Happy 25th birthday Upper Deck (and the world famous Griffey RC)!

Estil

Forgive me if this has been done already but do you guys realize that it's already the 25th anniversary of Upper Deck? While the Wikipedia article does a good job of telling the story (as well as why Griffey was picked for card #1 even though he hadn't yet made the big leagues at the time), he's a fun fact that even I didn't know until recently. According to the 1993 Fifth Anniversary insert set from 1993, the first three years of Upper Deck's design is based off the baseball diamond. As you can see, 1989 shows on the right side the first base side and running lane, the 1990 set shows on the top side second base and the running lane before it (well you know what I mean), and then 1991 uses the left and bottom sides to show third base (which has the position) and home plate (team logo). Now I don't know for sure if they planned all three of those years that far in advance but it was still a clever idea nevertheless!

So here's to 1989 Upper Deck! And who cares if it's not quite a valuable as it was in its prime? They're still the same cards aren't they?

mlbfan2

<< <i>According to the 1993 Fifth Anniversary insert set from 1993, the first three years of Upper Deck's design is based off the baseball diamond. As you can see, 1989 shows on the right side the first base side and running lane, the 1990 set shows on the top side second base and the running lane before it (well you know what I mean), and then 1991 uses the left and bottom sides to show third base (which has the position) and home plate (team logo). Now I don't know for sure if they planned all three of those years that far in advance but it was still a clever idea nevertheless!
>>



If that's the case, then I wonder why 2nd base is not square? First base is square in 1989. Then in 1991, 3rd base is an octagon. Artistic license, I guess.

hyperchipper09

I never pulled a centered one. Later on, bought a decent one, subbed it came back PSA 9 then sold it in late 1999 for something like $200 or $225. Kinda miss those days

esquiresports

Man I am getting old! I remember when those packs first showed up at a small show in the San Diego area, which is down the road from the UD production facilities. Most dealers were of the view that they wouldn't do well because $0.99 per pack was too much. Imagine telling them that 10-15 years later they would be seeing packs that cost $400 or so and contain a single card.

digicat

Ahh, 1989 UD. Still brings back memories. Most of them fond ones from my early days of collecting, but one in particular turned into a hard hobby lesson in 1990: Don't let your trade binder out of your sight.

I let my trade binder go around the table, and by the time it got back to me, it was missing 3 of my 5 89 UD Griffeys (which I was dumb enough to keep in my binder to show off).

Ilovecards

Wow 25 years and still in business after they pulled everything they have pulled all these years.

They reprinted like a million of those Griffeys didn't they ?

Estil

<< <i>Man I am getting old! I remember when those packs first showed up at a small show in the San Diego area, which is down the road from the UD production facilities. Most dealers were of the view that they wouldn't do well because $0.99 per pack was too much. Imagine telling them that 10-15 years later they would be seeing packs that cost $400 or so and contain a single card. >>



Even just five years later we had the $25 1993 Topps Finest packs (which nowadays you can easily get the whole set for the cost of just 3-4), and people even then were complaining how it was driving younger and/or not-so-rich collectors out of the hobby (though at least in the mid-90s the base level packs were still in the $1-$1.50 range so it's not like there weren't SOME reasonably priced packs/sets). Incidentally I think the 1993 set is one of the best looking sets they ever done...be nice if I could find the gold hologram set someday...

Estil

<< <i>Wow 25 years and still in business after they pulled everything they have pulled all these years.

They reprinted like a million of those Griffeys didn't they ? >>



I don't know about that but apparently they had planned to do only a million of each card (yes "only"; don't laugh that's still at least 5%-10% of what the other companies were most likely printing so for that time period it was pretty limited edition) but increased it to up to two million each upon underestimating just how popular the set would be.

Say can anyone here post the original two page 1989 Upper Deck ad? The one showing three kids outside a card store with their new cards and two others sad at the "sold out" sign?

Ilovecards

yeah upper deck , would reprint all their popular cards by the millions and sell them off in the secondary market.

they also used/ use fake game used jersey/ items

they cannot verify any upper deck signed authentic items before 2002 to be real

they cannot also verify the cards being signed are actually being signed by the athlete though they claim the cards are signed in front of an upper deck rep though it is known one athlete had his brother sign the cards for him

and we cannot forget how they made counterfeits of the most expensive and rare yu gi oh cards when Konami made them distributors of their Cards.


lmao

Estil

yeah upper deck , would reprint all their popular cards by the millions and sell them off in the secondary market. [citation needed]

they also used/ use fake game used jersey/ items[citation needed]

they cannot verify any upper deck signed authentic items before 2002 to be real [citation needed]

they cannot also verify the cards being signed are actually being signed by the athlete though they claim the cards are signed in front of an upper deck rep though it is known one athlete had his brother sign the cards for him [citation needed]

and we cannot forget how they made counterfeits of the most expensive and rare yu gi oh cards when Konami made them distributors of their Cards. [citation needed]


lmao



Fixed it for ya.

