I rarely cover Hockey because I rarely care about Hockey. I cover Hockey cards even less because I care about Hockey cards less than I care about the sport of Hockey. Regardless, when you see what the Cup is all about this year, I think it bears mention on this site. With Exquisite now out of three of the four major sports, the Cup is all that is left under the Upper Deck super high end banner. Although I think that this year’s design is weaker than previous years, it is still a sad reminder of what Upper Deck left behind when they were forced out of Basketball, and kicked out of Football.

I have said on numerous occasions that hard signed cards are becoming a lost cause. For a while, Upper Deck’s affinity for securing hard signed cards were forcing Panini and Topps to at least TRY to compete in football, at least somewhat. Now that they are out of the licensed game, no one seems to care anymore, and stickers are back in full force. Panini hasn’t even made it a secret that they have abandoned hope of creating a calendar like 2009’s hard signed Upper Deck extravaganza, and that worries me. When you see a set like the Cup and how great some of the cards look, the idea that no one even tries to accomplish soemthing simlar becomes baffling.

I was talking recently with someone that I rarely agree with, except for on this subject. We could not believe that despite having the ability and the resources to produce hard signed cards with regularity, Panini and Topps have chosen sitckers 100% of the time. I know for a fact that Topps can produce a calendar similar to Upper Deck’s 2009 calendar, but chose the lazy way out so that they don’t actually have to work harder than they have to. Topps claims a backlog of stickers as the reason why they cannot move towards hard signed cards, but we all know that every new signing is done on a sticker sheet regardless. I mentioned here before that doing partly stickers and partly on card is not against the rules, and would be a great solution until the stickers run out. It just takes extra planning and great organization, something that Topps and Panini seem to lack.

When Upper Deck left the NFL football market, licensed veteran hard signed cards went from close to 8 products, to absolutely none. The one exception is Panini’s hall of fame set from Classics, but that is a miniscule amount compared to the hundreds of single, dual, triple, and quad veteran signatures that Upper Deck so elegantly included in their product lines. The bottom line is that it takes months upon months of planning to get veteran signatures, and that is why I question the dedication that both Topps and Panini have to their customers. It would be one thing if they didn’t have the means, but when you see what Upper Deck has done with the Cup having what THEY have, there is no longer an excuse.

Its time that we demand more of an effort on the lines of Panini and Topps, especially in their higher end sets. For a product like National Treasures to cost 400 dollars a box at release, and feature anything but 100% hard signed cards, is a slap in the face. When you also factor in that the design of the product has been complete rat shit over the last 2 years, it calls further attention to the fact that Panini has no clue what the fuck they are doing. Sweet Spot may have a checklist that is 100 players too big, but all of the cards are signed on the card. The unsigned cards go out with the helmets in tact, and that is a testament to the fact that hard signed signatures are not impossible to obtain, even on a limited budget.

Adding in that the same budget applies to the Cup, and what that set has accomplished value wise on the secondary market, I become that much more angry that Upper Deck managed their business the way they did. If they had actually run the ship the way it was supposed to be run, 2010 Exquisite Football would not be a pipe dream, and SPA would have the great design that was previewed a week ago in pro uniforms. Everybody understood the mistake the NBA was making by naming Panini as their sole provider of licensed cards, and that has been completely evident in the rehashed bullshit that they have churned out with regularity. However, Upper Deck took themselves out of the NFL, and that is where we felt the biggest blow. You can hate UD all the way to their eventual demise, but to say that they didn’t bring quality with every set, in terms of design and commitment to on card sigs is not correct in any sense of the word. Panini and Topps need to step it up, even going so far as buying out Upper Deck completely. Maybe then they can figure out how to produce what UD did and are still doing.