Bootleg Cards?!?

[sportscardfreak]

I'm still a little confused i get what your saying op but why would these flea market guys and convenience stores take off the bar codes? They can legitably sell hobby and retail packs as they have vendor licenses. And i personally don't buy from stores or flea markets as unless it's a freshly cracked box there is a 95% chance the pack searchers have beaten me to the punch

[andrewconnors9]

First I have heard of this, if you can sneak some pictures for evidence of this that would be beneficial to everyone to keep an eye out.

[MatsSundin13Rocks]

I never heard of this and really don't understand what your getting at.

As for your other points you can get expensive rookie cards out of $4 packs of UD Series 1. Some of the exclusive and hg versions sell for big money. Even the regular YG of hot rookies sell really well. GU cards are too overproduced and therefore have lost value.

[andrewconnors9]

Yeah agree with Nathan, pretty well the only point of game used now are for set collectors to be honest, but seeing how theres 1000s and 1000s coming out each year its pretty well pointless.

From regular Upper Deck S1 and S2, people dont buy for the 2 game used per box any more, its all about the YG's, parallels and SP inserts. I bought 4 packs the other day and got no YGs and a Drew Stafford GU and was disappointed. Even a mediocre YG that sells for 3 - 4$ would have made me alot happier than a Stafford GU (no offense to Stafford fans lol)

[30ranfordfan]

I do understand what the OP is getting at.

With the new brick & mortor rules from UD - only Diamond Dealers (or whatever they're called) can sell their product for the first 90 days. Since the guy who sets up at the flea market, or the internet seller is not B&M.... they can not get their product until 3 months after the release.

Considering this is an industry built around what's shiney and new this week..... that kills the ability these guys have to sell product.

So...... if an authorized dealer, or even wholesaler was willing to sell them a large volume of product anyway, the consequences from UD would (at least in theory) be pretty harsh. How do you get around that? If the bar codes are gone, there is no way to trace them back to where they came from.


To be clear - I have NOT seen this anywhere, but I also don't frequent the flea markets, or buy from online guys.

[dble_g2k]

Here's some proof:


Top Hologram code is gone



Back Barcode is missing



The entire bottom centre is gone (yes that's a parkhurst mini peeking out)

Went out and purchased one of these so I could show exactly what I mean. Thanks Ranfordfan for verbalizing what I was having trouble explaining.

[bojohnson]

ohhhhhhh..
i get it

my flea market has artifacts for sale.
im guessing thats bootlegged.
and i think winnipeg only has one diamond dealer, yet every hobby shop has the new products?

[sportscardfreak]

Thanks for the scans op. I had never seen that before

[ralral33]

why cry over it , this is just dealers that do not have an upperdeck brook n mortar store buying from someone that does and reselling it. upperdeck ruined it themselves soon as they thought of this not so bright idea . there is a lot of people that was selling upperdeck products before that got denied but stil,l wanna sell .i have nothing to do with this stuff nor will i ever but everyone wants to make money and people should mind there own business,instead of worrying bout another dealer at show or fleamarket.

[30ranfordfan]

Well.... when the crying will really start is when you open that box, and see that you didn't get the advertised hits, or there is damage to some (many?) of the cards.

Upper Deck is actually pretty good at making this sort of thing right (at least in my own experience). They tell you that'll you get 6 YGs per box for UD Series 1, for example. I opened one in 2009-10, and got none. I sent them an email, they opened a case for me, and I sent in the bar code from the box. The whole thing took something like 6-8 weeks turn around time..... but they mailed out 6 YGs for me.

Guess what's going to happen when you don't have the barcode? They're not going to do anything for you.

I'm not trying to suggest I like the new system (I think its misguided..... I think if UD really wanted to help oiut B&M stores, selling to them directly, and cutting out the middle man would have been the way to do to it) but I do see where it was coming from.

The Flea Market guys (typically) have lower overhead costs than the B&M shops, so they can sell the product cheaper, and still make the same profit.

Same for the online guys. What makes it worse - often the wholesalers would want you to cases of everything..... in order to gaurentee access to the higher end (i.e. big money / more profitable) stuff. The result? Online retailers who only buy some of the lower to mid end stuff.... for the sake of getting access to the higher end stuff.... they end up selling this stuff at cost, just to be rid of it.

So the B&M stores are getting undersold on several fronts. This was the way to 'help' them.

At the end of the day..... I do agree with what you're saying. If a B&M shop wants to sell a couple of cases to a guy that's going to set up in a Flea Market - why should I care? Really, I don't. But Upper Deck at least claims to care - and they will pull that dealer's Diamond status if they find out. Obviously it's something that's going to be hard to prove (did you sell those two cases to that guy, KNOWING that he'd resell them?) but if anyone is buying boxes without the bar codes & holograms...... I do think it's unfair, and even a little dishonest, that their customers likely do not realize that Upper Deck will not offer the same customer service on those purchases as they would if the boxes were bought from a Diamond Dealer.

why cry over it , this is just dealers that do not have an upperdeck brook n mortar store buying from someone that does and reselling it. upperdeck ruined it themselves soon as they thought of this not so bright idea . there is a lot of people that was selling upperdeck products before that got denied but stil,l wanna sell .i have nothing to do with this stuff nor will i ever but everyone wants to make money and people should mind there own business,instead of worrying bout another dealer at show or fleamarket.