Missing Hit From Upper Deck

First off, I want to thank the people over at Upper Deck customer service. They swung into action when I reported our box had a missing hit, and today I received a package with a card in it. Obviously the popularity of the blog had something to do with it, but either way we got what we were due.

Now, I have two ways in mind of doing this, and we can do it either way. The first way is we can open up the card (which should be an SPA box hit) and send it to the person who has the team. Obviously this is the previously posted way of doing it, but considering that one person already received 2 of the 4 box hits, I have another proposal. I can keep it sealed and random it off to the people who didnt receive a box hit, the Edelman, or the Jarrius Byrd. That leaves us with a few other people who didnt get a hit, to which I will random off the sealed package. They can have said sealed package and open it up for everyone to see what they got.

Please post in the comments with your ideas.

More Images From Black: Looks More Ridiculous Than Before (In A Good Way)

Just saw the powerpoint for 2009 Upper Deck Black Football on the normal site. Wow, these cards look like they are getting better and better. Team color cards are SOOOOOO underrated, glad to see the colors coordinate with the players - especially on that quad. Awesome.

Per the slideshow, Black will now be 2 cards per pack with 2 autos per box instead of the normal 1 card per pack set up from before. Although that other card is just a flag card, a staple of all black sets, it still adds a little more value to the break. The price is still VERY high considering what you are getting, but the design is well worth it. Also, if you consider that you pay 89 bucks a box for Ultimate for one hit, I guess its around the same.

Also, all the cards will be on card, and those lustrous cards are the PETG things. I think this product could be absolutely amazing, even though for me, all Peterson cards will be redemptions until he gets off his ass and signs his shit.

Remember, these are mock ups, so that means the rookies are still in college jerseys and blah blah blah. Its not going to look like that on the final product.

First Look: 2009 Upper Deck Black Fooball

Yesterday I posted that card that UD posted on their facebook profile, saying it was a little lackluster. Today, I take that all back, these new mock ups look 100 times better. Wow.

NOTE: I believe the Lustrous cards should feature some plexiglass elements to them, something I thought was very cool when they did it for Baseball. Other than that, the dual signed swatches were great in basketball, and Im sure they will be great for football too.

Ill let the pics speak for themselves:

2009 Upper Deck Black Football Is Coming...

Per the discussion forum on the UD Football page on facebook, reps from UD have confirmed that UD Black is coming to football.

I have one word to describe my feelings: PUMPED.

Although the price point is VERY high, a la Triple Turds, the cards usually look ridiculous (good ridiculous) and there is not a million parallels of each card. On top of all of this, there are usually minimal diecut spell outs, and the checklist is great. If this is anything like Basketball, there will be guaranteed A list autos, and there will be lots of top level guys in each case outside of that guarantee.

Because of all of these things, the value per card is MUCH higher than any Topps high end crap product, and the value per box goes up after release. Last year, basketball was at around 200 per box, and then that price skyrocketed after the plethora of all the Jordan and LeBron that were coming out of many of the cases.

Hopefully UD will not whiff on this product, I know we will have a few breaks on here for sure.

SCU Reports: The 2009 NFL Rookie Premiere With Gregg Kohn Of Upper Deck

Over the last few days, I have spent a lot of time covering the politics of the Rookie Premiere access, but now I have some info on the goings on of the event itself. Gregg Kohn, product manager of UD Football, graciously spent some time informing me of what happened, and based on our conversation, my respect for the 2009 class has gone through the roof.

First some background. Since the early part of the decade, the top NFL rookies have gathered each year in Los Angeles to run through the routes for the first time in their full gear. Also since the early part of the decade, there have been swatches from jerseys obtained at the event put into the cards we buy throughout the card season. Most people automatically assume that the jerseys they get are one of two things: game used (they are not) or the jersey in the picture (they are not). In reality, the jerseys are worn for a matter of seconds, and the jerseys in the picture are kept by people at the event. Really, as long as you know this, there wont be any surprises, so I wont talk about it much more. What you may not know, is that the event is the sole reason we have cards for the year at all, so its a big give and take with the collectors. Again, I am not going to focus on this, the NFL had their chance for that and epically failed.

