Mood Swing!

My A-N-G-E-R at A-G is partially assuaged tonight by an unlikely candidate.

Upper Deck, thank you.

I know, it is difficult to hear someone utter those words, but they have certainly outshined Topps today, and from reading many other blogs, many other days as well, when it comes to redemptions and customer service.

Let me set up the story.

I received in a box break at Jawdy's Basement a Victor Martinez / Travis Hafner dual relic from Sweet Spot. It came very quickly, and is a beautiful card, but it suffers from the disease afflicting many cards from 2007, Signaturus Fadus. I also happened to trade for a Ken Griffey Sweet Spot autograph from 2007 (which I thought was Jr., however it was Sr., but that's a different story entirely) with the same malady.

I emailed Upper Deck with scans of the cards. No response. Here is where I have to thank uber-collector Joe P. from Rochester, one of my Trade Day friends. He buys enough stuff to make a shoe-hog blush, and does extremely well. In fact, I watched him pull a Ken Griffey JR. autographed bat out of two randomly picked packs of '08 Sweet Spot last week. (mumble under breath, "lucky bastard!")

Anyway, Joe suggested I call Upper Deck and discuss it directly with a rep. They were very helpful, tracked down the images from their email server, and said they would take care of it. I didn't know what that would mean at the time.

Fast forward 3 weeks. I received a package from UD with a nice letter saying how committed Upper Deck is to producing high-quality blah blah blah, and at the bottom, "As a courtesy, we have assisted you with your situation to the best of our ability. Please accept the enclosed complementary product." Inside the nice manilla mailer were these two Sweet Spot Signatures:

I'm pretty sure that these will not suffer from SigFadus, as my other cards did. These are certainly able replacements for the Griffey, Sr. and the Hafner/Martinez. Not only are they lower numbered, they are the rarer colored stitching. I'm not sure I would have picked the Quentin/Jackson from the lineup of cards, given the choice (why couldn't they send the Jeter/Ripken versions?!?!?!), but the Rodriguez is fantastic, numbered out of 45, signed in ball point pen, and he is a possible, maybe probable, Hall of Famer.

Not that I care (yeah, right!), but Beckett lists the Rodriguez at $100, which might be a bit high, but I would bet that it would go for at least $40. As for the Quentin/Jackson, there is no value listed as it is too scarce to put a value on. A completed auction for a Verlander gold stitch #'d 4/5 is the closest I can find to this one, and it sold for $46.

So, I'd say that Upper Deck certainly made my day and made up for the unsatisfactory box break and poor customer support from Topps. Thanks, UD.