Ask UD: Champ’s Museum Pieces, Artifacts Redemption, UD Moving and the Las Vegas Industry Summit

As Upper Deck’s Customer Care Manager, it is my goal to help educate our collectors and fans so they can have a better experience with our collectible products. I’ll routinely post updates about what we hear on the phones and through e-mails from customers in segments called Ask UD. I hope you find this information relevant and interesting. If you have questions yourself, please feel free to leave a comment and “Ask UD!”

Here are some of the questions we’ve received recently in Customer Care:

Ask Upper Deck: We’ve seen pictures of the Champ’s Museum Pieces cards on Upper Deck’s Facebook page. When are they shipping and can you share which ones are short prints for those of us looking to put the set together?

Nick Leslie: “We have completed the quality control review of the cards and were happy to find they turned out great. We’ve packaged the cards and now are beginning the process of having them shipped to our fans. Additionally, there are some short prints in the set. Below is a list of cards that will be a little tougher to find in the set, limited to 25 copies or less:

Caspian African Neolithic Arrow

Crotalocephaluas Trilobite

Giant Capybara Molar

Giant Deer Megaloceros Jaw

Golden Jurassic Perisphinctes Ammonite

Pleistocene-era Alligator Fang

Red Jurassic Hammatoceras Ammonite

Saharan Neolithic Flint Tool

European Neolithic Flint Tool

Great White Shark Tooth

European Ice Age Wild Boar Fossil Tooth

Spinosaurus Dinosaur Tooth

“Collectors can expect a prehistoric mailday over the next couple weeks if they are waiting on these cards. They will all be shipped out at random so it will be just like pulling them from a pack when you open them to see what you’ve received.”

Ask Upper Deck: I heard a rumor Upper Deck is moving. Is that true? Why the move?

Nick Leslie: “It is true. We are preparing to move to a new corporate headquarters, but we will remain right here in Carlsbad, California. The main reason for the move is that we have a lot of underutilized space at this facility as it was once shared with the company that actually manufactured trading cards for UD. They have since moved out and as we have gotten a lot leaner as a company, it made sense for us to move into a facility that better fits our needs.

“We will likely be moving in the next couple months and we will share details of the move and our new facility as that takes place. In the meantime, packages can still be received at 5909 Sea Otter Place and we’ll communicate the new address as soon as we get situated there.”

Ask Upper Deck: I’ve been waiting on some 2010-11 NHL Artifacts Draft Pick Redemptions. I saw you released the checklist on them, but when can I expect to receive them?

Nick Leslie: “We recently received them in-house and are in the process of running a quality control review on them. From there we need to get them packaged and will ship them out accordingly. There are several thousand cards that need to shipped so this process may take a while, but we should have them all shipped in the coming weeks. Check out a couple images of the cards!”

Ask Upper Deck: I’ve been hearing about some huge trading card show in Las Vegas over the weekend. Can anyone attend as I heard they give out some sweet promos?

Nick Leslie: “The Las Vegas Industry Summit is not a trading card show, but rather a trade conference on the collectibles industry. Manufacturers, leagues, distributors and retailers all meet up in Las Vegas for a couple days to talk about new products, programs and how the industry can work to grow. It is primarily for retailers who own brick and mortar hobby shops and it is not a show for collectors.

“There are some pretty cool giveaways for those in attendance as well. Upper Deck has come up with a limited-edition card set for attendees that they can use in their shops or to help in offsetting the cost of their trip. The checklist for those cards can be found below:

“We will have our senior management staff with our owner and CEO, Richard McWilliam in attendance to spend time with our business partners.”