2002 Upper Deck Ovation Baseball Cards

2002 Upper Deck Ovation baseball cards featured one heck of an excellent design. The embossed team logo in the background coupled with the gradient left side color bar along with the negative space on the right side of the card really make these cards come to life. I really like the concept used here. It’s modern. It’s classic.

I was somewhat late to the game on these as I completed this 3-card run between 2012 and 2013. At the time, I was aggressively accumulating examples from the 2000s block and this was just one of thousands of cards I was after. Not to assume the Silver version is the rarest but it was the last one I acquired to finish this 3-card run. The level of rarity of the Silver version appears to be different for each player in the set. Additionally, the print run on the Gold version differs from player to player.

If you’re in the market to pull this 3-card run together, expect to be searching for a while. The market hasn’t really caught onto these in any significant way yet but I’d imagine that with time, interest will continue to increase. This is especially the case as more of the Gold parallels make their way into permanent collections. Since I acquired my Gold example, I haven’t seen another one. With just 43 examples (print run for Thomas), these Gold parallels aren’t expected to surface very frequently. I will say this, however, if another one surfaces, there’s a good chance it will be priced accordingly and it may not be a bargain. That’s not a bad thing; it’s just a thing. Sometimes, for as rare as some cards are, you have to prepare for the unknown with regard to cards on your Most Wanted checklist. The Gold parallels are in a place right now to be considered probable candidates to be found on such checklists.

There you have it, a little bit of dialogue on a set that still appears to be a sleeper but certainly one that deserves attention. I love Upper Deck products and think the designers did a fine job with 2002 Upper Deck Ovation.

To see what’s currently on eBay from 2002 Upper Deck Ovation, click here.

Set Information:

2002 Upper Deck Standing Ovation is a 180-card set issued across two brands. The basic Ovation release (1-120) was issued in 5-card packs with an SRP of $3.00 and came 24 packs per box and 20 boxes per case. Cards 121-180 were issued in retail-only packs of Upper Deck Rookie Debut. The Standing Ovation set is a parallel to cards 151-180 in the base set. Lead Performers Jerseys cards of Ken Griffey Jr. and Sammy Sosa are SPs. Swatches Roberto Alomar is an SP. Authentic McGwire Signatures: Mark McGwire didn’t sign his cards in time for inclusion in this set so these two cards were issued as redemption cards.