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Anyone read "Card Sharks"? Interesting find and variation related...(Beware! Lengthy post!
jacksoncoupage
Posts: 609
I just found a copy of this book this afternoon and I have struggled to put it down since. It's truly an interesting read covering some of the most exciting collecting years.
There's an especially interesting chapter that deals with Upper Deck (Mainly McWilliam) reprinting "hot" cards that had a strong secondary market value, for example: 1989 Griffey, 1989 Dale Murphy ERR, 1990 Ben McDonald ERR and the 1990-91 French Hockey cards, and distributing them through various hobby channels for personal profit.
One part that really sticks out to me is how in the 1990-91 French hockey example, they initially had produced 600 cases...end of story. But a few months later, after cases shot up to almost $10,000 a piece, they turned the presses back on at McWilliam's order and produced another large run, thus causing the cards' values to drop dramatically within another year or so.
**My 10 year old self shakes it's fist at McWilliam because the lone pack I bought then cost 3 week's allowance only to yield a Robert Kron RC**
Moving on...
For the last few years now I have been hunting down several of the 1990-1991 Upper Deck cards due to a variation I stumbled upon while organizing my Robin Ventura collection. As of today I have noticed that 1991 Upper Deck Basball cards can be found in as many as 4 different hologram variations: 1990 Upper Deck Baseball, 1991 Upper Deck Baseball (same as 1991 UD NFL), 1990-91 Upper Deck Hockey and 1992 Upper Deck Baseball. 1990-91 Upper Deck French Hockey can be found in 2 different hologram variations (so far): 1990-91 Upper Deck Hockey and 1991 Upper Deck Baseball (same as 1991 Football).
I have been trying to understand the reasoning for this for a while now and I think it may be related to the dating of the product's pressing. It now looks very possible that say, a 1990-91 Upper Deck French Sergei Fedorov RC with a 1990-91 Hologram may be from the initial 600 case printing ( Yay! There's only 1,000,000 of my copy vs. 20,000,000 of your lowly 2nd print card!). The reprinting of the 1990-91 French stuff was denied by McWilliam and the hologram switch, if a reprinting did occur months after the initial pressing, could possibly prove that.
Also, when I look at the 1991 Upper Deck Baseball cards that have 1990 Holograms, I wonder if this is from the initial pressing and subsequently, if the cards with the 1992 Holograms are from a well, way later printing. That also leaves the question: Why print 1991 Baseball using the 1990-91 Hockey holograms and where do they fit in during the production time line.
And yes, I'm well aware that investigating what is considered junk year cardboard minutia, is not going to instantly add value to anyone's 1989-1991 Upper Deck cards, but from a player and variation collector's perspective, this book may have helped make some sense of the whole hologram variation thing.
It'd be really great to hear from someone who worked on production of these years cards. I'm still waiting on someone to spill some inside info on the 1990 Witt card and after reading this book, I wonder how many McWilliam has stashed for himself.
For those just hearing of the hologram variations for the first time, here's a recap of what I have found so far:
1989 UD MLB: with pattern of baseball's behind "upper deck" lettering and without pattern of baseball's behind "upper deck" lettering.
1990 UD MLB: 1990 UD MLB holograms only (pattern of LARGE baseballs and "Upper Deck" print).
1991 UD MLB: 1990 MLB holograms pattern of LARGE baseballs "Upper Deck" print). 1990-91 UD NHL holograms ( Crossed hockey stick pattern and "90-91 Upper Deck" print). 1991 UD MLB holograms ( "1991 Upper Deck" pattern ). 1992 UD MLB holograms ( Upper Deck "Diamond Logo" pattern ).
1991 UD NFL: 1991 MLB holograms ( "1991 Upper Deck pattern ). 1992 UD MLB holograms ( Upper Deck "Diamond Logo" pattern ).
***Note, I cannot confirm, but I am fairly certain these hologram variations affect every player in these sets. I have yet to locate a variation besides the "correct" 1991 holograms type for the 1991 Michael Jordan SP , Ryan Heroes, Aaron Heroes and Silver Slugger subset cards.***
There's an especially interesting chapter that deals with Upper Deck (Mainly McWilliam) reprinting "hot" cards that had a strong secondary market value, for example: 1989 Griffey, 1989 Dale Murphy ERR, 1990 Ben McDonald ERR and the 1990-91 French Hockey cards, and distributing them through various hobby channels for personal profit.
One part that really sticks out to me is how in the 1990-91 French hockey example, they initially had produced 600 cases...end of story. But a few months later, after cases shot up to almost $10,000 a piece, they turned the presses back on at McWilliam's order and produced another large run, thus causing the cards' values to drop dramatically within another year or so.
**My 10 year old self shakes it's fist at McWilliam because the lone pack I bought then cost 3 week's allowance only to yield a Robert Kron RC**
Moving on...
For the last few years now I have been hunting down several of the 1990-1991 Upper Deck cards due to a variation I stumbled upon while organizing my Robin Ventura collection. As of today I have noticed that 1991 Upper Deck Basball cards can be found in as many as 4 different hologram variations: 1990 Upper Deck Baseball, 1991 Upper Deck Baseball (same as 1991 UD NFL), 1990-91 Upper Deck Hockey and 1992 Upper Deck Baseball. 1990-91 Upper Deck French Hockey can be found in 2 different hologram variations (so far): 1990-91 Upper Deck Hockey and 1991 Upper Deck Baseball (same as 1991 Football).
