There
are some sports that have a strong fan base but will rarely see the light of the
television screen; surfing is one of those sports. Surfing is Zen and you
either surf or you do not surf, rarely do you find a surfing fan who has never
paddled out.
With
limited media coverage comes limited collectability. Most collectors would be
hard pressed to even name a surfer, past or present and so surfers have only
made rare appearances in releases. Upper Deck seems to be the most supportive by
including surfers in a number of releases in the past 3 years, usually in the
Goodwin Champions and World of Sports sets. They are taking it up a notch by
including Kelly Slater (11 World Championships) in both the 2012 Goodwin
Champions and the 2012 Upper Deck All-Time Greats releases.
The
Kelly Slater Shining Moments booklet card from the All-Time Greats release is
an amazing card. Upper Deck designers did a beautiful job with this card;
personally this is easily one of my favorite card designs. The
Shining Moments booklets are limited but I am unable to find any specific release
numbers. My best guess, based on the photos Upper Deck has posted of him
signing, is that Slater has 35-40 booklet cards.
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