UD Gets Another Amateur Exclusive

This just came through the wire:

Upper Deck named official partner of USA Football
Steve Alic, Director of Communications Tue, 03/29/2011 – 9:48am

USA Football and Upper Deck announced today that the Carlsbad, Calif.-based trading card and collectibles company is an official sponsor of USA Football, its national team program and its work in youth football. The agreement marks USA Football’s first partnership with a trading card manufacturer.

USA Football is the sport’s national governing body in the United States, assembling America’s national teams for international competition. Fifty-nine (59) countries spanning five continents possess a national federation of sport dedicated solely to football.

Upper Deck’s multi-year exclusive partnership with USA Football is its most significant foray into America’s youth football community, composed of approximately 3.0 million players age 6-14. USA Football also is the official youth development partner of the NFL and each of its 32 teams.

Starting this fall, Upper Deck will produce special edition U.S. Under-19 National Team football cards to be inserted into Upper Deck’s 2011 SP Authentic Football trading card packs slated to release in September.

On Feb. 2 in Austin, Texas, America’s Under-19 National Team in football earned a 21-14 victory against a World Team composed of top teenage football players spanning eight countries. The game was telecast nationally by NFL Network. Team USA was assembled of top high school seniors who will play college football this season for prominent Division I programs including Auburn, Alabama, Florida, Nebraska, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas, Virginia Tech and others.

Special edition Under-19 National Team trading cards will include player images from February’s Team USA vs. The World game. Team USA players’ signatures and pieces of their game-worn jerseys also will be inserted into card packs.

USA Football teaches the game’s fundamentals and inherent values through more than 80 annual football training events and innovative online skill development resources. Indianapolis-based USA Football is an independent non-profit.

“It will be Upper Deck’s privilege and honor to join forces with USA Football,” said JASON MASHERAH, Upper Deck’s vice president of Marketing. “Any effort to promote the great game of football is a step in the right direction and the opportunity to capture members of the U.S. Under-19 National Team on trading cards is one we’re very excited about.”

“We are proud to call Upper Deck a USA Football family member,” said USA Football Executive Director SCOTT HALLENBECK. “Our national team program and Player Academies will benefit from Upper Deck’s industry-leading work and their commitment to youth football for the millions of kids who love to stay fit by playing America’s favorite sport and gain from the game’s team-first values.”

About Upper Deck
Upper Deck is the leading sports and entertainment trading card and collectibles company. For more information on Upper Deck and its products please visit www.upperdeck.com.

About USA Football
USA Football, the sport’s national governing body, hosts more than 80 football training events annually offering education for coaches and game officials, skill development for players and resources for youth football league commissioners. The independent non-profit is the official youth football development partner of the NFL, its 32 teams and the NFL Players Association. USA Football manages U.S. national teams within the sport for international competition and awards $1 million annually in equipment grants to youth and high school football programs based on merit and need. Endowed by the NFL and NFLPA in 2002 through the NFL Youth Football Fund, USA Football is chaired by former NFL team executive Carl Peterson.

Sorta interesting that UD can pay all these exclusive licensing agreements for amateur cards but they couldn’t pay their NFL or MLB tabs…

Flip the Calendar

Well, it’s finally that time. “What time is that?” you may ask? Time to roll the release calendar forward. With SAGE’s 2011 HIT Low Series hitting hobby shelves last week, the 2011 release calendar has officially begun. You’ll notice the change on the right-side panel.

We still have a few 2010 products to review (apparently the longer you’ve been an accountant, the busier you get during tax season), but don’t worry, we’ll get to those. Just not quite as fast as we had hoped, but we’ll get there. In the meantime, be sure to keep tabs on your favorite upcoming products. If you’d like to see any of these become available in the 1&G Presale Store, let us know. We’re willing to carry anything in stock that interests you, our faithful readers.

Also stay tuned for the first box break/product review of 2011 in the very near future. We had a blast busting a box of 2011 SAGE HIT Low Series, just need to get the scans uploaded and commentary written. Look for that in the next week at the latest.

And yes, I just (nearly) wrote an entire blog post while referring to myself in the plural first person. Go us.

