Category Archives: big thank yous

SCU at the Beanie Wells Signing

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As I mentioned here yesterday, Beanie Wells was having a signing at the Beverly Hills Card Shop last night, and I was fortunate enough to be there. First off, the event was very well done, with pizza and prizes there for those in attendance, and of course, free autographs.

I brought a football with the understanding that they would have photos like last year, mainly because I couldn’t find mini helmets for sale anywhere near where I work. I got to the shop and was welcomed by Matt and Zack, the owners of the shop and we chatted for a while while we waited for Beanie to show up. While we waited, they gave each attendee a bag of stuff that was put together by the shop, something I thought was great. As I looked through the bag, I found an unexpected surprise, a pack of the yet to be released Bowman Draft picks. I was excited to see the cards, and from the looks of it, so was everyone else. As people started opening, you could hear the audible oohs and ahhs coming from the kids in the room. I managed to pull Beanie’s card out of my pack, so I decided to get it signed along with the Football.

One child there, Matthew, was the luckiest of the night, as he pulled a Mark Sanchez manupatch auto /25, something he could sell for quite a bit if posted now. He was nice enough to pose for a picture, thanks to him and his mom for letting us get a shot of the card.

Bowman Draft was nice, as most low end Topps products are, which was cool to see in action. Within minutes, Beanie showed up, and I managed to be near the front of the line for my autograph. One of the guys I met at the show traded a picture of me for a picture of him, and I want to thank him here personally. He had stumbled upon SCU during Razor gate, and was my go to guy during the signing. Thanks Jake, you are awesome.

Beanie looked like a mini sherman tank, making me think that if that was coming at me full speed, I may need to change my pants. He signed a few things for everyone and posed for pictures, a very, very nice guy. I don’t think he could have done a better job, and I am looking forward to his stuff this year, as well as his first season with the Cardinals. He may be a new target of mine after meeting him yesterday, definitely exceeding my expectations.

After the signing, I was lucky enough to meet with the NFL Players reps that I had been conversing with over the last few days, and as usual they were great. We cleared a few things up, and I was told that the decision to revoke credentials was not made by them. My correspondance had been passed along, and maybe next year things will be better. The two people who I met, you guys are great, keep up the amazing work.

I also had a chance to talk with Matt and Zack, Matt who has owned the shop since 1983, my interview with him will be posted later. Also, just in case you were wondering, Beanie did collect cards as a kid, though he does not collect now – too busy. He was pretty interested to see his first Bowman card as I put it in front of him and explained, said it was a good pic of him mid-juke (my term, not his).

With that I want to thank the Beverly Hills Card Shop for their amazing event, it could not have been more fun. The shop is amazing, please go check it out on Robertson near Pico in LA. If you are a vintage collector, this is your temple. They have more amazing pieces than I have ever seen in person, maybe you will find something you like, I encourage you to go if you can.

Lastly, as part of another giveaway, I got a few more packs of Bowman, and managed to pull some nice cards including a Matthew Stafford Orange Parallel, which is now swimming in the eBay along with the other nicer cards. Here are the links, don’t ask about the eBay name, it has outgrown itself.

Bowman Draft Auction

Ill have more tonight!

NOTE: If anyone else has pics or scans they would like to share, email them to me and ill get them up. Send to Sportscardsuncensored@gmail.com.
NOTE 2: They seem to have ditched the Ameritexan flag they used in the Topps Rookie Premiere autos for the normal background. THANK YOU LORD!

A Huge Thank You To Holy Hitter

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For those of you who have participated in the SCU Breaks part of this blog, you are very familiar with Holy Hitter as the master of ceremonies. He has done an amazing job, and I am sad to find out that he wont be able to participate now, due to other responsibilities in his life.

Despite his departure, SCU Breaks has become a great way to bust boxes that you normally wouldnt have the chance to, and I am extending a huge thank you to Hitter for helping me out with that part of the site. His quick shipping and organization are nothing short of uncanny, and I could only hope to aspire to his level. Its going to be tough to find someone that will work as hard as he does on these breaks.

Good luck to you in your future endeavors, you are welcome back whenever you want.

Apologies: Answers to Your Upper Deck Questions

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A while ago Gregg Kohn, brand manager for UD Football offered to answer your questions in the first Q and A that we have done on SCU. As can be imagined with the release of Exquisite, and the general day to day operations of the company, Gregg hasnt been able to get to the questions until now.

