do you miss upper deck baseball?

i was a late adopter to upper deck baseball. i wasn't buying a whole lot of cards by the time 1989 rolled around, and at that time i was loyal to topps when it came to baseball with my limited hobby spending. i did buy a lot of upper deck hockey starting with their 1990-91 release through 1994 or so. still, i didn't pay a lot of attention to upper deck baseball until i saw some 1992 packs for sale at my college campus convenience store.

later on in the 90's, i went back and started building the 1989 set and completed numerous dodger team sets from their flagship (and other releases). reading "card sharks" in the early days of blogging gave me a new appreciation for what the founders of the company were trying to do. as it mentioned in the book, the cards were certainly an upgrade to what the other companies were putting out at the time.

they put out some weird stuff, too, like this 1997 upper deck sp special fx card of eric karros

which demonstrates their commitment to holographic imagery and die-cut experimentation. 

by the end of the 1990's, i was all-in on upper deck baseball. they had, it seemed, more sets with legends than topps and i collected many of them. maybe fleer was the only one giving them a run for their money in that regard. here's a 2005 upper deck artifacts don drysdale card

which is the only one of four dodger "legends" short printed as part of the team set that i currently own.

they put out repetitive and redundant sets, too, like their annual obsession with "x". these three dodgers are from 2009 upper deck spx

they look pretty good scanned, i will admit.

my favorite upper deck baseball flagship set is probably 1994

there was a lot of "stadium club" level photography as andre dawson's card can attest, and i liked the design. topps, of course, took the "phantom zone" inset image and used it in their bowman release the next year, as well as in their 1996 flagship set. that dawson, by the way, is the "electric diamond" parallel, which was upper deck's answer to topps' "gold" full set parallels.

a couple of things that were pointed out in "card sharks" were the large numbers and the holograms on the card backs

one of the pet peeves of the founders (who owned a card shop) were small and/or hard to read card numbers. i am also very frustrated by that as my eyesight declines. the 1990 eddie murray card above is testament to upper deck's commitment to legible card numbers for sure. i don't know if anyone was clamoring for hologram authentication technology back then, but it certainly was a differentiator from the other card manufacturers at the beginning of the junk wax era when reprinting of key cards was somewhat rampant (of course, upper deck reprinted their own cash cow - the 1989 ken griffey jr rookie card - at will).

eventually, upper deck began to stray from some of these design tenants. the numbers got smaller

and there were releases later on in their existence that lacked the holograms on the backs, too. however, in the mid-2000's, they introduced my favorite innovation - one i wish topps would fully embrace. they put the set name on the card back

this was done as far back as 2004 from what i can find - some of their sweet spot base cards from 2004 say "2004 sweet spot" on the backs - but their flagship set in 2007 seems to be the first primary set that included this for all cards. it was issued in two series, and they identified each one on the backs. that nomar garciaparra checklist card is from series 1. that's great to know, although i consider series 1 and 2 of flagship releases to really just be one total set (although i have stopped combining the checklists in my want lists). still, it's a nice touch - one that topps has sort of embraced by putting "series one" or "chrome" under the numbers of their base card releases.

however, here are a couple of insert cards from 2024 topps chrome releases

gerrit cole got an "all-etch" insert in both topps chrome and topps chrome update. they are different, but how do you know which is from which set? in this case, topps added a "u" to the card number

so those who understand the nomenclature might also understand that one of the cards is from the update set. still, would it be so hard to add text above the copyright box stating which sets these cards come from?

here are another two cards, this time from 2025 topps series 1 and series 2

coby mayo was featured in the "stars of mlb" insert set in both releases. here are the card backs:

there is really no way to know which is from series 1 and which is from series 2 without finding a checklist database as topps even restarted the numbering with series 2. i am pretty sure that series 1 is on the left, but i forget at this point.

upper deck treated their cross-release inserts differently. here are a couple of starquest inserts from 2009

the one on the left is one i own and is from their flagship set - series 1. i know this because the back says so

the one on the right is not in my collection but i know straight away that it is from a different release - in this case 2009 upper deck first edition - because they identify that set on both the front of the card and its back:

they are both numbered sq-9, but the set information tells me that they come from different sets. so helpful.

now, upper deck wasn't perfect by any means - check out these 2007 nomar garciaparra and takashi saito cards

that are from series 1

now check out these nomar garciaparra and takashi saito cards

that say they are from series 2

trust, but verify.

i do wish topps would go all-in with set identification and include the information on every card they print. they do it on their autograph and relic cards (for the most part) as well as the base cards (again, for the most part). it would make me miss upper deck a whole lot less.

summer blockbuster card show

in addition to catching up with brian and receiving a nice grouping of cards from him, i spent some money at the june club card show. it was a pretty warm day, and the building that houses this show doesn't have air conditioning. there were some large fans set up throughout the space, and i was happy to see that it wasn't too crowded at the opening bell. 

i mentioned in that previous post that included my meet up with brian that i began my day with the same seller that i typically seek out first. he always has some fun stuff to go through and i am always willing to take a large number of cards off of his hands, even if they don't really fit into my collection. case in point: 

this time he had quarter and dollar boxes, but always discounts when you buy in bulk. from the quarter boxes, i grabbed the jaws card up top and some allen & ginter n43 box toppers, like these four from 2007 and 2008

and these movie poster cards from 2021 topps archives

plus my usual assortment of other inserts and parallels.

