Is This the Worst Sticker Autograph of All Time?

Browsing on eBay, I came across this card from 2005 Playoff Prime Cuts. The card design overall is very attractive. The alternating game-used pieces show that they're just not oversized single relics posing as a dual. It's got an all-time great. And it has an autograph.  What the heck is going on with that autograph?

I've got a few beefs with sticker autographs, but a big one is the fact that often they don't hold the entire signature. This is probably the most extreme example I've seen. It looks as though a good half of Aaron's autograph is gone, a victim to the edges. Add to that a bit of apparent smudging and you've got one immensely disappointing card.

Although I understand Aaron hasn't been of the greatest health in recent years, which would affect his signatures, it doesn't excuse Playoff for letting this one out there. It's called quality control. If something isn't at it's greatest, it should be removed from distribution. I feel bad for the person who pulled the card. It'd be great without the autograph and amazing if the scribble was even half an inch higher. But as it stands, ick!

2009 O-Pee-Chee Baseball Bait and Switch?

It's funny to think that a couple of hours ago I was thinking about scrounging some funds together to get a couple boxes of 2009 O-Pee-Chee Baseball. As of right now, I'm leaning in the other direction. Why? The old bait and switch that pisses me off, even when it's not the main content of a set I'm going after.

Case in point, Upper Deck's sales materials featured a vintage-esque 1971 O-Pee-Chee parallel that looked a little like this:

Then Topps decided to take Upper Deck to court. Both sides exchange press releases saying they're sticking to their guns. So I'm looking at A Pack to Be Named Later and I see this monstrosity:

(HT: APTBNL)

What the heck? I may be jumping the gun here but it looks like Upper Deck caved under pressure. And rather than admit it publicly, they went ahead and continued to sell, sell, sell without acknowledging somewhere along the line that the vintage parallel that had many people excited was being replaced with a much more generic black-border parallel. Again, I could be wrong but if the early eBay listings are any indication, the 1971 parallels are no more.

I wasn't planning on going after the parallel set, but I'm ticked nonetheless based on the apparent bait and switch. It's to the point where I don't really want to get anything from this set now - one that I've been looking forward to since I was shocked to hear it announced. Upper Deck took away a key ingredient without announcing it. Good reason for cancelling them or not, all it would have taken is a press release and a couple of emails and there'd be some disappointed folks but I have a hunch most would be understanding. It's called communication. If virtual Derek Jeter can sign some virtual autographs, would it really be that hard to get word out about the change? Isn't that what the Upper Deck blog, website or Facebook page might be good for?

This isn't the first bait and switch in this hobby, nor will it be the last. However, I feel it's one of the bigger ones.

The First UD Jeter Buyback Autograph has Surfaced - Suprise! They Screwed Up

I just noticed the first 2009 Upper Deck Series 2 Baseball Derek Jeter rookie buyback autograph has popped up on eBay. It's a nice looking card for certain, although something tells me that $1,499.95 is a little on the steep side.

 

And here's a picture of the Buyback slip that presumably came with it:

 

 

Way a gosh-darn minute. 1992 rookie card? Note to Upper Deck: it's a 1993 card. Normally, it'd be a simple error that's not a big deal. I know I mess up with my spelling regularly. We're all human. But this is the card that has been hyped in the set. And he's one of the faces of your company. I wonder how many copy editors this slipped past.

Razor's Cut Signature Mistakes Didn't Start With the Presidents

It's been a few days since word broke that there have been questionable signatures in Razor's Cut Signatures: Oval Office Edition set. Autograph Alert has also provided an update to the story where Razor owner Brian Gray states that he's willing to go to great measures to ensure that things are made good.

But this isn't the first time the authenticity of Razor's cut signatures have come into question. Back around the release of the company's first entertainment release 2008 Cut Signature Edition. A user on Non-Sport Update's Card Talk message board brought to light a potentially fake Carrie Fisher (aka Princess Leia from Star Wars) that was in fact signed by her mother, Debbie Reynolds. You can read the thread here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Here's the image of the card with the questionable autograph:

And here's a signed photo that Carrie Fisher herself points out the fake signature, which the photo was originally signed with:

Wouldn't you know that the non-sport realm is a pretty tight-knit group and the owner of the Fisher card happened to be reading the thread. So was Razor's Gray. Gray promised to make good and the card's owner, Tom Wright of The Wright Stuff Collectibles took him up on the offer. I contacted Wright and he said that he and Gray agreed two packs of the more than $100-per-pack product was a reasonable replacement. Wright said that he pulled both a Richard Gere 1-of-1 and a President George Bush Sr. from his packs. So it's good to see that Razor does have a track record of following through on this questionable signatures.

That said, when you're charging as much as Razor is for these ultra high-end cards, extra steps for authentication need to be taken. Gray needs to increase the transparency of the sources of the autographs. I, for one, will not even consider buying any of these sets (either in pack form or on the secondary market) until the authenication process is noted on the card itself. A "Razor guarantee" has now been proven potentially wrong on more than one occasion.

So on the one hand, kudos to Brian Gray for making good. But really, should these mistakes have happened in the first place?

