2005-06 Upper Deck Report Card

[MGiuseffi1969]

OK, With only one more product due for 2005-06 I thought it would be fun to see what you guys think of the job Upper Deck did this year with their first year of the exclusive NHL License. Simple Question: If you were giving Upper Deck a grade for their performance overall in 2005-06, what would it be? Comments, rants etc are welcomed. Mike

 

[Megatron]

I think UD did a "C" job this year.. It may be kinda harsh but the biggest complaint I have is they loaded almost every product with a bizillion rcs of guys who are never going to make it, I understand why they did it but still don't like it.. UD botched their signature product SPA which I never thought they could do but combined with wax price and crappy value/content they did! I thought ICE and Beehive were well done and surprises of the year given the price point(Good value for the breaks). SPGU is a product I like every year but not a fan of the stickers on the jerseys and patches, it made it look tacky to me. I did like Ultimate which surprised me, thought they would crap that product but they did a great job to their credit. I am eager to see The Cup and see how UD finishes the 1st year of Monopoly!
L

 

[tealfan]

As was mentioned in here by other people, SPA would have been fine with better chances of pulling something decent. They probably sould have shortened the checklists or something else that would have improved the odds somewhat. I did really like all the hard-signed auto sets in SPA. Thumbs-up there. SPA was great in singles but not in breaks. It looks like Ultimate is bringing the most happiness this year both in singles and break-wise.

Forgot to mention that Beehive was great also, since the parallels actually look different from each other...hehe.

 

[SMELLTHEVICTORY]

Everything But Their Own Upper Deck Was Very Nice This Year, I Personally Threw Away About 100 Dammaged Cards This Year Outta Series 2 Alone..and Rookie Update Pissed Me Off With Rookie Cards Put At Last Card, Not In The Middle, Means More Bent Corners..

 

[Fritz]

'does not play well with others'

 

[ZP9]

I gave them a D.

They destroyed SP Authentic this year.

Too many rookies. I mean, honestly, no offense to Rangers fans...but Montoya never even played a single game and he is plastered in every product. The same could be said for a lot of guys.

Lazy photography with rookies. Too many pre-season photos being used even now.

Lack of Game Used rookie jersey cards. Photoshoots all the way, and half the time you have to guess where it came from.

Redemption nightmare...nothing more to say.

Damaged product.

Black Diamond Onyx....why not use a cool color for a 1/1 instead of something that looks almost identical to the base card.

That being said, they did some good things as well. It was an all or nothing year IMO...they either made a really nice card or set, or they bombed horribly.

Glacial Graphs are cool. Hard signed autos in Beehive was great. UD Ultimate again is a great product. What they did with the Press Plates in Series 2 was cool. It wasn't all bad, but I think the bad far outweighed the good.

 

[tealfan]

'does not play well with others'

Need to repeat that at the parent/teacher conference, too.

 

[tealfan]

Hard signed autos in Beehive was great.

Tons of hard-signed in SPA, too, but I'm guessing your point was hard-signed autos at Beehive's price point? Yes, that was indeed good.

 

[leafschik1967]

I went 'B' based on my personal experiences this year. I didn't break much other than a few blaster boxes, so I didn't run into a lot of the problems others did.

Based on the singles and sets I have accumulated throughout the year, I am fairly impressed. Nice designs (for the most part) and lots of selection (perhaps a bit too much) have caught my eye this season.

 

[ZP9]

Tons of hard-signed in SPA, too, but I'm guessing your point was hard-signed autos at Beehive's price point? Yes, that was indeed good.

Yeah, that and the fact that the hard signed in SPA was overshadowed by what I feel is the worst product of the year. It is cool to have hard signed autos in anything though

 

[TheGriceBoys]

I almost gave them a "D" but I reconsidered after thinking back through the season a bit harder and so I went with a "C".

I am with Shawn in the thinking that it was very nice to see some hard-signed stuff in Bee Hive and a few other little surprise here and there.

I also agree with Tricia that although there was maybe too much of a "selection" in sets and/or rookies, I personally enjoyed it (to a degree) because I got more Kings cards I may have never gotten.

Let's face it, the Kings aren't exactly a highly collectible team and for a guy like me who really enjoys following them and collecting them it is a treat to get a few extra cards of Matt Ryan and Richard Petiot.

On the other hand I could have done without guys like that in products like SPA, Ice and Ultimate. UD really needs to draw the line on the high end stuff and give us the bang for the buck we all deserve and expect from the top shelf releases. Rookie Update was just excess on the aforementioned.

Trying to end this on a positive note here's some of the things I really enjoyed in each product (No Fleer comments). Feel free to add your own if you wanna break er' down:

Power Play - Specialty Patches: awesome swatches on those things for such a tiny window. Very attractive. I still need the Blake (shameless plug!)

