The guys over at the Cult-Stuff blog (cult-stuff.com) have been digging up and posting some interesting stuff lately that probably would have flown under the radar had they not jumped on board.

This was getting some pretty good exposure on Card Talk, and some other blogs, but NSU decided they didn’t want to get into the middle of potential legal issues (who can blame them), or upset any advertisers (again who can blame them) so they have removed themselves from the conversation by not allowing it on Card Talk.

Anyway the news stories can be summed up as … Upper Deck apparently admitted to making ‘counterfeit’ Yu-Gi-Oh cards. From what I read — UD was authorized to distribute, but not manufacture cards. They ended up making an obscene number of the rare cards so they could get those (via a third party) packaged with slow moving packs as an incentive. A follow up story to that posted on several forums, potentially originating on blowout cards’ forum is that UD has since settled the case for an undisclosed sum.

The 2nd Cult Stuff story is about the Ray Harryhausen sketch cards Strictly Ink keeps putting out. They have apparently received information that these are unauthorized cards as SI had licensing issues, and never actually received permission to use the license. I really don’t know anything about this at all, but I did find it a little odd that the Harryhausen set was canceled, but the sketch cards still were released in the Year Set last year . . . I found it even more odd when artists on Scoundrel were talking about getting commissioned to do more cards for the 2010 Year Set.

Anyway — check out Cult-Stuff for all the gory details. . . I’m not trying to steal their thunder with these stories by any means — just trying to pass the word.

Jon