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Upper Deck bids on Topps.

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by wickedwritah, May 24, 2007.

  1. 93Devil

    93Devil Well-Known Member

    You are 100 percent correct.

    I plan to start collecting again though.

    I want to get a team checklist from the 1979 Pirates and one of the Steelers Super Bowl teams then see what I have and get the remainder on ebay.

    Once I have the complete set, I will mount and frame it.

    I tried doing one player, but did you know Hines Ward has like 86 different Upper Deck cards alone? It's sickening to try and collect this.


    All that said, I have a friend who is trying to recreate the Babe Ruth collage in the ESPN Zone in Manhattan. He is about 80 percent complete. He knows it will be a lifetime quest.
     
  2. cranberry

    cranberry Well-Known Member

    Upper Deck's emergence was the beginning of the end. UD was good for the industry because it forced quality into the equation in contrast to Topps' piss-poor product. The photography and the paper (bleached white stock on which the pictures popped) were far superior and consumers reacted positively. Even Topps, which had dominated market share over Fleer, Donruss and Score through strong distribution and the inherent edge it had to manufacture "rookie" cards, had to compete by introducing a premium brand to go with its 99 cent wax packs. Upper Deck sought to find another edge through the issuance of random inserts, which suggested collectibility to consumers who had now been conditioned that "rare" cards could become valuable. Of course, the other manufacturers followed suit. For example, Score launched its upscale Pinnacle brand. The products all improved in quality but at the same time the manufacturers all realized they could bring price points up and realize huge profit margins. The first big blow to the industry came when Upper Deck had a scandal about back-dooring product (former Baseball Weekly writer Pete Williams wrote a book about it that I think was called Card Sharks). That revelation first brought into serious question whether any of the crap that consumers were purchasing was actually going to hold any longterm value. Consumer began to realize that they're mass-produced cards, as pretty as they were, weren't going to carry the value of the old Tobacco cards and Mickey Mantle cards that people found in their attics.

    The market slowed down and Pinnacle, which had recently been purchased by a Texas holding company in a highly leveraged deal, got desperate and turned its strategy to grabbing market share rather than trying to sell volume at retail. It publicly announced it would begin numbering the boxes and limiting products to 3,000 cases, which in turn forced all of the companies to follow suit. To make up for the lack of volume the companies all began developing multiple sub-brands that were barely distinguishable from one another and all driven by various levels of inserts.

    Soon, all but the hard-core enthusiasts began to loose interest, however, and the companies, which had all expanded (employees, debt, machinery) during the boom years, began experiencing financial problems. The market consolidation continues to today.
     
  3. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    When I started collecting, there were three brands: Topps, Donruss and Fleer. Then Score came along in 1988. And Upper Deck in 1989. And Bowman was revived somewhere along the line. You also had your Topps Traded, your Donruss Update, whatever.

    Then they reverted to the old-school series schemes. I couldn't keep up with who was in what. And I was a kid. I totally lost interest.

    I was so into it back in the day that I bought one of the first Fleer or Donruss packs (can't remember which) -- the ones with gum in them, before Topps sued -- just to see how quickly a 9-year-old stick of gum would shatter when I smacked it off a hard surface. Seriously, I had no life when I was 12.

    Now there seem to be so many companies, so much product. Time for me to go dig up my Pro Set Barry Sanders rookie card. Maybe I'll find that NBA Hoops Detroit Pistons card, too. And, of course, the Billy Ripken "fuck face" card.
     
  4. expendable

    expendable Well-Known Member

    The whole thing got too confusing for me, around the time I discovered Budweiser. Strange, but when Budweiser introduced several new brands, I didn't let that confusion bother me.
     
  5. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    Well, since they all taste the same ...

    Speaking of collectible, I'd think a bottle of Bud Dry would be worth something nowadays.
     
  6. kingcreole

    kingcreole Active Member

    Fuck Upper Deck. I blame them for ruining the hobby. I was so into baseball cards in the 80s, even early 90s. You name it, I bought it - Topps, Fleer, Donruss, SportFlicks, Score, Bowman, all of it. But I never liked Upper Deck, them and their flashy, expensive cards. Shit hasn't been the same since that 1989 set came out.

    Gawd, what I wouldn't give to walk down to the grocery store and plunk down 50 cents for a wax pack of 15 cards with a stick of cardboard-tasting gum.
     
  7. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    I go into the grocery store down the street from the newsroom a couple times each week. I saw a pack of Topps while in line a week or so ago going for $2.99. That's definitely keeping the audience that they should be targeting -- kids -- out of the hobby.
     
  8. chazp

    chazp Active Member

    Man you bring back lots of memories. I owned a card shop from 1988-94. By the mid 90s there was so much competition, I could no longer make any profit.
    Did you ever collect the "Triple Play," set? I loved them. It was a throw back to a simpler set when everything was getting glitzy.
     
  9. expendable

    expendable Well-Known Member

    I wrote a column on that a couple of years ago. I got some great feedback from others who read it and decided to go and do the same thing. Not one of my best columns (one freakin' stupid grammatical error that slapped me in the face only after it got on the cheap paper). Still, I'm proud of what it was able to do.
     
  10. StormSurge

    StormSurge Active Member

    I was a big collector in the 80's as well & stopped in the early 90's when there were five Stadium Club sets & six Fleer Ultras. I couldn't keep up, let alone afford all the new sets.

    Just recently, I started back up again, but with a specific focus. I'm trying to collect every Mets regular issue Topps card. I went through all my old boxes, but a list on eBay & started sticking them in plastic sleeves. I've also attended a couple of card shows to dig through the common bins. Going to the shows brought back a ton of good memories.
     
  11. wickedwritah

    wickedwritah Guest

    The 1987 Topps set was the retro wood-grained one, right? Always was partial to that, myself.
     
  12. Norman Stansfield

    Norman Stansfield Active Member

    That is so wrong, but so funny...
     
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