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2011 SAGE Hit Pre-Sale

Well, I’m doing it. It’s time to get the ol’ feet wet. I just created a new 1&G Pre-Sales page and the first product up is 2011 SAGE Hit Low Series, due to hit hobby shelves on or around March 17, 2011. To reserve your box(es), just click the link below. Right now, hobby boxes are listed for $105 shipped anywhere within the United States, $110 shipped to Canada (sorry my Canadian brethren, apparently it does cost the USPS more than $5 extra to drive north of the border).

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PRE-SALES SITE

If you’d prefer the added customer protection that eBay affords, there is also a listing in our eBay Store. Please note however that due to eBay fees, the price per box is $5 higher (although I show an actual box vs. shipping charge).

EXCLUSIVE: First Look at 2011 SAGE Hit

Here is an EXCLUSIVE first look gallery of the “Big Time” inserts from the upcoming 2011 SAGE Hit set. These images are courtesy of SAGE Collectibles and are not available anywhere else. Take a look and let us know your thoughts. By the way, SAGE president Tom Geideman will be reading your comments, so this is the place to let your voice be heard!

Click each thumbnail for a full-sized image

NOTE: An easier-to-navigate image gallery can be found on our Facebook Page.

2011 SAGE Hit Low Series goes live the week of March 14 and is packed out in 16-box cases that contain 30 5-card packs. Low Series boxes have 6 autograph cards on average and NO REDEMPTIONS. This will be your first chance to collect cards of the 2011 rookie class. SAGE’s website has the complete checklist for Low Series and High Series posted.

Product Review: 2010 Panini Gridiron Gear

Yes, it’ March. Yes, it’s officially college basketball season (and has been for several months for those of you who have been hibernating since the Fall Classic). Yes, I’m excited (ESPN3.com is both the greatest and worst thing ever when you’re spending 60+ hours each week in a fabric cube). And yes, there is still time for a review of a product that was released well before Christmas. Enjoy.

The Box – Click for Detail

Hobby boxes come with 18 8-card packs for a total of 144 cards. I purchased this box from Dave and Adam’s Card World for $87.40 (there must have been some sort of discount for an odd price like that), which translates into a moderate $0.97 $0.61/card ratio (who needs math anyway?). Considering the time of year, that is actually rather cheap. It’s nice to see a low- to mid-shelf product being released in December (I told you this was another late review). Certainly beats all of the ridiculously overpriced crap that usually crops up this time of yer.

Peyton sure does make a good a poster boy

The Breakdown:
Base Cards (#/499): 132 (5 duplicates)
   Rookies: 18 (included in the total above)
Parallels
   Silver (#/250): 4
   Gold (#/100): 2
   Platinum (#/25): 1
Inserts
   NFL Nation: 1
   NFL Nation (#/250): 1
   Crash Course (#/250): 1
   Rookie Orientation: 1
Hits
   Rookie Auto (#/299): 1
   Rookie Orientation Prime Jersey (#/25): 1
   NFL Nation Auto Jersey (#/15)): 1
   Rookie Gridiron Gems 3-Piece Relics (#/50): 1

Click image for full-sized scan

FIRST AND GOAL’S FOUR DOWNS:
1st Down, Design: Are you ready for this? Brace yourself. I don’t think your ready. Take a deep breath and bear down. Alright. Here goes: I LOVE this set. It is a shame it took Panini so long to figure things out, but they absolutely NAILED the design for Gridiron Gear. There are definitely graphical design elements, even mildly intricate ones (they aren’t just solid color shapes or paint splashes), but they are subtle. There are team color schemes AND team logos. Holy crap! There are easy-to-read player names. There are nifty ghosted fade zones. There is a distinct yet quiet set logo. Even the player photos have a little embellishment that really adds something. You may remember I noticed a similar thing with 2010 Panini Rookies & Stars and thought it looked “off” there. Without closely examining the cards side-by-side, I’m not sure why it works here and not there, but it does. There are two points, however, on which I am not completely sold. The first is why the rookie cards have a different design. I like the simple “ROOKIE” text on the side of the card. That is a classic way to distinguish an RC, without using a repetitive RC shield logo (*cough…Topps…cough*). But I’m not sure why the player names are in larger font, the team helmet circles are replaced by plain team logos, and the ghosted side bar is completely gone. Even the card backs are slightly different, but only in where the card number is. Odd. That brings us to the other item I wasn’t wild about: the card backs. I like the use of team color, but all Panini card backs start to look the same after a while. Give me a different player photo. Give me more stats. Even give me a cartoon (anyone else miss those days?). But overall, Panini smashed this base set out of the park, even if it was just a solo-shot in the top of the third.