Instead, I am going to focus on a few other things, mainly the players, and some great stuff that is coming down the pipeline for UD. Before I move on, I want to thank Gregg again for the wonderful help he has given to this blog. He is one of the only people I have met that appreciates the role blogs play in the hobby media.

Moving on to the event, Gregg said he had a great time with a great class. He said that it was one of the best classes they had invited to event, and there was not a primadonna in the group. He mentioned that EVERYONE was happy to be there, and more than willing to overparticipate on what was asked. He also mentioned that a lot of the players were very happy to sign their stuff, and most wanted some of the cards to take home with them. They brought quite a bit of product with them to get hard signed for the sets, and that will include 10 of 12 sets with elements of hard signed cards, and more than half at ALL on card.

Mainly, they were trying to focus on getting more for you, the collector, which includes things like player inscriptions, as well as other newer ideas that really havent had a place in the past days of the hobby. He also commented that the many of the guys, including Darrius Heyward-Bey in particular, were determined to sign their full name regardless of how they felt about signing cards. As a kid, Heyward-Bey hated give up autos and told Gregg he would be signing everything the same.

Many of you also wanted to know about throwbacks and other jerseys that players may have worn, and there were players that needed to wear them due to depleated inventory at the jersey manufacturers, or for a nice touch in general. So, for instance, Crabtree wore some Jerry Rice stuff, Tyson Jackson wore some Derrick Thomas stuff, and a few of the Giants even got to wear some Mark Bavaro stuff. Gregg said that they players actually like this a lot, and Josh Freeman even wanted to keep the awesome Warren Sapp throwback they used. Of course, that means if you see a weird letter in your card, don’t worry.

Gregg specifically remembered Jason Smith and his wonderful and addictive personality, saying that he was one of the best players to be around at the event, cracking jokes and talking shit. He also mentioned that Brandon Pettigrew of the Lions was great, and that he may have been the biggest tight end ever. People like Aaron Curry were also gigantic, but somewhat reserved as well, which was funny to hear. Gregg even agreed that Beanie Wells was surprisingly big for his stature, and would not like to take a hit from that tank at full speed.

Gregg explained that the event was done in shifts, where four or five rookies came to the station at a time, and went through the requests of the company. For Upper Deck, they tried to keep them in teams or at least with their buddies, at least to keep things easy. They wore around the expected amount of jerseys, enough to fill the 2009 products, but it was definitely not as many as you would expect.

So, all politics with the NFL aside, I am thouroughly impressed with Gregg's report. I will put that much more of a stake into this year knowing that the players have fun doing the events of the weekend, even the Touchdown Dance competition and the trampoline jumps for pictures. After we finished talking about the event, Gregg and I were in agreement that it was tough to think ahead a few years and know that a few of these guys wont be playing anymore. He said they were a great group of guys to spend a weekend with, and wished them the best in 2009.

As for UD products, it looks like it is going to be another banner year. SPA will be back and better than ever with an unprecedented 10 auto rookie patches per case. For the other boxes, you will either get a jumbo signed patch of a rookie or possibly veteran, or one of the new authentic dynasties cards that focus on the teams of each decade. Gregg didnt mention the letters, but they could still be included.

Philadelphia looks like it is going to be a huge success, as we have seen in the galleries from the weekend, and you can imagine that the cards are going to be beautiful. He specifically mentioned jumbo inserts that were hard signed, as well as the mini signatures we would come to expect as a staple of many retro products. There will also be a National Chicle insert set with autographed parallels, many of which were signed during the weekend.