Artifacts - The dual patches numbered to 15 yielded some amazing swatches as well. the tag single and dual auto 1/1's were sweet.

MVP - The ProSigs were tight.

Victory - Ummmmm, the Victory Blacks? Even though I need that Blake too!

Black Diamond- Nice design

Trilogy - The hard-signed auto's and plexi cards

SPX - Flashback Fabrics

UD 1 & 2 - The photography, Hometown Heroes and the patches #/15

SPGU - Signature Sticks, Quad Patches and the Endorsed Equipment

Bee Hive - Scrapbook Sigs and Remarkable Matted Materials

SPA- Future Watch Signed Patches, Immortal Inks, Chirography and Marks of Distinction

Ice - Level 1 Rookies, Glacial Graphs, and Signature Swatches (although looks like this will be repeated in The Cup with the actual auto ON the jersey piece this time)

Rookie Update- Dual Auto RC's and, and, and, uh, hmmmmmmmmm...

Parkhurst - Octo Jerseys

Hot Prospects- Signed Rookie Patch RC's and En Fuego Shield auto 1/1's

Ultimate - Lots of good stuff. Dual, trip and Quad HARD-signed Autos, Endorsed Emblems, Achievements Auto's, Signed RC's, Rookie Debut Jumbo Patches, Premium Patches, National Heroes, NHL Shield 1/1 auto's, etc, etc, etc

The Cup- ? I am thinking there will be a ton of sweet stuff in this.......

 

[Megatron]

OK, With only one more product due for 2005-06 I thought it would be fun to see what you guys think of the job Upper Deck did this year with their first year of the exclusive NHL License. Simple Question: If you were giving Upper Deck a grade for their performance overall in 2005-06, what would it be? Comments, rants etc are welcomed. Mike

What does the starter of this thread give UD as a grade??

 

[slckrsx]

I gave them a D. It would have been a C if they didn't totally ruin SP Authentic. Too many redemptions, too long to fullfill redemptions, too many no-name rookies, etc, etc.

 

[Muffinz]

I gave them a D. Lots of damage in series 1 and series 2. Photoshoot jerseys are terrible... sticker autos for the most of the products.

I gave them a D. It would have been a C if they didn't totally ruin SP Authentic. Too many redemptions, too long to fullfill redemptions, too many no-name rookies, etc, etc.

Yeah, i'm still waiting on redemptions from LAST YEARS SPauthentic

 

[Triple B]

I gave them a D. For a company that has managed to secure an exclusive license to produce hockey cards, they sure are half arsing it with their products. They have RUINED SP Authentic, they have watered down everything, and they have basically created one giant cash grab for themselves. Who's suffering? Dealers are. While collectors drive the hobby, dealers are becoming a dying breed. I've seen fellas bust a case of SPA at a $1,400 clip and not even make $300 on the cards they pulled. It's enough to drive anyone out of the hobby, dealers and collectors alike.

 

[samiaa]

I'll go with D.

Sure there are some good sets out but if thinking about all sets this year D is best i can give.

Way too many problems for higher score(and since most of them are allready said i wont repeat them here).

Thanks alot NHL/NHLPA!

-Sami

 

[spiral8]

I gave them a B.

In my eyes, there were only 2 garbage products this year by UD; SPA and Hot Prospects. All others seemed to be pretty solid products IMO

 

[MGiuseffi1969]

What does the starter of this thread give UD as a grade??

Sorry for the slow reply. I didn't see this question until now. I gave UD a C. My thoughts are, UD is kinda like that Old Western Movie with Clint Eastwood: "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly".

The Good: When Upper Deck gets it right with a set or card they usually hit a Home Run. For example I think several of the sets and sub-sets this year were really well done. Many of those sets have already been mentioned by others like the Ice Scripts set or perhaps the Auto-Draft set. I also think some of the parallels they produced this year were great, like SPx #/25 and the Matte parallels from Beehive. A couple of my favorite parallels, ever. I think overall UD made some great looking products this year.

The Bad: Some of the ways I think Upper Deck really dropped the ball this year have already been mentioned. One thing they did to really hurt the hobby was to triple the print runs on most of the late season products like SPx, SPA and Ice. This decision to triple the print runs forced them to make huge checklists and kill the chances of decent box breaks. For all of us Wax Junkies, the late season products are a tough pill to swallow.

The Ugly: I opened a case or so of each product that UD produced this year and I pulled an incredible amount of damaged cards. To me, this is unacceptable. We can land a probe on Mars, but UD cant make a Young Guns RC without a huge chip. C'mon guys. There were other things too like all the redemptions, photo shoot jerseys and poor artwork that are either lazy or incompetent. Take your pick.

Overall I gave them a C. Mike