Wednesday October 30, 2013
By Chris Carlin

It can be fun to purchase older trading card products looking for a hot rookie from a particular year or trying to put together a set. It can also be very frustrating if you open that product and find an autograph redemption card that has expired and is no longer valid.

Upper Deck products that have been live in the market for more than a year are no longer protected by the company’s warranty and may contain redemption offers for autograph cards that have expired. Upper Deck publishes on boxes and packs, “Packs may contain time sensitive Redemption cards. Be certain to adhere to the expiration dates in order to redeem your card. No redemption will be honored past the expiration date.” Ultimately Upper Deck’s goal is to deliver customers products with zero autograph redemption cards found inside, but given how busy athletes can be, they are not always able to return signature content in time and redemptions must be used.

Trading card manufacturers do not have a way to warehouse these older, expired cards forever so Upper Deck uses that autograph inventory as replacement stock for other redemptions that collectors do not want to wait for, Customer Care issues or for promotional programs like trade shows and in-store events. When customers pull autograph redemption card that have expired Upper Deck felt it was important to offer them an exciting alternative program to help purge the market of these cards.

At the 2012 National Sports Collectors Convention we ran the company’s first Expired Redemption Raffle and the response from the collectors who participated was overwhelmingly positive. Collectors and dealers were allowed to submit up to five (5) expired autograph redemption cards that had an unscratched code on them and were eligible to receive one of 100 autograph/memorabilia insert cards and other prizing from a variety of sports.

Upper Deck will draw from expired redemptions received at trade shows and award prizes to fans who participate in the promotion. It’s a great way to get something for that expired redemption offer.

Since then Upper Deck has ran the program at a variety of trade shows throughout the year with great success and now allows customers who cannot get to the trade show to mail in their expired cards to participate. If their cards are pulled, Upper Deck will ship them the insert card they were selected to receive.

Cards will either be given directly to the fan who submitted them at the show or sent to the customers who mailed them in.

If you pull an Upper Deck autograph redemption card that has expired, all hope is not lost. Here is what you need to do:

1. Resist all temptation to scratch off the area on the card below the item description. You will not be able to redeem it any longer online and we will only accept cards for this program that have been left unscratched.

2. Visit us at one of the trade shows listed below with up to five (5) expired Upper Deck redemption cards to be eligible to receive prizing from the expired redemption raffle.

3. If you cannot attend the trade show, please send your card(s) in to the address listed below a traceable method:

The Upper Deck Company
Attn. Expired Redemption Raffle Promotion
2251 Rutherford Road
Carlsbad, CA 92008

Just add this information to your expired redemption card and send it in to Upper Deck.

4. Upper Deck will draw the customers to receive the insert cards at the trade show. Customers in attendance at the show can pick up their cards until the show ends for Upper Deck. Customers who are not in attendance will be mailed their cards. If a customer misses the nearest trade show, their cards will be held over until the next show.

5. Whenever possible, Upper Deck will record these raffles and air them on the company’s YouTube Channel so fans can see all the items being awarded to fans.

Fans love scoring free autograph, memorabilia and other rare insert cards for their expired redemptions.

Here is a list of the shows we will run the expired redemption raffles at each year:

March – The Las Vegas Industry Summit – Expired Redemption Raffle will occur on Tuesday morning of the show.
August – The National Sports Collectors Convention – Expired Redemption Raffle will occur on Saturday of the show.
November – The Fall Sportscards & Collectibles Expo – Expired Redemption Raffle will occur on Saturday of the show.

Score limited-edition super prize cards!

At least 100 prizes at each event!

Should Upper Deck see a drop off in the amount of submissions received or collector participation as a whole, Upper Deck reserves the right to alter or cancel this promotion at any time. Submissions for the program have been pretty steady however averaging at about 125-150 per program. Should you have any questions on the program, please leave a comment below or contact Upper Deck’s Customer Care team.

Other Details:

• It is important to note these cards are only good for autograph redemption cards produced by Upper Deck with scratch off codes. Expired Draft Pick redemptions, expired sweepstakes offers and autograph redemption offers produced before the company began an online redemption program are no longer valid and cannot be submitted for this program.
• Upper Deck is not responsible for any lost, misdirected or postage due mail. To confirm your expired redemption(s) are received, we encourage collectors to send them a traceable method.
• Entries that are not addressed correctly, that are not qualified expired Upper Deck redemptions or that do not have customer information added to the card will be returned to the collector in the condition received.
• Collectors can submit expired autograph redemption cards from any sport. The drawing will occur randomly so collectors who submit a hockey card for example may not receive a hockey card in return. Upper Deck will raffle off prizes from a variety of sports and brands including a couple non-sport cards.
• There will not be a tiered element to the draw. All qualified redemption cards have the same value, meaning that if pulled they can win any of the prizes available.
• Upper Deck will also video tape these raffles and publish them to YouTube so fans can see who won.
• Collectors are not guaranteed to receive an item if more than 100 expired redemption cards are received in.
• Collectors can win more than once if they submit more than one qualified expired redemption card (but no more than five) per drawing.