upperdeck griffey jr. scam in early 90's? whats the story?

krazyace5

Never heard about this one, can someone fill me in? thanks

wlf3

UD supposedly, when the sales went through the roof and the Griffey was $100 or so, they reprinted 10,000s of griffeys... actually they supposedly did the same with a few other cards including the Dale Murphy reverse negative card.... and distributed them to the higer-ups in the company - many of whom resold to dealers, etc.

jrdolan

I hope this is just one of those silly rumors that took on a life of its own. How did UD sell tens of thousands of extra Griffey singles? If they sold them direct to dealers in lots of 100 or sheets or whatever, that fact would be well known and documented, and the pop report would reflect it. Some people on this board would have been buyers of those lots and would confirm it. I was out of the hobby in those years, so I missed the stories.

Aknot

Maybe they inserted them into the Hi series at one a box or better.

koby

When you get the chance, you should read the book Card Sharks.

koby

I just found my copy. The author is Pete Williams and the complete title is:

Card Sharks : How Upper Deck Turned a Child's Hobby into a High-Stakes, Billion-Dollar Business

jrdolan

Does "Card Sharks" state that UD flooded the hobby with tens of thousands extra 1989 Griffeys after the regular distribution?

Lothar52

yeah..koby give us some inserts if it says anything about this griffey scandal....

loth

Aknot

"Pete Williams provides 270 pages of details on perhaps the sports industry's ultimate insult to modern America. Using the mach-speed rise of the Upper Deck Company as his prime example, Williams depicts the once kid-friendly trading card industry as one that's fraught with fraud, mindless greed and commercialized child abuse. What's more, Williams establishes some chapter and verse on what we've long decried: A scam-infested, sports-related industry that was fully licensed - no questions asked - by the guardians of our games in exchange for their take of the dubious and often downright dirty dough...A great read for those who wanted to know just how far we've fallen, but were afraid to ask."
-Phil Mushnick, New York Post

schr1st

According to the book (page 131), Upper Deck produced 125,000 cases of cards in 1989. "In addition to the 65,000 (15 cards per pack x 36 packs per box x 20 boxes per case x 65,000 cases = 702,000,000 total cards divided by 700 low # cards = 1,002,857.142 approximate Griffeys from these low # cases alone) cases of low-series baseball cards produced in cases, Upper Deck issued a high series of cards in August numbered 700-800 as well as cards already sorted into sets and singles." On page 134, there is a quote by Ira Gosdin (head of UD security in 1989) to people stealing cards out of the Upper Deck plant, and selling them to local card stores; "Our workers would come in (to the store) with a stack of the cards wrapped in a cellophane sweet-roll wrapper - the same sweet rolls we sold at Upper Deck." Elsewhere in the book (I can't find the quotes at the moment) there are references to people using 1989 Upper Deck cards as cash at local merchants, etc. While I have no direct proof that any cards were specifically printed and held back, I certainly wouldn't doubt it (I remember seeing uncut sheets of players being sold at card shows back in 1989, and I'm guessing that since Griffey was the most valuable card right off the bat, he would be the obvious choice for such action).

Can someone re-check my math on my quotes above? I've checked it 3 times, but I want to make sure. One million Griffey cards just from the reported low # cases alone is an amazing figure, and I just want to make sure I didn't screw up and add a 0 by accident somewhere.

<edit> What is scarier is that based on that math, between BGS and PSA, less than 6% of all Griffey cards have been graded, just based on the #'s cited above. Wow.

FootballCrazy

I remember being in line at the PSA table at Ft.Washington about 3 or 4 years ago,when UD Griffey's were selling for $2000 in PSA 10, and a guy in front of me had 500-600 that he was having submitted. I had never seen so many Griffey's in my life. I don't know if that helps get you closer to your answer.

AlanAllen

I've heard rumors too. I used to shop at Jay's Sportscards in Carlsbad, owned by Jay McCracken who used to be Upper Deck brass. I was closer with another dealer who knew him better than I.... Anyway, there's no smoking gun that I know of, but dollars to doughnuts it's true. Richard McWilliam didn't know the first thing about The Hobby back then, he was just the money man.

The rumor about the 1990 Upper Deck French hockey is pretty much confirmed as being true. They dated their cases back then, and supposedly only ran 2 days worth of French. A few months later when it became hot, cases started showing up with recent dates on them.

Joe

tripoli

Yes, I remember the so-called short print Upper Deck French scam....supposedly some super low amount of the high series French cards were printed. Smokey's was selling boxes (boxes, not cases) for $600 each at one point, iirc, now you can buy them for $5.00.....supposedly some number like only 600 cases were produced....and these packs could be searched within a box for the Fedorov and Bure....I remember some guy having Bobby Orr rookies that he wanted to trade for the french Fedorov, lucky for him, I didn't do the trade.

1420sports

Is the book simply about Upper Deck or does it involve a lot more? Is it a good read?

schr1st

It mostly focus on UD, and how much of a snake Richard McWilliams was/is.

Don't get me started on Hi # french cases...

ctsoxfan

I want a copy of this book, good tip Koby. More weird happenings at UD, eh?

aro13

1420 Sports - It has some baseball card history and documents how some of the card companies got started. It is a good read, if you can sift through all of the Upper Deck hiring and firings. Also, a bit about McNall and Upper Deck Authenticated and Scoreboard and Ken Goldin.

ChrisStufflestreet

The book is a good read if you're interested in the history of the hobby. There is an awful lot about heads rolling out of the Upper Deck offices and UD corporate politics, but there is also a lot of info about the hobby's early days: Buck Duke's rise to power in the tobacco trust, Topps' origins in the tobacco industry (you might not have known that), how Topps' Sy Berger gained an advantage over Bowman's player reps, and Fleer's long struggle to make its own cards are covered in the first few chapters before the UD story begins. Also mentioned are the origins of the National (Mike Berkus organized the first one and later was involved with UD), the sudden surge in '52 Mantle prices around 1980 and Fullerton, CA detective Jack Petruzelli's case involving hundreds of counterfeit Pete Rose RCs are mentioned as well.

ChrisStufflestreet

By the way...I picked up my copy of that book on closeout for $1. Best deal I've ever gotten for any of the books on my reference shelf.

I will say that one of the former Upper Deck board members, Adrian Gluck, has told me in an email that not all of the info in the book was accurate. Unfortunately, he did not elaborate on the specifics.

phreakydancin

Great book tip!

Anyone else have a card hobby book recommendation?