Welcome back to another installment of Tips Tuesday where I provide collectors of all levels a little information to help them in their journey through the hobby. Today’s tip is to make sure collectors know the difference between Game-Used and Player-Worn jersey cards.
Welcome back to another installment of Tips Tuesday where I provide collectors of all levels a little information to help them in their journey through the hobby. I believe our website can be a vessel to help grow the hobby one collector at a time, and that education is key to making that happen.
Today’s tip is to make sure collectors know the difference between Game-Used and Player-Worn jersey relic cards.
I still remember the feeling of pulling my first game-used jersey card from an unopened pack—it was a red Jerome Iginla jersey swatch from the 2005-06 Series 1 set. I still have the card in my collection nearly 20 years later.
Something I realized much later in my collecting life is that not all jersey cards are built the same. There are some obvious differences whether it’s differing colors or sizes of the swatch. But something even more important to know is whether the relic is ‘Game Used’ or ‘Player/Event Worn’.
My assumption as a kid was that all the jersey cards were game-worn, but this is not the case in the modern era of hockey card collecting, and there's a massive monetary and collectability difference between the two types.
Game-used swatches are just that… it’s a piece of a jersey that was used by that player in an official NHL game.
Player or event-worn jersey relics, however, have not been used in a game. It just means that the jersey was put on by the player at some point, typically at a photo-op event or an autograph signing session where a player could've put on a dozen different jerseys to give Upper Deck a good stockpile of materials to use for future products.
The easiest way to know which type of jersey card you have to to look at the back where it will indicate it’s guaranteed authenticity and will explicitly say “Game-Used” or “Player/Event worn.”
Also, be aware of manufactured patches that look like cool jersey cards, such as this Black Diamond rookie Jumbo patch card below, but they aren’t. These cards have no affiliation with the player on the card as the patch was manufactured by Upper Deck and say so on the back.
Put the tip to the test— take a look in your collection and see if you have any Player/Event-worn jersey cards that you thought were Game-Used or vice versa.