OT; but many of us collected UD Cards

[Kawika]

[Potomac Yank]

That's one of my favorite shots of the two stadiums.

[danc]

I will sum up UD in two examples...

1) "You charge .75 a pack? Are cards will be nicer and people will now pay $2 a pack!"

What follows: Stadium Club, Fleer Ultra, Score Pinnacle and then other tiers, like SP, Fleer Flair...

2) "Hey Mickey, why are you only charging $35 per signature? How would you like to charge a lot more!"

What follows: Million dollar contracts with athletes and pricing out the Sunday show collector.

You MUST read that book (can't remember) from the 1990's all about Richard McWilliams, his MASSIVE ego and the fact that whatever was valued for "rarity reasons", was produced in massive quantities to flood the market and the value would sink. I.E Dale Murphy Reverse and Upper Deck Canadian Hockey Boxes.

I don't feel bad as a former collector who used to enjoy even the new stuff, but gave up on it about 15 years ago.

DanC

[Rich Klein]

Was called "Card Sharks" and was written by my friend Pete Williams.
Regards
Rich

[BCauley]

I just might have to pick up that book.

Then again, if I do that, it'll sit in the pile of about 8 books on my nightstand I'm working through.

[Fred]

In 1989 UD was a nice alternative to the other three (T,D,F). The UD cards were actually nice. The quality of the cards was better than the other three (T,D,F). The really nice part about UD in that first year is that they seemed to sell cards based on the quality of their product rather than the rat race chase card pheomena that they shortly joined.

IMO the chase card phenomena brought a renewed interest (rookie cards were the thing in the mid/late 80s) but overall I think the chase card craze kind of hurt the hobby. People thought that the stuff was worth TONs and that the value would forever increase (kind of like dot.com stocks). That crap isn't worth much these days.

When you think about it people were paying hundreds of dollars for those stupid chase cards and if they would have spent the money on vintage material at least (IMO) the cards would probably have increased in value 5X to 10X since (let's say) 1995. If you spent $100 on nice vintage in 1995 those cars would be worth much more than the $10 those 1990s chase cards might bring today.

I really hate putting a monetary value on vintage card board because I don't collect for the $$$. I collect because I'm one of those really weird geeks that likes to looks at pictures of dead guys on old cardboard.

[Hot Springs Bathers]

When Upper Deck started cutting up memorabilia it was the end for me. I never bought another pack of any thing they offered.