Upper Deck Meteorite Cards Are Redy To Go

When 2012 Goodwin Champions came out not long ago one of the cards that really drew my attention, along with the Museum Collection, were the It Came From Outer Space meteorite relic cards. I just think this is one of the coolest relic cards ever not to mention quite original.

 

When the product went live quite a few redemption cards were showing up for auction and the prices were still reasonable, many selling in the $50-80 range, but the supply has since dried up and the prices have increased. There is currently only one available for auction and it has a BIN of $399.99. Over the last few weeks the ones that have shown up are selling for well over $100 with most in the $200-300 range.

 

Upper Deck has started to receive the completed cards and is getting ready to send them to the redemption center. There are 20 cards on the checklist; each card contains a piece from one of twenty strike sites.

 

Each card contains a short story about the location of the meteorite strike along with some basic information including date (if known) and eye witness accounts. It is like a little bit of history class on each card. There are 18 standard-sized cards and 2 minis, specific numbers have not been announced but Upper Deck has stated that there are equal quantities of each standard-sized card but the two minis are a bit scarcer.

The 20-card checklist contains meteorite relics from around the world with five of the seven continents being represented. The cards are well designed too, containing a photo of the location where the meteorite struck with a nice sized die-cut window where the relic is located. There is one thing that bothers me, two of the cards have a square die-cut window and I feel it tinkers with the flow of the card.

I would love to get a hold of the ICFS-DC Diablo Canyon Meteorite card (above). This piece is from the meteorite that struck Northern Arizona around 50,000 years ago and left a crater over a mile across and 550 feet deep. Owning a piece of local history would be a wonderful addition to my collection.

 

 
I am not sure if the mini short prints are not completed or what but Upper Deck has only shown mock-ups of the minis, which are located below:

 

Random Rack Pack: 2012 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions

I recently picked up a rack pack of Goodwin Champions to get a hands on look at the release. I know that some people do not care for mixed products like this but I think that it gives a little something for everyone. The down side is that without a MLB, NBA or NFL license any related athletes are stuck in relaxed poses and not in uniform as they should be depicted.  I like the mix of old and new, there are a nice selection of players from years past along with athletes that are still in the prime of their career. It makes for a very interesting pack busting experience.

 

I started off with a group of baseball players from the 1800s; Ross Barnes, Ned Hanlon and Billy Hamilton. A nice group here with two Hall of Famers, Hanlon and Hamilton, though it should be noted that Barnes is not in the Hall of Fame on a technicality, he only played 9 professional seasons and the Hall requires 10 total pro seasons. Sadly he played 4 years with the Rockford Forest Citys (1866-1870) but because there were no professional leagues at the time they do not count these 4 seasons as professional.

 

 Totaled up we have 3 players accounting for 34 professional seasons (plus Hanlon’s 18 years as a manger), 5 batting titles, 8 NA/NL Championships (plus Hanlon’s 5 NL Championships as a manager) and numerous records.

 

I followed up with Knute Rockne, a football genius who changed the game. He played at Notre Dame where he was named an All-American in 1913. Some people claim he invented the forward pass but that is not true, though he was part of making it an integral part of the game. After graduation he stayed on as the ND coach, over the next 13 seasons he went 105-12-5; his .881 win percentage is still the all-time winning percentage among college coaches. Toss in 5 undefeated seasons, 3 National Championships and a 1925 Rose Bowl win and you have one of the best coaches ever. You wonder how much more he would have added to his resume had he not died in a plane crash.

 

 A group of fighters up next, two real and one fake. Overeem has/had a bright future, there is still time but I guess we are going to have to wait until he is able to apply for his license in December. He had his shot at the UFC Heavyweight title but failed a testosterone test and now has to wait until his ban ends. Couture is one of my favorites, he helped bring MMA and UFC back in to the public after the banning of UFC in the early 1990s in the US. He is a classy guy and a champion. His records are amazing, 3x Heavyweight Champ, 2x Light-heavyweight Champ, the most UFC Championships, the most Championship fights, the oldest UFC Champ ever and he is in the UFC Hall of Fame.

The Hulkster may be in sports entertainment but he did the same for wrestling that Couture did for MMA. Hulk Hogan was the man that made the WWF a legitimate organization and he did body slam Andre the Giant (with some help from Andre). To see that he is still (sort of) wrestling at 59 is amazing, even if it is only TnA Impact.

 

A couple of Bean(e)’s, one walked on the moon and the other changed the way baseball players are ranked by teams and scouts.

