Upper Deck's monopoly on the hockey card industry - good or bad?

Having been an avid hockey card collector for 25 years now, it seems odd that it's come full circle in one major way. In 1980, you collected O-Pee-Chee NHL hockey cards. If you were in the US, you collected Topps. Now, you collect Upper Deck NHL hockey cards. And that's where the similarity, for all intents and purposes, ends.

O-Pee-Chee would have hockey cards, and for a few years, also had a hockey sticker offering. For a few years, they also lauched mini cards. I believe they also had a hand in some cards made for Post cereals. In any case, they would probably plateau at 5 offerings a year.

Zoom forward to this year. O-Pee-Chee hasn't existed as a standalone company for years. Now, unless you want to collect the junior players, AHL players, or retired players from In The Game, your choice is Upper Deck. But all is not lost. Do you want variety? By the end of the season, they will have at least 18 mainstream sets. From the bottom end Victory to the uber-top end Ultimate Collection, it appears that they have covered most collectors' demands and wallet abilities. But, even to a lot of collectors who were around in the O-Pee-Chee days, this isn't necessarily a good thing. Why? Lots of reasons:

1) Quality - I would say that 1 out of every 4 UD packs I've bought this year have had at least one damaged card in them. Even more maddening is the fact that many of those cards are rookies or game used cards. Now, this isn't to say that their quality was sparkling in other years, because it most definitely was not. But this year has been terrible in terms of card damage, incorrect information, and incorrect game piece and autographs on cards. In the O-Pee-Chee days, prior to grading and in the middle of the "put them in your bike spokes" era, this wasn't a big thing. But the packs were also only 25 cents a piece. When you're paying $5+ per pack, quality shouldn't even be something you have to think about.

2) Redemptions, Redemptions, Redemptions - It used to be that BAP was the company that was skewered for issuing redemption after redemption for their Signature Series. What did they do in response? As far as I know, they no longer have any redemptions - all of the autos and game used are in packs now, and were in 04-05 as well (if there were any, I don't think it was an unacceptable amount). This brings us to 05-06 UD. From PowerPlay's and Artifacts rookie redemptions, which weren't that bad, since the rookies weren't actually playing yet, to the recently issued Ice product, which has tons and tons of unacceptable redemptions, and everywhere in between. Yes, I realize that they expect players to send back the autographs on time, and can't always control that. The key is that if the autos aren't there, you don't make the cards. Period. Which falls into the next problem......

3) Redemption wait times and customer service - I have waited nearly 5 months for my PowerPlay redemptions. That's significantly longer than 8-10 weeks that's the expected norm. Supposedly they are on their way, but not after a terse excuse filled, blame shifting response to an e-mail I sent after 4 months asking about it. From what I've heard, I'm not alone in receiving that kind of treatment. The other problem is replacement of damaged cards. Prior to this year, I heard many stories of UD's impressive response to damaged card requests - people getting 5-6 times book value for their damaged cards.

This year? Well, here's an example. Someone I know sent 2 damaged Dion Phaneuf UD Series 1 rookies for replacement, and got 2 Zach Parise rookies in return. When the person enquired to UD about the switch, he was told that they didn't have any Phaneufs left - a reasonable response. But why Parise's when the Phaneuf book value is higher? Well..... they are getting a lot of damaged card requests this year - cue the surprised face. So they are running out of duplicates rather quickly. So he got the best book value ones they had left, within a certain level of book value. Need a replacement for your damaged Crosby? Good luck.

4) Autograph stickers - This has been beaten beyond recognition in previous years, but has gotten beyond ridiculous this year. I understand their use. Players can sign hundreds, even thousands of stickers, and send the sheets back quickly and easily, and without bulk, they can even take them on the road. They can be stuck to anything, and the liability for card companies is heavily reduced. I also understand the major concerns of collectors. Less player interaction - not touching the card, just a random sticker on it. Autograph quality on stickers has proven to be far, far inferior. They just don't look as nice as cards with on-card autos on them. And they can be stuck on the wrong cards. UD might think that Cam Barker and Gilbert Brule are the same player (happened), but alas, they are not.

But here's the new one for me. How on EARTH, with such an ability to plan ahead with stickers - the cards don't even need to be made yet! - can you have a redemption for an autograph card with a sticker!?!??!? Ok, so they ran out of stickers. But how could you plan that poorly to plan your sets ahead of time but not your autograph stickers? I suppose they have their reasons and something we don't know, but to collectors like me, that's very strange, and a little maddening.

5) Paaaaaaarallels - Note to Upper Deck: Any idea why a lot of people said "Good riddance!" when Pacific Trading Cards went bankrupt? Parallels.

I collect Shane Doan cards. He's a hard working player and by all accounts a very generous and gracious person off the ice. But he certainly doesn't have the collector base of a Gretzky, Lemieux, or even Todd Bertuzzi. But in UD Artifacts, between all the different cards and parallels, there were 20 different Shane Doan cards, by my count. So for a completist like me (ok, cards # under 25 are listed in my books as "depends on the price"), this is annoying, especially when they seem to be mostly the same cards over and over again. And if you don't collect Shane Doan, is this of any value to you? Hmm...... value........ now that I say that word.....

The biggest problem, IMO:
6) Value and long term collectability - "We can't control what the cards sell for on the open market, we give an MSRP for the boxes and go from there" says Upper Deck. On this note, I actually give UD a bit of a pass. From speaking to several dealers, they would order a case or two from their wholesaler, then try to buy a second one, and would have to pay 50% more. That's not UD's fault. Unless, of course, they are printing on demand. Which in some cases this year, they are. They can't control price levels on items that are simply in too much demand to keep at the same price. But when they limit quantities, especially on pedestrian sets like the regular Series 1, they do.

Take a look at prices on eBay these days. Other than the massive prices being paid for highly limited and rare rookies, nothing is as it seems anymore. I picked up a Doan SPx dual jersey rainbow parallel #/10 for $10, and a Majestic Materials from UD Series 2 #/50 for $3. A few years back, picking up cards like that for those prices would only be possible if a seller was highly intoxicated, or if assault weapons were pressed up against a seller's nose. This year, it's more the norm than odd. But try and buy a decently high level Crosby. You will pay. Big. But..... over time, less and less big. (By the way, Ovechkins are high priced too, but might have a ceiling in the end due to one factor. See Bure, Pavel or Federov, Sergei).


So what's the verdict? Good or bad? For collectors, UD is still putting out a lot of different, although a little short on imagination like Pacific, types of sets. Expensive as ever, but when not damaged, decent looking. For investors? Well, time will tell. UD has taken the opportunity to put as many rookies as possible in their sets, and some are already lagging. Right now, it's a single buyers market. People are flipping cards for nothing to get the next big thing. So there are bargains. Just try not to buy too many packs. If UD ups their quality a little, and stops apparently feeding us the"We're the only game in town, so you'll take what we give you and LIKE IT!" attitude, this isn't necessarily a bad thing in the end.