box, on average!
• Press Plates, one per case on average!
• 20th Anniversary cards randomly inserted!
• Look for three (3) random Hot Boxes in each hobby case containing three (3) memorabilia cards and three (3) autographed cards!
• Look for celebrity cut-signature cards!
• One (1) autographed buyback card per case, on average!

20th Anniversary Memorabilia:

• 2009 Spectrum will be the first project in baseball to include 20th Anniversary Memorabilia cards!  Look for memorabilia cards of the most elite athletes across all four sports such as Michael Jordan, Sidney Crosby, Wayne Gretzky, Peyton Manning, and the greatest golfer in the world, Tiger Woods!

Product Breakdown

Regular Cards and Rookies

• 100 Regular Cards
• 30 Spectrum Rookie Signatures

Inserts and Parallel Cards

• Red Base set Parallel (#’ed to 399)
• Orange Base set Parallel (#’ed to 299)
• Green Base set Parallel (#’ed to 99)
• Black Base set Parallel (#’ed to 50)
• Gold Base set Parallel (#’ed to 25)

Autograph Cards (2 per box, on average)

• Spectrum Rookie Signatures
• Spectrum of  Stars Autographs
• Spectrum of Star Die-Cut Autographs (#’ed up to 50)
• Spectrum of Swatches Dark Gray Autographs (#’ed up to 99)

The Base Card is pretty much what you’d expect out of a premium brand card.  It’s sleek and modern, and it appears as though Upper Deck has trained monkeys of it’s own clipping away the background from their photos.

Nothing is more upsetting than purchasing a premium baseball card and realizing that there are artifacts from the background stuck to the side of the player, or an overly feathered edge (Dear Donruss, take note).  If you’re paying what amounts to about a dollar per card, the player should have crisp and clean edges.

Speaking of which, if you’re paying one-hundred and fifteen dollars for a box of Upper Deck spectrum; You better pray to the Sweet Baby Jesus that you don’t pull “Rocket Man” from High School Musical 3. Matt Proko currently cannot be given away on eBay, as people are shying away from the minimum 99 cent bid.  Aren’t you glad you dropped 115 bucks on this sucker?

At this point, I’d normally go into the photography and general composition of the card.  Unfortunately, these cards are just players on different color backgrounds.  Obviously, you’re going to want to pull a Gold Spectrum numbered to 25, even if it’s ugly as hell.

The base-card is probably the most appealing to the eye, at least in my not-so-humble opinion, although I’m quite a fan of the black parallel.

I’m not bothered by both Erik Bedard nor Xadier Nady wearing the uniforms of their previous teams, not at all.  While I understand sarcasm doesn’t really come across on the internet, this my friend is ridiculous.

Bedard was signed, not last year but the year before! I know he was a whole-lotta hurt last year for the Mariners, but this is getting ridiculous.  Nady was a trade-deadline guy, and played more than a handful of games in the Media capital of the world.

If you don’t have a half decent shot of the guys, please for the love of god don’t put it in. The kicker is, Upper Deck was able to get a Game Worn Jersey from Erik Bedard as a Mariner but was unable to find a photo of him.

Okay, It’s Time For The Hits

This is where I think Upper Deck is seriously playing with fire.  I have a firm view on Die-Cut autographs, and that view is simple: they’re awesome.

However, Upper Deck apparently realized that people will pay an inordinate amount of money for Cut autographs and started putting out cut-autos of every imaginable person.

Here is the reasoning behind a cut auto: The autograph comes from a person who has died, or has at least lost both of their arms in a terrible wood-chipping accident.  Either way, the point is the person can no longer sign an autograph. So you root around his or her personal shit until you find a bounced check, or something.  Bam! Cut it out, throw it in a card.

This is what gives them value, not that they’re cut out, but that the person is no longer around to sign any more autographs.

If the person is living, then you’re just saturating the market.

While I love how Jennifer Connelly manages to show off her god-given talent for getting naked in every movie she’s ever been in; Do we really need a cut-auto?

Angie Dickinson is 77 years old, but she isn’t quite to the point where she needs a cut-auto.

