So yeah, Topps just made this totally inapproriate Relic card.

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's been a while. Most of my action has moved over to BaseballCardPedia and Twitter.  If you haven't already, I'd appreciate a follow.

I just wanted to post this card -- and yes, this is a REAL card that sold on eBay for $259 -- to preserve it for all posterity.


Greatest card since the Billy Ripken 89F?  Yeah, I think so.

Greatest Relic fuck-up since the ManRam "corked bat" card? That, too.

Well, I finally did it.

I did it.  After holding out for two years, I (willingly) bought 2012 Topps Baseball.  As much as I hate the insert bloat, bland design, and intelligence-insulting gimcracks, I just couldn't turn down a good deal; especially on a product that, for all intents and purposes, has become a Junk Wax product.

And so this past Saturday, at a cramped Days Inn ballroom in Lancaster, PA, I forked over $13 and bought 26 Hobby loosies of 2012 Topps Baseball Series One.

No, you are not seeing things.  I bought 26 packs of 2012 Topps One for a fourth of their $1.99/pack MSRP.  I suppose there wasn't enough "added value," huh?  Or squirrels?

Anyway, as feared, the product ranges from mediocre (base set) at best, to bland and soulless (inserts) at worst.  Take a look at the piss-poor design of these inserts.

You can tell that these cards are designed first as BIG MOJO HITZZZ!!!1!!, then retconned into inserts with a team logo and/or seal; and that big-ass logo/seal makes them look like shit.

And what's with all the "Gold" anyway?  Gold Standard, Golden Moments, Gold Futures, Golden Greats?  What's the point of having all these inserts anyway?  Just about every pack I opened had two inserts in it.  Does anyone at Topps seriously think that this "adds value?"  Do they understand the concept of Diminishing Marginal Utility?

I did manage to pull this purely Lagniappe Michael Pineda letter patch which, unlike most letter patches, is not manufactured.  It was cut out of the warm-up jersey he wore at the 2011 All-Star Game.  Not a manu-relic, but not exactly "game used" either.

So there.  It took me two years, but I've finally crossed over to the dark side and I feel a bit dirty for doing so.  Now if you will excuse me, I need to look up the nearest Free Clinic.

2013 NSCC: Y U NO HAPPIE? And An Observation on "Added Value"

Last week the 34th National Sports Collectors Convention convened in the "Village" of Rosemont, Illinois, and I spent three days checking out the scene.  Over the next few weeks I'll be posting some of my best pick-ups, but I want to start with something I noticed at the NSCC.

There are a whole lot of unhappy people in The Hobby.  While walking the convention floor, I could not believe the number stone faces.  They weren't angry or anything like that (well, most of the time), but they sure as heck didn't look like they were having any fun.

Isn't that what having a hobby (any hobby, not just The Hobby) is all about?  Having a good time?  The great Jefferson Burdick called card collecting, "A magic carpet that takes you away from work-a-day cares to havens of relaxing quietude where you can relive the pleasures and adventures of a past day -- brought to life in vivid picture and prose.”  I'm sure if ol' Jeff were around to see this year's NSCC, he'd probably revise that statement.

I think I know the reason why.  Now, I don't want to go off on a rant, but it seems to me that the cause of this Hobby Melancholy is the systemic belief of many that The Hobby is immune to the laws of basic economics.  I see it all the time.

You see it on eBay with sellers posting cards with ridiculous minimum and/or BIN prices.

You see it in the collector who tries to nickel-and-dime dealers into selling their cards for well below fair market value.

You see it in the mega case-breakers who feel as if they have a Constitutional right to a 33% ROI on EVERY. SINGLE. PRODUCT. they rip -- even on dogshit products like Tribute WBC and Gypsy Queen -- then bitch and complain when they don't.

And you see it in the manufacturers who constantly feel the need to "add value" to their products; to hell with the consequences.

---

"Added value," the two most over-used and misunderstood words in The Hobby today.  Two little words used by manufacturers to justify anything and everything.  (If you don't believe me, listen the next time a card company flunky makes an appearance on Cardboard Connection Radio.)  But do these "added value" additions really add value?

