Upper Deck Offers Appeasement for Upper Deck Icons Redemptions

Upper Deck has announced via Facebook that they're tossing collectors a bone for the wait on their 2009 2008 Upper Deck Icons Football redemptions. It seems that they've got some Letterman cards ready to ship out and have added a little something extra: one of six exclusive Brett Favre cards. Yup, six of them. And from the two they've shown, they look pretty swanky.

I'm glad they're doing this. Redemptions still suck but what better way to make them a little less sucky than with some swanky free cards.

If, for some reason you're not connected with Upper Deck on Facebook, they've been offering lots of good info.

(Edit to note that these are 2008 redemptions. What the heck, Upper Deck? Favre can play for the Jets, retire, make a Sears commercial, unretire, sign with the Vikings and  lead the team to an amazing start before you can get some unautographed Letterman cards produced. That's a production issue for the ages.)

Lt. Dan Approves This Card

I'm not the only one going out and getting solid autographs from Donruss Americana for less than the price of a pack more likely to have a costume piece from someone I've never heard of, am I? Here's another one:

That'd be Gary Sinise, Academy Award nominee, star of CSI: NY, Apollo 13, The Green Mile and seemingly every other made-for-cable movie about a politician. I'd also mention Mission to Mars and Reindeer Games but I'm working on forgetting those ones.

Being one of three people in North America who doesn't watch any of the CSIs, Sinise is best known for this role:

Believe it or not, there's CSI: NY cards out there. Released a couple of years ago by British manufacturer Strictly Ink. Sinise was scheduled to sign, redemptions were included, many sold on eBay for more than $50, then Sinise never signed. After more than a year and many promises from the manufacturer (if you want to sift through the details you can in this long discussion thread starting around page 15) this is what collectors were sent instead:

It's a cool looking card, right? Perhaps but it's not Sinise's autograph. It's a preprinted facsimile. And yes, that's a hologram on the bottom of the card promising that it's a real "not real" autograph. To be fair - at least a little bit - to Strictly Ink, apparently they included another fake autograph card and a few promos as well. But the owner also promised in the thread linked above much more than that.

I don't know the story as to why Sinise never signed the CSI cards, but it's another example of why redemptions suck.

Redemptions Suck: 2008 Bowman Sterling Edition

Redemption cards rank near the top of things I hate in the hobby. I'm generally an upbeat, optimistic, could-always-be-worse kind of guy, but I still loathe these ugly, text-heavy pieces of cardboard. My disdain runs so deep I think "Redemptions Suck" could pop-up as a recurring antagonist in this wacky old blog-com known as Trader Crack's.

In case you didn't know already, the soon-to-be released 2008 Bowman Sterling Baseball is going to include redemptions for Patch Cards from the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Yes, the same international baseball tournament that happens in March. Yes, March is still a season away - the off-season, that is.

While I'm sure these patch cards could look pretty cool, why put them out now when there's absolutely no excitement for the tournament. It hasn't happened yet, so I have no connection to any of the events that such a card will celebrate. Heck, Team Canada has one player and a manager on their roster thus far.

The World Baseball Classic presents one of the few opportunities for unique jersey in a hobby where game-used cards featuring single-colour and pinstriped swatches are everywhere. I like oddball jerseys such as these and All-Star jersey as you can somewhat connect them to a specific event. By skipping the plain jerseys and going straight for the patches, Topps' timing to drum up interest in their WBC exclusive rights couldn't be worse. There can't be much that's going to be better but they're coming at a time when recognition is low.

So now those who get these redemptions will have to sit on them for more than three months, waiting in limbo to see who they received. By the time the postman delivers them, it's bound to be a matter of, "Oh, yeah. I forgot all about this," or "About friggin' time Topps."

Why not go for basic jersey redemptions or add to the insert set from 2008 Topps Updates and Highlights? I can't see how these redemption cards are going to lead to more sales of product. Not right now, at least. So why waste a unique opportunity three months early?