Yup, you’re correct in guessing this is indeed a Paris Hilton die-cut Spectrum Celebrity Signature from their 2008-series run.

It’s numbered 7 of 8, and is currently listed for an outrageous 500 dollars on eBay.

These cut-autos hold their value, and if you’re lucky enough to pull one, you’ve just paid for 4 or 5 boxes.

I still don’t get it though, considering most of these celebrities will sign an 8×10 if you stick it in front of them. I’m sure you can snag a PSA/DNA certified autograph of any one of these living celebrity stars for far cheaper than their cut-cards.

Hrm…

Game Used and Auto

Here we have your basic swatch, plate and celebrity auto.  Lots of Letter-Swatches, and everyone likes letter swatches.  If you’re a collector of GU, you’re probably a bit more excited about the 3-color thing, than I am.

Printing plates are my thing however, and these look like some of the better ones I’ve seen.  While the cards aren’t mind blowing, the printing plates are.  They almost have a little modern-day Allen and Ginter to ‘em.  Very simple, and a tiny little logo.

The Celebrity Autos vary quite a bit.  You could end up with any number of 80′s hair metal bands, or someone like Al Bundy ( Ed O’Neil).  I’m not sure how Cheech Marin resonates with the younger collector, but Up In Smoke which debuted in ’78, is probably the driving force behind sales of his auto.

It’s pretty clear to see who Upper Deck’s target audience is with it’s premium Spectrum product. With 80′s icons like Cheech and Chong, Al Bundy, Bert Reynolds, Brutus “The Barber” Beefcake and Sarah Conor we’re thinking that their ideal collector is in his late-20′s / early-30′s.

Throw in some autographs of 22-year old talking breasts (Kim Kardashian/ Susie Feldmen / Kendra Wilkinson) and I’m starting to think that Upper Deck understands how important large breasts are to the average collector.

Upper Deck Rookie Spectrum Signatures

2009	101	David Price	Rays	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	102	Conor Gillaspie	Giants	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	103	Jeff Baisley	Athletics	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	104	Angel Salome	Brewers	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	105	Aaron Cunningham	Athletics	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	106	Lou Marson	Phillies	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	107	Matt Antonelli	Padres	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	108	Michael Bowden	Red Sox	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	109	Francisco Cervelli	Yankees	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	110	Phil Coke	Yankees	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	111	Josh Outman	Athletics	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	112	Shairon Martis	Nationals	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	113	Mat Gamel	Brewers	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	114	Josh Geer	Padres	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	115	Greg Golson	Phillies	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	116	Kila Ka’aihue	Royals	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	117	Wade LeBlanc	Padres	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	118	Chris Lambert	Tigers	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	119	James Parr	Braves	Spectrum Rookie Signatures
2009	120	Matt Tuiasosopo	Mariners	Spectrum Rookie Signatures

The Rookie class this year seems pretty solid, and everyone will be lusting for that David Price auto.  I’m also a fan of the Gamel, Salome, Cillaspie, Ka’aihue, and Cunningham this year. Actually, I’m happy with all of the autographs this year.  The cards themselves look solid, but there’s nothing particularly ground-breaking-new-omfg about them.

Buybacks: I’m not the biggest fan of buybacks unless they’re incredibly expensive on the eBay.  Are you excited when you pull a Rick Ankiel autographed SPx? They’re on eBay from 15 to 40 bucks.  If I get a buyback, I want the potential for a card that I can’t purchase on eBay on a modern budget.

The Full Upper Deck Spectrum Checklist is available here.

Conclusion

This is a premium product, and while it’s not quite a “Sterling” product, it’s still a neat set.  It falls nicely somewhere between Upper Deck Series 1, and the big-boys of Premium trading cards.

The celebrity autographs and cut autos are neat, but  you are paying for them.  They’re probably constituting a third of the purchase price, so as long as you understand that you’re paying about 70 bucks for a baseball set, and 45 bucks on a celebrity set — this is a nice set.

With the Spectrum product, it’s pretty much a requirement to buy a box rather than loose packs.  Spending 12 dollars on a loose pack that’s undoubtedly been searched, is risky business.

