Upper Deck Baseball Cards

Upper Deck baseball cards, 1989 marked the release of this hi-tech (at the time) product. But few people know that the Upper Deck baseball product, issued cards used to market their cards in 1988. Years later these cards also paved the way, for what we now have come to learn are “Promo cards”.

In 1988, a few players were part of the original marketing product, and those players were Wally Joyner and Dwayne DeWitt, and they were actually featured in 2 Upper Deck baseball cards released that year. Those cards had one purpose, to fuel the interest in the Upper Deck product. Although all of the product sold out and quickly, clearly it was not because of the poster boys but rather the hype that surrounded the Upper Deck company.

1989 Upper Deck Hologram

In a time, where there was some counterfeiting going on in the sports card industry. These baseball cards offered a hologram (on the back right hand corner) that was to be tamper proof. The actual poster boy for the 1989 Upper Deck baseball product quickly became Ken Griffey Jr. You can say what you like about the Upper Deck baseball product but Ken Griffey Jr. did not disappoint.

In fact it is hard to believe, that with his record over 600 home-runs, Ken Griffey Jr.’s 1989 Upper Deck rookie baseball card can be had relatively cheap. Hard to believe that at one time, Ken Griffey Jr. was one of the most amazing center fielders to ever have played the game, Ken Griffey Jr. is no longer a hobby favorite in all areas of the country, but a 600 plus home-run all-star none the less.

How many home-runs could he have hit? Had he not been injured for about 4 years totaling all of his trips to the disabled list. Maybe 750, I guess we will never know. For argument sake, I will say respectively 35 home-runs a year. Ken Griffey Jr. is still playing, the Chicago White Sox are probably going to bring him back, there are your 750 imaginary home-runs!

Their 1989 baseball product is loaded with plenty of future Hall of Fame candidates, I do not believe that John Smoltz will have any problems getting in when his time is up, being the only player to have led the National League in wins one year and saves another. I have a hard time making a case for Gary Sheffield, boy it seems that controversy always follows him, but still his career numbers are nice. Being the nephew of Dwight Gooden, you can see where the genes come from.

The Dale Murphy Reverse Negative

The 1989 Upper Deck baseball product is loaded with error cards as well, many more than I can ever list here but there are a few reverse negative photos out there. The Dale Murphy card being the more favorite and most expensive. Ungraded copies of these still sell in the $20.00 range.

All in all, I like the Upper Deck baseball product the cards grade very nicely if you are opening up the wax product or factory sets and I have had some fun chasing the error cards, but I am not ready to put this set in the top 5 baseball card sets of modern-day baseball cards. Just my opinion.