Upper Deck teases SP Authentic Football on-card autographs

Posted Jan 8, 2013 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Mar 27, 2013 at 09:44 PM

Just because the college football season has ended (and for some, it ended around halftime of Monday’s national title game), that doesn’t mean a collector cannot enjoy a good set of cards.

Upper Deck teased some more photos of its SP Authentic Football set, which is due for release on Jan. 29. The photos were of on-card autographs of players, which is always a plus. I’ll take an on-card signature over a sticker any day; I realize the logistics involved with the sticker or no-sticker decision, but as a collector, I like the idea that the player actually signed the card I am holding.

While Upper Deck no longer owns a license to produce cards of NFL players, it does own a license to produce cards of players in college uniforms — even those players who are currently in the NFL. So, Bucs fans can look for signed cards of running back Doug Martin, but he will be depicted in this set wearing the colors of Boise State. If you’re a die-hard collector of a particular player, it’s a nice way to secure a signed card that shows him at the height of his college playing days.

So while players like Martin, Robert Griffin III, Trent Richardson, Russell Wilson and Ryan Tannehill are in the pros now, SP Authentic Football affords the collector the chance to see them as they appeared in college.

Here are the particulars. A hobby box will consist of 24 packs, with five cards to a pack. Upper Deck is promising three autographs in every box, including one SP Rookie Auto Patch card.

The set will consist of 100 base cards, plus 50 short-printed cards and 30 SP Rookie Auto Patches.

Every 12 box case will contain four SP Threads bonus packs. Inside each pack is either an SP Threads Rookie auto jersey or an SP Legendary Threads auto jersey.

The 1994 SP football design returns to this product with a 100-card insert set. A die-cut parallel set, which also was part of that ’94 set) will fall one per two boxes, or six per case on average.

Another familiar sight for SP collectors will be Sign of the Times signatures. These will come in single, dual, triple and quad variations, and some cards will be numbered to 35 or less.

Something new for this product will be SP Canvas base set variations, which will fall four to a box. There will be 135 cards to the variation set, so master set builders will have fun trying to put that together.

One hard-to-find card will be the Stadium Authentics, which will be seeded one per 110 packs. These will be acetate cards that portray some of college football’s most iconic stadiums. There also will be bowl variations and autographed parallel cards.

So even though the college season is over, you can relive some of the past through SP Authentic Football.