I won’t go into how i’d like to see Upper Deck’s 20th anniversary cards removed from their entire line-up, but they’ll make appearances and you’ll grow to hate them.

This is a great set for those who plan on selling a chunk of their hits while keeping the base cards.  The foiled appearance is nice, and there’s plenty of numbered sub-sets.  The hits are plentiful, and the 100 card set is small enough to not blow your entire budget on one product.

2009 Upper Deck Series 1 – A Sizable, But Not Complete, Review

Unlike the Topps ’09 product, I haven’t brought myself to buy a box of these suckers.  It’s been more so a pack or two at a time journey, with a few stops on eBay. The Upper Deck Series 1 cards in 2009 are beautiful, and they’ve pumped up the volume; increasing the size of the base-set around 100 cards from 2008.

Series 1 Baseball now comes in at a mind-numbing, how am I going to afford this on my budget, 500-card base set. If anyone at Upper Deck is reading this, fire a box this way and you’ll get a couple hundred more words on your product.

Did I forget to mention it’s Upper Decks’ 20th Anniversary? Well, it is and if you buy a couple packs you’re bound to be reminded of this trivial one-fifth of a century accomplishment.  If you’re lucky, maybe Ken Griffey Jr. will pop up and tell you that it’s really been 20 years.

It seems like just yesterday Upper Deck was raising the prices for their Premium cards and driving every other card company out of business. I wonder if there’s a 20th anniversary card for “Junk Wax”.

Personally, I’d love to see a 20th anniversary card for August ’07, a summer that will live in infamy with card collectors. The Harvard Law Journal, and Forbes Magazine cover it here and here. Basically, a group lead by Mikey Eisner of Disney Fame tried to buy Topps for $9.75/share, and Upper Deck offered $10.75/share — Shit hit the fan, failed hostile takeover bids ensued, monopoly and anti-trust were words thrown around like monkey feces at the San Diego Zoo.  If you’re into that kind of stuff, it’s definitely worth a google.

The Break-Down:

Base Set
500 Cards

Inserts and Parallel Cards
Base Set Gold Parallel (# to 99)
1975 O-Pee-Chee Insert
1975 O-Pee-Chee Mini Insert
Yankee Stadium Legacy Update
UD Documentary Update

Autograph Cards (1 per box, on average)
Inkredible
UD Game Jersey Autographs #’ed up to 99

Memorabilia Cards (2 per box, on average)
UD Game Jersey
UD Game Jersey Double swatch #’ed up to 149
UD Game Jersey Triple swatch #’ed up to 99
UD Game Jersey Quad swatch #’ed up to 15
UD Game Jersey Autographs #’ed up to 99
Piece of History 500 Home Run Club Bat
USAB 18U National Team Jerseys
USAB 18U National Team Jersey Patch #’ed up to 25
USAB 18U National Team Jersey Autographs #’ed up to 25

You can view the entire Checklist, right here.  Taken from the UpperDeck.com website, here’s there odds on a box-break:

Two (2) MLB Memorabilia Cards, one in which is either a dual, triple, or quad serial numbered to 199 or less.

500 card base set which is 100 cards bigger than the 2008 set.

One (1) Inkredible autograph

Two (2) inserts in every hobby pack!

20th Anniversary cards one (1) in every two (2) packs!

Yankee Stadium Legacy Update cards one (1) in every four (4) packs!

Documentary Update cards one (1) in every four (4) packs!

1975 O-Pee-Chee Insert cards one (1) in every six (6) packs

So, that’s what we should expect if we drop the 89.00 bucks Canadian on this sucker.  We’re getting 16 packs of 20 cards per, so it’s a fairly solid price point.

The Base Card:

You can go about rooting through the Gallery, and obviously click to make stuff big:

It’s true, Upper Deck has far and away the best looking baseball cards out there at this price-point.  I’m not a fan of the shiney-foil-chrome-golden-shower type cards, and while I’m a huge fan of the white-border, my second favourite border is no border at all.

Here stands Orlando Cabrera, in what rates as a strong 7 out of 10 for last years 2008 Series 1 Baseball.  2009 steps it up, and provides a much better design.  While the bottom of the 2009 card is monopolized by type and logo, I can’t say that I mind too much.