When it comes to 2009 Ultimate Collection Football, Gregg said that they were going to go back to the non-relic versions of the RC Autos. He also said they are tossing around an idea similar to USA baseball where the players will be asked a question to answer along with their sig. That should be interesting, as the USA cards were immensely popular.

These products will accompany Heroes and Draft which should be on shelves very shortly, both of which look great. Heroes will have all hard signed cards, and you can thank the weekend for those.

With that I want to give ANOTHER special thanks to Gregg and to Brandon Miller for their work on this blog and the rookie premiere, their participation is always a treat for me. Both have a standing invitation to come back whenever he wants. Also, sorry to Lindsey who is the brains behind UD design work. I referred to her in a previous as a guy, she is actually quite the contrary. Thanks!

Apologies: Answers to Your Upper Deck Questions

A while ago Gregg Kohn, brand manager for UD Football offered to answer your questions in the first Q and A that we have done on SCU. As can be imagined with the release of Exquisite, and the general day to day operations of the company, Gregg hasnt been able to get to the questions until now.

1. FanofReds - This sounds like a great opportunity. I think it would be interesting to know what "management" THINKS collectors like and want to buy. In other words, what type of things/gimmicks are done to appeal to each of the different collecting demographics that Upper Deck has indentified.

Gregg UD: We try to be as versatile as possible when creating new products. There are more football releases then any other sport so I think it is imperative to have a few that do not center around just Rookies, Signatures and game used. Icons and Heroes may not appeal to the more traditional collector, but they do bring new people into the hobby.

2. Voluntarheel - Because I just experienced this, I will ask it. How do collation issues occur? I recently bought 4 boxes of SP Authentic with a friend of mine and 2 of them didn't have the auto/patch of any kind (rookie of veteran etc.).

While I realize that the scale of which yall are packing products is massive, it's still an issue that frustrates collectors to no end. Not only because of the let-down, but also because of the hurdles that lay ahead to get it rectified. And even then, you know you aren't going to get one of the top guys in return.

Part of the alluring charm that is opening wax is the chance at pulling a big card. Well, if that chance is taken away by the fact that you are shorted, it is also taken away by the fact that you know in return you are probably getting a Lorenzo Booker.

To get specific, please take us through the process of how an SP Authentic Patch (or any product you choose) goes into packs and then those packs into boxes and cases. It better help us understand how in every product, there are the same collation and shortage problems from manufactures.

Thanks you for your attention to your customers.

Gregg UD: We have a company that handles collation based on information provided by us. There are times when the feeders they use or the program has a few issues and situations like yours occur. There are times when the company enters in wrong collation information and it throws off the entire mix. We are trying to fix these issues (SPA was an example) because I can understand the frustration of not getting what you are supposed to or getting way too many dupes.

3. Mikechops - Do you, or have you collected? If so, what is the "gem" of your collection you'll always hold on to?

Gregg UD: I collect Bears and Cubs…..thats it!! I used to have what I thought was the best Ryne Sandberg collection when I still had my store, but have neglected that in the past few years. I still have the sandberg 1991 Donruss Elite Signature…I love that card.

4. Matthew - The redemption process seems to have slipped lately in terms of the 45 days. Are you guys still going by that standard, and if you are, what are you doing for the people who are still waiting those long amounts of time?

Gregg UD: Our goal is always to limit the amount of redemptions and have a quick turn around when we are forced into the unfortunate situation of having them. I really don’t have all the answers about redemptions other then many times we just don’t get the cards back in time and don’t want to eliminate the card because we need it to hit ratios. Trust me when I say we are not fans of redemptions, but we do more on cards signatures then any other company…by far…and sometimes that is the trade off. Labels are always available..hard signed we need to get in house.

5. Graham - A recent hot topic on the blog has been the cost of maintaining the autograph content of a product due to the costs charged by the players. Can you comment on what this is like for UD football?

