Upper Deck has created variations for 25 cards in its 660-card base set in hobby and retail packs.
Upper Deck announced a “variation card” promotion for its 2010 Series One Baseball issue late on Tuesday.
A total of 25 of the 600-card first series set’s base-level cards have scarce variation cards featuring between two and four subtle tweaks to the image shown on the commonly seeded version of the card.
Through June, Upper Deck will be announcing weekly the remaining players (and their corresponding card numbers). The first five collectors who complete the variation set will win prizes.
In a tribute to last year’s World Series, the first two cards in the promotion belong to Jorge Posada (# 347) and Chase Utley (# 376). Upper Deck says there are three variations on Posada’s card and four variations on Utley’s.
Upper Deck did not release images of the variation cards in its announcement.
One in every 96 hobby packs (and one in 960 retail packs) will contain a “Double Take” variation card. Furthermore, the company says some Double Take variations are considerably harder to find– up to six times, in fact – than others.
“This should be a lot of fun for collectors as they seek out the variation cards,” said Gabriel Garcia, Upper Deck’s Baseball brand manager. “We’ll be announcing more and more players every month up until July, so collectors really need to be on top of things to keep track.”
Autographed baseball memorabilia from Upper Deck Authenticated awaits the first five collectors who complete the 25-card variation first series set and send it in to Upper Deck for verification. Upper Deck will return sets to their respective owners once the contest deadline closes.
Further information will be revealed in the coming weeks regarding the promotion’s entry rules and deadline.
