Big PC Mailday!

Just picked up this sweet Rafa Márquez autographed jersey. A few of these cards had popped up on eBay before but I had missed out on them so I pounced at the chance to finally pick this one up. This card's also the last of Marquez's 3 different certified autos I had yet to add to my collection. There is one minor error - The back of the card states: "We hope you enjoy this piece of hockey history" - Fail!

Still an awesome card though.

Beware Of Fake Autographs On eBay

Check out this horrible, 2010 Upper Deck World of Sports fake David Beckham auto I came accross on eBay. There's so many things wrong with this shitty attempt at Beckham's signature that it's not even funny. First of all the signature is nowhere near a genuine Becks sig, see below for the authentic UD Man Utd example.

Second of all notice how the "World of Sports" lettering is red on these un-signed base cards pictured below of Beckham and Thierry Henry. There were autographed parallels of these base cards but those had a guarantee of authenticity on the back and the visible difference of "World of Sports" text in blue, as can be seen further down.

The actual certified parallel autos from this set have the aforementioned blue lettering and the sticker auto such as Pablo Mastroeni and Beckham himself who does have an autographed parallel although it does not feature his signature on the sticker but rather that of former MLSer Luciano Emílio. See this link for more info on that error auto.

Sadly it appears some bidders have fallen for the fast one this seller is trying to pull.

Another Great Mailday Batch - With 1 Exception

I got these purchases from eBay in the mail recently and was absolutely stoked with the first two, both of them will be going strsight into my PC.

First up this Thierry Henry 2011 Upper Deck SP Game-Used jersey card. IMO the card has a solid design and I got it for a bargain price so I'm definitely thrilled about that.

Next up I got a Rafa Márquez certified auto from the 2012 UD World of Sports product. I'm especially happy about picking this one up since it's my first legit certified Márquez auto.

Lastly I picked up this 2009 UD MLS Cuauhtémoc Blanco jersey. Sadly the card was mailed in a plain non padded envelope without a toploader and arrived damaged being significantly creased, also had quite a bit of chipping on the side edges. It was "reinforced" with a piece of cardboard but obviously that wasn't enough protection, check out the 3 creases around the jersey window cutout to see what I mean. Not happy at all with this shit so I will no doubt be looking to be reimbursed by the seller for this dud.

First Ever SCB Box Break

To be honest there's just not that many contemporary unopened soccer products out there worth opening so I mainly stick to buying only the singles I want. However I do sometimes pick up a box from an older collection I'm interested in, especially if the price is right as was the case with my recently busted 36 pack box of 1994 Upper Deck Wold Cup.

I had yet to pick up this preview edition World Cup set so this was a great chance to add it to my WC sets collection. Here's the breakdown of the "hits" from my box break as pictured in the scan below. I got 4 different "Bora Selects" inserts which the back of the pack states that the odds of finding these is 1:12 packs. Next I got 2 SP "Honorary Captain" inserts (1:24 odds) including Michael Jordan. Lastly I got 6 (3 not pictured) "World Cup Super Star Holograms" inserts. I have heard that these hologram cards were originally meant to be stickers and it makes sense because they are much thinner than the rest of the cards and very flimsy, still nice looking cards though plus I absolutely smashed the odds on these as they're stated odds are only 1:18 buit I got 6 in 36 packs!

As a result of this fun and dirt cheap break I now have the complete base set for my PC and a spare one to trade, as well as the entire Hologram insert set. I still need plenty of inserts especially the Bora and SSP Honorary Captains so if anyone out there has 'em I'd be interested in trading for them.

2012 Upper Deck Soccer Preview

The latest 2012 Upper Deck MLS product's sell sheet was recently made available. based on these pics I'm not sure I like the design yet. I did notice a few interesting tidbits with the new additions to the collection in the form of MLS throwbacks and the update set redemptions. I'm not exactly sure what they're about but I'd be thrilled if the throwback set had something to do with the various legendary footballers which have had stints in MLS such as Lothar Matthäus, Hugo Sánchez, Hristo Stoichkov, Carlos Valderrama, etc.

I seriously doubt this is the case though since Upper Deck seems to be having a hard time paying for athlete's signatures lately with UD continuing to face legal woes, the latest being a lawsuit from the NFL (gridiron) for breach of contract. Apparently UD have not been paying paying money owed to players for obtaining their signatures on trading cards. Surely if they can't meet the obligation of paying for auots then that's a sure sign that UD are in dire straits. I fear this may be the end of the line for UD and their soccer cards so this very well could be the last of UD's MLS products. Hopefully it's a good collection in case they do go out of business so they can at least go out with a bang.

Women's Soccer Cards, Who Knew?

