Second Collector Finishes 6600-Card Set |
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Thursday, 19 February 2009 |
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A little wheeling and dealing has a Florida collector on his way to meet Derek Jeter--and in the market for a bulk buy on binders.
A second collector has put together Upper Deck’s gigantic, 6,661-card Yankee Stadium Legacy (YSL) Collection. The set pays tribute to every single Yankees home game ever played at the historic venue since its doors opened on April 18, 1923.
Chuck Sauter of Pensacola, Florida, a lifelong Orioles fan, initially started pursuing the set to find only the cards which depicted Yankees-Orioles matchupus, but the challenge of putting together the entire insert set finally took hold.
“I really liked the idea behind the set with all the history and the photography on the cards,” said Sauter. “My confidence [in completing the set] did wane a few times. I finished collecting the first 2,500 cards in July, but the next 4,100 or so were tough, especially the last hundred. When I got down to the last 10, it took me about two months to collect them. A couple times I wondered if I would ever find them.”
The first series of inserts appeared in Upper Deck’s 2008 Series One Baseball set, which released on February 5 of last year. The cards fell at a ratio, on average, of one in every four packs in 10 different Upper Deck baseball products from 2008. In order to complete the set, Sauter had to use a variety of tactics besides just opening packs of Upper Deck baseball cards.
“I bought hundreds of cards online and traded with a lot of other collectors which was the most fun,” said Sauter, who realized it wasn’t necessary to get all the cards in the YSL set in order to appreciate them. “It was really interesting to see so many folks across the country collecting various subsets like finding just the cards of their favorite player, or from a particular year or collecting only no-hit games.”
As a way of congratulating Sauter on his feat of collecting the entire set, Upper Deck will award him with a multi-tiered prize. He and a guest will receive an all-expense-paid trip to New York City where they will take in a Yankees game at the new Yankee Stadium and meet Derek Jeter. Sauter will also receive 81 additional YSL cards that were recently released in 2009 Upper Deck Series One Baseball that chronicle last season’s final games at Yankee Stadium. Sauter had to submit his cards to Upper Deck for verification so he will also get all of the cards back to display at home. Sauter joins Tommy Baxter of Little Rock, Arkansas, as one of only two people who have completed Upper Deck’s entire YSL set.
“My wife was very supportive, but most of my friends thought I was crazy for trying to put this together,” he said. “Now many of those same friends are asking if they can go to the game with me to meet Jeter.” When asked what he would say to the Yankee captain, Sauter responded quickly: “I want to ask him why the Yankees always seem to beat my Orioles.”
Upper Deck still has three openings left for any other collectors who are able to piece together the entire Yankee Stadium Legacy Collection.
Yankee Stadium Legacy cards for sale |
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