Gregg UD: This is always a concern as current player signatures prices have sky rocketed in the past few years. I can’t get into how much, but trust me when I say it is more then you can imagine. Rookies, Legends and retired stars are much more reasonable in this regard. I always try and get a balanced line up of signatures, but many times current stars just price themselves out of products.

6. Anonymous - With the economy today, are you guys at all worried about Exquisite and the possibility of sales not being anywhere close to where you expected? Im excited for it, but sadly I cant buy any due to my money situation. Im sure there are a lot of people out there like me.

Gregg UD: The economy is always a concern. You will see in 2009 we went with more price points of $9.99 or less. Draft edition, Heroes, SP Threads, Icons, Philadelphia and UD will all be $9.99 and below. There will always be Exquisite buyers out there…you know the saying….there are people that want Mercedes and people that are happy with Camrys…you just have to make both appealing for the price points.

7. Lars #1 - Since there was 0 cards of Kenny Phillips with "event worn" Giants gear in 2008, will there be in 2009? He had a great year and was a first round pick. I really hope to see some jerseys/patches/auto cards of him in the Giants uniform for 2009, he had such a great season.

Gregg UD: Right now we do not forsee much Kenny Philips for game used, however, this can change..sorry Lars

8. Lars #2 - For next year, if Exquisite is coming back, don't you think that for that price the customer should get gameused rookie cards? Since Exquisite releases after the whole season is played, isn't there a possibility to use the gear from the rookie season? I think that "even-used" can be ok with low-mid end products, but anything for like $400+ and that releases so late in the season you would think should give something extra.

Gregg UD: There is just not possible way to get enough game used jerseys of the top rookies to get enough patches to make anyone happy. You know Exquisite uses very large patches and plenty of them for rookies. There is just no possible way to get enough jerseys even at the end of the season. The yield for patches is low..then take into account the size patch we use then there is no chance.

9. Greg - Hi. I've noticed that no gold versions of SP Authentics base cards exist on Ebay yet. What's the reason for that. So far I've only seen gold parallels of the rookie patch autos, but not of the regular rookie autos or base rookies.

Gregg UD: We did not do regular set parallels this year, we might bring them back for 2009…but I think we are going to add 100 cards to the regular set this year to liven up the base set this year.

10. houstoncollector - Why is the price difference on Upper Deck Base so vastly different between the Hobby and Retail versions (per pack here) when the differences do not match up?

Gregg UD: The retail business and price structure is much different. The price they(retail distribution) pay for product is much less then hobby, so we can’t put as many goodies into retail products.

11. Groat - Internally, what role are manufactured patch cards supposed to play in a card set? Some manufactured patches, like the non-auto'ed cards from UD Premier, seem like just a way to take up the space of something cool you'd otherwise be getting. Other ones, like the SP Numbers Signatures in this year's SPA, seem like an interesting way to add a little bit of class to a card.

Gregg UD: The manufactured patch cards are just something different. In no way do they ever replace something “good” you can be getting..at best they replace a game used and most of then time have better value. The industry is always looking for something different, sometimes good and sometimes not so good. There are times when a product works with Manufactured patches or Lettermen (Icons, SPA) and sometimes maybe overdone as in Premier. We will keep trying to find value in things other then Jersey Cards to help bring life to products….they always don’t work, but at least we try.

12. Steve - Ask Gregg what he listened to on his iPod while they packed out Exquisite. Packing out Exquisite BK was bizarre only because of the 70's music that was cranked out from his iPod.

Gregg UD: had the same music for Football as basketball Steve..and I know you loved it!...You can never have enough Fleetwood Mac or Eagles!

Thanks to Gregg Kohn for taking the time to do this for us. Hopefully we can do it again.

So Far, This Is Looking Pretty Good

A few days ago, I took a huge risk on a Peterson auto redemption from Exquisite. The good thing was that I had seen a number of ADs up on ebay, the bad thing was that Exquisite wasnt part of that. It was a new set, so it was kind of expected, but I was still quite weary of what may happen.  

