What is a GU Sports Trading Card?

In the world of sports trading cards there is plenty of lingo unique to the hobby. If you are a newcomer entering the fun, you may be confused by some abbreviations in trader banter. While something like AUTO is easy enough to decipher as an Autographed card, you may be more confused by something like a GU trading card. Well, be confused no more, because here is a explanation to what the GU stands for.

GU in the world of sports trading cards stand for: GAME USED. This means that a piece of game used memorabilia has been placed into the card. For example: a baseball card may feature a picture of your favorite player and then also a square of fabric on the front. This square of fabric is the game used portion of the card, having been cut from a piece of his uniform.

Uniforms are not the only things cut up and put into sports cards. You get variations on all sorts of items like baseball bats, batting gloves, fielding gloves, the laundry tag from a uniform, pants, baseballs, basketballs, shoes, and on and on. There are even variations on the variations! You may find a baseball card that has a small piece of a game used baseball bat on the front of it, or you might get a card that has a very large section of the bat called a bat barrel card. You may find a GU jersey card that features a pinstripe on it, meaning instead of a boring single colored piece of cloth, it has a stripe running through it; this is often times considered more valuable to a collector. There are also patches to be found, which are larger portions of a uniform with unique characteristics and often times they are multi-colored. It is really cool when you get a patch with a piece of the jersey you can recognize, for example a piece of the letter from the team name or player name on the card.

Outside the realm of sports cards you can find similar themed concepts, though calling it game used might not exactly be fitting. For example there are Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cards that feature a swatch from the bikini the model wore. One might even say that "kiss" cards are inspired by the GU concept, with some non-sports cards putting lipstick impressions from their models on the cards. I guess that is a toss up between being inspired by GU and AUTO, right?

The controversial thing about GU cards is that in more recent times the wording on the backs of cards involving the origins of the materials is sometimes vague. People have doubts as to the legitimacy of the piece of material really being from a GU piece of clothing or equipment used by their favorite sports star. For example, the back of a trading card may say: 'This card features a certified piece of Game Used jersey." But how do you know it was really from the jersey of the player on the front of the card? Unless there is more specific detail the trading card company could really get away with randomizing their materials. Once a rarity, GU cards are quite plentiful on the market these days, so it would not be surprising to learn that not much time is spent in the accuracy department of a card company's quality control. In some cases one may wonder if the piece of white fabric on their card didn't just come off of some dude at the card company's sock.

Another thing to look out for in GU cards, when buying off of the Internet, is that people label things GU that were not. Of course a cool card is a cool card, but if you want to be technical about it: some baseball cards that feature pieces of wood on the front of the card, did not come from a baseball bat. Sometimes pieces of a stadium seat or a dugout bench are used, or who knows, a 2 x 4 found in the back alley. Or some basketball cards labeled as GU are really pieces of a players warm up jersey; once again, a part of the game, but technically not used IN the game.

Also, one must be on the look out for manufactured game used materials. Topps baseball has plenty of these in its products, these are fake GU pieces or replicas created by the company. They have manufactured letter patches, bat barrels, and glove pieces to name a few. Topps clearly states that they made these and they are not game used, but once again sellers on the Internet are going to label their cards whatever they want to push a sale.

Due to controversy, many collectors have shied away from the once hot GU trading cards, and have turned more towards autographed cards or serial numbered cards. Of course, that is just message board rants speaking, because those same collectors probably smile a little when they pull a cool looking game used card out of a pack. Also, as of this writing no whistle blower has really come forward and proven that the card companies are being less than truthful about GU materials and their origins.