2nd Down, Inserts: Unfortunately for Panini, all of the great ideas may have been spent on the base cards for this set. The inserts are definitely lacking that special pizzazz. The base parallels aren’t bad in that Panini didn’t get crazy carried away with tons of parallels, but a smidge of colored foil seems like a weak parallel concept. The serial numbers were pretty low, though, so that was a saving grace. Next we have the “Crash Course” insert. Not a bad concept, although I don’t know that I’ll ever be a big fan of multi-player and multi-team cards. One way to make this better would have been to have the helmets smashing into each other like Fox used to do before game broadcasts. That would really have sold the “crash course” theme. Next is the “NFL Nation” insert, which once again shows that Panini may never know how to effectively design cards that have different levels (basic, jersey, jersey/auto). Even the Matt Ryan that does have the jersey and autograph label still looks lackluster. The jersey window is haphazardly placed and the team text logo is trying awfully hard to over shadow the actual autograph. The “Rookie Orientation” on the other hand is pretty decent. I like the look of these cards and even taking away the jersey window leaves you with a pretty nice insert card. Unfortunately, we’re right back to Panini’s old ways with the “Rookie Gridiron Gems” because it is so glaringly obvious that there is an identical version of that Sam Bradford that has a sticker auto. At least they designed one really nice insert for this product.

3rd Down, Collation: When you get close to 150 cards in a box, you start toeing the line of having to worry about duplicates. Unfortunately, I did pull 5 in my box such duplicates in my box. I am certainly not a huge fan of that, but I also realize that no machine packed product can be perfect. The duplicate to base ratio was less than 5%, so while it wasn’t ideal, it certainly was not the worst I’ve seen. I did pull all of the hits I was supposed to and had a decent ratio of rookies. All in all I’d say this was a pretty solid box and was hopefully a good indication for the production run as a whole.

4th Down, Overall Value: I guess like most things, it depends for what you are looking. If you want a great looking set without tons of useless inserts at a decent price, this is a great box to bust. If you’re looking for super valuable hits that will turn a pretty penny in a classic flip, this is a pretty lousy product to pick. Fortunately, I place more emphasis on good design than straight resale value (which may not be the best business model for a poor schmuck who’s trying to start a business), so I thought this was a relatively nice set. I also did get pretty lucky with my hits in that I pulled an auto jersey of one of the league’s popular young guns and a three-piece relic of the top 2010 rookie. I sold those two cards alone for $82.50 + shipping, which very nearly covers the price of the box. Add in a Ndamukong Suh prime jersey card and a few parallels, and I definitely recouped my money on this box by selling a very small percentage of the cards. I realize that not every box has a Sam Bradford relic though, so not everyone will be so lucky. But I was, and that will inevitably add some bias to my review. I’m sorry, but I’m human.

RED ZONE RESULTS: TOUCHDOWN, FAILED TWO-POINT CONVERSION Hopefully I made it clear enough that I thought the base design of 2010 Panini Gridiron Gear was stellar. For once, Panini fit all of the pieces of the design puzzle together and presented something really worth collecting. The inserts were rather disappointing (although the resale value of my pulls helped ease the pain), but it is easy to sit here and rip a product apart nearly three months after I busted it. If I go back to when I opened all 18 packs, I remember feeling I was opening a great product. Hot chase cards can create buzz, but only a solid base card can convey an air of a superior product. This probably wasn’t the set of the year, but I would say it should be in the running. Panini may not have put the game away, but it finally found paydirt, and that is something worth noting. Congrats, Panini. You finally made me appreciate a set you produced.

NEXT UP: 2010 Topps Magic