UPPER DECK COMPANY

'Upper Deck Company, LLC' (colloquially as '"Upper Deck,"' 'Upper Deck Authenticated, Ltd.' in the UK), founded in 1988, is a company primarily known for producing trading cards. It is a private company. The company has exclusive agreements to produce memorabilia (under the brand name Upper Deck Authenticated) with such sports superstars as Michael Jordan (who is also on the board of directors), Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Albert Pujols, Kevin Durant, Sandy Koufax, and Ken Griffey Jr. Former Major League relief pitcher De Wayne Buice was a partner, and was instrumental in negotiating Upper Deck's first license with the MLBPA. The man who came up with the idea for a premium card was Paul Sumner, a former printing sales person who hired Robert Young Pelton to design and produce a prototype. Pelton's agency Pelton & Associates and Digital Artists was replaced by Chiat Day. Paul Sumner resigned with the understanding that he would be known as the "Co-Founder of Upper Deck", something that the company's owner and CEO, Richard McWilliam, recognizes to this day. The book "Card Sharks" by Pete Williams covers the company's early ideas and explosive growth.

Contents

Company history

NBA Exquisite Collection

Other products

Upper Deck Kids

See also

External links

References

Company history

On December 23, 1988, Upper Deck was granted a license by Major League Baseball to produce baseball cards. The first case of Upper Deck Baseball Cards was delivered February 28, 1989, to George Moore of Tulsa's Baseball Card Store in Tulsa, OK. The Upper Deck Company sold out its baseball cards midway through this inaugural year, then pre-sold its entire 1990 baseball stock before the year began. The 1990 set included the industry's first randomly inserted personally autographed and numbered cards of sports superstars.
On March 20, 1990, The Upper Deck Company was granted licenses by the National Hockey League and National Hockey League Players Association to produce hockey cards. The company also obtained licenses from the National Football League and the National Basketball Association in 1990, making the Upper Deck Company the first trading card company in 10 years to be licensed by all four leagues. In 1995, the company produced its first racing product. In 1996, it expanded its racing line when it absorbed Maxx. Upper Deck was also the first to insert swatches of Game-Used material into cards when it made jersey cards in 1996 UD Basketball. The insert set was called Game Jersey and a similar set followed in baseball the next year, where UD cut up Game Used Jerseys of Ken Griffey Jr., Tony Gwynn and Rey Ordonez.
In July 2005 Upper Deck won the liquidation auction of former competitor Fleer-SkyBox International's brand name, assets and model business as well as the Fleer Collectibles die-cast business assets.
In March 2007, Upper Deck made an offer to buy competitor Topps[1] and competes with Madison Dearborn Partners and Tornante Company. Upper Deck is currently in litigation to stop the sale.[2]
Upper Deck originally included the year of the trading card set's release on its logo, with the "19" above the "Upper" and the last two digits of the year under the "Deck" (but both inside the green diamond). This was dropped midway through the 1994 season.

NBA Exquisite Collection

Upper Deck premiered its ''NBA Exquisite Collection'' product in the 2003-2004 season. Each pack contained five basketball cards; one veteran base card numbered to 225, one autographed rookie card featuring a piece of patch worn by the player numbered to 99 or 225, one game worn jersey card, one autographed/patch insert card, and a fifth card that was either a low numbered parallel or an additional autographed patch card. Suggested retail price of the product was $500 US, making it the most expensive basketball card product ever produced at the time. (The few packs that remain unopened now sell for over $4,000.) Autograph cards include veterans such as Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Carmelo Anthony. The most sought after cards from the product include the autographed/patch rookie cards numbered to 99 (LeBron James, Darko Milicic, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, and Udonis Haslem), the Limited Logos inserts which feature an extra large jersey patch piece and autograph, and the autographed/patch rookie parallels serial numbered to the player's jersey number.
In view of the series' success, the company has released 2004-05 and 2005-06 basketball sets, a 2005 football product, and an analogous 2005-06 hockey product called The Cup.

Other products

The company's division Upper Deck Entertainment produces the English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Italian, and French versions of the ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' Trading Card Game licensed from Konami, the ''Winx Club'' Trading Card Game for girls, the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game based on the popular MMORPG, along with the ''Marvel Trading Card Game'' and the ''DC Comics Trading Card Game'' using their proprietary ''VS System''. In October of 2005, UDE introduced a Trading Card Game based on Nickelodeon's new '' series and the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. It has also released many non-game oriented sports-based and multimedia companion trading card sets.

Upper Deck Kids

In April of 2006, Upper Deck created Upper Deck Kids with the slogan "Get More Than Lucky". Codes are put on the back of cards and can enter on the site to get points. These points can then be obtain prizes. In April 2007, a monthly limit of 1000 codes was installed and adults were now uneligible to sign up. New prizes are usually added every couple months. They have recently added a video clip section to the site
;History of Prizes Awarded

★ Various Autographed Memorabilia

★ Baseball, Football, Hockey, and Basketball Screensavers and Wallpapers

★ Baseball, Baskettball, Football, and Hockey Card Boxes

★ Raffle Tickets for Various Prizes

★ Wall Stars Decals

★ PS2 Video Games

★ PSP

★ Fandango Bucks

★ Avatars for Use on the Site

★ Xbox 360

★ Trip to Meet Derek Jeter

★ PC Games

★ Legoland Ambassodar Pass

See also

★ Limited liability company

★ Trading Cards

★ Collectible Card Game

★ Upper Deck Authenticated

External links

★ Upper Deck website

★ Upper Deck Entertainment website

★ Upper Deck Kids website

★ Upper Deck Store website

References

★ Hoover's Upper Deck Company, LLC Fact Sheet

★ Beckett.com company profile

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