Card Of the Week 6/16/08

2007 Upper Deck Premier was one of those high super premium megariffic elitist packs. They cost $300 a pop and were considered prime whale bait. Each seven card pack had one manufactured patch card, one memorabilia with three or four swatches, one patch card with two or three swatches, an autograph numbered to 99 or less, an autograph or printing plate, one rookie Card numbered to 199 or less and one foil numbered base card. I could have just linked to Joey's review but I really wanted to type all that out. The basic concept behind these packs is to a) provide more 'value' in a pack b) provide the experience of pulling all the 'hits' without all those messy base cards c) sucker high rollers into dropping several grand at a pop on baseball cards. Here's an example of one of the Triple Patch cards:

Ooooooooh... Preeeeeeetttty.....

That's a nice lookin' card right? Classy looking design with die cut foil showing off three different little patch bits. They even used three patch squares instead of one big piece of patch and made sure to misalign them in the cut outs so you could see the different pieces. Now that's a nice card. Numbered 63/97 too. Very appropriate since Andruw is hitting .062 with 97 strikeouts this year. This is a very rare card, right? Well, as rare as any of the other cards in the set since they're all inserted one a pack. There are just as many patch cards out there from this set as base cards. Makes ya wonder why they even had base cards if they were just one per pack. They're still base cards so no one's gonna pay that much for them unless someone lost their mind and tried to build a set. I can see some schmuck bidding up a Mark DeRosa card to a couple grand on eBay since it's the last one he needs for the set. My guess is that UD put in a base set at the last minute because $50 a card for a 6 card pack was just too much for even the high rollers to swallow, but $42.85 per card for a seven card pack was okey doakey. Added value, people, it's all about added value. Actually a box/pack is down to $210 each so it's $30 a card now. Patches are one of the better cards in the pack though, much better than a boring ol' base card or one of those fake manufactured patches. Patches are probably #3 on the hit hierarchy behind printing plates and really good autographs so they should be more expensive, right? How much did I pay for this beaut, anyway?


See for yourself, folks. Lord, I love a buyer's market. This week's Card of the Week: a sweet Andruw Jones triple patch card that depreciated faster than a 2006 Kia Rio driving off the lot.