When I saw that Upper Deck was inserting buybacks of their inaugural 1989 set into packs of 2009 cards, I was intrigued, but didn't have high hopes of actually obtaining the Rickey. Buyback cards are notoriously expensive, especially among players with a large collector following such as Rickey. Since it had now been almost a year since they were first released, and I'd still never seen one, I was beginning to think the Rickey didn't even exist. That is...until last week!
Here's the Rickey buyback, which I finally got in the mail yesterday. Since this is the only one that I've ever seen, I'm not sure how many actually exist, but it has to be a fairly limited print run. I e-mailed Upper Deck to ask, but is usually the case, I've yet to receive a response. I know that the buybacks were inserted approximately 1 per box in 2009 Upper Deck Series 2 and 2009 Upper Deck SPX, and they were probably included in other releases as well.
In the lower left hand corner is the buyback stamp which states "20th Anniversary Buyback" in typical Upper Deck hologram form. I like the fact that they actually modified the cards to indicate that they were buybacks, which allows you to actually differentiate them from the initial release. Receiving a regular 1989 Upper Deck card (unless it's the Griffey rookie), would just not be that exciting.
The back of the card is typical 1989 Upper Deck, but it was pretty exciting when they were first released. I still remember how crazy I thought it was that they were charging over $1.00 a pack, if you could even find them in stores. As nice as the photos (on the front and back of the cards) were, I usually couldn't pass up buying a couple of packs of Topps for the same price.
If any player/team collectors know any more details about this release, I'd definitely appreciate the feedback. Has anyone seen more than one copy of the same card? I don't think that it's a #1/1, but would be interested in finding out how many there actually are.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
2009 Upper Deck 1989 20th Anniversary Buybacks
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4 comments:
So far, I have a whopping FOUR of the Hensley Meulens buyback card. All but one I got in various lots of them on eBay when they first started hitting the site. I know where a 5th is listed, and while I'd have no problem paying $3 for it, I balk at dishing out the $3.50 extra in shipping they seller wants.
Somehow I don't see anyone ever being able to assemble a complete set of these. In the last two years, I don't think I've seen more than maybe 50-60 different cards from the set.
Thanks for the info Jason. I was also tracking them when they were first released, and you would see quite a few commons on eBay, but the stars were few and far between. I am impressed that you were able to find FIVE of the Meulens.
Thought that was a little over only 55 bucks on trading card database of Hall of Famer’s no Hensley Meulens
I meant to say over 50 buy backs of only hof ers
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