RANT: Are you guys tired of the junk?

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the rant

I mostly like the historical figures in the Ginter releases, though I question some of the selections. I do not like the random champions like hot dog eating, sheep shearing or code breaking. I would rather they put in ball players they forgot like Pablo Sandovar. And I would also like to see a timeframe on retro releases like A&G. I think 5 years might be about right given that they've come this far. Two years on Turkey Red was good, and then they slipped in the extra year with some godawful artwork variations.

And I'll add one more rant...Topps vault selling 1/1 blank backed slabbed cards that are not released in wax.
 
I don't know about you guys but I've had it with these "World Baseball Classic" cards. 20% of my box was guys I've never heard of and will likely never see again.

Last night, I pulled a "Robbie Cordemans" REFRACTOR - woo hoo! Anyone interested in a 35-year-old prosprect out of THE NETHERLANDS! - that hotbed of baseball?! Thanks for one of the promised hits, Topps.

No kidding! If they're not going to issue a card of Hensley Meulens in his Netherlands uniform, why bother with any of the team?
 
The one thing i've noticed with card companies is that once they have a successful release, they take the concept and beat it into the ground until collectors are sick of it.

Obvious Example: Allen & Ginter

The novelty of the set is what made it popular, but the card companies decided to put oddball stuff in almost everything, which is excessive.
 
We as collectors are really the ones to blame. How many threads are there on here with "have A&G" to trade or sell? As long as collectors keep buying it they will keep making it.
 
We as collectors are really the ones to blame. How many threads are there on here with "have A&G" to trade or sell? As long as collectors keep buying it they will keep making it.

I think most people are o.k. with the A&G set. It is (was?) a novelty and many people still wait for it anxiously. That's great. Keep making it! (I just wait for folks willing to trade away the few singles I want for my team sets. I actually really like the design and it's great for in-person autographs.

Where it has gotten out of hand is when it bleeds into other sets... multiple sets. Guitar and track heroes and movie stars in UD Heroes and Spectrum... the list goes on. I'm even irritated by the Gordie Howe and Michael Jordan singles in my baseball pack. Thank goodness there are hockey and hoops collectors that don't buy baseball.

But, what good is a Luca Panerati (Italy) WBC single?!

Don't ask me why but I bought another blaster of 09 Bowman Draft. 21 of 56 cards were WBC this time ! The refractor was Chipper this time (lucky) and I recognize a few others out of the lot... I got an Elmer Dessens (Mexico)!

This isn't an issue of not following baseball enough or not having a world view (I travel the globe with my job). However, I don't follow the Dutch/Italian Summer Baseball League.
 
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Collectors complain about getting cards that are all the same and nothing unique about them. Then when that changes other collectors complain about the different items and that they hate change. Either way there are going to be unhappy collectors.

I miss the old days of collecting. I wish for one year that every company in every sport would do away with autos and gu. Make boxes with only one or two inserts. Maybe that would bring back some of the excitment in the hobby. Everything is just so watered down.
 
I agree with all the post made,all good points to make.
I find the WBC cards annoying but I think that Topps is just trying to promote the game on a wider scale and that's not a bad thing.On a business level I would hope that it would increase interest on a more global level and thus increase sales and profits.
I treat A&G as a novelty set.I collect strictly baseball so pulling a boxing card or a piece of elephant hair doesn't appeal to me much but I could see how it would appeal to the younger collectors and connecting with American history can be interesting to some collectors.
I personally liked the Topps Moonshot autos.I would have loved pulling a Neil Armstrong or Wally Schrirra auto.
I personally am starting to get very bored with all the new product being marketed.I'm not getting burned out but I don't get excited by most of the new product as I use to.Some price points are just unreal and I would be happy if the company's would put a lot more rarer product in a less expensive product,give us poor guys a chance to pull a triple auto or G/U without dropping 20.00 for one pack of cards.
The one thing I am worried about is Topps becoming a monopoly.I believe competition is what really drives diversity.The explosion in the early 90's is a great example how Fleer,Donruss,Score,Pacific,Topps,Upper Deck we're fighting for the consumer dollar and us collectors were just eating up all the new innovations that they were creating.The G/U product I think was introduced in 1994 and that was a great success story but I have no clue what will come next,they've done so many different things in the last 18 years.

Clint
 
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it's a little excessive all the way around but better than some of the crap being collected. the amount of guys collecting bowman chrome etc auto's at STUPID values is comical. $100 for bums who couldn't get a hit off of me - what a joke. a friend of mine sold a bowman chrome card of ?gomez? - the guy the mets traded to the twins - for $2000! you read that right - 2 GRAND! sorry, but that type of buyer/end consumer is an idiot -period. the whole bowman chrome mentality is ridiculous - go buy a lottery scratch ticket if that is the objective - you'll get a better return on it than you will your matt laporta cards. i don't think a WBC, obama, billy the marlin or bruce lee/kato card is as bad as the bowman chrome etc. stupidity. or for that matter, why would anyone want a "walter mathau cut" when they can pull a lincecum white jersey swatch from their topps chrome and add it to their collection of 50 other lincecum white swatches?
 
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