Upper Deck

[travlncard]

1 more thing SackAttack Sign me up on the PreOrder for that Redemption stuff, Could be UDs best product yet!!!

[m1sn0m3r]

Here's my two cents (for what it's worth):

I collect UD over pretty much everything else, although the Topps 50th Anniversary FB cards were great last year. I like UD because the cards look nice. Plain and simple. Especially with Topps, i feel a lot of the cards are ugly, uninspired and, well, done in a rush. UD does a pretty good job with presentation, but the customer service is a huge issue. I specifically buy sets which don't contain redemptions. Suffice to say, that can be very hard to do.

What I look for is a decent base set that's a.) complete --- most of the important players from a team (at least 7 to 9 cards per team, not including rookies) and players that are up to date (there is nothing more frustrating getting cards of a player who hasn't been on the team he's featured on for months, and with technology these days it shouldn't be that hard to stay reasonably up-to-date; which is why i liked how companies would release a series 1 and series 2 of the same set, so they could include players they missed due to whatever oversight) and b.) parallel sets, refractors, etc. i personally hate. i do not need five versions of the same freaking card, only differentiated by their print run: the card wasn't worth anything to begin with, making it out of 50 or 25 does not make it much more valuable.

what upper deck can do; however, is quality control. i do not mind receiving one auto in a box or a few game used cards in a box if they are of nice/good players and, in gu's case, nice patches, maybe more than one color or at least not white, and all this, of course, for a reasonable price. while the exquisite sets may be nice for the company, i would wager most collectors haven't even ever seen an exquisite card, let alone bought one.

just my two cents.

[colts18328887]

Lemme give you a real scenerio. I contacted Donruss about not getting my 2 Rookies in a box of Elite Hobby that I opened. It took them less than 2 weeks to send me my 2 Rookies. That's GREAT Costumer Service. A similar thing happened with a box of an UD product and after 3 1/2 years I still have not heard back. I have not bought anything of UD in 2 years and until some BIG Changes are made a lot of us won't be buying your product any time soon. Very frustraiting from a company that in the 90's IMO was head and shoulders the best in the business. Now I would rate you next to last.

[arkaneinc]

LOL. I personally wouldnt mind if Upperdeck just did away with redemptions. I pulled a 2005 Sweet Spot Dual Panel Sigs Bernie Kosar/Peyton Manning and a 2005 Sweet Spot Rookie sigs Carnell Williams /199 on April 1st. Wouldnt you know upperdeck said "April Fools" The Kosar/Manning took almost 2 months to ship out after it was in stock. And for the Carnell Williams I was first sent an email congradulating me on the pull from Upperdeck.com, I recieved another email saying that my "Roddy White" card was being shipped. Problem is I redeemed Carnell williams. Push come to shove and upperdeck says that they are not responsible for the mix up and that the first email should have never been sent out....

Needless to say I went from $120 value to $30-40 max. Customer service is Horrible. [email protected] is by far the rudest person at Upperdeck. It took her 13 emails to reiterate the same thing I told her in the first email. I was told that it was a hit and miss situation and that she was sorry. I expected that from FLEER but then again Upperdeck has Fleer now right? Long story short UD customer service blows, on the Craphonso Thorpe 05 Spa Authentic Rookie auto and the 05 UD Foundations auto, 05 Ultimate auto and a few others of the same player it's the same exact pose. Talk about lack of imagination.

[dlouisb1313]

customer service is rude and i had to send back a card to donruss and recieved timely responses but the worst part of upper deck is the redemptions.
#1)dont take forever with the redemptions
#2)give the card that you are suppose to get or an equal value why send in a card that is suppose to be worth $100-$200 and get back a card for around $40 when the box cost you at least $100

[LakersMC]

First of all, hats off to you, udguy27, for coming here & not being afraid to hear the raw feedback from the users.

I won't touch on the customer service issue. Here are some other comments I have about UD.
- More value in a pack. I spend about $5-$7 per pack on UD products. When buying packs (not boxes), if you don't get the GU/AUTO in the box...you end up overpaying for base cards. With Topps, if you don't get the GU/AUTO in the box, at least you get some value back with lower end inserts, numbered cards, RCs, etc.
- More chances to meet the players or send-in items, e.g. with your exclusive athletes. I think you did an insert called "Priority Signings" in a baseball set to send in items for Mark McGwire. That was the last I heard of that.
- Or how about athlete appearances at local card shops? I know Fleer used to do that to promote their products. It wouldn't have to be free, maybe just free with UD purchase of some kind.
- A lot of people were looking forward to your poker/WSOP set. What happened there? It looks like another company picked up the rights to that set that UD cancelled.

Thanks again for listening. You can also pm me if you have any issues you'd like to bring up with the staff as a whole.

[kr580]

The only complaint I can personally talk on is the WAY overproduction of jersey and autograph cards. I know this will probably be ignored but it's miserable for the collector to buy a $150 box of SP Authentic and pull just a $10 jersey card and $5 autograph. I also bought a 2003 UD Finite box. Each jersey was pretty much worthless. Even a jersey of the then-ROY Anquan Boldin was worthless. And another was a Brett Favre/25 which I think sold for $3. Back in 2000 a card like that would get me $150.

It's getting rediculous how worthless cards are getting these days with over production. Might as well turn the base cards into jersey cards. They book the same now.

