Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Topps wants to give you cards right MEOW! I mean NOW.


You might have missed it. Or not.  Topps launched a new on demand service with the start of the regular baseball season called Topps Now.  What is it?  I'll explain, but you can go over to the Topps' website to check it all out or to order cards.

Basically Topps is going to pick the best happenings of the day and make baseball cards out of them.  I'm  not sure if they'll only do 2 at a time or if there will be days with more than that, but so far only 2 per day have been released.  Of course as I write this it's only day 2 in the program.  The days cards are only available for 24 hours and that's it.  Then once the ordering window closed Topps will announce the print run of each card.  Card ship within 3-5 days and so far they cost $9.99 each, but you can get that down to $3.50 if you order 20 for $70.  Shipping is included in the price which is nice.

I can't tell if people were put off from the price or just the lack of PR, although Topps did post about this on social media, but the first two cards have print runs under 400.  As a matter of fact the Liriano card has a print run of 266 and the KC World Series card of just 356.

Here are the first 4 cards.  The second two are still available for a short while.



 Here's what the back looks like.


So here's my 2 cents.  Honestly I like the idea, but.... well first there's the price.  The multiple card deal works great for dealers I guess, but who wants to order 20 cards if you don't plan on selling most of them off.  I like the comment I saw on Cardboard Connection that it would have been great if Topps had made it so you could set up an account drop $70 bucks into it and pick and choose the cards you wanted at the discounted rate, it would also make sense to be able to hold those cards instead of getting them one at a time to reduce the shipping cost burden.

I'm also worried how far Topps is going to have to stretch to find stuff worthy of making a card out of.  I'm sure there will be days were Topps might have find it difficult to choose the best of the best, but I'm sure there will be days were nothing that remarkable happens.  I mean for today's cards I could have seen the Cubs getting one or Arrieta for the 9 to nothing beating of the Angels.

Overall I think the card's design is OK.  I'm not blown away, but I'm also not put off.  I do think this will be a great way to pick up some cool rookie cards of guys who get called up.  Imagine if this had been around during the 2010 Strassmania, or Troutapoloza, or even last year with Kris Bryant.

I sure this will remind people a lot of eTopps, but with Topps not holding the card in an account and shipping them out the door in less than a week, Topps could get half way through the year and if this is disaster just shut it down pretty easily.  And as a scientist I do love a good experience.  So I have to tip my hat to Topps, in theory a neat idea, lets see how this plays out.

What do you guys think?

Edit 1:  I was just looking over Topps' Twitter feed and they answered some  questions.  First they said there is no set number of cards produced each day. I'm not talking about print run here I'm talking about subjects.  So we could see none on a boring day or 10 to 15, unlikely, but I like there is no constraint there.

11 comments:

  1. I thought about that Bryce Harper card a little bit today, but that $9.99 price tag gives me pause. I would imagine that the print run on that card will be higher than on the others, mostly because of people like me thinking it could be worth it if the print run stays under a certain level. I'd be interested in seeing if print runs trend up or down over time, as well as what demand needs to be for Topps to keep the program going. If I had a spare $20/day to spend it would have been fun to jump in on the ground floor and try for a full run.

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    1. I doubt my team will do anything to warrant a card this year, but if something tickles my fancy I might dip my toe in for a card or two. Yeah I quick calculation and it looks like a full set buy one card at full price will run you over $3600 bucks or so and that's only 2 cards a day.

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    2. If the Brewers ever do anything noteworthy enough to hit the "Now" shelves, I'll buy one or two. Maybe we should do like I suggested on my blog and get together with Thorzul and buy five together, splitting the extra $5 for shipping the cards to each other accordingly.

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    3. Well it's a long shot, but I'd be up for that actually.

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  2. I saw these the other day...I've been using that Bunt app a lot lately. Are these Now cards regular sized cards? If they are and I see a Braves player, especially Freddie Freeman, I'll pull the trigger. Then again I liked eTopps...

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  3. Cards are 2.5 x 3.5, which I believe is regular card size, and are on 16pt glossy stock, which I believe is a thicker than normal stock. And, at least for the Harper and Story, shipping was free. I'm thinking that was to scare up more business since the first two sold so little (which I more attribute to lack of pub since some of us don't do the Twitters and such; for the Harper/Story, I got an email direct). The idea isn't really new. This is just a different spin on eTopps. Me, I loved eTopps, but the shipping cost was insane on those. From the Topps perspective, they ended up with a warehouse full of other people's cards (since nobody wanted to pay the shipping) that they still can't do anything with. So they've learned not to promise to maintain your "portfolio" (or, as it worked out, "port-folly-o"). If Topps sticks to free shipping, I'd likely buy a bunch (just singles; even with the lower per card price, I can't afford to buy lots of 5 or more). If they start to charge for shipping again, as I suspect they will immediately, then I won't be buying more than one here and one there...if that. Really, I get the feeling Topps has no clue how insane their shipping rates are on stuff like this. The Vault items are $3.50 for shipping--which is plenty high enough; shipping on these is like $10 a card (when it isn't free, anyway). Forget that $#@&.

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    1. Shipping is built into the cost of the card. There won't be a shipping charge in the U.S., if you choose the Smart Post option.

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  4. Is there a reason they aren't serial-numbered on the card? For $10 bucks you can't even get that?

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  5. Another gimmick... which means it'll be popular with some collectors. Feel bad for the handful of people who are going to try and build a master set of these. C'mon... you know at least one poor sap is going to try. That's a lot of money.

    Personally... I'd pick up a single if it involved something super memorable involving one of my teams... like the Padres finally throwing a no-hitter. And even then... I'd probably just wait for somebody to buy a lot of 20 and flip singles on eBay for $5 each.

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  6. Maybe the Braves will get a card for sucking this year?!

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