In today’s hobby, it’s impossible for a card company to make a mistake without someone pointing it out on a blog or message board. It’s this kind of interaction that makes places like Freedom Card Board one of the premier forums to discuss trading cards.
Check out this very embarrassing mistake made by Upper Deck in their so far excellent release of 2009 Sweet Spot. It features a bat barrel by Yankees’ Hideki Matsui or so it was believed. In reality, it’s that of Kazuo Matsui of the Houston Astros.
Just as bad is this disaster of a card by Topps Company in 2009 Updates & Highlights. An incredibly tough pull of superstar Prince Fielder was ruined by terrible sticker placement and a misspelling of his name.
Odds of pulling the card was 1:13,000, according to the seller.
While it’s easy for collectors who prefer one company over another to start pointing fingers and cursing at “yet another error”, it’s easy to forget that at some point every card company has made an error, intentional or not.
Despite the overall terrible look of the “Fiedler” card, it still sold for over $150 dollars. It will be interesting to see what the fate of the Sweet Spot bat barrel will be and if Upper Deck will choose to make a statement on it.
UPDATE
Statement from Upper Deck:
“We’re working with the seller to get this one back so we can correct this.”
Both of these are beyond awesome. I love the misspelling on fielder’s name, and I love that someone thought Kaz and the Porn King were the same person.
As with anything, mistakes will be made. We are all human. But, sometimes it can get ridiculous. What type of quality controls are in place at these card companies? Simple technology can solve some of these mistakes (ex. Fiedler for Fielder).
I do think that blogs like this shedding light to these mistakes cause UD and Topps to right their wrong. I think if we did not show these mistakes, card companies would not make an attempt to resolve these issues.
Given how many rounds of layoffs there have been at UD and Topps, there probably is very little quality control right now.
Why do you think all the designs seem rehashed this year…it’s cause the card designers were among the first ones shown the door.
My favorite thing about the Matsui card is in the auction listing they mention the Yankees motto of “Just Do It”
as long as it gets fixed, no harm no foul
yeah for sure, mistakes happen. its good they take time to correct them
LMFAO, Prince Fiedler.
The Matsui thing is funny because Hideki uses Mizzuno bats; Kax is a Nike guy, hence the Just Do It. Flippin hilarious.
is hell freezing over? UD correcting a mistake? gee, I”m waiting for them to offer to correct my (and probably hundreds of others) 2007 Spectrum Ryan Braun mistake.
Ain’t happening since it’s UD.
How about some QC, UD?