For several months I have been writing about the genius that is Upper Deck’s Spectrum of Stars insert set. After all, Wax Heaven’s slogan is ‘Trading Cards and Pop Culture’. How could I not love a set featuring autographs of Al Bundy, Cheech & Chong, and Kim Kardashian?
Two weeks ago, Upper Deck’s baseball license was renewed. As a thank you for the blogosphere’s support, the men & women of U.D sent over an entire set of Spectrum of Stars. I’m talking about autographs of Leslie Nielsen, Burt Reynolds, Playboy’s Kendra and so much more.
Now I am torn on just how to give these awesome cards away. My original idea was to have multiple contests with several winners but money is tight and shipping would kill me. My second idea was to give away the entire set to one lucky winner but then hundreds of readers would be left in the cold.
The only thing I know right now is that I am giving away every single card because without the readers of the site, this place would not be 1/4th of what it is today. So if you’ve got suggestions by all means let me know through the comments section, by e-mail, and/or through the Wax Heaven Twitter account.
As always, many thanks to Upper Deck for supporting the blogosphere.
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Wow, that’s awesome. Nice job, UD.
Why don’t you hold multiple contests but have the winners send you a SASE-bubble mailer? That way a lot of people get cards and you don’t have to pay anything for shipping.
Trivia Contest with 1st 2nd & 3rd prizes?
I like the SASE idea, or if there is anyway to track the # of posts users make maybe have the top x post makers win a card.
Have a Pop Culture contest make it about movies, TV shows, Cartoons, and the 80’s, 90’s and today …lol and stuff i think that would be really cool!!!
How many cards in the set Mario?? I’m loving that Kim card!!
How about a free lottery? Your blog readers are assigned a number when they express interest, you randomly generate numbers to determine each card’s winner, and the winner needs to send you a SASE to get the card. Unclaimed cards (i.e. winner didn’t send SASE) can be put up in future contests.
“Take one, pass it on”. Have a contest to determine the entrants, winner gets the first choice and the whole set. He/she gets to pick a card, and then has to mail it to the next person/winner, and so on and so on. You could randomly generate the order among contestants.
Kinda exciting. Only thing is I don’t know how to guarantee the ’safety’ of this prize. Negative publicity is a way to discourage any bloggers from taking the whole thing and running, but others I’m not so sure.
Anyhow, I’ll gladly volunteer to be first… can’t see any objections to that! LOL.
Of course, if you choose to go with something else I’m sure it’ll be just as fun.
Robert, sounds good but many people take weeks sometimes even months to send out SASE’s… even when there are free cards at stake.
Jason, unfortunately there is no way to keep track of posts count.
that is a cool thing for them to do. I love these sets as it doesn’t completely flood the set but I was upset thet the original checklist had Bruce Campbell (Ash from the Evil Dead series) then it changed yet again and he was left out so I never bought any spectrum yet this year.
well as an idea having different types of contests for each card would be a cool idea like a ranom.org for one then trivia for anothe etc.
But with money being hard on you why don’t you have the winner send you the shipping cost via paypal.
The first person to write Jose Canseco ( or contact him), and tell him what a huge fan Mario is, and get an autographed card personalized to my man Mario gets the whole stack.
The Mojo Hand
Cool stuff … great gesture on Upper Deck’s part. But I do wonder why these cards didn’t find their way into packs.
By the way, I was inspired by your Leslie Nielsen post a couple of weeks ago, and picked up the Nielsen autograph on eBay. I love the Naked Gun movies, even though I’m creeped out by seeing O.J. in the movies when I watch them now.
how about you do as many contests as you want, anda we all pay for the shipping? I mean, youre giving away sweet cards and this is the best blog around the least we can do is pay shipping
Wickedortega, I counted 22 cards. Maybe 1 more, one less… I was in a rush.
I agree with the SASE idea.
One way to assure that they get sent to you in a timely manner is that you take the number of cards in the set and accept the first “x” amount of SASE’s sent from readers.
1 envelope per reader limit keeps the mass mailers from flooding your mailbox.
Randomly assign a number to each envelope/entrant via random.org when the limit is reached. Card # matches Envelope # and mass mail away.
Just a thought.
Nice job UD. Mario keep it. You’ve more than earned it.
Instead of SASE, maybe paypal payments for shipping?
let’s assume 22 cards and $3 per card for shipping/supplies/fees/etc. that’s $66 needed total.
how about you somehow narrow down the field to 66 (1st 66 to comment, 1st 66 to get a trivia answer right, whatever) and they each send you $1 through paypal. actually, maybe you should make it 100 cuz you have to figure some won’t pay; and if you end up with a few extra dollars so be it, i don’t think anyone would mind.
you can then randomly assign 22 separate entrants to a card and send it out to them! for the ones who don’t get a card, they will have lost only a buck.
maybe this is too complicated?
Make everyone eligible to win one card. You have to pick one name to go into a drawing for and winner has to pay for postage.
Tickets cost 20 bucks ( i have no clue what the average worth of these cards is,) — You take off overhead, and throw the rest to a Local Charity, Boys and Girls Club, whatever. Free cards are awesome and stuff, but writing a 400 cheque out to whatever it may be, is also pretty awesome.
Hmm… I like that idea. A raffle for one winner and proof that I gave a charity a donation through Wax Heaven.
$20 is a little high, though.
I do like the idea about using random.org to determine which winner gets a certain card. David Wrights idea was not horrible except that it favors people by proximity. Maybe some alternate version of that idea would work. Thanks 4 the generosity!
I think VOTC had a good point, you earned it, enjoy it yourself for awhile. If you really want to give it away and like the raffle idea, try this. Everyone who wants a shot, sends you $5 AND a SASE. You package up the cards from the set with a couple of other random cards, say three to a pack, maybe putting the cards from this set between two other cards so it is sort of random and then put one lot of cards in everyone’s SASE. Everyone gets something, 22 people have a shot at an AUTO, and you get to make a donation to charity. Everybody wins!
The lottery does seem like the most fair option along with the SASE for winners. Give each winner a set amount of days (say 21 days after the winner’s announcement) to send you their SASE.
If enevelopes are not received from some of the winners then go on to a “Second Chance” lottery to give additional readers an opportunity.
I was prepared to type out a plan, and then realized that Jumper pretty much said exactly what I was going for. Contest(s), SASEs, deadlines, more contests if lazy people can’t claim their free cards, etc.
Jumper is a mind reader…