Lately I've been quite busy with a move to a new home and hadn't the opportunity to login to my computer much let alone my blog. As I get settled in the new entries will come. In the mean time a piece of news from the World of women's soccer caught my attention, WPS (Women's Professional Soccer) suspended it's 2012 season and has pretty much ceased to exist. Apparently this happened a couple of months ago but I only heard the news last week on the BBC's 5 Live World Football Phone In. To be honest, although bad news, this isn't of much consequence to me since I'm not really a fan of women's soccer. It may be the same sport as the men's version but it's a different game entirely, if you know what I mean.

However this news does have implications for Upper Deck's trading card products. Unlike the WPS league, women's cards are surprisingly popular. Cards of the likes of Mia Hamm, Brandi Chastain, Marta, Abby Wambach, Hope Solo and especially the newest starlet in Alex Morgan, are highly sought after and command hefty prices for the higher end type of cards such as autos and jerseys. I have even seen a Morgan UD auto sell for over $400.00 on eBay, the rest of her autos do very well at auction too!

Alex Morgan

I would normally be opposed to having any WPS cards in an MLS collection but there's no denying that they add value to the product so I can't really complain. With UD's upcoming 2012 MLS soccer release and the success of women's cards on the secondary market I can only see UD finding a way to incorporate them into their future soccer products even now that WPS has folded. I'm guessing they'll have to include them in their collegiate uniform or maybe even in international kits? I suppose only time will tell...

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...

Upper Deck's World Of Sports Is Now Live

I must say I'm not a huge fan of this multi-sport release which includes basketball, American football (gridiron), baseball, track & field, hockey and even politics as can be seen below.

Well at least they didn't use the other, infamous, corndog pic. LOL :)

Of interest to this blog though, there are quite a few soccer cards to be found in this product of which there are the standard base cards as well as jerseys, autos and - in a first for soccer cards, SPx 'shadow box' inserts. I understand these shadow box cards are very tough to pull and very popular with collectors of other sports. I'll have to keep a eye out for them as they do look to be cool cards but what I'll really be searching for out of this year's product is the Rafa Márquez auto. It appears as if it's one of the short printed sigs so it probably won't come cheap. Also of note, I saw a preliminary checklist which listed a Thierry Henry auto. I have yet to see one on eBay so I suppose only time will tell if such a card actually exists. If it indeed does exist that would be Titi's first certified auto on a trading cards so that'll definitely keep me tuned in...

Upper Deck's High End SP Game Used Soccer

Unfortunately it appears this product has tanked. Sales don't appear to be very strong as sealed boxes which began at around $180.00 online, have already been reduced in price several times by the major retailers I've seen. There are however several singles which are quite innovative in the soccer card World and they selling very well on the secondary market. Specifically the 'supreme fabrics' jumbo patch cards and especially the 'by the letter' nameplate patch cards.

The jumbo patches are generally selling from about $30.00 to $50.00 and this includes scrub players, which In the grand scheme of things, most MLS players would fall into this category. The letter patch cards though are the real attraction though with the going prices currently at about $150.00 to $200.00, the few superstars seen so far, namely Beckham and Henry, are commanding much higher prices. It looks as if SPGU soccer is destined to continue falling in price since nobody seems to be busting any of this product, I see relatively very few singles on eBay.

If this type of high end format and brand were applied to say a Champions League or Premier League product I have no doubt this would be a winner even at the original price point dare I say.

Soccer Cards Desperately Need Upper Deck's Touch

Upper Deck has a bit of a shady history with past incidents ranging from their production of counterfeit yu-gi-oh cards to unauthorized baseball cards as well as the Beckham "error" autographs from 2010 World of Sports. Despite these troubles as far as I'm concerned they generally produce the best quality trading cards of any manufacturer around. Unfortunately at the moment the only soccer license UD hold is with MLS. Obviously for collectors that's not the most attractive league around, however in terms of card content, collectibility and quality UD's MLS offerings are vastly superior to the garbage TCG products from Panini and Topps (who both have the trading card rights to all major football leagues and competitions around the World). Just take a look at what's available on eBay from Panini and Topps.

Both Panini and Topps have actually released nice looking higher-end products within the last year, Panini with their Premium Champions League set and Topps' Authentics Premier League brand but unfortunately these types of products lack high end cards of the top players that everyone wants as well as being very poorly marketed and distributed, (Topps Authentics is a direct order only product) not to mention these collections seem to be an afterthought for both manufacturers. UD on the other hand produced some of the better collections ever seen with their excellent Manchester United collections among several others. I for one sorely miss UD's presence in the market of international football cards and hope they can soon get back into the global game.