Meatloaf

<< <i>yeah upper deck , would reprint all their popular cards by the millions and sell them off in the secondary market. [citation needed]

they also used/ use fake game used jersey/ items[citation needed]

they cannot verify any upper deck signed authentic items before 2002 to be real [citation needed]

they cannot also verify the cards being signed are actually being signed by the athlete though they claim the cards are signed in front of an upper deck rep though it is known one athlete had his brother sign the cards for him [citation needed]

and we cannot forget how they made counterfeits of the most expensive and rare yu gi oh cards when Konami made them distributors of their Cards. [citation needed]


lmao





Fixed it for ya. >>



Nice

stevebay

Another known fact: Griffey is not wearing a mariners cap, but a San Bernardino cap, of which UD airbrushed it w/ the Mariner's "S".

digicat

I don't know why I just took the time to do this, but.....

yeah upper deck , would reprint all their popular cards by the millions and sell them off in the secondary market. [citation needed] - this book
they also used/ use fake game used jersey/ items[citation needed] - link
they cannot verify any upper deck signed authentic items before 2002 to be real [citation needed] - link
they cannot also verify the cards being signed are actually being signed by the athlete though they claim the cards are signed in front of an upper deck rep though it is known one athlete had his brother sign the cards for him [citation needed] (I've got nothing. Only internet rumors.)
and we cannot forget how they made counterfeits of the most expensive and rare yu gi oh cards when Konami made them distributors of their Cards. [citation needed] - link

Ilovecards

thanks digi actually in the autograph magazine the missing citation is also mentioned in the same article , there is no proof , but I know for a fact that cards are sent to be signed to a player and no rep is there in some cases.

Comment by shawn on February 7, 2013 at 8:42am
You know, there was a story about Upper Deck and Larry Bird floating around in the early 2000's that UD did not have a rep at a signing for Larry items and Larry's brother was signing them. They had mailed their items to Larry because of scheduling conflicts that continued to arise





<< <i>I don't know why I just took the time to do this, but.....

yeah upper deck , would reprint all their popular cards by the millions and sell them off in the secondary market. [citation needed] - this book
they also used/ use fake game used jersey/ items[citation needed] - link
they cannot verify any upper deck signed authentic items before 2002 to be real [citation needed] - link
they cannot also verify the cards being signed are actually being signed by the athlete though they claim the cards are signed in front of an upper deck rep though it is known one athlete had his brother sign the cards for him [citation needed] (I've got nothing. Only internet rumors.)
and we cannot forget how they made counterfeits of the most expensive and rare yu gi oh cards when Konami made them distributors of their Cards. [citation needed] - link >>

Ilovecards

oh and lets not forget the legendary sp cards they faked !

citation !
linky poo

jasoneggert

I got this one signed in person at a card show in Seattle in 1989.

-Jason

Estil

<< <i>I don't know why I just took the time to do this, but..... >>



Because you were making some rather serious allegations (that in my case were mostly new to me) with nothing to back it up. Now you got me wanting to read that book (if my local library happens to have a copy or I can find a free version online)...

Good thing I don't do auto/game used cards...

And I thought UD had enough problems just from that weird new logo they did a few years back...

Ilovecards

<< <i>

<< <i>I don't know why I just took the time to do this, but..... >>



Because you were making some rather serious allegations (that in my case were mostly new to me) with nothing to back it up. Now you got me wanting to read that book (if my local library happens to have a copy or I can find a free version online)...

Good thing I don't do auto/game used cards...

And I thought UD had enough problems just from that weird new logo they did a few years back... >>



it was me that said it, digi just took the time to put the citations up.

Read about Upper Deck, it is a horrible company filled with scam artist , how they are still in business , I do not know.

think about it they made counterfeit cards !


here is the story from crimeline

We have been swimming in legal documents for a few days now reading and disseminated as much as possible so we can bring you the facts, in an easy to follow format. So we bring you the Konami Vs. Upper Deck crimeline. (you see what we did with the jok… you know what never mind)

To say this is a quagmire is an understatement, literally hundreds of pages of claims and counter claims, and an 84 page undisputed fact statement. We have taken information from many of these sources and put it together in a more user friendly way so that the general public can see what really happened and when. Everything published in this article has been taken from legal documents unless otherwise stated, and all of it has been found to be true and or undisputed by both parties.