I have been trying to understand the reasoning for this for a while now and I think it may be related to the dating of the product's pressing. It now looks very possible that say, a 1990-91 Upper Deck French Sergei Fedorov RC with a 1990-91 Hologram may be from the initial 600 case printing ( Yay! There's only 1,000,000 of my copy vs. 20,000,000 of your lowly 2nd print card!). The reprinting of the 1990-91 French stuff was denied by McWilliam and the hologram switch, if a reprinting did occur months after the initial pressing, could possibly prove that.
Also, when I look at the 1991 Upper Deck Baseball cards that have 1990 Holograms, I wonder if this is from the initial pressing and subsequently, if the cards with the 1992 Holograms are from a well, way later printing. That also leaves the question: Why print 1991 Baseball using the 1990-91 Hockey holograms and where do they fit in during the production time line.
And yes, I'm well aware that investigating what is considered junk year cardboard minutia, is not going to instantly add value to anyone's 1989-1991 Upper Deck cards, but from a player and variation collector's perspective, this book may have helped make some sense of the whole hologram variation thing.
It'd be really great to hear from someone who worked on production of these years cards. I'm still waiting on someone to spill some inside info on the 1990 Witt card and after reading this book, I wonder how many McWilliam has stashed for himself.
For those just hearing of the hologram variations for the first time, here's a recap of what I have found so far:
1989 UD MLB: with pattern of baseball's behind "upper deck" lettering and without pattern of baseball's behind "upper deck" lettering.
1990 UD MLB: 1990 UD MLB holograms only (pattern of LARGE baseballs and "Upper Deck" print).
1991 UD MLB: 1990 MLB holograms pattern of LARGE baseballs "Upper Deck" print). 1990-91 UD NHL holograms ( Crossed hockey stick pattern and "90-91 Upper Deck" print). 1991 UD MLB holograms ( "1991 Upper Deck" pattern ). 1992 UD MLB holograms ( Upper Deck "Diamond Logo" pattern ).
1991 UD NFL: 1991 MLB holograms ( "1991 Upper Deck pattern ). 1992 UD MLB holograms ( Upper Deck "Diamond Logo" pattern ).
***Note, I cannot confirm, but I am fairly certain these hologram variations affect every player in these sets. I have yet to locate a variation besides the "correct" 1991 holograms type for the 1991 Michael Jordan SP , Ryan Heroes, Aaron Heroes and Silver Slugger subset cards.***
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Comments
<< <i>I was never a UD fan as a child and never opened much of the stuff until 1992 or so. I figured out later it's because they didn't print a Thomas rookie. I'll have to do some digging in my 1991 UD Thomas stash. >>
Years ago, I found the 1991 Thomas in the 1990 hologram type as well as the 1990-91 Hockey type, so I can confirm those two exist.
Collecting Robin Ventura and Matt Luke.
<< <i>Yeah, it's a good book. I picked one up maybe 6 months ago (it's out of print), another card was the SP1 Jordan baseball card that McWilliam had printed like crazy after it became hot so he could give them to dealers in 100 count cases at a time who buy advance cases. He's a real scum bag. I try to limit myself to one of these books a year as it can get pretty depressing about stuff that happens in our hobby. I also went through the book very quickly, it's a easy read, I found the writing style not the best and the author tended to repeat himself a lot. But worth picking up, I'd love to see what other stuff McWilliam had reprinted for "the archives". >>
The book was fascinating but yeah, the author did repeat a lot of stuff, especially hobby definitions.
It also stated that he had 5000-6000 more of each 1990 Upper Deck error card produced. If the 1990 UD Witt #702 cards were being pulled from production, I'm willing to bet they went straight into McWilliam's "archives". As I'm sure most of the Heroes of Baseball Autos numbered "1" out of 2500 and jersey numbered (34/2500) etc. are as well.
And yeah, it's hard to read about all this stuff but the era of the error and promo craze is still my favorite time in my 20+ years of collecting.
Collecting Robin Ventura and Matt Luke.
scroll down for book review
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Amazon.com Product Description (ISBN 0026290618, Hardcover)
Book overview
Sports cards, invented in the 1880s, originally served as free advertising space & premiums to boost sales. No longer a premium for another product, sports cards now are the product. More than 10 million Americans collect sports cards, hoping one day to reap their "investment" benefits. Williams takes us from the birth of trading cards to the present, when the buying & selling of cards has become everyman's stock market. At the center of the industry is the Upper Deck Co., with sales of 1 billion cards since 1990. Williams' account is the first solid investigative look at what goes on at Upper Deck. He reveals the tactics they use to dominate the trading card market.
No preview available - 1995 - 278 pages
........................
Collecting Robin Ventura and Matt Luke.
Nick
Reap the whirlwind.
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I have several hundred of these '91 Upper Deck cards with the '90 style hologram on the back.
Most of them are numbered between (600-699), and I remember pulling them out of a 'Heroes of Baseball' '91 Upper Deck case.
These 'Heroes of Baseball' cases were supposed to include autographed inserts of Gaylord Perry, Harmon Killebrew & Ferguson Jenkins.
Also, I'm pretty sure that the '91 UD 'Heroes' cases were released several months after the inital '91 UD cases hit the streets.
I'm fairly doubtful that the '90 style holograms were available only in early run cases, although it's possible that they were indeed printed early and withheld from production for several months.
I'm not too sure that the truth will ever be known about these holograms.
Tim
The challange to find some obscure Dale Murphy cards gets my motor running (wow I'm a nerd)
Is there hologram variations in 1991 UD for Mr. Murphy?