Sports Cards--Bicycle Spokes Beware!

The trading card has ignored its humble beginnings. Thin, gray stock has been replaced with the latest in printing technology innovations.

BY ERIK CAGLE

The year was 1977. The baseball player in question was Rick Jones, pitcher, Seattle Mariners.

Jones never made a name for himself in the bigs—he was a mere footnote in the expansion era and not even as memorable as Toronto Blue Jays slugger Steve Bowling. But it was Jones' mug on the front of his 1977 Topps card that arguably hastened a new era in card printing technology. You see, Jones' image was not a photo but a painting, a poorly-done painting at that, not unlike some of the airbrushed horrors Topps employed during the period.

If a player was traded to another team, Topps would give the player's hat and sometimes uniform a makeover right atop the image instead of drumming up new artwork.

Sometimes, those photos were flawed as well—players played tricks on the photographers, causing misidentifications and other assorted bloopers, including players posing out of position and, in one case, with his pants' fly undone. Egads!

None of this mattered, of course, because Topps was the only card manufacturer on the block. The card stock was thin and gray. Some photos were used for several years at a stretch, designs were uninspiring and the printing methodology used in 1957 was the same one employed in 1977. But cards being what they were—the nerdy sports equivalent of its nerdy non-sport brethren (but classier dresser) the comic book—kids were not about to turn their backs because the quality was lacking on many fronts.

Topps lost its monopoly on sports card manufacturing in the courts, which allowed Fleer and Donruss to join the fray in 1981. Score brand followed suit in 1988, but it wasn't until a year later that the sports card would undergo a stunning metamorphosis.

Enter Upper Deck and its counterfeit-proof hologram. The hologram has since become a symbol of quality from arguably the industry's leader in card production technology, but it didn't start out that way. The hologram's original intent was in response to a large number of counterfeit rookie cards—namely, the 1984 Donruss Don Mattingly—flooding the collecting market.

"Collectors were getting ripped off right and left, and paying thousands of dollars for fake cards of their favorite players," recalls Richard McWilliam, Upper Deck president and CEO. "We figured we could create a baseball card that looked as good as a lithograph and put a hologram on every card to keep them from being counterfeited. This was our charter and what would become the foundation of our company."

What has happened over the 10 years since Upper Deck made a splash on the scene has been well documented. Card values released a sonic boom during their ascent as every investor, speculator and two-bit hustler tried to make a buck or two off of what was previously a juvenile niche. As the stakes grew, so did the amount of product offered by the card companies. Topps and Upper Deck began offering premium-brand releases at higher prices.

The market quickly became saturated, but what really hurt the industry were major strikes by three professional sports circuits—the NHL, NBA and MLB—that put a damper on collecting interest. A generation of children found collecting cards cost-prohibitive and ultimately found their entertainment dollar better spent on video and computer games. Vying for a now-smaller nut, several card companies found it difficult to exist and either closed their doors or were sold.

The rollercoaster ride seems to have leveled, thanks in part to the resurgence of baseball (namely the pursuit of the home run record by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa). Card technology, on the other hand, has not yet peaked and shows no signs of topping out.

In the last 10 years, the basic baseball card has gone from a bordered, thin, gray-stocked dinosaur to a creature that features diecutting, gold-foil stamping, embossing, UV coating/double laminating and a combination of various other treatments. Upper Deck has turned heads in recent years with its "Game Jersey/Piece of the Action" cards that incorporate swatches of uniforms or shavings of baseball bats that are glued onto the card itself. According to Upper Deck spokesman Terry Melia, other authentic memorabilia additions include pieces of footballs, hockey pucks, basketball sneakers and race-used engine pieces from its motorsports line (see related story).

Another innovation unveiled by Upper Deck is its "PowerDeck" interactive trading cards. These "cards" can actually be popped into computer CD-ROM drives and feature video footage and audio clips of the featured player.

The continuing advances make card printing a viable and potentially lucrative avenue for commercial printers. The Lehigh Press, Pennsauken, NJ, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, has printed limited-edition cards for a number of companies since 1992. They manufacture the chase, or insert, card that is produced in smaller quantities and inserted into packs of cards at a predetermined ratio. These high-end cards have fueled the hobby over the past six or seven years.