Today, to my surprise, I found this under my redemptions on the UD site:

Im glad to see that not everything has been lost on UD customers. With this preliminary info, at least we know that the wheels are still turning somewhere, though customer service has been widely reported as greatly reduced. 

So far, things are looking pretty good, ill keep you up to date.

Upper Deck Answers YOUR Questions

As I have mentioned a few times here on SCU, I have been conversing on and off with Gregg Kohn, Football Brand Manager for Upper Deck, for the last six or so months. Our first Q and A session is viewable here (link).

Gregg is a great asset to UD and to the customers themselves, and I have been continually surprised by the transparency that he has brought to the table. His help has been invaluable to my personal footprint in the hobby, as well as to this blog, and what follows is hopefully your chance to get involved in the awesomeness. Gregg has graciously offered to answer some questions from readers here on the blog, and I am really excited to see the kind of discussion we can get going.

Here is what I want to do:

- Post your questions below in the comments
- Gregg will read the questions and respond via the comments as needed
- He will answer what he can, we all understand that not everything is able to be shared
- Please give him proper time to respond, he is a busy guy
- Feel free to give feedback on products and UD Football in general, but I will warn that all nasty comments will not be approved

I encourage you to ask whatever is on your mind, this is your chance to get some insider info straight from the manufacturer.

Thank you again to Gregg for helping us to get that inside view we crave so much.

Product Review: 2008 SP Authentic Football

SP authentic is one of my favorite products over the last few years because it never disappoints with its set. It usually has some of the prettiest cards of the year, and the autographed patches are some of the most valuable RCs right under Exquisite. It went live after much delay on friday, and I am quite impressed.

The Good

This product's main focus is the RC patch autos, and this year they look as good, if not better than last year's. People were shocked by the horizontal orientation of the cards in 07, but I fucking loved it. This year, they stay with the same orientation, and it looks even better with the new patch windows and autographs right underneath.

I noticed that the theme of the set is to create bullseye targets of modern weaponry almost, like looking through an advanced sight on a rifle, and that was a pretty cool idea. Maybe its supposed to be like a cumpass rather than a weapon sight, but it looks very modern and very technological, and for some reason, I like it. It works well in my mind. I still like having a set look like everything is stitched into the card like RC threads, but this makes everything look futuristic. Even the scrub autos carry this theme, with full, bold colors. Triple suck has everything as bright and borderline neon, while SPA is all bold and prominent colors. SPA makes triple threads look like a 2nd grader did it with a coloring book for half the price. I love it.

In terms of the autos in the set, this is one of the only sets to stay COMPLETELY on card. That is a prize, and it is glorious. Every single card in the product that has a signaure, was done on the card itself, including duals and trips. That is amazing, Bravo.

Last year, I really liked the Chirography and the Sign of the times subset's design, and this year, they look pretty good too. They fit the theme of the set quite nicely, and I like that the autos dont go up the side this time. Plus, there is not a single "helmet off" card from either of the subsets, and that is a big plus.

Lastly, there are quite a few veteran based subsets in this product, a rookie based adventure, and I must applaud UD for not making them an after thought. They bumped up the quantity of RC patch autos in this set, and I think that is awesome, but also didnt forget about the By The Letters, or even some of the other sets like the Chirography's, SP Authentics, and the SOTT's. I like that about SPA more than anything. Big props for keeping offensive lineman off the checklist too, from what I can tell.

The Bad

There isnt many "major" problems with SPA this year but there are a few minor ones. First off, the leatherheads were a good idea on paper, but the execution is pretty poor, if not only because of the pictures. Gregg said it was tough to get them excited to wear one of the old school leather helmets, and I understand that, but the pictures look like someone just took away their lolli's. They not only look ridiculous in their helmets themselves, but the players look like douches. Nice try, but axe it for next year.

