You know you have a collecting problem when…

Posted on July 14, 2011 by
  1. You get excited about buying new shoes because you can use the shoebox for storage.
  2. The anticipation of vacations is tempered by the knowledge that you can’t post eBay auctions that will end during them.
  3. You measure the prices of everyday purchases in terms of your favorite player’s rookie cards. (i.e. “This pair of jeans costs three Pujols. Ludicrous!”)
  4. You get an incredible bargain on a card on eBay, including free expedited shipping, but you leave neutral feedback because the seller put clear tape on the toploader.
  5. You know the day your local Wal-Mart/Target/Kmart re-stocks the blasters and packs.
  6. You know the time your local pack searcher gets off work, and you take leave to make sure you beat him to the store.
  7. In a real life conversation, you start a story with “The other day my friend said …,” only to stop yourself when you realize “my friend” is someone you’ve only talked to on FCB/Blowout/Twitter.
  8. You read #7 and shuddered at the thought of a “real life conversation.”
  9. Instead of gauging a player’s success by traditional statistics or sabermetrics, you go by Beckett Book Value and recently ended auctions.
  10. You read #9 and snickered at “Becket Book Value.”
  11. You’ve called someone a “Rick Face.”
  12. You stress about needing to update your cardblog more often.
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2010-11 Pinnacle hockey: a review in pictures

Posted on June 18, 2011 by

I figured with the NHL season done and the Boston Bruins crowned champs, it was finally time to open the hobby box of 2010-11 Pinnacle hockey I had been sitting on for over a month. I paid $80 at a show in May and felt like I was getting a good value, but now they’ve dropped under $60 online and that’s a flat-out steal.

So let’s take a look inside the box:

cool_pics

Not all the photos are this unique, but a lot are.

The first thing I noticed when I started ripping packs is that the photos aren’t the typical on-ice action shots that you get from 25 other releases each year. It’s definitely cool to see some of the behind-the-scenes stuff, and it actually makes it feel like the base is worth collecting. To that end, I got 177 of the 200 true base cards, which gets me close enough to a complete set that I can just trade for the rest online. (So uhh, anyone got any dupes they’re looking to unload?)

What’s that? All you care about is hits hits hits?

pinnacle_hits

Look out Sid, menace Dave Steckel is also in this post.

You’re guaranteed four hits in a hobby box and I got five, so that was cool. I think the City Lights relics would have looked better with a thick black border around the swatch window, but that’s a minor complaint.

As for other inserts, it’s Pinnacle so that means starburst/dufex! Actually, they’re calling it Nufex technology and the parallels are called the Rink Collection…

nufex_goodness

Neuvirth PC!

I was pretty skeptical after seeing initial scans of some of these because the faces of the players looked really washed out, giving them a sort of ghost-like creepiness, but in person they look pretty good. To give you a better idea of how they compare to the base cards, here are a couple side-by-sides:

nufex_compare

Oooh, shiny.

They look good, but I think I still prefer the UD Black Diamond base cards with similar foil technology. And that segues nicely into the negative portion of this review…

Ice Breakers rookies are cards 201-250 in the set and they appear to be seeded around 1:4 packs, so they’re very short printed compared to the rest of the base set (cards 1-200). I only got four base Ice Breakers, plus one Rink Collection and one auto.

icebreakers

I thought I'd see more of you. Well, the base at least. The auto was a nice bonus.

The Ice Breakers Autographs are also part of the base numbering (cards 250-270), which is an OCD nightmare because I know I’ll never complete the “full” base set without dropping some serious cash.

Then there are the inserts with the standard Panini design flaw: big empty spaces that might as well say “PLACE STICKER HERE.”

toughtimes_blank

Clearly no amount of complaining about this practice is going to change it.

They look fine when there’s an auto on them, but they’re just kind of ugly without. I’d rather the auto-less cards just not exist and know I’m not going to get as many inserts per box.

Finally, the Artist’s Proof inserts seem to be typical of the tack-on mentality at Panini when it comes to parallels.

artists_proof

Unnecessary.

I don’t mind parallels, but I prefer my parallels to be obviously different than their base counterparts. It took a couple looks just to figure out what I had here, and what I had was “not much added value.”

I know there’s some magic number of inserts-per-pack to get collectors to buy a product — or at least I’m assuming the card companies have done some research — but these just don’t work for me.

That being said, I can’t end on a negative note because I really had a blast opening this set. Even though I only need 23 more cards for the base set, I could easily see myself buying another box or two just for the hits. For the price, you can’t lose.

Posted in Box Breaks, Hockey, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

I can see the future, and Panini’s Dominion “Tape to Tape” cards are gonna be huge

Posted on May 11, 2011 by

You know that feeling when you pull an incredibly rare card that happens to fit perfectly into your personal collection? Yeah, me neither. But I’m assuming it would feel the way I feel right now, and all for an insert set that won’t hit shelves for another two months.