Konami entered into an agreement with Upper Deck in 2002 which would allow Upper Deck to become the exclusive worldwide distributor for the popular Card Game Yu Gi Oh!. Upper Deck’s role was that of marketing and distribution along with game support and customer service, at no point were they manufacturing or legitimately printing Yu-Gi-Oh cards that would be sold. Konami had the cards printed and packed and maintained strict control over this aspect of the card game, and it’s production. Konami at all times owned and continue to own the Yu Gi Oh brand.

In August 2008 Konami became aware of counterfeit cards being sold in blister packs with real cards in Toys R Us shops in the Los Angeles area. Subsequently in October of the same year they filed suit against a company called Vintage who said that these cards were in fact from Upper Deck. 20 shipping boxes (thousands of cards) were recovered from Vintage. It is at this point that Konami contacted Upper Deck for information and also at this point that things started to take a turn for the worse. You see it was Upper Deck who had made these counterfeit cards. They didn’t admit that at the time but the subsequent chain of events would Upper Deck’s guilt to the forefront of card news.

In 2006 Upper Decks chairman Richard McWilliam (or DICK as many will now know him) asked the Brand Manger Stephanie Mascott to provide him with a list of the ten of the more sought after and valuable Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. She backhanded this request to a man named Leighton Kurashima because as she says in her deposition

“I don’t know the cards”

(not much of a brand manager Ed). Kurashima on the other hand decided to plead the Fifth Amendment which prevents a party from giving testimony that would incriminate themselves. It should be noted that in a civil trial pleading the fifth amendment CAN be considered an admission of guilt and taken into account by the presiding judge.

On the 4th of June 2007 Kurashima sent Stephanie Mascott an email called “Card Project” which contained a list of 9 rare cards which we will detail more about later. McWilliam (DICK) asked for Stephanie Mascott to have disk prepared for him which would contain the 9 card images and the back of the cards (the backs of Yu-Gi-Oh! cards are all the same so this was the reported “10 image disk” that has been talked about on other sites) The disk was created and given to Horst Riechers, the Vice President of Global Operations at Upper Deck, at McWilliam’s (DICK) request. . Horst plead the fifth when questioned.

(After reading a lot of this stuff Horst comes across as a bit of a bumbler definitely not someone I would want involved in MY multi million dollar counterfeit scam, DICK came to this conclusion to late)

Upper Deck employees Nancy Modaffari (graphic arts specialist and R&D) and Stacy Zuniga (lithographic Printer) then employed a company called Inner Workings Inc (run by Stephen and Genji Leclair), who set up the production and printing of the 9 cards in China, the cards were printed by “Goldhawk Package and Production Co.” In fact Nancy flew over to China to oversee the fake cards in production. It’s then that we get code names for the project.. Upper Deck went with Wiz Kids and or Wizards in Training (WIT). Nancy provided additional details to Goldhawk regarding things like card finish stickers and varnish.. This is undisputed though Nancy (who we will see later is not very good at this stuff) did plead the fifth to several questions. She sent an email to Horst and Stacy Zuniga entitled “security foil HELP” which was asking for aid in obtaining the security holographic foil used in Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. She wanted this, as she so subtly put it:

“to send to China for the secret project”

(Nancy is not the brightest bulb is she?)

On July 18th 2007 Upper Deck purchased silver Yu-Gi-Oh! foil from API Foils Inc. for it’s “WI Special Project” and asked that it be shipped directly to Goldhawk in China. The order forms were signed by Stacy Zuniga and Horst Riechers.

Nancy as we said before flew over to see that the printing was done correctly, she gave the OK on these cards and they were shipped to the US in 76 boxes.

(We can only assume that Nancy Modaffari is very very bad at her job, and that’s being nice about it, the cards she said were OK were in fact far from it as will be detailed shortly. How this woman got a job is a mystery much less what sort of mastermind allowed her into a criminal enterprise like this… I guess we are all very lucky that the folks who run Upper Deck are this incompetent. I mean the stickers were the wrong colour, (silver rather than gold) a frikin 9 year old could spot these cards as fake.. ed).