Lucky for Upper Deck, they’ve decided to use the transparent function on their favourite photo editing suite.  It makes for a very sharp card, and sometimes if the contrast is just right — I’m damn happy it’s there.  Other times, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

I can’t even begin to say how much of an improvement 2009 series 1 is over 2007, so I wont.  2007 is a year I’d just like to forget about, when it comes to card aesthetics.

The Photography:

Upper Deck destroys Topps in this category.  It may lag in other places that I’ll point out later, but the photography is gorgeous.  If you actually take time to look at your baseball cards, rather than just throwing base cards into a stack while you root for “1 OF 1, OMFG, GU-CHROME-JERSEY-AUTO, OMFG-DIE-CUT”, then you’ll love this set.

As I mentioned with the Topps Series 1 Review, whomever is taking the photos for Upper Deck, and I believe it might just be a trip to Getty Images, knows how to frame a subject and has some seriously expensive camera equipment. The Bokeh on these photos is gorgeous and the ballplayer pops right off the card.

The range of photos is also superior to Topps’ with base cards including great shots from the Home Run Derby, and various other events.  One thing I did notice, and took quite a liking to, were the shots of players signing autographs.

I have no clue why I like these photos so much, because I’d generally hate any card-photo that doesn’t show a player a) wearing his regular season uniform or b) playing baseball.

I enjoy these photos though, so long as they’re not too prevalent in the set.

The Cuddyer photo to the right appears as if strong-armed Mikey has just finished signing a Topps Chrome from last year.  I wonder which UD employee figured that’d be a great idea.

Furthermore, I wonder how Cuddyer’s auto looks in that lovely black sharpie on a card that already has his printed black auto on it.

Regardless, these shots really made my day, and showcase part of the life of a baseball player that I’m sure most of ‘em wish they could avoid. Upper Deck really has put together strong photography, especially in their horizontally scaled cards.

After The Base Set Comes The Inserts

The O-Pee-Chee Inserts are nice, real nice.  They pretty much save the insert set.

If I were a Yankee fan, maybe I’d want a bunch of cards telling me about the history of Yankee stadium — but I’m not, and I don’t.  I enjoy baseball’s historic past, but the YSL is a bit of overkill.

But not as much of an overkill as the Upper Deck Documentary Inserts.  I can’t even begin to fathom why someone would ever want to collect this set.  I was thinking about the possibility of grabbing a few of these cards for displays.  Maybe if you go to a great game, and your favourite player hits a home-run — you grab one card.  Otherwise, what’s the point?

The OPC’s come in full size and a paralleled mini, which is pretty solid.  I’m not a huge fan of the mini cards as they’re a pain in the ass to care for, but they’re neat none the less.

Sweet Baby Jesus, We’ve got the US Under 18 Baseball Squad. I’m not sure how I feel about these guys.  They’re nice cards, and obviously come in their own parallels and GU, all serial numbered and such, but — I’m not American.

Now, I realize 99.99 percent of card buyers are American so maybe this card makes sense. If you’re American and want to comment on how these lovelies make you feel like drinking Budweiser and talking about how you used to be able to hit 97mph on the radar gun –be my guest.

The Historic Predictors also aren’t my cup of tea, and I’m really beginning to think that Upper Deck LLC randomly pulls ideas out of that Feces-Tossing-San-Diego-Zoo-Monkey’s Ass, that I mentioned earlier. The presidential predictors sell cards though, so they can’t be completely faulted. As Per Upper Deck’s giant sticker; This may be the only collectible of President Obama that was a) made in America and b) does not contain lead.

I did manage to grab 95/99 of my favourite new Tampa Bay Ray, Pat Burrell.  I didn’t even realize I’d pulled one of these until I went back to organize the lot.  I think I feel slightly better about pulling a /99 card than pulling so many /2009 cards from the Topps packs I’ve bought.

