In the late 1980s, the baseball card market was dominated by Topps, which had held the exclusive license from Major League Baseball for decades. The quality of Topps’ cards had declined and they were using cheaper materials and production processes. Two entrepreneurs in Southern California, Richard McWilliam and David Becher, saw an opportunity to launch a new card company with a focus on higher production values and quality control.

They founded Upper Deck Company in 1988 with the goal of creating premium baseball cards unlike anything collectors had seen before. Their big innovation was the introduction of glossy, high-quality card stock and photography. At the time, all other baseball card manufacturers were using a dull, non-coated paper for their cards that showed fingerprints and scuffs easily. Upper Deck’s cards had a bright, polished look that made the photos and graphics really pop.

For their first set in 1989, Upper Deck was able to sign deals with many of the biggest MLB stars to include premium memorabilia and autograph cards. This included the likes of Nolan Ryan, Ozzie Smith, Cal Ripken Jr., and Roger Clemens. They included statistical information and bios on the back of the cards that collectors found to be well-designed and easy to read. Right away, their attention to detail and focus on premium aesthetics excited the collector base.

Upper Deck’s 1989 baseball card set was a massive success, vastly outselling Topps Series 1 that same year. They proved there was appetite for a new brand that cared more about quality. This challenged Topps’ monopoly and forced them to respond by improving their own card stock and overall production values going forward. Upper Deck established gold standards in areas like card stock, photography, autograph/memorabilia relic insertion rates, and statistical/biographical information that became widely copied within the industry.

In subsequent years of the late 80s and early 90s, Upper Deck released hugely popular sets annually that featured rookie cards of future superstars like Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, and Derek Jeter. Meanwhile, they continued refining the extras that accompanied their releases such as boxloader preview cards, factory sets, factory-sealed retail & hobby packs/boxes, and parallel/short print/refractor insert card variations that collectors loved chasing.

By the 1990s, Upper Deck was considered the brand that other sports card companies emulated. Alongside producing high-end MLB baseball cards, they ventured into collegiate and NFL football sets that also succeeded based on the premium philosophy they established initially. At their peak in the early 1990s, Upper Deck was the largest sports card manufacturer in the world, with annual revenues exceeding $500 million.

Their success spurred a licensing battle with Topps that went to court. In 1991, Topps sued Upper Deck claiming they still held the exclusive MLB rights, while Upper Deck argued they had individual player agreements that superseded the league-level deal. The two companies fought a long legal battle before eventually settling and establishing a duopoly where Topps and Upper Deck could co-exist producing MLB-licensed cards for over a decade.

After the overproduction and crashing sports memorabilia market bubble of the mid-1990s, Upper Deck shrunk considerably. They lost the MLB license that was bought by Playoff LLC in 2000. In subsequent years, Upper Deck struggled with business issues like lost licensing deals and non-sports related acquisitions that ended poorly. They went private in 2005 and while still producing several sports sets annually today on a smaller scale, they’ve never regained their 1990s dominance since.

Regardless, Upper Deck was truly revolutionary and raised the bar permanently when they debuted in 1989. They proved there was room for quality competition beyond the single all-powerful brand that collectors were hungry for premium roducts. Upper Deck Baseball cards played a huge role in the boom and popularization of sports card collecting through the 1980s and 90s. Their innovations influenced countless other companies and brought baseball memorabilia and player autographs to the masses. For those reasons, Upper Deck remains an iconic brand that reshaped the entire sports cards industry nearly 30 years after those first impressive 1989 Baseball cards.