Upper Deck has announced yet another release for 2009 and the first new brand of the year with Icons, which on first look made me think of Heroes from last year only with more right angles and less circles, or Documentary without the good idea but carrying over the bad follow through.
The cards themselves look nice enough but certainly aren’t mind blowing. Here’s an image of the Jeter base, borrowed from the Beckett Blog. It appears Upper Deck caught Jeter shortly after he delivered a self inflicted blow to the head with his own bat. Good thing he has that helmet!
Nice enough, right? I dig the smaller black and white image in the corner as well as the inclusion of 2008 stats on the front, even if they are mislabeled as 2009’s. Hopefully Upper Deck will catch that before the release. I would love to see an image of the backs.
So what’s new in Icons? Um… nothing, really. It’s a 100 card base set with 30 shortprinted rookies numbered to 999 and 30 more autographed and numbered to 600 or less. A ten pack box will have five serial numbered inserts or parallels (why do card companies think these are still a draw?), an auto, two memorabilia cards, and two manufactured letter patch cards.
Oh, here’s the gimmick. Celebrity Letterman. You know, because celebrities wear their names on the back of their clothes during movie and TV shoots so you recognize them. Really, who comes up with this stuff? And do they actually pay them for it?
Look for Icons to sit on shelves starting sometime in July.
… and to sit, and sit, and sit, and sit. Really, how are they going to get people to buy this?
Its a new baseball brand, but it was in their 2008 football lineup.