Another good on paper idea was the rookie retro jersey autos, but there are too many problems with those to make it a good execution. I thought the designs would vary card to card, almost like creating a patch auto from that year that didnt have them, but instead they are all the same type from Vick's rookie year. It was cool to get Fran "Turkenton" in that set too, but dumb to have them as all part of the same design. It was a time to shine with design (no rhyme intended) and that ball was dropped.

The Ugly

I dont mind that there are redemptions in the set, its a necessary evil with a product that is all on card, but when half of the RC class' biggest names are redemptions, that fucking sucks. With 2007, Peterson, Quinn, Johnson and Lynch were all there and ready to go, but with 2008, Flacco, Johnson and others are not. Completely unacceptable when they should have been the focus of the auto getting venture.

I told Gregg straight out that the Number Pieces set was beyond stupid looking when the sell sheet was first put out. As good as the Exquisite version is, is as bad as this version is. They trade the cut out jersey pieces in Exquisite's version for an idiot looking manufactured patch, which in turn it makes SPA look like Topps Lettermen. That, my friends, should NEVER FUCKING HAPPEN. Ditch it.

Overall, I think SPA is a continued expectation of excellence, and for the price, you almost cant beat SPA in any way, shape, or form. Its almost like buying a high end product, and paying for a mid end - something that every single collector appreciates. Go buy a box or two this year, and I am sure that you wont be disappointed.

Product Review: 2008 UD Masterpieces Football

Thank god this set was brought to other sports, because the idea of it is way too good to let Baseball hog it. I love the elegance of the set, and I do have a few things to say about it, but let me assure you, this is the only set like this I would ever consider buying, as Turkey Red can suck it.

The Good

I cant say enough good things about the base cards, they are freaking gorgeous works on most, and even the bad ones are still better than most of the other crap out there right now. I love the idea of doing paintings for cards, as you know that there are probably millions of amateur artists that have done the exact same thing as pictured on these cards. Not only do they have great works, but they also get to choose the poses that they like, so you dont have to wait for that perfect game shot - see the Peterson vs Chargers card if you dont believe me.

I like the inserts too, as they have a lot of really nice smaller pieces included in it. The jerseys and autos are nicer than I expected, and I was shocked to see them as all on card. Very nice. There are some bad aspects to this, which I will get to, but an overall win.

There really isnt much to this set, and that is beyond awesome. More sets need this type of thing to help it be legit, and I think it works perfectly a la Chrome. With such pretty cards, you dont need much.

As featured before on here, I like the past and present cards which combine older players with newer players to create a new aspect of this set. Its cool to see Butkus go after All Day, even though it looks like he aint gonna catch him, and I think it adds a lot to a set that feels retro in a modern way.

The Bad

I like the on card autos, but the sets with the rookies have them in their college jersey. Obviously most were signed at the Premiere, so its inevitable, but it still looks out of place when they have regular cards in their NFL jersey next to these. Its not awful, but I wanted more new stuff from the RCs.

The parallels in this set are just about the worst thing ever. They look okay, but there are so fucking many of them that I want to pull my hair out and feed it to the parallel god. Do we really need this many? There are like 20.

The Ugly

I am so fucking pissed that there are no auto'ed versions of the base cards. Now I have to find a way on my own to get them done, and that sucks when you live half a country away from your favorite team. Hopefully Shawn at DA Cardworld can come through for me...

Its funny, for someone that hates base cards as much as I do, I love autoed base cards. The base designs of a set usually look so much better than the inserts, and the auto on them always make them a target for me. It sucks I cant get an auto of some of the best base cards ever.

Overall, this set rocks just for the production values. I love it. Go buy five boxes and wow yourself with how great it looks. The paintings will blow your mind with how cool they are as actual cards. I know there was at least one anonymous commenter that thought I was up UD's ass, but Im sure that this set is a universal "booyah" from the peanut gallery.

