Upper Deck Sticks It to Topps One More Time

In light of the whole Upper Deck paying homage to Topps O-Pee-Chee lawsuit, including the 2009 O-Pee-Chee parallels that were supposed to mimic the 1971 design, I find this card from 2009 SP Legendary Cuts a little funny:

So do you think the card containing the disappearing ink penmanship to be from 1971 Topps Baseball or 1971 O-Pee-Chee Baseball?

Holy cow is that one ugly card. Ugly signature. Face cut off to protect image rights. Blech. The "new" part of the card has Martin on the Yankees but the not-so-obvious "inner card" has him on the Tigers. I love the clean stamp look of this year's SP Legendary Cuts but this card is pretty bad. But it can be found on eBay for a penny less than $175.

Wanna See Some Pictures for 2009 SP Legendary Cuts?

The pictures are a little fuzzy as they're from a sell sheet, but here's the first images I've seen for 2009 SP Legendary Cuts Baseball.

There's definitely a stamp feel to the design. It's classy but I'm not liking the lack of colors on the base cards. But let's face it, the draw for this set is the cut signatures. They always have been and they always will be. But without the pictures of the players or personalities, I find a lot of the prestige to be gone. You might as well make the card a redemption for the entire document in which it was cut from. Maybe that's a thought to breath some new life into this stale brand whose concept has been borrowed and recycled many, many times over the years in all corners of the hobby.

Anyways, here's a little more info taken from the sell sheet (there's not a heck of a lot other than the promise of the various hits):

Cards per Pack: 5

Packs per Box: 12 (60 cards per box)

• Two Cut Signatures and one Mystery Cut Signature per case.
• Two hard-signed autographs per case.
  
• Four memorabilia cards per box, including one dual Generations card.
• Seven 20th Anniversary cards per box and one 20th Anniversary Memorabilia card per case.
• Classic Signatures #/99 or less.
• Future Legends Signatures #/149 or less.
• Generations Dual Signatures #/99 or less.
• Legendary Cut Signatures #/25 or less.
• Legendary Memorabilia #/175 or less with different color parallels #/150 or less.

The on-card signatures are nice, although somewhat ironic given the flavor of the brand. The Cut Signatures continue to be the draw but seem very risky.

How about another avenue to reinvent the product? It's already one for the mid- to high-rollers. Why not take it a step further and make it ultra-premium? Offer a cut signature in every pack and charge $400-500. It seems like a fair price given what some of the similar products are selling out at. I don't buy it at $150 a box now, so I'm not going to feel bad for having to sit it out at an even higher price. At least the vintage nature of the cut signatures would make the price seem somewhat more justified.

2009 SP Legendary Cuts Baseball is scheduled for an April release.

Bad Hair Day

A warning for those of you planning on busting 2008 Upper Deck Piece of History Baseball starting next week. If you pull a redemption card that says it's good for a "Hair Cut Signature" card, you're only going to get the "Hair Cuts". Upper Deck announced today that they made a small copy error in the redemption cards and that the "Hair Cut Signatures" program was only for 2008 SP Legendary Cuts Baseball.

So instead of getting a creepy card that's been made tolerable by a sweet autograph, you just get a creepy card.

Upper Deck Offers a Hair Cut in 2008 SP Legendary Cuts Baseball

Last year Topps made a creepy little card that had George Washington's hair and inserted in Allen & Ginter. Said creepy card generates publicity so now there's a couple more (and a wooly mammoth) in the 2008 edition.

For the past several years, Upper Deck has had a line dedicated to cut signatures aptly named Legendary Cuts. Where am I going with this? To the barbershop, of course.

2008 SP Legendary Cuts Baseball will include not just one or two creepy cards with hair on them, but a whole insert set. But to one-up their New York counterparts, they also include cut signatures. Have a look:


I have to say, that's a pretty generous lock. Wait a minute. What am I saying? I don't want any hair on my baseball cards. In Allen & Ginter it was creepy and it's just as creepy here - even with the historic autograph to go along with it.

I find this card a little ironic. See if you can guess why?

Andrew Jackson has a nice little bird nest on top of his head. But it's a painting. It just seems a little odd (and creepy) that people were saving hair back before we didn't have photographs. The Upper Deck press release tries to explain it:

"What did people collect before baseball cards? Well, some truly passionate collectors would sometimes write to their heroes asking for a lock of hair. After all, what could be more personal than that? Frequently locks of hair were garnered from famous U.S. Presidents, war heroes and other personalities throughout history and passed on through their families."

That's fine if people collected hair back before baseball cards. We also dumped our toilet souvenirs in the streets. If I wanted to collect hair I would. But then again I collect cardboard rectangles sometimes enhanced by ink squiggles on them. Sometimes I hate it when I gain perspective in the flow of writing. Whatever.

If you say know to two things this summer, make them crack and creepy baseball cards with hair.