Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Imagine The Possibilities...

I have always wondered how close we are to a set made up of all 1/1 cards. Nothing else, just one of one everything. I know that Razor is coming out with their extreme high end cut signature set, but I am talking about a sports based set.

I would expect that this new type of set would be around exquisite prices, if not much more than the already high price, and would contain an array of cards. It wouldn’t be all logos and other special cards. Im guessing it will be an Upper Deck product, and it will cause a huge reaction, both good and bad, from collectors everywhere. Each pack, would contain a 1/1 base card, a 1/1 jersey card, a 1/1 Jersey auto card, and one other special card. I would expect it would be at least $800-900 per pack, and it would sell out in a second.

If you think about it, its not that much of a novelty anymore. I mean, each jersey they get has at least 6-15 potential patches that could be used for 1/1 purposes, such as logos, letters, team name neck patches, laundry tags, buttons, etc. Of course there is never a shortage of autos, so im sure that this would be huge. Also, with the 5-16 patches per jersey (on average, ha!) we could expect a print run of 100-200 per player, all with 1/1 serial numbers. Face it, it could be done.

I would also like to see what they could pull out for 8-10 person autograph cards, as the octographs are usually pretty stunning, and I think it was UD portraits that had the decagraphs with 10 players on one 8x10.

Now, I would never buy this in a million years, as it would be pretty obvious that my 900 bucks could be spent elsewhere, but that wouldn’t stop everyone from purchasing. I have seen people bust cases of Exquisite at once, even with the expectation that they will not make their money back. I expect this new product would be no different. However, if Topps were to get ahold of this idea first, you can kiss it goodbye, as it would just be Triple Threads with more 1/1s (as if that was possible). Personally, UD would be the only one I would want to make it, as they are the originators of the ultra high end products, and they do it the best - most of the time.

My guess is that it would be called UD White Label or UD Extravagence, so that it would seem "better" than Exquisite. But honestly, is this type of thing "better" for the hobby? My answer is a muddled gray mess, as it seems like this is the next logical step, but also its fucking crazy-go-nuts. Im hoping that when (not if) this product is created, it will be done with the collectors in mind. It has endless possibilities for cool, never before seen cards, and I think it is a pretty obvious place to screw people over with one color jerseys and awfully paired duals, triples and quads.

Either way, here's to a card that looks like this:


4 comments:

  1. A product where every card is a 1/1? Considering the hypothetical notion that this product actually would be made, what then for The Hobby?

    It wasn't all that long ago that a 1/1 was truly special. Then along came Moments & Milestone and next thing you know, you have 1s/1 selling on eBay for less than the pack it came from.

    If manufacturers want to permanently destroy the secondary-market viability of the 1/1, they should make this product.

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  2. You're right that this will happen someday. I wouldn't buy packs/boxes of it either, but I'd look for cards from it of players that I collect on eBay.

    I'm sure that a set like this would cause a huge outcry among collectors and bloggers. But the thing is, if you don't like it, just don't buy it. If nobody likes it and nobody buys it, then the card companies will stop producing it. But if other people want to spend money on a high-end set like this, more power to them!

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  3. People would be stupid to buy that stuff. If you have that many one of ones then they're barely 1/1s in my book. I'd have to think the set would be built similar to the NFL Heroes set which included several cards of every player, thus creating a smaller version of M&M.

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  4. Card companies have ALWAYS said that they don't care about the secondary market, that they don't control it and it's a conflict of interest to have anything to do with it.

    What the big card companies are interested in are moving cases of product to the market. That's it. They don't care one iota about the individual collector or the hobby store, they care about selling product, plain and simple. Not boxes of product either, CASES. They don't sell boxes, they sell cases.

    So when 1/1s became all the rage a few years ago, guess what? They flooded the market with 1/1s so that they can sell more cases. Same thing with autos, jerseys and whatever the next innovation will be (full motion video cards, that's what I think).

    They've been doing the same thing for years, and they'll continue to do so until there are no more outlets left for trading cards, and then we'll all be left collecting something else.

    Or not.

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