Wednesday, December 16, 2009

I Hate Printing Plates. So Much.

I have always criticized the use of printing plates in a high end product. They are ugly, they are worthless to many people, and most of all, they are still considered to be 1/1s that really arent 1/1s. Basically if you are producing a base product, and you want to include printing plates for shits and giggles, fine. But if you expect me to spend more than 100 dollars a box for this piece of shit that you call a case hit, you gotta be fucking kidding me.


We all are very familiar with the culture of the 1/1, as everyone in the hobby craves them like the Heroin dragon. They will do anything for a shot at a one of a kind card of any player, let alone their favorites. The problem is that many times, the Printing Plates are inserted in place of true and worthy 1/1s, and that leaves me with a very bitter taste in my mouth.

There is also another dimension to the plates, as the auto ones can usually never contain a hard signed signature. 99% of the time, they are sticker autos on an ugly plate, and that is just a complete cop out. Hell, Upper Deck puts them into Exquisite and the Cup, and that is pretty much the most inexcusable of all. Why would anyone fucking care about a used piece of thin scrap metal with a reverse negative of a player they cant identify for 500 plus per pack? Thats just plain stupid.

Lastly, I just hate seeing stale ideas run rampant akin to levels of Lavelle Hawkins autos in SP Signature Edition. Printing Plates are a very stale idea, and yet they are present in just about every single product. There are even products that frame the plates inside bordered cards in an effort to make them look better. Then you have a product like Triple Threads, who actually designates them as the top pulls of the product. Why? As if the design wasnt bad enough, now we have to get cards with all the elements of a normal hit, but a priting plate front. How terrible can that get? Obviously pretty bad.


If printing plates went away, the only people who would care are those people so desperate to pull a 1/1, that they run around the store screaming "MOJO!!!!!!!!!!!" at the top of their lungs when they pull one. To that, many of the informed collectors out there know that some of the best cards of any player are not 1/1s, and I agree with that 100%. Although my Mauer, Harvin, and Peterson collections are full of cards, none of them are one of a kind. Some of them are low numbered, but I dont care if I have the only card in existence. I just want one that looks cool. Printing plates have never been that, and never will be.

12 comments:

  1. Is the Heroin Dragon the one from the Neverending Story? I've always wanted to take a ride on him.

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  2. I totally agree with this one. I hate plates. So many collector's out there on a lot of the message boards that I follow drool all over these things and I never understood why. They remind me of printing when my ink cartridges are empty.

    By the way, I keep seeing this MOJO thing. What the hell is that all about?

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  3. The first card that i bought on ebay when i got in to collecting was a Joel Przybilla printing plate. It looked awsome. 1/1 it said! Woo Hoo. I had to have it. It was the last one I bought and the only one I have.

    Dogface, MOJO is a code word douchebags use so they can identify each other and trade their jersey cards.

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  4. "Dogface, MOJO is a code word douchebags use so they can identify each other and trade their jersey cards."

    Quote of the week for sure.

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  5. I like plates for player collectors. One of my favorite cards is a Press Pass DeSean Jackson printing plate auto. Looks neat because it is the yellow version, matching his college team colors. To each his own, some companies do it better then others.

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  6. As far as being considered a case hit, i agree that they shouldnt be considered that valuable. And they also shouldnt be considered 1/1 because of the CMYK process they are all 1/4..they are just 1 of the colors used in the printing process.

    BUT I still think they are interesting and deserve a place in someones player collection.

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  7. I think that printing plates really only belong in flagship products. Pulling the original plate out of a 4$-6$ pack of cards would be a good time.

    But I agree, if I plopped down a portion of my rent on a pack and pulled a sticker auto printing plate, I'd be pissed.

    Unless it was a LeBron or Kobe. In that case, I'd be thrilled to legally rob somebody on ebay for three to four times the going rate on an auto.

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  8. I think that printing plates have their place in player collections... but they should not be taking the place of case hits in mid-level or high-end products.

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  9. I got a 1/1 plate of Donovan Bailey in a pack of Goodwin. Dumb thing sold on eBay for $4.00. Ugly piece of tin.

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  10. Wouldn't mind pulling one (not that I ever have), but I'd never seek out a printing plate for more than a couple bucks. And then only for one of my player collections.
    Are we sure that printing plates are really produced to verify the quality of each color and not just a contrived gimmick?

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  11. I just pulled my first plate the other day from a random pack, so due to the sheer odds alone of pulling it I was somewhat excited. However, as is true with those manufactured patch autos, the serial numbering IS a bit misleading. Sure, there is only one magenta plate, but there's also a black, cyan, and yellow plate, too. I would never buy a case in search of one, but it was fun to pull one from a cheap pack of '09 Topps Updates and Highlights.

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  12. WELL I HAVE A TED GINN 07 FINEST MAGENTA AUTO PLATE AND I LOVE IT! A KEVIN KOLB IS GOING FOR 350 ON EBAY AND I GOT MINE FOR 70 BUCKS! SORRY FOR YOU DUDE. LOL. GO NINERS!

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