Shawn Kemp In The House: '94 UDA BlowUp Auto

Basketball fans can’t talk 90’s NBA basketball without mentioning the “Reign Man”. Shawn Kemp was a devastating 6 foot 10 inch athlete who could catch an ally-oop from fellow running mate Gary “The Glove” Payton better than anyone in the Association. In addition to his athleticism, Kemp also had the skill-set to work down low in the post. He averaged 14.6 points/game and 10.9 rebounds/game with a .488 field goal percentage during his NBA career. Those numbers are a bit skewed because of a few seasons when his averages dipped for a number of reasons including weight issues. It was reported that Kemp showed up to Cavaliers’ training camp weighing a hefty 275 lbs. during the ’99 lockout shortened NBA season. 275 lbs. might be generous.

I like to remember the Shawn Kemp that many referred to as “Man Child”. This was the player that no team had an defensive answer for during the mid 90’s. The player in this sweet 8 x 10 Upper Deck Authenticated (UDA) Team MVP Blowup Auto'd card. For all of Kemp’s natural abilities though, it would have been fun to watch how much better he would have been if he had only put more time into the game and himself. As it is, I'm still a fan and enjoy watching old clips of Kemp Reignin’ down on Seattle.

 As far as the newest edition to my collection goes, this UDA piece is easily the biggest card I own. It's pretty impressive in the lucite screw down case. I'm a huge fan of anything UDA and this auto's card with matching COA's is really great. Especially since I paid well under $25.00 for it. It will goes nice with the Kemp RC's that I have.

The ’91 Fleer RC features a great action shot of Kemp doing what he did best, dunking. This is my favorite Kemp RC out of the three. Just checkout that awesome blue and red trim around the photo of Kemp. Coupled with the yellow surrounding Kemp's name, this card is so bad it's actually cool. The card has a book value of only $1.50 due to the over abundance of the card. In fact, that is the case for all three of these cards. Trading card manufactures mass produced their sets and thus killed the value of their own products during the late 80’s and early 90’s.

The ’91 NBAHOOPS RC has a fairly simple design. I can’t say it’s the best looking card ever made, but it’s a nice buy at around $1 on the secondary markets. Again, the card only has a book value of $1.50 like the ’91 Fleer RC.

The final Kemp RC is a ’91 SkyBox card. The ’91 SkyBox set is one of my all-time favorite sets. I actually like both the ’91 and ’92 SkyBox sets. They have some really funky early 90’s graphics and designs. The Kemp RC from the ’91 set has some of those funky graphics and is a good looking card. Nothing like some randomly colored lines going through the background of a card. Kinda like the always cool laser background used in 90’s school photos (you know the ones I'm talking about). This Kemp RC has a book value of $2.50, but typically sells for right around $.50 to $2.00.

 

Video: UDA's 5 Step Authentication Process

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Upper Deck Authenticated makes some of the most sought after sports memorabilia in the marketplace today. They also produce some of the most expensive memorabilia in the marketplace. With such high quality pieces and a considerable investment on the collectors part, it behoves Upper Deck and collectors to have a reliable authentication process in place. 

If you ever wanted to know how UDA authenticates its products or the purpose of those little holograms on the corners of sports memorabilia pieces, checkout this short video.

The video is certainly informative, but here's the fun part. What's your favorite piece of sports memorabilia? It can be anything from a UDA product, poster, signed baseball, pair of kicks, figurine, auto'd picture, bobblehead, etc. I know we all collect a lot of diverse items, so the sky is the limit. 

UDA Michael Jordan HOF Floor Piece

I won a contest on UDA’s Facebook fanpage a while back for merely joining the page. UDA was nice enough to send me one of their Chicago Bulls United Center floor pieces with Jordan Hall of Fame card. It’s really a pretty nice item. I actually like the flip open box that the card and floor piece came in just as much as the as the items themselves.

Both Upper Deck and Upper Deck Authenticated have Facebook Fanpages that they use to disseminate product info and contests/giveaways. Both pages run fun contests quite often, so it is definitely worth joining their pages. You can find both of their Facebook pages along with other industry leaders in the “Favorite Pages” section on the Hoopography.com fanpage: http://www.facebook.com/Hoopography.

- Here’s a link to UDA’s store where you can purchase or get more info on this item (click here).