Once in the US most of the cards were sent to Vintage, they received the following:

60,000 Elemental Hero Flame Wing Man,
`
50,000 Destiny Hero Dreadmaster,

60,000 Elemental Hero Aqua Neos,

50,000 Water Dragon,

60,000 Elemental Hero Electrum,

50,000Elemental Hero Mudballman,

50,000 The Flute Of Summoning Kuriboh,

55,000 Mist Body, and

60,000 White Horned Dragon

Interestingly in the cases of Flame Wing Man and Aqua Neos more of the fake cards were produced than the original Konami cards

495,000 were provided to Vantage at “No Cost” The head of Vintage Cards Chris Lawrence stated the cards were from Upper Deck and came in boxes labeled “UD Card Test” and “made in China” They then received another 36,240 cards in May 2008.

In late 2007 Vintage repackaged the counterfeit cards with packs of older poor selling Yu-Gi-Oh products and sold them to Toys R Us, as well as other retailers. It’s at this point that Upper Deck become implicated and soon after Konami terminated Upper Deck as it’s authorized distributor of Yu-Gi-Oh and ordered them to stop all transactions.

Upper Deck instead issued a number of statements which held that they would be

“maintaining business as usual and fulfilling orders and shipping product”

They said they remained the authorized distributor, and attempted to blame Konami for all the problems. They put out statements that claimed Konami had breached there contractual obligations by failing to ship new products to them for distribution.

Upper deck were ordered by the courts to stop claiming (falsely) that they were authorised Yu-Gi-Oh! distributors, and to halt all sales of Yu-Gi-Oh! merchandise they may have had in stock while the matters were settled. Upper Deck did not do this they continued to sell the items and continued to state the Yu-Gi-Oh! was an Upper Deck brand, they also continued to advertise themselves as the official supplier of Yu-Gi-Oh using Konami owned logos and marks in over 100 locations on there website.

It gets worse: Stephanie Mascott has given us an insight into the whole affair in her deposition regarding details of a meeting in Richard (DICK) McWilliams office. They discussed the counterfeit cards saying that they:

“didn’t look authentic enough” [Due to discrepancy's in] “the security foil hologram” [and problems with] “the finish, the varnish,the UV coating”

Then:

“Richard proceed to yell profanity’s at Horst blaming him for how the cards looked. Horst said he would have to talk to Nancy”.

(Nancy as we established seems to have no idea what a YuGiOh card should look like)

“Richard then yelled at him for sending the cards through Chyanne (Chyanne is the Upper Deck facility in Nevada) Horst replied and said the cards were shipped from Goldhawk to the customer not through Chyanne.”.

[Note: They were shipped to Chyanne first] During the same meeting McWilliams made a phone call and said to the person on the other end (believed to be Vintage)

“Remember you don’t know where you got the cards from okay?”

He then shredded sample of the counterfeit cards in his office. (McWilliam admits to shredding both the genuine and counterfeit cards during this meeting in his deposition).. This meeting took place in April 2008, as we have shown above in May 2008 Vintage received an additional 36,240 cards.

Once Konami became aware of the situation with Vintage Rick Dean stated in his deposition that Richard McWilliam told him he should say that he does

“not know the source in a lot of instances [of].. the product we purchase on the secondary market”

(for those that missed the point it is this: McWilliam was telling Dean (the head of Vintage) to tell Konami that the cards came from the secondary market so they didn’t know they were fake and it was nothing to do with upper deck)

Dean was not keen on that idea and did nothing of the sort.

All the while Konami was trying to stop Upper Deck from harming the Yu-Gi-Oh brand, and Upper Deck were trying by any means possible to blame someone else for the problems they created. They issued statements (as detailed above) trying to blame Konami, they changed URL’s so that when customers clicked links for information on Yu-Gi-Oh they would be taken to games that actively competed for the same market share, they lied and they took orders for products they had been told they would not get. Richard McWilliam made a calculated attempt to alter the secondary for personal gain while directly harming Konami’s reputation and profitability.

In January 2009 Upper Deck issued a press release stating that any suggestion that they were involved in counterfeiting was “absurd”

On December 1st 2009 Richard McWilliam gave a deposition in which he admitted producing more than 600,000 unauthorized (counterfeit) Yu-Gi-Oh Cards.

360 degrees in 12 months.

This may not shut Upper Deck down but at the very least it should slow them a little, it shows what sort of company they are, and perhaps open a few eyes to the sort of practices that go on in the card industry. The damages are assessed on the 26th of Jan 2010 and you can be sure we will bring you the details as soon as we have them. Richard McWilliam deserves all the scorn and mockery he may get. Personally I hope he is out of a job soon. The near comical screw ups that took place all the way through this would make it almost laughable. Almost, but it’s not because it’s another black eye to an already hurting industry.

