2020-21 Upper Deck Rounded Corners - Quality Control or Planned

[fatfrank]

Here are the corners I am referring to. They appear to be too clean to no be intentional. The sticking of the cards would really have me concerned opening product down the road.

[creasecollector]

Thanks for the close-up pictures. Very interesting.

[clonzfan]

It's a special Variation, probably worth thousands...

[doniceage]

Thanks for the scans. Definitely, not sharp. Just thinking what kind of grade that would get if sent in for corners?

Don

[sparty07]

Did anyone send these pictures to UD? I'd be curious to know what their response was

[fatfrank]

Did anyone send these pictures to UD? I'd be curious to know what their response was

I sent to Upper Deck over the weekend. Will update when I hear back from them.

[30ranfordfan]

I can't imagine it was on purpose. If they'd decided to move away from square corners, I feel like that's something they'd announce.

My guess is, it was rushed. REALLY rushed. The product was delayed, and the few people I've talked to - their orders were cut in half. They waited so long to figure who the YGs would be, I'm guessing to actually get them printed in time for a November 18th release - they cut a few QC corners.

I'd bet on the next wave (Canadian retail is this week, I think?) being better.

[michaelpatko]

I feel badly for fellow collectors that have encountered this.
I am continually disgusted by UD GREED and poor QC.
WTH was with the names on the front of the cards last year?
Release day $120+ ?!?!
I don't remember, when 15-16 series 1 hit, was it the same with the inflated price?
And this kid isn't even touted as a McDavid.
I will be buying ZERO of this

[Rraincock]

I am trying to figure out where in the printing process these corners would occur.....

Couldn’t be cutting because guillotine blades just cant physically cut like this.... die cut is absurd....

So what is left is the handling stage. Blocks of singles are cut. If, while a stack of 300 cards, someone on the production line put the stack against a semi rounded corner (say to square up the stack) you would get a rounded corner like this BUT only in one corner. You would also expect some of the time that the corner that was mashed would change from one corner to the next.

Soo..... that means this happened in one of the pack insertion machines. YouTube will show you have pack insertion machines handle cards, both in the shoot hoppers and the belt routs. There would be a single shoot hopper that the YG came out of... and that is why the YG (and no other cards) were damaged.

I suspect that the shoot hopper used wasn’t aluminum but some sort of plastic or Teflon. The corners would be melted/moulded along the edges causing slight rounding of rectangular cards shoved inside.

This accounts for all 4 corners being rounded, but rarely dinged. Some corners show dog-earring but only a surface lift on the back (Zeery-11 had a video with a corner like this).


Thoughts? Any other printing and packing nerds out there?


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[Rraincock]

Another possibility, which is unlikely, would be that the route belts moving the YG from one area of the production run to another (card shuffler) rattled the cards back and forth so much that it beat the corners in.

I doubt it though.


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