Let's take a product like Topps flagship baseball as an example.  (You can also use some of Topps' other low-end brands like Heritage, TANG, and Bowman, as well.) Look at how Topps Baseball was structured, say, ten years ago and compare it to this year's edition.  Over the years, (and perhaps not coincidentally, accelerating around the time Michael Eisner and Madison Dearborn bought the company) the Topps Flagship has been steadily adding new "value added" features: More inserts.  Larger insert sets.  More Parallels.  A guaranteed "hit" in every box.  Manu-Relics.  And of course, my favorite, gimmicks.  About the only things I can think of off the top of my head that Topps has actually subtracted from flagship have been Ticket to Toppstown and Topps Attax. (BUT THOSE WERE FOR "THE CHILDREN," DAMMIT!!!)  All of these additions have made Topps Baseball into what is today: A bloated, uncollectible mess of a product that's no longer fun.

I guess that's the reason for all the glum faces in Rosemont.

But what about the "value?"  Surely, all those gimmicks, all those low-numbered parallels, and all those high-end "hits" must be valuable cards.  And yes, individually, if you're lucky enough to pull one from a pack, you have received a genuinely valuable card.  But is the "value" of that card "added?"

No.

Gimmicks, hits, low-numbered parallels, et al, DO NOT add value to the product as a whole.  They get their value by cannibalizing it from the rest of the product.

Don't believe me?  Well, you should have seen all the current and recent-year inserts that were clogging up the quarter boxes at the NSCC.  The standard Big Mojo Hit has been relegated to the $1 and $2 bins.  Complete sets?  Have you checked eBay lately?

The lesson is, you can not do what Topps has done to flagship (and Heritage, TANG, Bowman, et al) over the last few years.  You CAN NOT guarantee a minimum of $3 worth of cards in EVERY $2 pack.  Try as they might, but it's just not possible.

Either A) the market price of those packs has to rise, or B) the cards inside become devalued.  And in the case of 2012 and 2013 Topps Baseball, an option C) is happening.  The cards are devalued and the price of wax has dropped to Junk Wax status because the products are so awful.

Of course, that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Aw, fuck it. Who wants pie?

First Impressions: 2013 Topps Series One Baseball

In what has become an annual late-summer rite of passage, this past weekend Topps unveiled the design and structure of next year’s Flagship baseball set.  Not unlike back-in-the-day when the Big Three car makers would start selling next year’s models by Labor Day, Topps has been sending out the sell-sheets for next year’s Flagship before the current season even ends.  In a way, I kind of like the way Topps gave us a preview this far out in advance.  It whets the collector’s appetite and gives us a sneak peak on what to look for next year.  Now that the sell-sheets have been out for a few days, I do have a few thoughts regarding 2013 Topps Baseball Series One.

The design of the base set isn’t the greatest, but it doesn’t completely suck either.  Despite all the recent issues of the Topps Flagship (and there have been many), they deserve some credit for making a well-designed base set.  The asymmetrical, home-plate motif reminds me of the 2009 design, but with the typeface of the 2010 set.  However, there’s way too much empty space at the bottom – space where the player’s position could have been noted.  It’s not as great as 2009, 2010, or even 2012, but it’s not as bad as “The Girlie Show” of 2008 or the “Black-Bordered with Colored Boxes” thing of 2007 either.  It’s alright.

Before I continue, I want to stop here and get something off my chest regarding the two most overused words in The Hobby today: “Added Value.”  Let’s go back about 5-10 years and compare Topps’ Flagship of the pre-“added value” era to the post-2008 Topps.  Back then, if you bought a Hobby box of Topps you knew that not every $2 pack would deliver $2 worth of cards (Actually, back then, the MSRP was only $1.50/pack, but work with me here.), but there were some packs were you’d get maybe $3-$5 worth of cards.  Over the course of a full 36-pack $50-$60 Hobby box, generally, you’d get $50-$60 worth of baseball cards -- $75-$80 worth if you were lucky enough to pull the case hit.