1. FanofReds – This sounds like a great opportunity. I think it would be interesting to know what “management” THINKS collectors like and want to buy. In other words, what type of things/gimmicks are done to appeal to each of the different collecting demographics that Upper Deck has indentified.

Gregg UD: We try to be as versatile as possible when creating new products. There are more football releases then any other sport so I think it is imperative to have a few that do not center around just Rookies, Signatures and game used. Icons and Heroes may not appeal to the more traditional collector, but they do bring new people into the hobby.

2. Voluntarheel – Because I just experienced this, I will ask it. How do collation issues occur? I recently bought 4 boxes of SP Authentic with a friend of mine and 2 of them didn’t have the auto/patch of any kind (rookie of veteran etc.).

While I realize that the scale of which yall are packing products is massive, it’s still an issue that frustrates collectors to no end. Not only because of the let-down, but also because of the hurdles that lay ahead to get it rectified. And even then, you know you aren’t going to get one of the top guys in return.

Part of the alluring charm that is opening wax is the chance at pulling a big card. Well, if that chance is taken away by the fact that you are shorted, it is also taken away by the fact that you know in return you are probably getting a Lorenzo Booker.

To get specific, please take us through the process of how an SP Authentic Patch (or any product you choose) goes into packs and then those packs into boxes and cases. It better help us understand how in every product, there are the same collation and shortage problems from manufactures.

Thanks you for your attention to your customers.

Gregg UD: We have a company that handles collation based on information provided by us. There are times when the feeders they use or the program has a few issues and situations like yours occur. There are times when the company enters in wrong collation information and it throws off the entire mix. We are trying to fix these issues (SPA was an example) because I can understand the frustration of not getting what you are supposed to or getting way too many dupes.

3. Mikechops – Do you, or have you collected? If so, what is the “gem” of your collection you’ll always hold on to?

Gregg UD: I collect Bears and Cubs…..thats it!! I used to have what I thought was the best Ryne Sandberg collection when I still had my store, but have neglected that in the past few years. I still have the sandberg 1991 Donruss Elite Signature…I love that card.

4. Matthew – The redemption process seems to have slipped lately in terms of the 45 days. Are you guys still going by that standard, and if you are, what are you doing for the people who are still waiting those long amounts of time?

Gregg UD: Our goal is always to limit the amount of redemptions and have a quick turn around when we are forced into the unfortunate situation of having them. I really don’t have all the answers about redemptions other then many times we just don’t get the cards back in time and don’t want to eliminate the card because we need it to hit ratios. Trust me when I say we are not fans of redemptions, but we do more on cards signatures then any other company…by far…and sometimes that is the trade off. Labels are always available..hard signed we need to get in house.

5. Graham – A recent hot topic on the blog has been the cost of maintaining the autograph content of a product due to the costs charged by the players. Can you comment on what this is like for UD football?

Gregg UD: This is always a concern as current player signatures prices have sky rocketed in the past few years. I can’t get into how much, but trust me when I say it is more then you can imagine. Rookies, Legends and retired stars are much more reasonable in this regard. I always try and get a balanced line up of signatures, but many times current stars just price themselves out of products.

6. Anonymous – With the economy today, are you guys at all worried about Exquisite and the possibility of sales not being anywhere close to where you expected? Im excited for it, but sadly I cant buy any due to my money situation. Im sure there are a lot of people out there like me.

Gregg UD: The economy is always a concern. You will see in 2009 we went with more price points of $9.99 or less. Draft edition, Heroes, SP Threads, Icons, Philadelphia and UD will all be $9.99 and below. There will always be Exquisite buyers out there…you know the saying….there are people that want Mercedes and people that are happy with Camrys…you just have to make both appealing for the price points.

7. Lars #1 – Since there was 0 cards of Kenny Phillips with “event worn” Giants gear in 2008, will there be in 2009? He had a great year and was a first round pick. I really hope to see some jerseys/patches/auto cards of him in the Giants uniform for 2009, he had such a great season.

Gregg UD: Right now we do not forsee much Kenny Philips for game used, however, this can change..sorry Lars

8. Lars #2 – For next year, if Exquisite is coming back, don’t you
think that for that price the customer should get gameused rookie cards? Since Exquisite releases after the whole season is played, isn’t there a possibility to use the gear from the rookie season? I think that “even-used” can be ok with low-mid end products, but anything for like $400+ and that releases so late in the season you would think should give something extra.