As a hockey fan and collector who’s also played the game for almost 20 years, hockey tape has a certain aura that may only be rivaled by pine tar in baseball. To a player, tape has the mystical power to make your slap shot harder, your wrist shot quicker and your passes more accurate. As any hockey player will tell you, proper stick-taping technique is based on physics and science and math — knowledge that is passed down from locker room professors to young and eager students who experiment with dozens of tape techniques before they even have the finger strength to rip it off the roll.

And obviously there’s superstition. There’s a reason most NHL players don’t let team trainers tape their sticks for them. It’s got to be just right.

So as I read through Panini’s preview of 2010-11 Dominion hockey, an uber-high-end product slated for a July release, I got a bit giddy when I saw this:

Tape to Tape

Image from http://paniniamerica.wordpress.com. Click image for more from 2010-11 Dominion hockey.

I want these cards in a way that may be illegal in some states. They’re incredible.

There’s just something about stick tape — almost an emotional attachment. It’s the painstaking effort that players, from youth rec leagues to the NHL, put into getting the tape on just right. It’s the unmistakable tinge of sadness we feel when an opponent’s skate slices through a freshly wrapped layer (especially if that layer netted a goal or two). It’s the odd thrill of watching Alex Ovechkin do a perfect wrap in mere seconds just before taking center ice for a shootout attempt. It probably sounds crazy to those who have never experienced it, but it’s almost artistic.

And that’s why the opportunity to pull a card featuring an NHL hero’s game-used tape is too good to pass up.

Of course there are the exciting what-ifs (what if one of Stevie Y’s 692 NHL goals came off of this tape?), but even if he used it in a beer league game at least you know he felt the same emotion that all players feel when they tape their blade right before the pregame warm-up.

Since we’re in the era of the sticker auto, I had to ask via Twitter if these autographs would actually be on-card … err … on-tape. And Panini Hobby Marketing Manager Tracy Hackler quickly replied: “On-tape, yessir.”

Done. I need these cards. And I mean NEED.

I can’t wait for the checklist to come out.

Posted in Hockey | Tagged , | 2 Comments

I have made a liar out of myself

Posted on May 9, 2011 by

When 2011 Topps Series 1 was first released I had two thoughts:

1) I like the base card design a lot.
2) What’s all this other crap?

I decided to focus on the second point, as you can see here and here. In fact, this is what I said:

“I should just wait for the factory sealed sets at the end of the year.

…

I’m sure I’ll pick up some Heritage and A&G (and honestly I’ll probably nab a couple packs of Topps base at the card shop despite my misgivings), but I’m certainly going to focus the vast majority of my hobby time on my Eddie Murray collection this summer.”

Uhh … whoops. I’ve made a liar out of myself and it’s time to come clean.

I have purchased more 2011 Topps Series 1 than any other card set in my life, except for 2:
   • 1989 Fleer baseball (that wasn’t obvious enough?)
   • 2010-11 Score hockey

2011 Topps Hanger Box

Buy me.

So you can see the pantheon of high-end products that 2011 Topps is entering in my collection…

But after ripping a ton of (mostly retail) packs, I have to amend my thoughts on several things.

First, I don’t think the insert bloat is NEARLY as bad as everyone made it out to be when Topps S1 was first released. Yes, there are a lot of inserts — including many that I don’t care anything about — but the balance of base to inserts is pretty solid. I’ve bought 2011 Topps in the form of hobby packs, HTA jumbo packs, retail packs, retail jumbo packs, retail hanger boxes and retail blasters, and the base-to-insert ratio is pretty good across the board. My initial fear when attempting to build the set (still 43 cards short … never build through retail) was that the alleged insert bloat would make completing the set far more difficult, but I’ve found that I still look forward to the various inserts in every pack.

I’ve also found that the hanger/cereal boxes are the best bang for your buck when buying Topps flagship, especially with HTA packs going for $17 or more. For $10 you get more cards than an HTA pack and a lot of the same perks, like a guaranteed Diamond Giveaway code card, a Platinum Diamond parallel, a Kimball Champions mini, a Ticket To ToppsTown, a Topps 60, etc. Granted, you’re far less likely to pull a “hit,” but when autographs are as tough to pull as they are in Topps flagship and most of the hits are manufactured leather plates, it’s really not worth the extra money. I’m sure others will disagree and they may have good reason, but that’s my take.

So as I prepare to pre-order a box of Series 2, consider this my apology to the Topps development team. But I still think Gypsy Queen is stupid.

Posted in Baseball | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Sale Fail at Blowout Cards

Posted on April 23, 2011 by

Was checking out Blowout’s Easter Weekend specials and this was among them:

Sale Fail

Whoops.

Posted in Baseball | 1 Comment

Epic Hobby Deathmatch: Sports Cards Uncensored vs. Panini

Posted on March 5, 2011 by

Well Panini has certainly found themselves at the center of the two weirdest hobby happenings in 2011.