Interesting, eh? Reviews of Inserts and Parallels.  You’re the one who clicked on a title that said “sizable review”, I just spent an afternoon watching Eastbound and Down, and typing up said review.

and now onto…

The Hits, GU, AUTO — All That Jazz

This actually blows my mind, and I guess I’ll start with the good and work my way down.  First off, the best of the bunch seems to be the numbered to 89, autographed Griffey Jr. rookie card.  The Griffey Card on eBay is sitting at about $450.00 with a day or so left on it.  I’m sure it’ll finish around 700-ish, but that won’t compare to Topps’ high-end cut signatures.

After the Griffey, we’re left with a whole lot of nothing from the Inkredible Series:

Chris Resop, Tony Gwynn Jr, Micah Owings, Dustin Moseley, Xavier Nady, Jeff Keppinger, Ian Kinsler, Elijah Dukes, Glen Perkins, Brian Bruney, Edison Volquez, David Murphy, Aaron Laffey, Luke Scott, Marlon Byrd, Joey Gathright, Taylor Bucholz, Brandon Harris, David Eckstein, Andy Sonnanstine, Erick Aybar, Craig Breslow, Yunel Escobar, Jeff Baker, Chris Duffy, and Jack Cust.

Any and all of these cards, save possibly the Kinsler and Volquez, are available on eBay for the minimum bid. The other day, I purchased a Gathright, Escobar, Dukes and Jeff Baker for about 5 dollars plus shipping.

Upper Deck does offer the USA under 18 squad autographs though, which look nice enough.  I believe the Tate to the left is pack-pulled from the UD Series 1.  I always enjoy when pack-searchers screw themselves with massive disasters on the beveling surrounding the game-used portion.

Other than that, you’re going to get your standard game-used cards.   You’ll either get a 1 piece, 2 piece, 3 piece or 4 piece.

I managed to pull a Josh Hamilton, 3 piece, out of one of the packs and was quite pleased.

The cards are not bad, but the fake-jersey looking photoshop edit to fill the first couple of letters on the card if it’s only a 1-piece jersey card is awful.

Other than that, the cards are nice, and I like the fading.  Unfortunately, like some of the Topps inserts, the UD inserts are really coming out of packs chipped, scratched, bent, whatever.  If you’re going to put an insert in the pack that sells on eBay for barely 4.00 bucks in mint condition; You gotta make sure that it at least comes off the assembly line in decent shape.

Upper Deck makes up for their awful inkredible list of players, with a very solid player selection in the GU department. Do people still even value game-used memorabilia?

Conclusion

I have hard time justifying the higher price-point based solely on photography.  You’ll be able to purchase the 500 card set on the cheap in a month or so.  At this point you’re paying for the inserts, and quite frankly, I can’t bring myself to do it.  Even paying 10 bucks for a “Hot Pack” on eBay seems like a little bit of overkill for a .99 cent insert.

This isn’t a bad set to collect, and it’s an improvement on previous years but it’s still lacking in the awesome department.  My view however, may be jaded, because I’m not an American residing in New York City.  If that was the case, the U-18 and YSL inserts would probably best the Ring of Honor and Legends of the Game inserts that Topps offers.

Baseball Cards and the Economy; A Mini-Essay On Topps and Upper Deck

It’s a strange thing how recessions work, and you can tune into CNN to see just how strange it is. The necessities of life are increasing in price at an alarming rate and broken banks are giving out multi-million dollar bonuses. Food, the most essential of the bunch, has increased in price and further increases are predicted reports the Boston Globe.

With such sharp inflation, a drastic drop in demand for non-essential luxury products should be expected, right? For the most part this is the case with luxuries like premium brews taking a rather large hit. Gambling oriented trips to Vegas are also down, as the average American prefers to hold onto his or her earnings.

One would assume Baseball Trading Cards would also fall into this category.  No one needs baseball cards, and there’s no justifiable reason to spend money on cards rather than food.  Unfortunately, this is not the case as Topps and Upper Deck have both reported a complete sell-out of their flagship product, Series 1 Baseball, along with many other 2008/2009 products.