First Look: 2008 SP Authentic FB

ITS HERE! ITS HERE! We finally get our first look at SP Authentic, and I must say it looks fucking great. Everything looks snazzy as fucking hell, and I am really excited for it. They went with horizontal formatting again for the RC Patch autos, and I am a big proponent of that. They also keep the white background (YES!) and reshape the patch window to look a lot better than the thing from last year.

Also, we get a preview of the By The Letters and I assure you they will be amazing as usual. I am praying for a Peterson one, and I hope that they dont mess with a good thing when it comes to these.

Lastly the RC Leatherheads look unusual in terms of the contents of the photos, but the idea is pretty cool. It again looks like all of the autos will be on card and this could be a frontrunner for product of the year.

Get the rest of the information I published on SP Authentic from my interview with Gregg, maybe we can get some other cool previews now that its public.

OMINOUSLY NOT PICTURED: RETRO ROOKIE PATCH AUTOS

Exclusive Masterpieces Football Preview

Here are copies of the paintings used to create the beautiful base cards that are coming in Upper Deck's Masterpieces Football. Gregg was kind enough to send over some of the cross generational pictures they are featuring, and I must say, they are beautiful works of art. Bravo on these.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

My favorites are the Tarkenton/Peterson one, the Sanders/Swann one, and the Manning Unitas one. Also, its funny to see Montana with hair like a 70s porn star. DYN-O-MITE.

My Morning of Rocking Out With Gregg Kohn of Upper Deck

Well, it looks like SCU is growing by leaps and bounds, and I am glad that we are reaching as many people as we do. I have known for a while that manufacturers and other associated people read this blog and it pleased me when Gregg Kohn, the Football Brand Manager at Upper Deck, stepped up and offered himself up as a guinea pig for my fledgling interview skills. It didn’t work out originally as our schedules didn’t coordinate, but we have kept trying, and it finally happened this morning. Ill tell you guys, I learned more in my 45 minutes of speaking with him, than I thought I could ever learn about this industry. He answered all my questions with the utmost honesty, and wasn’t afraid to put it in language that I use every day. With that, I wanted to first express my uptmost thanks for taking the time to speak with a nobody like myself. Thanks to Gregg, I do have some really cool info about the upcoming year, and some really interesting stuff about the process he goes through with each product.

First I wanted to start with the product I just stuck at the top of my list of things newbies should bust. SP Authentic is a favorite of many collectors, including myself, and Gregg had some awesome stuff to go over. First off, the coveted RC patches are no longer going to be seeded at 6 per case, but rather now at 8 per case. There will be a guaranteed amount of A listers and top RCs in every case again - something I think is beyond awesome - and he promised the cards look better than they ever have. He also clued me in to some new innovations that I think could be the best thing about this product. In those 4 boxes you don’t get the RC Patch auto you have a chance at a signed By The Letter like last year, but also a few new things. The first is retro RC Patch autos of people like Favre, Tomlinson, and others who didn’t have the chance to get a SP Authentic Patch auto. These will be ALL on card and should be ridiculously awesome. You will also have the chance at RC Leatherheads which include cards of the 2008 class that include pieces of old school leather helmets they wore during the RC premiere - again ALL on card sigs(or maybe on helmet?). The product should be about the same price point, so that is all really cool. Gregg said he would send some pics, so I am praying he does.

Secondly, I wanted to correct a mistake I made with Ultimate 2008, where I said they were re-inserting the 1997 Legends series that everyone loved. Its basically the "A Piece Of History" 500 HR club set from baseball, in that it is the most popularly collected set among Footballers, and just like the extension of the APOH set, they are actually extending this set to include players from recent years. They will be in the same format, all ON CARD, and should be awesome. I can still hope for buybacks of the old set, but this is good too.

He also talked about how Ultimate is changing to a new format with a focus on getting collectors more cards that rock, and I think it is awesome. The whole set features hard signed cards and is one of the 6-7 sets that UD will put out this year featuring on card stuff. He said its actually better to get on card sigs because they don’t have to pay someone to affix the stickers, they don’t look as bad, and they don’t end up with a backlog of 2004 stickers in the warehouse like I believe Topps has. Bravo to UD for that.

