Sobering thoughts on the industry or crazy man subway rant you decide...

Exclusivity sucks.  I think we can safely say that.

So think about this.. starting next year all four major US sports will have exclusive contracts with just one card manufacturer.  

Topps has baseball.

Panini has basketball and will have football all to itself as well.  And I'm sure will continue to put out unlicensed MLB stuff.

Upper Deck has hockey.

This might be great for the companies, but for collector's and fans that really sucks. I don't collect hockey or basketball. I've come to realize that we shouldn't expect anything extraordinary from Topps so this is aimed at Panini and it's football license.

As a guy who has really culled down his set building I can safely say I probably won't be putting anymore football sets together in the future.  Panini really only has one brand aimed at set collector's and that's Score and they ruined that this year by taking it upscale.  Hey Panini I'll help you out here. Make a set call it Panini Football, get some good photo's, don't crop out the player and put them on a background, don't use foilboard, make the set at least 400 cards, limit your parallels, put in some inserts that aren't half-assed, create something new, from scratch, don't go back to the same well, we don't need a Donruss football, we don't need Pacific football, don't short print anything in the base set, don't number in autographed rookie cards to the base set. Here's a few more ideas, feel free to use what you want.  How about Ref cards, haven't seen those in a few decades, cards of the head coaches, they don't get enough love, team checklist cards that either feature the full team or perhaps their stadium.  Have the set come out a little later so you know who made the cut and feature those rookies instead of the 100's of guys you get auto's from who didn't make the team.

Whew ok rant over, I've got to get back to work.  

Comments welcome.

cb out

Upper Deck has an exciting opportunity for me!!

So I get this email from Upper Deck the other day. I apologize for the gray that's the way the email came to me and it's kinda hard to read.

Upper Deck is pleased to introduce a new way for you to earn exclusive Upper Deck trading cards. Email not displaying correctly? Click here to view online.

Exclusive Introducing The Dynamics ePlate™ , Upper Deck is pleased to introduce a new way for you to earn exclusive Upper Deck trading cards. The Dynamics ePlate™ credit card device is the next generation of credit card that offers a revolutionary new platform, where you can choose your bonus experience right at the time of purchase. Upper Deck’s experience™ application offers virtual trading cards sent instantly to your phone, tablet, or PC every time you make a purchase. Virtual cards can also be purchased or traded with your friends, and once a virtual card set is completed an exclusive UD Infinite card pack corresponding to your completed digital sport card set will be mailed to you. UD Infinite trading cards will only be available to ePlate™ credit card device users, and will include exciting randomly inserted autograph cards of sports legends such as: LeBron James, Tiger Woods and Joe Namath. For the first time ever, Upper Deck is giving collectors the chance to collect every time they go shopping with both digital and physical trading cards. With the opportunity to pull autographed cards of some of the greatest athletes of all-time, this is a credit card every sports fan will want to make sure they are carrying! The ePlate™ credit card device offers the freedom to select your choice of 2 bonus experiences at any given time, just by pushing one of the two battery powered buttons that light up your card. You can learn more about the Dynamics ePlate™ credit card device or apply online at:http://www.dynamicsinc.com/upperdeckcards2. Upper Deck is excited to share the news of this revolutionary new partnership with our collectors. Look for additional news about the Dynamics ePlate™ credit card device and exclusive cards in the near future. Sincerely, Upper Deck Introducing UD Infinite Base Cards Earn digital and physical trading cards with Dynamics ePlate Rewards. Introducing UD Infinite Signature Cards Earn exclusive signature cards from the greatest athletes of all-time.

It's nice to see Upper Deck hasn't quite given up the ghost just yet.  I keep waiting to hear that Upper Deck has sued itself out of existence.  Anyways, I got this email in one of my junk accounts I have specifically to use when I sign up for stuff  I don't want to use my regular email for.  A was about to quickly press the delete button since I need another credit card like, well lets just say I don't need another credit card, but then curiosity got the better of me and I wanted to see exactly how big of gimmick this really is....or lets see if the ePlate Upper Deck credit card is right for you!

First off for the right to use this credit card that has not one, but two LED lights, the annual fee is $99.  Still there?  OK second the Dynamics, Inc ePlate credit card has lots of different experiences you can use with it for various rewards, but we are going to concentrate on the Upper Deck angle.