2009 Spectrum of Stars Autographs - Bait and Switch?

I think I'm one of the few people who actually get a kick out of seeing B-list celebrity autographs in sports products. Most I don't give a second glance to but when there's 80s TV and movie stars involved, I'm often all over it. So when Upper Deck released their preliminary checklist for 2009 UD Spectrum Baseball, I went directly to the autograph list as there's no other reason for me to be interested in the product. The original checklist included a whopping 81 names, most of which had signed in various non-sport products and are frequent visitors and conventions and the like. If last year had a hair rock feel, then 2009 was all about the science fiction.

I've been checking out the auctions now that the set is live and of the 81 original names announced, I've seen all of six of them. Six out of 81. If it were a test, Upper Deck scored 7%. Sure there's other names that weren't on the original checklist like Cheech and Chong and Leapin' Lanny Poffo (yes, even wrestling jobbers are getting in on the action now), and there's probably some more cards that I haven't seen but this is a significantly different checklist from the one dealers were to pre-ordered from.

These autographs are the only thing that makes Spectrum different from the rest of the baseball pack. While others include celebrity autographs as well, it's not on the same scale. So then if this is one of the set's big selling points, why bother giving specifics if they're going to totally change. Some of the ommissions are understandable. Ricardo Montalbon recently passed away. That might make it tough for him to fulfill his commitments. I figure it would take a commitment from the celebrity's part to get Upper Deck to include them on sales material. So then what's the problem? Seven percent success rate? My guess is people could do better than that doing through-the-mail requests.

Cheech and Chong may be cool additions. But 7%? I guess I'm just ticked about not having seen the Corey Haim that was originally announced. I was really hoping to pair it with my 2007 UD Spectrum Corey Feldman autograph and make a License to Drive set.

Filed Under "A Bloody Mess": Missing Cards From My 2008 Topps Baseball Factory Set

Sometimes I hate myself with being obsessed with continuity. Although I'm not a fan of this year's Topps base baseball set, I still felt obliged to add it to my collection seeing as I'm working on a run from 1978 onward. Although I'm missing cards from several sets and am missing several altogether, that's my ultimate goal - the timeline of my life through baseball cards. Having a hole in 2008 would eat away at me later in life.

So I made a compromise. Rather than busting boxes of each series like I usually do, I'd settle on a factory set. It's not nearly as fun or exciting, but it'd get the job done. Or so I thought.

My set arrived in the mail a couple of weeks ago but I hadn't had a chance to go through it until last night. If you haven't bought a factory set from Topps before, they come with the numbers mixed up - I assume something to do with the printing process - so some sorting is required. Well, after sorting through my hobby set, I ended up with the expected ten "rookie card" variations, the Fukudome UH1 card that isn't advertised on the box but I knew it existed and 21 duplicates. I was also short 21 cards for my set. And yes, it was factory sealed so there were no shennanigans ahead of time. Apparently you don't get a complete set with a factory set anymore.

Although judging by my dealings with Topps' customer service in the past, they'll make good by sending me the cards I need or a new set or something. I'm more ticked that I have to go through the effort to get my set. The theme I got from 2008 Topps Baseball was no effort. By buying a factory set, I was reflecting the company policy. I just come gimmick free. Now I have to write a letter, ship off the cards on my own dime and get what I already paid for and expected. It's in some ways a small thing, but it's still an inconvenience. Plus I can't add 2008 Topps Baseball to my list of completed sets until those 21 cards are received. Instead the box sits on my shelf of incomplete sets. And rather than plain 800- and 400-count boxes staring at me from said shelf, I've got Mickey Mantle because every current product from Topps has to have Mickey Mantle as the centerpiece. And you wonder why today's game and cards are having a hard time connecting with the youth market? But that's another post possibility.

For the moment, I'm more than a little ticked. Sure, it's over something small in the big scheme of things. But I really didn't want to have to do any extra leg work for such a bland set just to appease my strange obsessions. I do know that if 2009 Topps Baseball is this lame (boring design, questionable photography, gimmicks galore) I'll seriously consider making the switch over to the base Upper Deck set permanently and start a new continuity beginning with this year as I spent a lot more on the UD set busting packs than I did on one factory set.

Screw "tradition" and the crazy things it does to my brain and card-buying.

The Allen & Ginter Mammoth is Woolier Than Once Thought

Turns out the "DNA" card of the woolly mammoth in 2008 Topps Allen & Ginter Baseball is either harrier than they thought, there was a screw up in the Eisner house or the DNA has in fact been used to clone more woolly mammoth cards. Topps hyped the animal hair card as being a one-of-one. In actuality, it's one-of-10 as confirmed by Topps themselves today. I would have figured that the process of gathering the hair, cutting it, printing the cards and putting the hair inside the card may have been a little time consuming to be overlooked and going from making one copy to 10 seeing as how it has been advertised as a one-of-one for months. I guess not.


Other notes from the Topps press release:
• Team Orange: 10 cards, 1:6 boxes
• Fukudome is shortprinted
• The Bigfoot Cabinet Box Topper AUTOgraph with the tire marks is limited to 200 copies.