Estil

I'd really like to know the story behind the alleged reprinting of the Griffey RC. There was actually a letter in an old 90s Beckett about someone concerned about the Griffey RC look-a-like being used for the Fifth Anniversary insert (1993) and wondering just how easy it would be to just whip up some more whenever UD felt like it. Beckett magazine replied that UD (like all other companies) destroys all the printing plates after the cards are printed and that the Fifth Anniversary cards are photographic reprints. They also pointed out that if UD were to be stupid enough to try the whole reprinting more cards thing it would amount to corporate suicide. I guess in the case of the Yu-Gi-Oh incident UD didn't quite get that memo.

What I'm really interested in knowing is the whole story behind the alleged Griffey reprints.

Ilovecards

yeah that would be in that book, they talked about how they would reprint cards that became valuable and sell them into the secondary market.

You have to remember this company is / was run by scam artist. Not the original founders or designers other than the head scam artist McWilliams.

another books is operation bullpen that talks about the FBIs case into Upper Deck and the counterfeit world of sports memorabilia.

elronmckenzie

I remember buying my first one for $13 on the playground at school in 5th grade back in '89. That was nearly a week and half worth of allowance. My parents thought I was nuts for spending that much on one card.

Estil

<< <i>I remember buying my first one for $13 on the playground at school in 5th grade back in '89. That was nearly a week and half worth of allowance. My parents thought I was nuts for spending that much on one card. >>



Do you still have it? And were you careful enough about the condition that it ended up being a PSA 9 or 10? And most important of all, were you able to cash in during the late 90s/early 00s peak value for PSA cards?

If so I'd say you ended up not-so-nuts.

elronmckenzie

It was in near mint shape. I ended up trading it in part for a Griffey Jr./Sr. autographed ball. I picked up a PSA 9 a few years ago for $25-30 that I'm quite happy with.

Estil

<< <i>It was in near mint shape. I ended up trading it in part for a Griffey Jr./Sr. autographed ball. I picked up a PSA 9 a few years ago for $25-30 that I'm quite happy with. >>



So in the end you weren't so nuts after all! And I'm sure there's a LOT fewer Griffey Sr/Jr combo balls going around than PSA 9-10 89UD Griffeys, am I wrong?

Ilovecards

for sure there are 25838 PSA 8 18549 PSA 9 and 2029 PSA 10 of the Griffey Card it Is one of the most graded cards ever.

giantsfan20

t

akuracy503

The reference to UD auto's not being guaranteed prior to 2002 got me thinking.

what about 2001 SPX Pujol's and Ichiro game used autographed rookie cards.
Are there any authentication issues with this set being that it is from 2001?

Accusations and investigations leading to dirty practices can absolutely ruin this hobby.
What a mess!

digicat

<< <i>The reference to UD auto's not being guaranteed prior to 2002 got me thinking.

what about 2001 SPX Pujol's and Ichiro game used autographed rookie cards.
Are there any authentication issues with this set being that it is from 2001?

Accusations and investigations leading to dirty practices can absolutely ruin this hobby.
What a mess! >>



From what I read, the main issue with the authentication of pre 2002 stuff is not for their cards, but for their authentication service (sorta like PSA/DNA). So, if you bought a signed baseball or jersey with a pre-2002 authentication sticker for their autograph, there's a chance that they lost the serial number and can no longer verify.

Sounds like they had a database crash or something at some point and lost a lot of data that they gave up on trying to retrieve.

Estil

At least you can still post a picture here and the auto experts here can vote yea or nay. But this is all the more reason why (off-topic) I always prefer my video games on actual cartridges or discs and not trust/depend on digital download games. See how easy it is for a company to later just not "feel like" supporting the service and leaving paying customers forever hanging?

Ilovecards

<< <i>The reference to UD auto's not being guaranteed prior to 2002 got me thinking.

what about 2001 SPX Pujol's and Ichiro game used autographed rookie cards.
Are there any authentication issues with this set being that it is from 2001?

Accusations and investigations leading to dirty practices can absolutely ruin this hobby.
What a mess! >>



the autographs maybe real but the game used part is questionable.

Tabe

<< <i>for sure there are 25838 PSA 8 18549 PSA 9 and 2029 PSA 10 of the Griffey Card it Is one of the most graded cards ever. >>


If it's not #1, what the heck is?