Gregg UD: There is just not possible way to get enough game used jerseys of the top rookies to get enough patches to make anyone happy. You know Exquisite uses very large patches and plenty of them for rookies. There is just no possible way to get enough jerseys even at the end of the season. The yield for patches is low..then take into account the size patch we use then there is no chance.

9. Greg – Hi. I’ve noticed that no gold versions of SP Authentics base cards exist on Ebay yet. What’s the reason for that. So far I’ve only seen gold parallels of the rookie patch autos, but not of the regular rookie autos or base rookies.

Gregg UD: We did not do regular set parallels this year, we might bring them back for 2009…but I think we are going to add 100 cards to the regular set this year to liven up the base set this year.

10. houstoncollector – Why is the price difference on Upper Deck Base so vastly different between the Hobby and Retail versions (per pack here) when the differences do not match up?

Gregg UD: The retail business and price structure is much different. The price they(retail distribution) pay for product is much less then hobby, so we can’t put as many goodies into retail products.

11. Groat – Internally, what role are manufactured patch cards supposed to play in a card set? Some manufactured patches, like the non-auto’ed cards from UD Premier, seem like just a way to take up the space of something cool you’d otherwise be getting. Other ones, like the SP Numbers Signatures in this year’s SPA, seem like an interesting way to add a little bit of class to a card.

Gregg UD: The manufactured patch cards are just something different. In no way do they ever replace something “good” you can be getting..at best they replace a game used and most of then time have better value. The industry is always looking for something different, sometimes good and sometimes not so good. There are times when a product works with Manufactured patches or Lettermen (Icons, SPA) and sometimes maybe overdone as in Premier. We will keep trying to find value in things other then Jersey Cards to help bring life to products….they always don’t work, but at least we try.

12. Steve – Ask Gregg what he listened to on his iPod while they packed out Exquisite. Packing out Exquisite BK was bizarre only because of the 70’s music that was cranked out from his iPod.

Gregg UD: had the same music for Football as basketball Steve..and I know you loved it!…You can never have enough Fleetwood Mac or Eagles!

Thanks to Gregg Kohn for taking the time to do this for us. Hopefully we can do it again.

Happy Belated Birthday SCU

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So, a little over one year today, SCU was born of anger and retribution. I have to admit, even I didn’t even expect it to last this long. I mean, once I started, I found it quite hard to post things every day, sometimes more than once, and to continue to find relevant things to talk about. On top of all of that, I never expected to get any traffic, mainly because no one knew who I was, and the CBN (Card Blogger Network) was only a third of what it is today.

Once the CBN hit full stride, things really picked up, as for some reason, people enjoyed reading my rants, or hated them enough to come back and see what I would say next. Really, I was just looking for a place to have fun writing, and usually when its about something you love, its much easier to do. Funny enough, I found there was a lot of shit that goes down in the hobby that I really disliked. There was rampant problems with established institutions that no one wanted to question publicly, there were problems with the cards themselves, there was problems with the people who collected them, and most of all, there were a ton of really ignorant people who seemed to be multiplying by the second. With that, I decided to stake my flag and really show people what could possibly be behind the curtain.

Unfortunately the gap between the smart and the stupid continued to grow, and people continued to take advantage of the lack of information and transparency. Luckily for everyone, the CBN also continued to grow and continued to challenge the paradigms that have long plagued collectors in the industry. They also provided complete up to date info, a fresh perspective, and quite a bit of pizazz to boot. New people joined up every day, and I tried to help as many of them as I could to find their voices. SCU’s blogroll continues to grow by the day, and I will never hesitate to add a friend, even if your views arent quite on point with mine.

As of today, over 100,000 unique visitors have seen the site, and most of them have come back multiple times for the same reasons as when this page first started. My biggest contribution, the Blog Bat Around is still running strong with a new person at the helm each month, something I love seeing. Hopefully the BBA will continue to be an awesome display of the might of the CBN.

As for SCU, well, I hope there are more years to come, more people to piss off, and more rantabulous posts to write. Really, the only people that deserve the credit are the guys from the SCU staff and you, the visitors. Thanks a ton guys and gals.

Now where is Matt Forte to jump out of my cake?