My First Booklet Kelly Slater Style

Here is a follow up over three years in the making. In 2012 Upper Deck released the 2012 Upper Deck All-Time Greats Sports Edition release that had a limited checklist of only certifiable greats like Michael Jordan, Barry Sanders, Landon Donovan, Richard Petty, Hulk Hogan, Tiger Woods and Kelly Slater.

At that time I had even posted two of the cards that drew my interest, both Kelly Slater cards, and since I wasn’t keeping a “Wants” list at the time I filed both cards away in my mental filing cabinet and needless to say forgot. When I finally set up my Top 10 Wants list I added one of the cards to the list but in all honesty I forgot about the booklet card, which was actually the card I originally wanted.

In January by chance I came across some Kelly Slater cards and ended up doing some searches and was reminded of the booklet card. I found one for a reasonable price and snatched it up. This is my first booklet card ever and it is a thing of beauty, Upper Deck did an amazing job.

To add to my Kelly Slater collection I also picked up a 2015 Sportkings Vault Single Memorabilia Kelly Slater relic. Thank you to Sportkings/Leaf for doing what should be standard with relic cards and give specifics of where the relic came from originally, the back of the card states that this piece came from a pair of shorts that he wore in 2006 while surfing the North Shore.

Surfing In To My Collection

After selling off the four 2013-14 Panini Immaculate Basketball that I didn’t need in my collection I turned towards picking up some wanted Griffey cards and one specific “other” card that has been on my personal want list for a couple of years. The “other” card finally arrived today.

 

As a teen and young adult I surfed, as difficult as that was living in Arizona. I was fortunate enough to be able to spend time with friends in California regularly hitting Redondo, Hermosa and Manhattan Beaches with the occasional outing to Zuma Beach. Being out on the water is just something Zen, completely at peace.

 

I grew up reading about guys like Bob McTavish and Duke Kahanamoku and idolizing surfers like Derek & Michael Ho, Gerry Lopez, Tom Curran and Laird Hamilton but the guy who I really liked is Kelly Slater. He is the same age as I am and he began ripping it up in the late 1980s and hasn’t slowed down since. He is an 11 time ASP World Championship Tour champion and currently has 54 total WCT victories, the most all-time.

From the 2012 Upper Deck All-Time Greats release I am happy to finally add a Kelly Slater autograph to my collection. I love the gold signature, it looks great on the card. I still want to add his Shining Moments auto (#SM-KS3) to my collection but that one will have to wait because prices are still well above my price range.

Surfing Champion In Upper Deck's All-Time Greats

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.

2012 Upper Deck All-Time Greats Sports Edition

In two months (July 10^th) Upper Deck will be unleashing the high-end 2012 Upper Deck All-Time Greats Sports Edition set. Each box will contain 4 cards and will run $300-400 each. The box break will include 3 base cards and one autograph card.

To keep the value for the on-card autographs the set will contain only 20 superstars and the autographs will all be limited, the highest number I have seen is #/15.

The checklist:

Michael Jordan
Tiger Woods
Bobby Orr
Dan Marino
Jerry Rice
Annika Sorenstam
Landon Donovan
Larry Bird
LeBron James
Barry Sanders
Richard Petty
Kelly Slater
Joe Sakic
Wayne Gretzky
Bo Jackson
Mario Lemieux
Pete Rose
Hulk Hogan
Mike Tyson
Troy Aikman

There are also Legacy Book Cards which pairs a living legend with a deceased superstar cut signature. Along with the 20 listed athletes the cut signatures checklist:

Joe Frazier

Ben Hogan
Red Grange
Maurice Richard
Walter Payton

A final autograph set is the All-Time Forces Hologram cards which will pair up two of the 20 superstars and include dual signatures.

Sadly I see this as a product where the autograph may not cover the cost of the original product, sure there are some great athletes connected to the set but you have to wonder how surfer Kelly Slater, golfer Annika Sorenstam or NASCAR driver Richard Petty will go over with most collectors. Those sports have a very specific collector who will probably not buy in to this set. Even pulling Hulk Hogan auto could probably sour the box break of a baseball, football or basketball collector (i.e. the main collectors to buy this release). On the positive side you have to admit that some of these autographs are pretty sweet and would be a prize in your collection and the die-cuts came out nicely.