So the basic premise is you set up you account with experiences corresponding to the two buttons on the card.  When you make a purchase you choose which experience you would like your purchase to contribute to.  For the Upper Deck experience you get a digital trading card, Topps Town anyone?, for every $10 you spend.  You choose your sport. You can get digital trading cards from Football, Basketball, or Golf.  If you collect all 250 cards in your sport you get a redemption for a foil pack of exclusive infinite trading cards.  What you don't want to have to spend $2500 for 250 cards? Which it never says you won't get the same card twice. You can opt to add a $1.50 to any purchase and you get 7 digital, ie not real, trading cards added to your account.  There are some big names in the Infinite set and possibly you might even get an autograph card, but don't hold your breath.

I'm still wondering who would want this card really.  Maybe I have too much common sense.  I mean yes I have an airlines credit card that I pay an annual fee for, but I get airline miles that I get to buy airplane tickets with.  But a few things bother me with this credit card.  First the rewards.  Digital cards aren't worth anything. They never state how many cards you get in this exclusive foil pack and they don't have odds for getting an autograph either.  Second,  if you use this card exclusively as your primary credit card hitting that $2500 mark probably wouldn't be too hard, but who knows if you'll get all 250 different cards.  UD says there will be a trading forum where you can trade for the cards you need too. Third the $1.50 add on seems like such an obvious money grab, plus to get all 250 cards would require at least 36 seven card digital packs or about $53 bucks.  Too me this just seems like a joke of a rewards program and really just a gimmick.  If Upper Deck really wanted to do a credit card it would have been better to have no annual fee, get that sweet kick back for sponsoring the credit card and offer rewards points that could be redeemed at on online store for lots of stuff, like cards or memorabilia, instead of some silly digital card collecting scheme.

Just my two cents.

cb out

Your invited to join the Collector's Crack One Star Club

Because you deserve it.

First off let me thank Fuji from The Chronicles of Fuji.  He posted somewhere on someone elses rant about Topps 5 Star with the idea that Topps should have started a one star club for those of us mortal card collectors.  Screw Topps.  I'm starting my own one star club.

Your probably asking yourself how do I become a member of this awesome new club and what do I get?

Well first if you collect anything from anywhere you're already a member.  Don't want to be a member that's ok too, you can opt out at anytime.  At no time are you to write an essay for me to read, however feel free to post something on your blog, if you have one, or comment on something I post.  Second you don't have to spend anything to be a member and I sure as hell don't want you to keep receipts, they're evidence, burn those suckers before the wife sees them!!  I do not want references from you local LCS, but if you do have a local LCS that you love make sure you tell the owner you appreciate his business and all the enabling he does for your addiction.  And most importantly you may bash or praise any and all card manufactures and their products.  

How much does this awesome club cost?  $750 a year, I know it's a little steep, but thanks to a large contribution from the Yount Collector, you really should all be followers over there and here if your not already, dues are waived for the first 75 years and then you get the free senior lifetime membership.

What do you get for being a member?  You get to download this awesome membership card.  You get to bitch about whatever you want.  You get to collect whatever sport, set, team, or player you like.  You can enjoy the efforts of the entire blogosphere about the hobby(s)  you enjoy.  You get to participate in contests, discussions, and trades with your fellow hobby enthusiasts. Pretty much everything you enjoyed before this extremely inclusive club, but now with a cool membership card.

We accept anybody and everybody. So come as you are.

Now that you've passed the extensive interview process feel free to get on with your life.

Oh Go F**k yourselves Topps!

Ah Topps.  For a company that produces a luxury item, your customer service sucks!  So last year I was plugging my Diamond Giveaway codes in and while I didn't unlock anything super I did get a few nice vintage cards and finally unlocked enough codes and got enough rings to get my Diamond set.  Or so I thought.  As the giveaway was winding down, I knew I wouldn't be putting in anymore codes so I picked the 25 cards to be shipped with my Diamond set and hit enter, in December of 2011.  That was about the time that one of the reoccurring website problems happened and I never got a confirmation email, nor did anything ever show up.  So I sent and email to Topps and I got the form email back, this was in January. So I called customer service, and they were very nice, but didn't seem to know what the problem was.  He looked up my account and found my request, but said that they had become back logged with shipping, ok I thought I'm still waiting for an Allen and Ginter redemption, which I'm hoping comes before the end of the world.  But the other morning I get this email from Topps Support:

Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response. Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you. 

If this issue is not resolved to your satisfaction, you may reopen it within the next 7 days.

Thank you for allowing us to be of service to you.







If your issue remains unresolved, please update this question here.