With Exquisite this year, they are not holding back, which is great. They are including 6 cards with all new designs for each subset - THANK YOU!! - and have even added a bonus for collectors who buy it. In each box, there will be a separate one card pack, similar to UD Black that will contain an "Exquisite Gold" card autograph. It will be either an auto or auto memorabilia, and should be ridiculously cool. It will have exclusive 1/1 content, and I think this could be huge. He also mentioned they have had Tiger Woods exclusively sign 5 patch cards, and as you can imagine they may be some of the most expensive cards ever produced.

He also mentioned revamps of SP Rookie Threads and SP Rookie Edition to include some new stuff that seemed really cool, hopefully he wont disappoint. At least we wont get weird gold and gray letters of McFadden and Ryan like we did last year, as this year they are all college team themed. He said it was tough to anticipate letters to build for the rookies because you don’t know what team they are on when you build them. They went with college because it ties the card to the player, and I think that is a good thing.

Moving on from the new releases, we talked about shifts in the industry, and him being a former shop owner, he showed a lot in his expansive knowledge of what is going on at our level. We discussed at length that the costs of getting sigs on the cards going up because a lot of players are realizing that in the only sport with 3 competing brands, they can play each company against the other. He even mentioned that Ahmad Rashad wanted 50 bucks a card, which I had to laugh at. He talked about catering more products to the shop people because with the state of the economy, its tougher to get a new high-end release out without hurting the people who sell it. I think this will mean more affordability for the collector in a trickle down fashion, and I was happy to hear that they consider each part of the equation. If stores have to dump a product because it is too expensive to sell, we lose in the long run. I guess that’s why Icons is so popular.

As Upper Deck collectors, we had a long string of years where the release calendar was ever changing. He mentioned that is why DLP has such success and failure at the same time, mainly because everyone knew what to expect. He said that now they have a better idea of success rate, they can head in that direction while still maintaining a lot of creativity. He said that one of the possible new products for next year will be Philidelphia edition, which takes a page from the Goudey sets in baseball. He didn’t have much, other than the product would have buybacks from the original sets.

I brought up a lot of how I felt about certain things, like non-autoed manufactured letters, and he had an interesting perspective. He said that rather than throwing more crap jerseys in a box, they thought they would include the letters as a way to add a little more value - which they did in Icons. He also said they were handcuffed by a lot of the celebrities backing out at the last minute, which is understandable.

We discussed a lot of the bad things like Chirography and Ultimate of last year, and he was definitely not afraid to admit his mistakes. That was more than refreshing, and he promised to make sure the quality of the products would be much more thought out. He said it was tough to imagine a street reception, and that’s why they are trying to stay away from needlessly high end products like Chirography was last year. Mucho bueno on that front.

The last thing we talked about was the Peterson patch I posted on a week or so ago. He said he wanted to create an exquisite database of the patches, but the cards and the people who would do that are in different parts of the country. They fly down to Texas to pack every card by hand, and he expressed they might start taking pictures of the patches they think might be questioned. He said that as far as he is concerned, the patch RCs will be much more likely to impress, and that they will do their best to protect the collector. He would put a design over the patches to prevent faking, but he said there would be more complaints about that than the actual douchebags who take advantage, so he decided against it. I agree.

I wish I could have you guys listen to the whole conversation, because it was so fucking awesome to have the kind of talk from a higher up I got from Gregg, and I must say I was thoroughly impressed with the stuff they were coming out with. If you guys have questions about some of the things I mentioned, feel free to email me as you like.

Ill say this, after speaking with Gregg, I am MUCH more likely to buy a UD product now that he has explained the blood sweat and tears that goes into every product they put out. I know he is connected to the hobby base level more than I expected, and he is beyond a nice guy. Thanks again for the time!