Then about five or six years ago, Topps decided to “add value” in every pack.  They did this by gradually adding something new to the product every year, without subtracting much, if anything, to its structure.  Over time, we’ve seen more inserts, more parallels, guaranteed “hits” in every box, and (my favorite) gimmicks, all justified as “adding value.”   

They may not have stated it out-front, but clearly the goal was to do something that completely violates the laws of economics: Have every $2 waxpack yield more than $2 worth of cards. But it’s not possible to consistently deliver $3-$5 dollars worth of cards in every $2 pack.  It’s just not.  Either the market price of those packs has to increase or the cards inside those packs have to decrease, and as we’ve seen over the last five years, all of the new “value” additions to the Topps Flagship have wound up actually devaluing just about everything else.  It’s now gotten to the point where the Flagship has become so overstuffed with “value” it’s now become impossible to try and collect it all, and more collectors have done what I did this year and are not even bothering to try.  I think it speaks volumes to the problems of Topps’ Flagship that you can now purchase a Hobby box of 2012 Topps Series One for under $40 – that’s about $4 under dealer cost.  So much for “added value,” huh?

All of which leads us to the bloated mess that has been the Topps Flagship of the last few years; but how does the 2013 edition compare?  Unfortunately, the structure of 2013 Topps is pretty much a cut-and-paste job.  Same 330 card base set, meaningless parallels, boring inserts, stupid manufactured “Relics,” and a near worthless hit in every box.  This year’s “value” addition are the Desert Camouflage and Pink parallels – which judging by the mock-ups on the sell-sheet, are going to be some of the ugliest cards ever produced. 

Seriously. 

Pink baseball cards. 

Who the fuck thought of this?

Moving on, once again the insert program revolves around a unified theme, but unlike the last few years where we’ve had Diamonds and Gold and Reprints jammed down our throats, this year’s theme of “The Chase” is a little more subtle.  (I was expecting a gimmick card of Giorgio Moroder and a 10-card tribute insert to Chase Utley, but alas, there are none.)  There’s the die-cut Cut to the Chase, Chasing the Dream, and Chasing History, but there are three other inserts that don’t seem to have anything to do with the Chase theme: Calling Cards, The Greats (which remind me of the old Topps Sterling brand), and a new batch of mini cards, this time with the psychedelic 1972 Topps design replacing last year’s 1987s and 2011’s Kimball’s.

Yes, there are the much-maligned manu-Relics, this year with fake award trophies and ersatz coins.  However, there are noticeably fewer manu-Relics this year, and you kind of have the feeling that the concept is slowing beginning to jump the shark.  It hasn’t quite yet, but Fonzie just stepped into his water skis and the boat is about to pull out to sea.  I doubt we’ll see the return of these cards beyond  2014.

Once again you’ll get one hit in every Hobby box, and each HTA box will yield an autograph and two “Relics.” (I put the term “Relic” in scare-quotes because Topps actually counts the manu-Relics as a real Relic.)  Of course, all the low-numbered autographs, auto-relics, and patches are prominently displayed on multiple pages of the sell-sheet, but you’re more than likely to pull a single-swatch Relic or a sticker autograph of a marginal prospect or middle-inning reliever.  In other words, your one-per-box hit will be another $0.99 eBay special.

So that’s that.  2013 Topps Baseball Series One is nothing more than a re-hash of a product in need of a major overhaul.  Looking beyond 2013 and into the long-run (something that is sadly lacking in this industry) Topps needs to ask some serious questions regarding their annual Flagship.  Does a product like this really, really, even need a hit in a box?  If the stated goal is to deliver “value,” wouldn’t making the Relics and autographs tougher to pull make sense?  With another year of mini-sized reprints, how many times can they keep going to the same well with a concept some collectors are starting to tire of?  Is it possible to release their Flagship that’s more than 330 cards per series and without foil stamping and gloss on each card?

With that all said, 2013 Topps Baseball looks good and I might actually collect it.  I’ll probably wait until next summer to buy a box, which by that time it should be selling around dealer cost.  Then again, I had the same feelings about 2012 Topps around this time last year, until Topps decided to ruin it with gimmicks.   

They’ll probably fuck it up again with gimmicks, but that’s for another column.