"Our experience in helping customers differentiate themselves from their competitors in the book component business has helped us support the collectible card market," states John R. DePaul, president of the publishing components division of Lehigh. "We have a specialized sales and customer support team devoted to this market."

Lehigh's expertise in foil stamping and foil overprinting appealed to card companies that were looking to utilize these same processes to differentiate their limited-production, highly decorated chase cards, according to Brian McGonigle, Lehigh's collectible card expert.

"Our early experiences were mainly focused on the production of overprinted foils," he says. "These processes involved printing full-color images over both flat and etched or micro-embossed foils."

While those early trends have continued, McGonigle has noticed an increase in treatments such as sculptured embossing, spot matte and spot gloss UV coatings, custom and pattern holographic foils, and intricate diecutting. He notes that these applications have an effect on production schedules, but since runs tend to be short (less than 20,000 sheets) the goal is to achieve an operation per day. Consideration is given to material curing times, resulting in seven to 10 day production schedules, depending on how many operations a given job entails.

According to McGonigle, Lehigh Press enters the picture when it receives imposed films or, occasionally, digital files. Since most insert card production involves prepress or postpress decorative applications, film is mostly used. The proof of choice is Matchprint, he says.

"The marriage of print, foils and coatings can present challenges in manufacturing as these run on different equipment," McGonigle stresses. "Registration from process to process is critical and must be monitored throughout the process. Additionally, materials need to be selected that are compatible with each other. For example, selecting a foil that will accept ink in an overprinted application. The general choice of paper by card companies remains a coated, two-sides board grade, although the caliper of these sheets will vary from .014 to .024, depending on the product. Occasionally, foil boards, clear acetates or uncoated substrates will be specified."

Printers such as The Lehigh Press try to stay a step ahead of the card manufacturers by utilizing the latest products unveiled by foil, ink and coating suppliers as quickly as the card designers can find applications for these products.

According to Upper Deck's Melia, time is of the essence when it comes to maintaining a competitive pace in the card technology department.

"We need to be the first to market with any given product," he says. "Speed is critical in this industry, and you have to be able to capture the greatest moments in sports and turn that product around quickly. Strike when the poker's hot.

"New innovations will also keep Upper Deck at the forefront," he adds. "We revolutionized the hobby 10 years ago with better card stock and our patented hologram anti-counterfeit device. Now we're heading into the next millennium with our PowerDeck cards. We'll continue to blaze trails when it comes to product innovations."

A Slice of Sports Heaven

A sacrilege or an ingenious marketing ploy? Either way, it's one of the newest and hottest innovations unveiled by Upper Deck.

The card in question is the game-used souvenir card, first introduced in 1996 with Upper Deck's "Game Jersey" cards in football. The card combines a picture of the player with a game-used item: a jersey swatch, bat shaving or a sliver of a football, hockey puck, basketball sneakers and even the automotive gasket head from a race-used engine. The company stirred quite a furor among traditionalists when it chopped up a Babe Ruth-used bat. Some felt it was akin to destroying a monument to an American hero, while supporters claim it is the only way for people of unremarkable means to obtain a piece of history.

Unlike many other popular, high-end insert cards, the "Game Jersey" card does not roll off a press. These cards are created manually, for the most part. After the items are procured from various sources, the process begins. Jerseys, for example, are cut into hundreds of swatches that are approximately one inch square, and the swatch is placed on the adhesive strip on a card sheet. The swatch is sandwiched between two pieces of stock and hand-glued to the bottom piece of cardboard.

Because of the instant secondary market value afforded these cards due to the attached memorabilia, they are inserted into packs by hand, as well. Cards must maintain the same thickness as base cards in order to avoid collectors cherry picking lucky packs from boxes.

It is an expensive proposition. In addition to the hand labor used, the cards still undergo normal printing procedures. Both sides of the "Game Jersey" card must be lithoed, a diecut is required for the diamond opening that contains the swatch and foil stamping is also required.

Upper Deck has found the offering to be worthwhile, as it has included game-used material cards in most of its sports offerings in 1999.