 

I think Upper Deck missed it with Payne Stewart; they should have gone with a shot of him in his famous knickers. He was another person taken before their time by a plane crash, he was 42 when he died and you know he still had more championships ahead of him.

 

Mike Bossy, why oh why do you look like Alice Cooper? This is another card where I think that Upper Deck went wrong, this is Mike Bossy, arguably the greatest NY Islander ever, he is in the NHL Hall of Fame and he still holds NHL records 20 years after he retired. UD has an NHL license, why would they not put him in an Islanders sweater?

 

A couple of “suave” guys here, well Donnie Baseball looks a little 1980s GQ but he still looks good.

 

And then we have a “not so suave” shot here. When I first saw this card I immediately pictured the Roger Patterson Bigfoot pictures. Just the way he is staged reminds me of the Bigfoot shots.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple of minis, including Iron Mike and Bigfoot-esque Larry Bird.

 

 

A Lady Luck green parallel of golfer Dustin Johnson.

 

 

I close with a Military Machines B-24 Liberator. These inserts are different from the base set, they have a smooth coating where the base cards are the old-school cardboard.

 

The B-24, not as famously known as the B-17, was actually better (to a point) than the Flying Fortress. The Liberator could carry a heavier payload, could fly faster and had a greater range but on the downside was more difficult to fly and when they were hit they tended to go down harder causing more death to the flight crews.

 

The Liberator was used in Europe, the Pacific and Indo-China by the US and her allies. Great Britain, Canada, Australia all had them in their arsenals because they had multiple uses on top of the bombing. They were used as spy planes, air and sea patrols, flying gas stations and transports. One was "lent" to the Soviet Union but they captured 73 other Liberators that were forced to land in areas held by Soviet forces. Even the Germans had a couple that had been captured and were used as spy planes over Allied lands.

 

The Liberator was retired by the military in 1944 when the B-29 Superfortress was released but they remained in use by the Navy until 1952 and by the Coast Guard until 1958. They were still being used privately until 2002 when one crashed while fighting a wildfire and the remaining planes were all grounded.

 

Leave It To Upper Deck To Have Some Fun

There have been some interesting relics included in cards over the past decade like shoes, hats, gloves and even a corked bat (Thank you Pacific, you may be gone but we will always love you) but now we can include a flpppy disc in that checklist. Upper Deck inserted a Steve Wozniak relic and dual-relic cards in the Goodwin Champions release that includes pieces from floppy discs. There are both red and black discs with some of the dual-relic cards containing one of each color. The dual-relic cards do not appeal to me, I prefer the vertical style that is used on the base card and single relic cards.

Surprisingly most of the single relic cards can be picked up for a couple of bucks with the dual-relic cards hitting the $15-20 range. If Upper Deck were to have included Steve Jobs version I would bet the price would be sky high right now instead of a few dollars. I know this is kind of a gimmick but no worse than Topps and the Gypsy Queen's jewel relics and Gypsy King's bat relics.

Goodwin Champions Museum Collection Flag Relics Hit The Bay!

There has been some buzz about Upper Deck’s decision to include a Union flag as relics in the Museum Collection insert in the recently released 2012 Goodwin Champions set. The flag that is being included was a Union Flag that had actually been carried in to battle, though I have not found any information verifying which battle or even which unit carried the flag.

 

The problem with the inclusion of the flag has bothered some collectors, they feel that cutting up a flag and inserting the pieces in to a card is straight unpatriotic, sacrilegious and in poor taste. Many of the collectors who have made these statements are supporting it with the legal description on how to properly retire an American Flag. They point out that our flag should never be used in such a manner and that Upper Deck will receive bad press and negative reactions if they followed through with the decision to include the relics in the set.

 

Some of the responses in defense are just as spirited and seem to be more detailed as to the technical definition of American Flag. One point that seems to be pretty prevalent is that the flag is being described only as a “Union Flag” which could be a national flag or in many cases States and even individual units created their own version of the Stars & Stripes to be carried in to battle as their identifying marker. Others point out that even if this was the flag of the Union Government, it was not the same country, and it was a country divided and therefore is not the same as the United States of America as we know it now.

Upper Deck has stood by their decision to include the relics, they want to introduce American history to a generation of collectors and that from the beginning the inclusion of the flag was with respect and this was there way of giving the flag a second life. Rob Ford, UD Sports Coordinator, pointed out that the vendor they bought the flag from was actually cutting pieces from the flag and selling them to his customers so the flag was quite fragile and shredded by the time they purchased it. When you see how it was received you can see that it is not a museum quality piece and it would not be ideal to give it complete to one lucky collector.