Subject
Topps Diamond
Discussion Thread
Response (CustServ)	05/04/2012 10:29 AM
Dear Topps Valued Customer, We regret to inform you that due to ineligibility in the Diamond Giveaway, we have to cancel your order. The rules of the Diamond Giveaway are as follows: OPEN ONLY TO LEGAL RESIDENTS OF THE 48 CONTIGUOUS STATES OF THE UNITED STATES, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA OR CANADA (EXCLUDING QUÉBEC PROVINCE). Employees, officers and directors (and their immediate families and same household members, whether related or not) of Sponsor, its parent, subsidiaries, affiliates, agencies and prize suppliers; retailers and distributors of Topps products and MLB Entities (as defined below) are NOT eligible. For purposes of these Official Rules, "immediate family" is defined as parents, step-parents, children, step-children, siblings, step-siblings, or spouses, regardless of where they live. Groups, clubs, organizations, commercial entities, and businesses cannot participate. Void in Alaska, Hawaii, Québec Province, Puerto Rico and where prohibited by law. We apologize for this matter. We will be refunding your credit card today and sending you out a few packs of complimentary cards for your troubles. Sincerely, The Topps Company, Inc Customer Service Team
Question Reference #120504-000043
Product Level 1:  Sports / Entertainment Category Level 1:  Customer Service Date Created:  05/04/2012 10:29 AM Last Updated:  05/04/2012 10:29 AM Status:  Solved
Really??!!???  So I head over to the website and sure enough under eligibility that's what it says, at least now.  But then I think oh I better check the Golden Giveaway and bam, there too I'm no longer welcome to play in that Topps' contest either. So yes it's my fault for not reading the eligibility of the online contest.  But I had no problems with the Million Card Giveaway and Gridiron giveaway!! Whose websites are both shutdown now so I can't go back to see if I was really eligible there or not. I think what pisses me off the most is that when I called consumer services they couldn't figure this out and it took Topps over 6 months to send this email! Luckily I guess I didn't hit anything in the Golden Giveaway.  I would have been pissed had I pulled a die-cut only to realize they wouldn't send it to me. Does this mean I'll never buy Topps again. Probably not.  I'm not that strong, but I just need to vent.  Am I disappointed?  A little, but to be honest I'm not that heart broken.  Free stuff is always nice and the codes and promotion are a nice add on to the Topps release, but to be honest it's getting old and this years promotion is the weakest yet. But if I'd had known I wasn't eligable I would have sold off, traded or given away all my codes. I guess it also means I won't be entering anymore codes. But if anyone got the diamond anniversary set and was planning on breaking it up I'd take the Brewers set out of it. Have a great weekend everybody.

Fan Packing Across the USA - San Fransico Giants

Since I started requesting fan packs a few years ago there are a few teams I added to my don't even bother with list.  They consisted of San Diego Padres and the Philadelphia Phillies.  Well I guess I get to add one more to my list with the Giants.  Don't get me wrong I'm glad I got a response from my email, but sending me a PDF with three pages and calling it a fan pack is pretty lame.  I'd much rather you just go the Phillies route and tell me to screw off.  Because honestly this is a little embaressing.

So I emailed almost all the Major League teams back in early April, expect for the ones that I know require you send a postcard, or are on my do not bother with list, see above.

On the 3rd of May I got this response from the Giants.

Thank you for writing. Your new 2012 Fan Pack is attached!!! Go Giants!


That's right three exclamation points for this fan pack.  Lets see what's so exciting.

The PDF actually was in color and some how I lost it when I converted the pages to JPG's, but I got a nice letter telling me how to write to players, a coloring book page and a team game schedule.

This is pretty much exactly what the Padres send you as well.

Oh well.  Thanks Giants for at least responding to my email I sent over a month ago.  They can't all be winners.

Simmer Down Now.

With the launch of Series 1 Baseball less than 2 weeks away and the announcement that Topps decided to add SP's of  Albert Pujol's in his new Angels jersey and Jose Reyes in a Marlin's jersey. There has been a small fervor in the sportscardblogosphere over it.  The cards will be #331 and 332 respectively and be short printed in Series 1.  But both cards will have non-SP versions in Series 2 with different photo's most likely ones not photoshopped.  I really don't understand what the big deal is.  This is just like in 2010 where Topps had to keep the Strasmania going and issued a super SP of Strasburg #661 only available through the Cards Your Mother Threw out giveaway website.  He also had a none SP version released later in the Update series.

For me I could give a rat's ass about the SP cards.  I don't chase the one's Topps already does with inserting SP's of HOFer's or Sparkle variations or whatever, unless they are cards for my Player or Team collections.  For me as a set collector, the base set is one through 330 for Series one, no SP's.  I either trade away or sell all the stuff I don't want and to be honest these added  SP's adds a little value to the box. Because while I'm not a completist as a set collector there are plenty of people who are, or people willing to chase down the first Pujols or Reyes card in his new uniform.

For Topps this is pretty much  more of the same.  It's not game changing, it's not surprising, it's just par for the course.  Just my 2 cents.