Upper Deck pays tribute to ‘The Kid’ by producing 20 different versions of his base card to commemorate each year of his MLB career
Collectors began noticing something different as they put together their 2009 Upper Deck Baseball sets: not every version of card No. 855 of Upper Deck spokesman Ken Griffey Jr. looked the same. Truth be told, Upper Deck produced 20 different versions of Griffey’s base card depicting Junior during every year of his MLB career. The images, stats and text on the back of the card correspond directly to the year that’s featured.
“It’s important for us to continue to look at ways to make the regular base card interesting to collectors,” said Gabriel Garcia, Upper Deck’s associate baseball brand manager. “By creating different versions of Griffey’s card to commemorate his illustrious career, we hope to have people go back through their collections to see which versions they have and to hopefully put together the entire 20-card set. Since we did not announce this, it’s been interesting to see how quickly collectors picked up on it and how well some of these cards have been selling in the secondary market.”
While no version is more limited than another, the cards are limited in nature and should be considered short prints. Upper Deck’s 2009 Series Two Baseball is currently available in stores.
