Monday, March 22, 2010

Prominent Cuts is Finally Live, Complete with Patrick Swayze's Dress

Originally planned for a late-2009 release, Upper Deck Prominent Cuts is finally live. It's a catch-all sort of product with the usual Upper Deck sports stars, lots of MMA fighters, politicians, celebrities and multiple Kardashians (note how I refuse to consider them celebrities).

What's caught my attention is the sheer number of costume relics from prominent movie and TV stars. Even though the costume pieces seem to be leftovers from two years worth of A Piece of History Baseball, they're nonetheless impressive. The checklist includes names like Tom Hanks, Ben Stiller, Brad Pitt, Drew Barrymore, Farrah Fawcett, James Dean, Sammy Davis Jr, Mike Myers, Denzel Washington and tons more. And unlike the Donruss Americana sets that Prominent Cuts is somewhat modelled after, these costumes are mostly from actual films that you've probably heard of. A few exceptions exist, but these are mostly the older names. And when you get Sammy Davis Jr's briefcase, the brown leather swatch looks great.

The big drawback with these cards is the fact that there's no images. Without any logos to pretend to hide behind, it makes it tough for these cards to reach their full potential. But the swatch sizes are much bigger than they were with A Piece of History so the lack of imagery isn't quite so bad.

Upper Deck has also made lots of pairings, taking obscure connections and tossing two swatches on a single card. One that I got my attention was the match-up of Patrick Swayze and Harrison Ford under the banner "Action Hero Stars." With classics like Point Break and Road House under his belt, the late Dirty Dancing star fits the bill. Then there's Ford who gets the nod for pulling the trigger on old Greedo. It's a cool enough card numbered out of 99. But there's something that makes me giggle about this card and it's declaration of action heroes.

Upper Deck Prominent Cuts Hollywood History Dual Materials Patrick Swayze/Harrison Ford /99

The Ford swatch comes from the movie Crossing Over. I haven't seen it, but a quick Google search came up with this picture:

We have a match. 

I couldn't find an image to match up the Swayze swatch, but here's a picture of him in a different scene from the film:


It's a dress swatch Swayze wore in the cross-dressing film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar.

Action hero, indeed.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure how I feel about Prominent Cuts. I don't like the Hollywood stuff because there are no pictures or, well, design to them. I have a love/hate relationship wit cut autographs. 9 times out of 10 I'd rather have the original document and wish they didn't have to destroy history... But otherwise, I understand I could likely never find and authenticate said documents and having them, in card form, is neat.

As for MMA... eh, sticker autos. Blah. ;)