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THE UPPER DECK MINI COLLECTION

As grading companies did not exist when Fleer came onto the scene, rarities were a retrospective process. That is, a card became unique well after it was manufactured if it subsequently met the standards of the grading company.

In more “modern” times, a card is generally designed to be unique: the whole set is purposely produced in limited quantities; selected cards are predestined to be rare by limiting individual production; other cards are uniquely numbered to create instant rarity; and some cards are graded at the time of production in partnership with the grading services; etc. etc. etc.

The Upper Deck Company was the first to create unique Michael Jordan cards by the “buy back” process. They would “buy” a card that had been previously produced, have Michael autograph it and then number it one of one (or #1/1). Other MJ sets were produced in limited quantities and numbered say #1 through #23 with the #1/23 or #23/23 (number 23 of 23) being in obvious higher demand both because of being number 1or being Michael’s number 23. These cards are now extremely hard to find. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that what you are about to view is probably one of the more unique and larger collection of such UD cards. It should also be observed that while BGS and PSA are the dominant grading services, there is great demand for Upper Deck authenticated cards and other memorabilia that go through the rigorous UD authentication process. This involves a UDA authentication on the card itself along with a Certificate of Authenticity and a matching hologram. The cards are encapsulated by UD for both security and protection from the elements as well as alteration.

The buy back card was really a set of two cards. The back of the first card had a hologram whose number was repeated on the front of the second card and certified on the back of the second card. The following shows the four sides of one of these buy back cards:

Click on any image on this page to enlarge it and view the whole row in gallery format. Place cursor on enlarged image to view title. (You must be a registered user to view.)

We now show the front of the first card of a number of other buy backs all of which are both autographed and numbered manually by Michael:

And finally we show the front and back of some limited numbered Upper Deck cards all but three of which are autographed by Michael and all of which are either manually or mechanically numbered in the production process:

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