Awesome Mailday!

This CR7 card is one I'd been looking to pick up for quite awhile now. The last time I spotted one on eBay I was outbid at the last moment so I wanted to make sure I didn't miss out this time. Fortunately I was able to get it this time and as you can imagine I was extremely happy when I found it sitting in my mailbox.

I'm loving this acquisition, especially for the bargain price I paid. The only thing I'm not happy with is the fact that the autograph stickers that Upper Deck used in the mid 2000's not only look bad but apparently the signatures on them don't hold up well over time, unfortunately that is the case with mine. With all that said though, UD's the only manufacturer to get a Cristiano Ronaldo auto from (don't get me started on Futera's autos) and they're all signed on a sticker so in that sense this is about as good as a certified Cristiano auto's gonna get. Needless to say, this one's going straight to my PC.

What Could Have Been...

A while back I came across a very interesting blog (http://sportscollectorinparadise.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/the-story-behind-the-collectible-my-beckham-mancrush/) about the excellent Manchester United trading cards Upper Deck produced years ago. The article offers insight into the blog author's experiences working on the products, his fandom of David Beckham and getting to meet Becks himself, among other things. What really caught my attention however was the excerpts that are quoted below:

"After a trip to London the next day to talk with distributors and to make a pitch presentation to get the English Premier League trading card license, I went back to Manchester for more meetings.

He would be sold to Real Madrid after the season and with him went the sales of Upper Deck’s trading cards. Real Madrid was unrealistic in their expectations for Upper Deck to get a trading card deal done, so we didn’t follow Beckham there. Further, it would take the next Man Utd #7, Cristiano Ronaldo, a few years to become one of the top players in the world and a household name, so Upper Deck did not continue producing Manchester United cards."

Upper Deck producing cards for the Premier League and Real Madrid was apparently a possibility. It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of Upper Deck's trading card products in terms of design and quality, so I would have been absolutely thrilled with UD having both of those licenses. Obviously none of these possibilities came to fruition but all of this leaves me wondering about what could've been...