Manufacturing trading card packs is a highly mechanized process where cards are fed into hoppers, inserted into packs and then sealed. But once a year our hockey team heads out to our production facility in North Carolina where they take part in a unique event. The group will actually pack out NHL The Cup product by hand. Upper Deck does this for a few reasons. First, it is a great opportunity for us to pull any damaged or error cards out so we are delivering a quality collectible to our customers. On that note, it also allows us to avoid situations where cards are damaged in the process of being inserted into packs through a mechanized process. Most of all however, it helps us make sure each pack delivers value because when you are paying over $300 a pack for trading cards, you want to make sure you are getting your money’s worth.

While the team is on site, they take a lot of images of the cards that we have been sharing on our Facebook page. Check out this link if you would like to see some of the greatest hockey cards of the season. We will only take pictures of the cards. We do not scan them because handling them too much, especially by sandwiching them in a scanner, can cause damage that we want to avoid. While 2010-11 NHL The Cup is not a product that every fan can afford, most love to see the different cards we create for the product as we have seen from the responses thus far.

With so much hard-signed autograph content, not every player can sign for the product in time. In those cases we issue redemption cards for those players. We were working very hard to get the autograph cards back in house from top prospect Taylor Hall, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. Luckily he didn’t take that long to get them back to us after we issued redemption cards for him in 2010-11 NHL The Cup. Last week we received his rookie cards in that are limited to just 99 copies and feature an autograph and patch piece on them. We shipped them out today to fans who had already redeemed them. They can expect a very exciting mail day from Upper Deck very soon.

We have always enjoyed a great relationship with Taylor Hall. Check him out here where he enjoyed some Upper Deck cards incorporating an interesting pack opening technique.

Please enjoy this first look at all of his 2010-11 NHL The Cup rookie cards which are sure to be his most valuable rookie cards of the year. Which one would you want to get if you pulled a redemption for one of these amazing cards?

Taylor Hall Autograph Cup Rookie Cards 01-09 of 99

Taylor Hall Autograph Cup Rookie Cards 10-19 of 99

Taylor Hall Autograph Cup Rookie Cards 20-29 of 99

Taylor Hall Autograph Cup Rookie Cards 30-39 of 99

Taylor Hall Autograph Cup Rookie Cards 40-49 of 99

Taylor Hall Autograph Cup Rookie Cards 50-59 of 99

Taylor Hall Autograph Cup Rookie Cards 60-69 of 99

Taylor Hall Autograph Cup Rookie Cards 70-79 of 99

Taylor Hall Autograph Cup Rookie Cards 80-89 of 99

Taylor Hall Autograph Cup Rookie Cards 90-99 of 99