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.)

Since When Were Football Cards Used to Sell Liquor?

I was just browsing eBay and saw the following:

The card is from 2008 Upper Deck Icons Football and features none other than Lando Calrissian, Billy Dee Williams. Check out the inscription on the card, "Drink Colt 45 Malt Liquor!" Wow! I know inscriptions are being used to jazz things up a bit, but promoting heavy beverages?

I'm actually wondering if this was signed through the mail or at a show after the fact. I guess I could email the seller and check. Either way, is such an inscription a sign that maybe Lando has been living in Cloud City a little too long?

Coming Soon: 2009 Upper Deck Icons Baseball

The only 2008 football card I bought was an Upper Deck Icons Autographed Letterman Patch of Mr. Lando Calrissian - Billy Dee Williams. The set has a couple of other celebrity signatures that I had some moderate interest in, but I pulled the trigger on this one character actor mainly because of the cheap $10 price tag.

The formula and brand have now gravitated over to baseball with 2009 Upper Deck Icons Baseball. The SP Authentic-esque checklist includes 100 base cards, 30 rookies numbered /999 and 30 autographed rookies numbered to a maximum of 600 copies.

Boxes consist of 10 six-card packs, with 12 boxes in each case. With a box expect the following: five numbered inserts or parallels, two Lettermen cards (not necessarily signed), two jersey cards and one autograph. Does anyone else get the feeling Upper Deck really is channelling the SP Authentic vibe here?

Autographs will fall about one per box. There's 60 Lettermen (up to /99), 75 MLB Icons (up to /99 - something tells me guys like Steve Pearce and Glen Perkins are going to be the majority of the 'icons' but I merely speculate), 15 MLB Future Foundations (up to /199) and 10 Legendary Icons Autographs (up to /50). Lettermen Autographs are two per case, or one in six boxes and will include some celebrities.

Game-used cards fall two per box with one being numbered /149 or less. The memorabilia line-up includes 15 Future Foundations, 75 MLB Icons, 10 Legendary Icons and blue and gold parallels for rainbow seekers. There will also be one 20th Anniversary Memorabilia card per case.

Personally, I'm not too excited. It looks like a chase set, which isn't really my cup of tea. If there's a good celebrity or two, I may go after singles but I'm not counting down the days by any means.

2009 Upper Deck Icons Baseball is scheduled for a July release.

Ummm, didn't Topps do this already?

Today Upper Deck revealed the look of the Presidential Letterman exchange cards that were inserted in 2008 Upper Deck Icons Football. You can build both "Obama" and "President." I think I'll go and play Scrabble instead. Redmeptions are scheduled to begin shipping in January.