as for dodgers, i did ok with a 2025 topps clayton kershaw silver cracked foil parallel

a 2022 topps heritage joe kelly red border

and some 2024 topps heritage white border cards

among a host of other dodger cards.  i still think it's crazy that topps went and used yogi berra's actual 1951 card (they didn't do that in 1975) but for roy campanella, they just scanned the 1975 mvp card and didn't even bother to get rid of the black horizontal lines when fitting to the window. lazy.

the dollar boxes had some good stuff in them as well. i know there aren't many marlins card collectors, but i will take a 2025 topps team color border 

of any team for less than a buck.

those aren't serial numbered, but they seem to be relatively scarce. there were plenty of numbered cards in the boxes, however, including a 2023 topps update teoscar hernandez vintage stock parallel

and some 2025 gold foil parallels of different border treatments

numbered to 50 and other various types.

there was a lot to go through, and i wound up leaving one of the boxes unsearched. i did snag a healthy dose of dodger needs, including a 2025 topps heritage clayton kershaw through the years insert

a 2021 topps pedro martinez double header insert

that has his 2008 topps card on the back

and completely ignores his 2009 topps update card documenting his arrival in philadelphia.

here's a 2021 topps brusdar graterol significant statistics insert i needed

but thought was more of a quarter box sort of card. there were more, but the inserts were vastly outnumbered by the parallels. i was happy to find a 2016 topps update corey seager rainbow foil parallel

as well as a whole host of dodger variety

that 2025 topps heritage mookie betts parallel was especially nice to see in the dollar box. in the end, i think my cost per card from ed was about sixty cents per.

i did grab a couple of cards from my minicollections from the dollar boxes - a 2024 topps holiday carlos correa blue foil parallel

and a pair of manu-relics from 2018 topps update for the "42" collection

when they are shown wearing 42, i don't discriminate and will happily buy an astros card. it boggles my mind still that topps will produce jackie robinson day themed cards that don't show the number 42 in the photo used, and there were some of those cards mixed in with the two that i've shown above.

my next stop was at another regular's table because he always has dime boxes. i would up with 114 cards from him, including a 2017 panini donruss corey seager name variation 

a 2019 topps update hyun-jin ryu rainbow foil parallel

a 2022 topps gold label cody bellinger card

2024 topps tony gonsolin yellow parallel

2024 topps chrome cosmic mookie betts base card

2024 topps pristine freddie freeman (all-star) base

2024 topps stadium club tyler glasnow red foil parallel

and some more mini collection stuff in the way of a 2014 topps juickson profar red foil parallel

a 2017 panini donruss jose altuve name variation

and a 2022 topps chrome update owen miller purple refractor parallel

i also went off script and snagged some cards that appealed to me for no particular reason, including a 2009 upper deck 1975 o-pee-chee mini insert of mark teixeira

a trio of 2023 topps archives 1954 tarzan 3d inserts

a 2024 topps heritage high numbers reggie jackson perfectly programmed insert

and, my favorite dime box find of the day, a 2022 topps archives andrew mccutchen background swap variation

this is the guy who also has a dime box that he hosts for a friend. you have to keep the cards separate! so, i settled up with him on the cards from his box, and he rounded down to 11 bucks rather than fish for sixty cents of change.

after i waited for another person to clear out, i wound up pulling 35 cards from the other box including a 2017 topps chrome jason kipnis black refractor of jason kipnis

i wonder why topps didn't bother to number these that year. anyway, i told the guy i had 35 more cards and he said 3 bucks was fine, but i think he was a bit annoyed that i paid separately and cost him 90 cents that i am sure i would have been charged had i bundled them together. sorry not sorry.

next i pulled two bucks worth of 25-cent vintage from a seller who always makes me wish i were working on another vintage set. i couldn't let bill russell's 1971 topps card go unclaimed

and this 1974 topps dodgers team card

was pretty sharp for a quarter

i am still disappointed that 2023 topps heritage didn't give us an updated list of team records via team cards in that set.

the other vintage i grabbed were miscuts - a 1971 topps john cumberland

that is bottom-left justified, a 1972 topps vida blue in action

that has vida looking up instead of to the right where his space is being encroached upon, and a trio of 1973 topps cards

that are kind of all over the place. here are their backs

which makes things a bit easier to see.

the best miscut of the bunch was a 1976 topps traded dock ellis card

because he looks rightfully annoyed at the card creeping into his space.

it was at this point in my time at the show that it started to really smell like a card show and i knew it was time to get going. i made one more lap and found a seller with a $2 autos/relics box. i grabbed three cards

a 2000 ud spx auto numbered 1500/1500 isn't something you see every day, and i remembered someone was looking for one of the triple play relics, but couldn't recall who or which one. i later recalled it was madding, but he's looking for the pants and not the bat. 

i talked that seller down to $5 fpr the trio even though i had six bucks loose in my pocket, and he seemed annoyed with me. whatever. that allowed me to use the other dollar on a card from a seller who had a singular dollar box and everything else in cases. this 2024 topps update alex vesia red crackle foil

just happened to be in the front of one of the rows in that dollar box, so it was an easy grab.

there is usually not a club show in july, but in a couple of weeks, the show migrates to my town for some reason (although it will be smaller than normal). hopefully some of these sellers show up - at least there will be air conditioning!