Upper Deck Finishes Shipping All ‘Mystery Cut’ Autograph Cards

Authentic autograph cards from famous deceased personalities have become favorites with collectors.

North Las Vegas, NV (March 10, 2009) – One of Upper Deck’s most popular products of the year is SP Legendary Cuts Baseball. Collectors fell in love with the concept of pulling “cut” autograph cards from deceased Hall-of-Famers and baseball legends when the set debuted in 2001. Upper Deck added in additional chase cards with “Mystery Cuts” autograph exchange inserts for deceased personalities outside the world of baseball and that element has been met with tremendous excitement by collectors. With autograph cards from Hollywood celebrities, U.S. presidents and other historical personalities, it’s easy to see why.

For collectors, the program can be very exciting as they register their “Mystery Cuts” exchange cards with Upper Deck and then are shipped the cards randomly. Tracking down some of these rare signatures and having them authenticated takes a little time so Upper Deck sent these cards out to collectors in two waves, the first in November 2008 and the second just recently in February.

“When you have names like Thomas Edison, James Monroe and John Quincy Adams, it’s easy to understand why collectors get so excited to receive their ‘Mystery Cuts’ cards,” said Bernd Becker, Upper Deck’s vice president of Sports and Entertainment. “We source for the autographs through reputable and approved vendors. Upon receipt, we send the autographs out again to another third party for additional review and authentication. Some would call it overkill, but these are special cards and it’s important for collectors to know that Upper Deck takes the appropriate steps to confirm the authenticity of the autographs.”

Several of the “Mystery Cuts” have been creating a lot of interest in online auctions. One that has been drawing significant attentions is a “Mystery Cuts” card of Napoleon Bonaparte. This rare card is limited to only two copies and it includes a signature of the famous French military leader. The auction can be reviewed here: http://cgi.ebay.com/2008-Legendary-Mystery-Cuts-NAPOLEON-BONAPARTE-2-2-AUTO_W0QQitemZ260372440866QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUS_SM_Sports_Cards?hash=item260372440866&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=66%3A2%7C65%3A3%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1309

“We are excited to have Donruss on board as a title sponsor at this year’s Trading Card Show at NFL Experience,” said NFL Director of Consumer Products Rich Seidlitz. “This is great exposure for the category and a creative way for Donruss to get its brand out in front of millions of NFL football fans.”

The agreement also allows Donruss access to officially licensed Super Bowl XLIII memorabilia, including game-used equipment, such as footballs and end zone pylons, and Super Bowl XLII ticket stubs. All of these items will be uniquely incorporated into future trading card programs.

“Our goal at Donruss has been to market around the NFL’s marquee events, so being a title sponsor at an NFL signature event, the NFL Experience, takes our marketing efforts to another level,” said Donruss Vice President of Sales & Marketing Mike Anderson. “By adding in sponsorships at the Pro Bowl and NFL Draft, we hope to expose an entirely new audience to the Donruss brand.”

Anderson is referring to the fact that the agreement also includes a sponsorship at this year’s Pro Bowl and the exclusive designation as the “Official Trading Card of the 2009 NFL Draft.” Specific details on Donruss’ plans for these events will be released in the coming weeks, but the agreement will grant Donruss access to additional game-used memorabilia and unique photo opportunities at both events.

“We felt the memorabilia from these events would be a great way to enhance our programs throughout 2009,” adds Anderson. “With the excitement about the Pro Bowl moving to South Florida next year and the growing popularity of NFL Draft day, we’re excited at the prospects of gaining exposure for Donruss and our products during these NFL events.”

If you listened to our first podcasts, we had Clay Luraschi from Topps on and he revealed that Buster Posey would be in Bowman Chrome Draft Picks and Prospects. So it was pretty cool to see the first huge pull out of the product was live. The card is already on EBay and awaiting a Wossa offer.

We should be seeing a lot more coming out of this product in the upcoming weeks. This is many prospectors set of the year, but it should be interesting to see how it does with Razor snagging so many of the top players from this years draft. I personally think both Topps and Razor will do well with their products. Everything Topps did to juice up BCDP by listening to the fans, I think, should definitely pay off with two of the strongest products we have seen in a long time.

We tried to cover everything from their layout of their site to pricing structure that they will be using. I have listed some of my extra stuff on there. My username on there is TheCardPodcast so give the stuff a look.

One of the featured listings on the page is my Justin Smoak 1 of 1 patch from 2007 USA Baseball. Some may wonder why this is Episode Number 12 when the last one was Number 10. Well we decided, unlike the Patriots thus far, to retire number 11. (Or the whole numbering thing was off because of the special episode with Brian on the Wieters 1/1, but we’re going with the tribute to Drew. )

We are setting up having the team behind this new site on the podcast this weekend. I have listed a few cards under the user name TheCardPodcast. You can view my stuff so far here. We will be covering more on this site in the coming weeks, but definitely looks like a good site to check out.

Click Here for the Ebay listing