Gallery - You Asked, Mysteries, And Temp Galleries
Page 10 - Buy Back Minor Mystery Solved

A more recent discovery.

It stands as an absolute truth - no matter how much you know - you don't know it all. And this case is no different. I first bought this 'Buy Back Auto' since I noticed that there was no individual number on the card front - somewhat unusual. Friends of the site know that the word 'unusual' tends to make my collecting blood rise. But I also knew that Upper Deck's New Customer Service policy is to compensate irate & upset collectors with items they have in their archives. Like...oh... Buy Backs that weren't inserted into packs. So I knew going into the auction that what I was purchasing was essentially a compensation card given to an unhappy customer. Eh, no biggie. <g>

In this case what I thought I was looking at was a 'back-up copy'. Not that far of a stretch given the various manhandling stages that cards endure during the production process. It seems only prudent for UD to have a small contingency stash of any given insert they make - examples held back in case a customer requests a replacement for a damaged version. So I placed a decent enough bid and won.

Anyway, at the same time this was happening...

I was following up with Upper Deck to see what, if anything, could be done for my examples of the now-infamous 'Original Frank Thomas Autograph Error'. (click here to see what was done)

After getting an initial 2-1/2 month runaround I was extremely pleased to have met Barry Sicherman. His involvement in the process produced immediate (and spectacular) results! Anyway, going back to the mystery. Barry's contact over at Quality Assurance threw in a couple of 'extras' for my grief. I was not disappointed. I received two (2) Big Hurt Autos - both on-card sigs. {;-D A rare commodity nowadays I can tell you - with stickers making up nearly every autograph example being produced today in 2007.

So this is where the two stories "meet at the crossroads".

One of the two on-card autos I received was ...wait for it... the same 1996 UD SP Buy Back Auto that I had just purchased back in November. Great, now I had two examples. <laughing> :-D So I decided to put the extra on the auction block and maybe use the generated funds for a decent Frank patch card. But while switching both compensation cards into nice clean toploaders - I noticed something very very very odd.

I thought I glimpsed some writing on the card front - in the bottom right-hand corner where the card design is black. And sure enough, when I turned the card to a certain angle - boom - there it was. There was a serial number. As you can see from the scan, which I've edited in Photoshop to increase both contrast and brightness, you can see the number: #34/34. Quickly grabbing the version I purchased earlier on eBay - surprise - #17/34.

I never noticed and I've never heard anyone else making mention of it.

Collector's Note: It's very difficult to see the number when it's in a toploader or sleeve/toploader. The reflectivity of the plastic obscures the hand-numbering so it's almost impossible to see, much less notice.

So now I know what happened.

Back in 2001 when these cards were being prepared for insertion into the various UD products which would be carrying the Buy Back Program - the person in charge of handcrafting the serial numbers obviously chose a poor placement for these particular autos. The individual serial number is so difficult to see that the reason for the numbering became pointless. Management intervened and someone had to go to Frank and have him re-do all those cards. And what were originally production errors - over time and much dissatisfaction - turned into compensation tidbits for upset customers.

Please note - I want be clear about this - I enjoy owning these on-card autos. Having lived through these past few seasons with only stickers, these 'on-cards' have become that much more valuable to many collectors, myself included.

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