First there was the Sam Bradford 1/1 that was sent out as a replacement, although I honestly think the weirdest part of that whole story was the original poster’s refusal to say what he sent in to get replaced, then getting pissed when people kept asking, then getting REALLY pissed when people didn’t understand why he wouldn’t just say. Naturally everyone in the Twittablogosphere clamored for an explanation from Panini and was disappointed when that explanation was basically a shrug of the shoulders by the bread company.

But I would argue that this weekend’s incident is even weirder. After doing so much to kick every other company’s ass in accessibility on Twitter and their blog, Panini went and pulled a Ron Burgundy on us. (Link NSFW unless you’re wearing headphones.)

For those who need the Cliffs Notes, Gellman of Sports Cards Uncensored gets on Panini fairly regularly for their design choices and use of non-game-used relics. So when he went after them yet again for some of these same issues in Panini’s “super premium” National Treasures, I guess someone at Panini had enough because they felt the need to get snippy via social media.

Thankfully, Gellman was kind enough to post a transcript of the Twitter transaction.

Granted, Panini is just showing frustration toward one blogger who happens to hammer them repeatedly, but how can they not be aware of the perception this is going to create among collectors?

At best it makes them look thin-skinned (“Come on, we don’t expect a good reaction from you on anything we do.”) At worst, they’re dismissive and arrogant (“Don’t think your praise is necessarily on our priority list.” And “I think we’ll be OK.”)

Now I’m not naive enough to think this little spat is going to completely undo all the goodwill that Panini has created in the hobby with The Knight’s Lance and their Twitter feeds, but it’s not helping. And it’s a classic example of how social media can bite a company in the ass if one person has a momentary lapse in judgment. Just ask Mike Wise.

Posted in Football | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Blog Bat Around Response: Fixing Topps Baseball

Posted on February 13, 2011 by

Blog Bat AroundChris Harris at Stale Gum has posed this scenario for card bloggers:

Michael Eisner has just fired the entire Topps Product Development staff and chose to hire you to take their place. Mr. Eisner has given you carte blanche to do whatever you want with Topps Baseball — as long as you keep it under $2/pack.

If you were in charge of Topps, and based upon what you’ve seen of 2011 Topps Baseball Series One, what (if anything) would you have done differently?

I feel like my first task is to rally the troops, so I’ve decided to take a cue from Rex Ryan. (Don’t read on if you’re offended by foul language…)

I’m about as positive a guy as there is. I believe our card company is better than every fuckin’ card company in the business. I believe our products are better than any products in the business, right? I believe our 2011 base card design was our best design since 1992. Those are true statements – that’s how I believe. But the company’s only going so far if I’m the only guy that has ideas.

The company is only going so far.

I’m not a great leader, OK? I’m not a great designer. I can’t create, myself, this whole group of products. We ain’t gonna put out a great product, guys, if it’s about me.

I’m sitting back waiting for us to understand the card company that we said we were gonna be. What the hell are we waitin’ on? What are we waitin’ on??

Do you want it or not? Do you understand there’s a price to pay?

Can we have insert sets? You’re damn right. I demand that we have insert sets.

2011 Topps Reprints

That's being a jackass.

Now there’s a difference between having inserts and being a jackass. Our lineup of reprint inserts was a jackass when we shipped in 2011 – getting all bloated with 60 Years of Topps, 60 Years of Topps Original Backs, 60 Years of Topps “The Lost Cards,” 60 Years of Topps “The Lost Cards” Original Backs and Vintage Reprints before we went to the printer. That’s being a jackass.

You can have a good job at a card company, but not like this. We won’t make it. We’ll sit back and say, “Why didn’t we make it?” We didn’t make it because … where were our fuckin’ priorities?

How about our other inserts — the parallels, the game used? When are we gonna put it together? When are we gonna realize that less is more?? Let’s dump the gold inserts that no one’s collected since we starting flooding the market with them in 1992. Let’s dump the diamond, the platinum, the canary diamond anniversary and the Target and Wal-Mart exclusives. We can keep one parallel, but let’s not get carried away. And let’s get rid of all the manufactured relics and retired player relics. We’re about to make 2012 Topps, and the kids only care about uniforms worn by 2012 players.

Melvin Mora Diamond Anniversary

Not doing this again.

So let’s have one rare parallel, one set of current player relics, and maybe one All-Star insert set — and that’s it.

Can we not cram our leftover inserts, relics and sticker autographs down collectors’ throats in a slew of other sets? Can we not show our MLBPA exclusive license any time we wanna fuckin’ show it?

Let’s make sure we act like fuckin’ Topps, and not some fuckin’ Pinnacle Brands.

That’s what I want to see in 2012.

Do we understand what the fuck I want to see in 2012?

Let’s go eat a goddamn snack.

Posted in Baseball | Tagged , , | 1 Comment