First Look: 2014-15 Upper Deck Lettermen

[pwaldo]

http://www.beckett.com/news/2014/08/...eck-lettermen/

Upper Deck is ready for another exciting season of collegiate-themed basketball card products and they will kick things off in November with the release of 2014-15 Upper Deck Lettermen.

Boasting an average of two autographs per box, at least one of the signatures pulled will be a highly-coveted Lettermen Auto featuring either an up-and-coming rookie such as Doug McDermott or Shabazz Napier or an established veteran from a lineup boasting such legends as Michael Jordan or LeBron James.

Memorabilia cards will be seeded once or twice per box and Upper Deck managed to put together an assortment that will appeal to collectors. Home Court Stars (1:15 packs) lead off the parade and will be joined by Monumental Logo Patches (numbered to 50 or less), Championship Banners (numbered to 125 or less) and Retired Numbers (numbered to 99 or less) cards that feature specially-created patches for this product.

There will also be tough-to-find autograph parallels for the Home Court Stars and Retired Numbers set.

The best set itself is small, but it will be packed with star power as there are 50 veteran cards and 30 Premier Rookies numbered to 999 copies each. There will also be a strong assortment of parallel cards dropping six times per box and they will be limited to 499 or less.

[basketball fiend]

so Lebron went back to the Cleveland auto. Lol! idk why UD keeps on trying, with these college uniforms????

[AndyG23]

Oh no UD.

so Lebron went back to the Cleveland auto. Lol! idk why UD keeps on trying, with these college uniforms????

The Lebron auto looks like it's photoshopped and not real but I wouldn't be surprised if he went back to adding the 23. What other uniforms are UD going to use though?

[pwaldo]

The cards and autographs are just mock ups by Upper Deck and I'm pretty almost all the other companies do that as well (at least in other sports they do)

[WilyWestbrook0]

The college unis are a huge turn-off, but they can't help it due to the licensing. There is a minor market for college collectors, though, and so many people are also turned off by Panini that they'll still break UD product over them despite the licensing, so we'll continue to see product from UD.

Myself, I'll just pick up any singles that look intriguing.

[pwaldo]

I'm pretty sure if Upper Deck didn't have Lebron and Jordan they wouldn't even be bothering with basketball in college uniforms. They can still get people to buy products because of those guys plus the limited amount of collectors who collect college stuff.

One thing I do wonder about is how well the college stuff sells around the world. NBA stuff is good movers on eBay overseas but do those collectors care about US college stuff? Probably doesn't help that Kobe and Lebron never went to a college either or that must guys don't even stay in college that long or have memorable runs with a school like they did years ago.