.jpg)
UD Black was released for the first time in football yesterday to much fanfare, as well as much criticism. Although people's box/case breaks may not have turned out very well (some with over 11 base rookie autos per 10 box case), there are definitely no shortage of awesome cards. Really, I think this product has definitely come up short in terms of value per box, no doubt, but I am not going to say it was a total disaster, a la 2007 Black Baseball.
I think we had grand expectations for this product, I know I did, especially after seeing Michael Jordan, Lebron and Kobe all over 2008-09 Black Basketball. However, there really arent players like that in football, ones that command humongous prices per card. Thats where basketball is special. Baseball suffers a similar fate in most of its high end products, especially ones like Black. Football does have a few rookies that could break the $100 per card barrier, as well as a few players like Manning, Peterson, and others, but nowhere near Jordan territory.
Regardless of capabilities of ROI, the product does have some amazing looking cards. The rookies may be in college unis, but the sigs are almost all on card, and the design is ridiculously cool. I have been monitoring stuff that has been popping up, and I am liking as many parts of this set as those I hate.
I think the dual Jersey auto cards are awesome, and some of the combos are proving to be pretty interesting. I also really like the Lustrous cards, as cards featuring PETG elements have always been a soft spot for me. Also, though the cuts are pretty much crap, at least UD didnt use the crappy phone cards for their Payton cuts. Those phone cards, which Donruss bought in bulk for little to nothing are stupid as shit, and have been all over their products for the last few years. This is much better.
Dont get me wrong, I am the first condemn a product for shitty design and horrible ideas, and this product has its share. However, I dont think its fair to throw the baby out with the bathwater in this case as it does have a lot of redeeming cards. Although the money making aspect of a box is low to none, the singles from the good boxes are some of the best of the year so far. That is more than a lot of other products can offer.
I'm confused by your justification.
ReplyDeleteYou can have awful looking sets, with good autographs (Donruss)
You can have good looking sets, with awful autographs (UD for the most part)
Or you can have awful looking sets, with awful autographs (topps)
Personally, I could never justify a product like black at it's pricepoint, regardless of how awesome it looks.
There's clearly a money-sieve somewhere along the production line -- or -- Upper Deck is just greedy as fuck.
Personally, I think Upper Deck is spending a good chunk of money on autographs that lose money.
I don't understand why every product has to put out a rookie card of Player X, just in case. There's 20 sets a year, you can afford to leave Player X out of at least 5 of the sets.
When autographs are going for 5 dollars on eBay, and it's costing Upper Deck 20 dollars to acquire them, we've got a problem.
I tend to think that Panini does a much better job putting acceptable autographs into their products.
The R.C Cards are numbered over 300 ?
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke.