Articles Archive

12-13 The Cup
September 29, 2013



Upper Deck has announced plans for a 12-13 release of their ultra high end product The Cup. The product is set to release on October 22, 2013. You can view the sell sheet here.
Upper Deck is including some new cards like a triple shield booklet and they are also including a 2-card Ultimate Collection pack with the product. A lot of the old favourites return like Draft Boards, and of course the Autographed Rookie Patches.
Now, recently Upper Deck has released some more information to clear up some confusion and assumptions made about the product. Here are some that I found interesting:

• "The wholesale price for tins of this year’s Cup will remain the same as what we sold tins of 2011-12 Cup to distributors and dealers."

The misconception in this case was that the product would be going up in price from last year. Even though UD cleared this up, I think it may have a lot of collectors shaking their heads and hobby shop owners struggling. The 12-13 rookie crop isn't great. It's been sort of limited on the secondary market to Kreider, Baertschi, Schwartz and recently Krug. But even players like Kreider have lost some of their shine with the release of the 13-14 products (his Young Guns card is selling in the $8 range whereas it was selling in the $15-$20 earlier this year.)
There are a lot of great cards but, by far, the biggest sellers are the ARPs-- especially the /99 SPs. This isn't that year. As per UD: "only three (Kreider, Baerstchi and Jaden Schwartz) are #’d to 99" It's probably better than overdoing it, but it means that the product is going to have to rely on a lot of something else to sell it.
I think they made a mistake of not lowering the price. I have a feeling it is going to be a wait and see product for a lot of people and if they are not seeing the value, they are going to hold off for a year. Because of that, hobby shop owners are going to have a tough time selling the product at a price that collector's find appealing but that also gives them a cut as well. Collectors are going to buy The Cup-- it's what we do-- but I can see the hype dying off pretty fast especially when it is also being released in the midst of 13-14 products.

• "each tin will have one base set card and most tins will have an additional auto or memorabilia card as the 6th card" and "All of the Ultimate Collection “hits” are limited to autograph cards or patch cards"

They do say afterwards in brackets that limited tins may actually have two base cards. Collectors in this case were worried about being stuck with base cards in their $500 (I'm guessing) tin (which, apparently, is a very real possibility). I find the Ultimate Collection announcement to be a pretty big one and I am glad they made the decision for autographs and patches only.
I bought a lot of 11-12 Ultimate and got really lucky sometimes (ARP of Nugent-Hopkins #ed /25 and a Couturier of the same thing within a week of each other) and really depressed other times (multiple Bobby Ryan Ultimate Signatures that sold for $0.99 or didn't and nobody jersey cards with white swatches #ed /300). I think UD had to do this to keep up with what Prime did for Dominion where also get a patch or autograph. There are also some Ultimate shields as well.

Final take: it's going to come down to the veteran content which UD says will be good with players like Bure, Forsberg, and Sundin. Along with the UD exclusive Gretzkys, these are the cards that are going to sell the product. If they are underwhelming or are too hit and miss, I can see collectors taking a pass at this product and saving up their money for the Young Guns of 13-14 that release just a few weeks after.