So, for my real complaint: Cut down on the jersey and autograph cards. Make them a challenge to get.

[GarMart]

The only complaint I can personally talk on is the WAY overproduction of jersey and autograph cards. I know this will probably be ignored but it's miserable for the collector to buy a $150 box of SP Authentic and pull just a $10 jersey card and $5 autograph. I also bought a 2003 UD Finite box. Each jersey was pretty much worthless. Even a jersey of the then-ROY Anquan Boldin was worthless. And another was a Brett Favre/25 which I think sold for $3. Back in 2000 a card like that would get me $150.

It's getting rediculous how worthless cards are getting these days with over production. Might as well turn the base cards into jersey cards. They book the same now.

So, for my real complaint: Cut down on the jersey and autograph cards. Make them a challenge to get.

Agreed 100 percent.

[reoddai]

What to say about Upper Deck cards.
Please keep in mind that I only collect Hockey cards and so far, UD has had my exclusive business.
The good:
I have to agree with m1sn0m3r, that UD uses very simple and eye catching photography for their cards. For example, UD S1 and S2 are exemplary shots taken at proper angles during play. Inserts within these sets are (sometimes) well designed. In the past year, I can point to the hometown heroes, which had presence in both the first and second set, adding a tie-in between sets which was very much appreciated. These cards portrayed a player in an action shot, uniformed and a delightful background of their cities. The stars in the making (S2) which had tasteful small graphics on the front and destined for the hall (S2) which provided a nice blow up of the face of certain players. Finally, the Hockey scrap book provided a nostalgic feel with to a hockey scrapbook. Well done.
While not everyone will agree with me, I felt that other products having similar production values were the current year’s UD Ice, Parkhurst and MVP.
While not everyone enjoys the presence of game used / artifacts (GU) and long for a return to the ‘good ol’ days where a single GU is found one per case, or less, I have to say that GU have been my major interest for collecting and provides a refreshing change from the holograms and inserts and other gimmicks. However, for these cards, two factors are necessary: Design and size/number of the piece included. UD S2 game jerseys appeared smaller than the UD S1 counterparts, as well as having a tacky white border which has me prefer the UD S1 pieces. Similarly, I also enjoyed the sharp and catchy designs of SPX winning materials, a variety of the ultimate GU and several SPGU products with their circular pieces. Patches are the epitome of these; however, the appearance of all white or single colour patches is truly disheartening.
Finally, the use of small and large subsets ranging from 90 cards such as SPx to the massive 700 card Parkhurst provides the ability to collect a variety of players. I truly look forward to the set which includes ever single player within the NHL (as daunting as that might be), as well as featuring those on the side lines, such as coaches, referees, announcers, etc.

[reoddai]

The Average:
Several of the products designs have had an average flair to them. Such as UD goal rush inserts (S1) School of Hark knocks (S1) Playoff Performers (S1), Goal celebrations (S2), These are all examples of inserts where a much too simple design has been assigned to an ‘insert’ or one which is undeserving to the title used. Following in that trade, cards where the background has been altered of is replaced with a questionable border (in the sense of ‘why choose this border’? since with Ice, at least the background is white to represent Ice, or the sparkling rainbow found in the short printed versions to represent ice sparkling with light) such as: SPX’s Xcitement inserts, the beehive Matter materials and the entirety of the beehive base set, Ultimate’s base set, NHL’s Rookie Update, Victory, and Spx base sets. With the except of Victory, which is excused due to its affordable price, The remaining are found in moderate to very expensive sets.
Which brings me to price. There are always complaints about price, no matter the cost. I would have to say that Victory, UD S1, Parkhurst were acceptably priced. SPx, UD S2, SP Authentic, Rookie Update, MVP were slightly over priced and SP Game used was extremely over priced.
So I have to examine the bases for which UD prices their cards. For UD S1, we found 2-3 GU or SP cards per box, Victory contained nothing but inserts and Parkhurst had autos and a 1/case Octo Gu (which, I really want, but don’t have).
What are featured in my choices of “overpriced” sets? Much higher concentrations of GU. So, let’s analyze an example of SPGU which had a retail Can of between 30 to 35$ and had a guaranteed GU per pack (let’s assume 1.2 Gu per pack to account for doubles, triples, and the SP pieces)
Since SPGU had a print run of ~49,000 boxes, or ~300,000 packs, that’s representative of 300,000 pieces of a GU jersey. If we assume that the basic jersey piece was 1’x1’ and that a jersey can provide 28’x28’ with a front and back excluding sleeves, each jersey represents 1,568 pieces including patches, numbers, etc. therefore, each pack has to offset the cost of each authentic jersey piece. Assuming that the difference in price for a pack from SPGU and UDS1 is the GU per pack requirement (30$ difference CAN), this price differential is due to the price of the jersey. So, a 30$ increase in pack price, means that each jersey costs UD, $47,040. A bit high per jersey. But, again, let’s assume that 30% of the 30$ is really profit for the hobby stores and another 30% is profit for you. That still puts the jersey price at over 20,000$ (for reference, NHL.com sells authenticated Jerseys with autographs of stars (Mark Messier) for under 1,000$) . Products such as these could stand a decrease in sale price, especially when a close look at UD ultimate has a majority of GU come from a photo shoot than an actual game. A Jersey probably provided by UD themselves.