Upper Deck

The Upper Deck Company, LLC (colloquially as Upper Deck and Upper Deck Authenticated, Ltd. in the UK), founded in 1988, is a private company primarily known for producing trading cards. Its headquarters are in Carlsbad, California, the United States. In 1988 Upper Deck was granted a license by Major League Baseball to produce baseball cards, and just two months later delivered its first two cases of baseball cards. Upper Deck sold out its baseball cards midway through this inaugural year, then pre-sold its entire 1990 baseball stock before the year began. The 1990 set included the industry’s first randomly inserted personally autographed and numbered cards of sports superstars. In 1990, The Upper Deck Company was granted licenses by the National Hockey League and National Hockey League Players Association to produce hockey cards. The company also obtained licenses from the National Football League and the National Basketball Association in 1990, making the Upper Deck Company the first trading card company in 10 years to be licensed by all four leagues. Upper Deck was also the first to insert swatches of game-used material into cards when it made jersey cards in 1997 UD Basketball. The insert set was called Game Jersey and a similar set followed in baseball the next year, where UD cut up game-used jerseys of Ken Griffey, Jr., Tony Gwynn, and Rey Ordóñez. In 2010 Upper Deck announced it would no longer be licensed to produce NFL trading cards and in 2015 Panini America acquired the Collegiate Licensing Company exclusive trading card agreement that Upper Deck formerly owned.