Upper Deck introduces new authentication and security features with Rookie Patch Autographs series

Yahoo

28-05-2025

Upper Deck is taking authentication and security to another level when its premier hockey release hits the shelves next week.
When 2023-24 The Cup Hockey arrives on June 4, collectors will find the highly coveted Rookie Patch Autographs encapsulated with security features that will allow fans to verify the cards and its patches have not been altered.
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'The trading card industry has experienced a massive patch-swapping challenge for years now, where counterfeiters will cut out and swap patches to increase a card's after-market value based on the player or colors of the patch,' Upper Deck president Jason Masherah said. 'Until now, there has been no trusted mechanism to self-verify if a card has been tampered with, and this Rookie Auto Patch Authentication is the first step in tackling this massive industry-wide issue.'
Each Rookie Patch Auto in The Cup will be slabbed and photographed. The label on the holder will include a QR code that will lead collectors to a gallery of images of the card from multiple angles. The photos will be housed on The Authority, which was established under Upper Deck's Collect Forever.
Upper Deck has been known for adding security features to its products and cards throughout the decades. It was the first company to include a hologram on the backs of cards to reduce counterfeits and also introduced foil wrappers to prevent the resealing of packs.
'Upper Deck was founded on a couple of principles and one was making the best trading card possible. I think the one that gets overlooked a lot was solving the issue of counterfeiting and tampering,' Masherah said. 'We have a long history of trying to fight some of the scammers in the industry, as well as trying to continually innovate.'
(Upper Deck)
While slabbing cards is a step to prevent patch altering, it does leave collectors with the question if they want to grade the cards.
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Collectors would have to remove the cards from The Authority holders to get them into one of their chosen grading company's. However, Masherah hopes the grading companies will incorporate the serial number so that collectors will be able to retain information even if slabbed by a different company.
'I think we're hoping to engage with the grading companies so that they can continue the information, whether they can add it to their labels, whether they can add it to their database, the serial number that we're providing will be able to reference that permanently,' Masherah said.
Masherah feels one of the biggest reasons collectors will keep the cards in the original holders will be the big 'U' on the labels, which stands for Uncirculated, meaning no one outside of Upper Deck or the manufacturing team has handled that specific card.
Essentially, it's not about the grade, but the authentication.
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The authentication piece has been a challenge for grading companies. Without a definitive database, there are ways that grading companies have found to determine if a card's patch has been altered. But there is no surefire way to track every single card.
That's where Upper Deck's database will come into play.
'We want to put the power into their hands,' Masherah said. 'We really want to be able to catalog it, image it, protect it as it's going through all these processes, and then deliver it to the consumer in a way that is organized and easy to use."
While it may seem a little late to have a 2023-24 set out in 2025, Upper Deck held the product back to ensure it gets it right.
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It wanted fewer redemptions, security features and a product that hockey fans will remember with some of the impressive rookies in that class like Connor Bedard, Luke Hughes, Matthew Knies and more.
'We all know that the Rookie Patch Auto is the biggest rookie card in the hockey industry every year,' Masherah said. 'Especially with '23-24, we knew the importance of the Connor Bedard Rookie Patch Auto. There's a whole crop of really important rookies, whether it's Logan Cooley, whether it's Adam Fantilli, we knew this crop was special and we wanted to do something to protect the integrity of these going forward. I wish we could have implemented this back in 2005 with [Sidney Crosby] and [Alexander] Ovechkin, but I'm happy we're at least here now."