This is still quite the accomplishment, even operating under the assumption that both Topps and Upper Deck downsized their print-run of Series 1 Baseball to deal with the current economic climate. Both Topps and Upper Deck produced a superior product this year, probably their best product in a few years, but this isn’t the reason why packs are flying off the shelves.  In Toronto, not exactly a baseball-mecca, both major hobby shops have reported an unpredicted increase in sales. What’s driving these sales?

It’s the economy stupid!

Earlier, I mentioned that Vegas’ revenue had dropped during the recession but conversely almost all state lotteries are reporting an increase in sales. It may seem paradoxical, but people without money are spending more money on the infinitely small shot at winning the jackpot.

The ease at which someone can sell a sports card has essentially turned a hobby into a business. The business of sports cards has now been transformed into, you guessed it, the lottery.  This is a lottery that minimizes losses, while providing a shot at the golden ticket, or jackpot.

The odds of winning the baseball card lottery? The jackpot, a die-cut auto of Babe Ruth or Walter Johnson, will come in somewhere around 1 in 150,000 per pack. Winning the local Canadian lottery, Lotto 6/49, will run you somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 14-Million.

While your die-cut autograph may only fetch a few thousand compared to the lottery’s million dollar pay-out, your losses are negated by the endless possibilities of cards you could potentially pull. Whether it’s an autograph, game used memorabilia, a sketch card or a short printed card; You’re looking at taking the two to five dollars you spent on a pack of cards and turning it into 10, 50, or 100 bucks on eBay. When you lose the lottery, you get a piece of paper or maybe a free ticket.

Unfortunately for these sports cards gamblers, the mid-price-range secondary market is suffering from the same recession.  The high end is still alive and well, but when there was once 10 people bidding on a $5000 card, there are now only 3 — thus lowering the payout on a 1 in 200,000 sports card. It’s still a nice pay-out for someone having trouble paying rent, though. The dream of striking it rich through a pack of cards isn’t completely dead.

The lasting long term effects will be noticeable, and however detrimental they are in the short term they’ll be equally as profitable in the long term. Even though fewer sports cards were printed, more of the sports cards will appear on the secondary market. This will increase the perceived amount of cards on the market, and thus lower their fair-market value in an auction format like eBay. Combine this with fewer collectors willing to spend money on the secondary market, and you’re going to get Autographs going for their .99 cent minimum.

In the long term, collectors will enjoy 2009′s set as not only a beautiful set, but also a valuable set. With fewer hobbyists and more sports-cards-gamblers purchasing the cards, they will not remain in pristine condition.  Many of the “worthless” base-cards will just be thrown away or stuffed into a shoe-box. Combine this with a shorter print run, and you have the potential for added value ten years from now — if, of course, the sports card industry is still alive.  Unfortunately, in this recession people do not want money 10 years from now — they want it now.

In closing, I cannot help but recommend purchasing the incredibly cheap secondary-market cards off eBay.  There aren’t as many of them out there as it appears, and they’ll maintain value.

As for those people snapping up sports cards in the misguided hopes of pulling a card worth thousands; Enjoy the hobby and try to remember that a $5000 card is only worth what someone is willing to pay.

2009 Upper Deck Baseball Series 1, Rivals Insert.

Upper Deck has a RIVALS subset in their 2009 Series 1 and it’s all pretty, and shiny.  The idea itself seemed like a fairly solid one — for football.  You take an offensive and defensive lineman that smash each other for 60 minutes, twice a year, then you have a rivalry.  I’d even settle for a HINES WARD vs. KEITH RIVERS rivalry card.

What kind of Rivalries do you have in baseball though? Maybe Roger Clemens vs. Mike Piazza?  Who knows.  Upper Deck apparently believes that geography is the only thing determines a rivalry.

Roy Halladay, a career ace, versus Joba Chamberlain who’s pitched maybe 200 innings in his entire career? My favourite rivalry on this card is Upper Deck versus Geography.  Toronto apparently is a suburb of the bustling super-city of Buffalo, New York.  Anyways, here’s some more realistic Rivalry Cards:

JOSH HAMILTON vs. FUN

I’m not sure who’s winning this rivalry, and it’ll be hard to proclaim a winner until the very end.

If you see a clear winner in any of these rivalries, leave a comment but as of now I see them all as “PUSHes”.