A portion of the flag as received by Upper Deck

 

This is a tough ethical question and while the subject is very different, this is still a similar debate to the arguments we hear when a company cuts up a Babe Ruth bat to insert the chips in to cards. There will always be some for it and some against it. In the end, it is your collection and if you want it (and can afford it) why not own it?

 

With 2012 Goodwin Champions being out for almost two weeks now the big hits are starting to show up for auction. The Union Flag relics are inserted in to standard relic cards so they were inserted in to the packs. I have come across four auctions so far, two are currently active and two have ended. This includes the three-colored flag relic card that Upper Deck has been using on their website/blog and in advertising materials for the Museum Collection.

 

In all honesty I believe that most collectors would be excited to pull one of the flag relic cards. I think Upper Deck took a chance and it may work out well.

 

I rarely talk about my personal beliefs on the blog but to give a little insight in to the man known as "Corky", I believe in ghosts/paranormal activity and I feel that personal items like uniform buttons and insignias carry over energy if the person died while wearing them and I want nothing to do with those button and insignia Museum Collection relics unless I knew for a fact (which is almost impossible to prove in this case) they came from a soldier who did not die on the battlefield. Not that I expect to pull any of these, I am more interested in the It Came From Outer Space Meteorite cards anyway.

 

Current Auction: $449- Auction Link



Current Auction: $305- Auction Link

Auction Ended: Card Sold $465- Auction Link

Auction Ended Early, Not Re-listed Yet: Card Did Not Sell $999- Auction Link

 

Upper Deck Brings Back Shoeless Joe

Joe Jackson is once again making an appearance in an Upper Deck set. In 2001 Upper Deck became the first major card company to add Jackson to their checklist when he showed up in the 2001 SP Legendary Cuts release. They even managed to get a game used bat (from his post MLB-ban days) and included not one but two bat relic cards in the Debut Bat Cards insert. He had a single bat relic card and a dual bat relic card with Hall of Famer Paul Waner.

Prior to Upper Deck’s 2001 release Jackson made a couple of appearances in modern day releases, specifically the Conlon sets during the 90s and a Pacific release around the same time. He has also appeared in Donruss/Panini sets a couple of times since 2008 but they tended to use photos from his later years after he left baseball.

Upper Deck has just announced that they will include a Joe Jackson bat relic in the upcoming 2012 Goodwin Champions release which should be out in just about 2 weeks. Once again there will be a single relic card and a multi-swatch relic card, I do not know if this means he will be paired with another player (like he was in the 2001 SP set), if it will be two Jackson bat relics or if it will be a bat relic and maybe a jersey relic.

I do prefer the 2001 SP Legendary Cuts design but I would not cry about pulling this card. I like that Upper Deck has taken a different route and is using art depicting his time with the Cleveland Naps, where he made his biggest impact in the league. I do not understand why they aged him though, I have included a picture that was most likely used by the artist to create this image for comparison and you can see he was quite younger (@ 25 years old) at the time the photo was taken.

2012 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions: Military Machines

68 years ago today, June 6^th, 1944, the tide turned on Hitler’s stranglehold on the European continent. At 6:30 AM, local British time, Operation Overlord commenced with 12,000 planes, 7,000 ships and well over 160,000 troops (not counting the paratroopers who were dropped behind enemy lines the previous night) crossing the English Channel and launching the largest amphibious assault along beaches in Normandy, France. Brave men from the U.S., U.K., Canada, France, Canada, Poland, Belgium, Greece, Norway and the Netherlands hit the sand ready to go face to face with roughly 350,000 German soldiers who were dug in and waiting for the assault. In a period of 11 months and 2 days victory in Europe was declared and within days most German forces had surrendered allowing the Allies to turn their full attention to the war in the Pacific.

Through the years we have seen sports teams and sports card companies show their respect for the military, both from the past and present. Upper Deck has continued this tradition with the Military Machines set that will be inserted in to packs of 2012 Goodwin Champions. The set will consist of 25 cards and will include cards ranging from the Civil War through modern times. Some cards depict a specific item like the USS Maine while others show a type of vehicle like a F9 Panther.

In honor of D-Day I chose to display cards with machines that were used during WWII beginning with the Higgins Landing Craft that was so instrumental in D-Day's success.