How Not To Do A Cut Auto, Volume 1,000,000

Topps has a record of doing terrible things to cut auto cards, and in all honesty, they arent even the only one to do it industry wide. Either way, this card was brought to my attention, mainly because of how terrible the card looks. As usual, Topps didnt even try to make this card look good, and did even a worse job cutting the sigs. Cosigners has always been one of the worst looking products on the market, so this definitely doesnt surprise me.

Bascially, Cut autos have jumped the shark, and this one from 2007 was a good example of it. Collectors still clamor for any cut they can get their hands on for some reason, but this should show a little bit of why its important to think twice before emptying the bank account. For this price, one could easily obtain a Mantle Signed ball, a Dimaggio signed ball, an Arod ball, and a case to display them.

With that in mind, why even let the thought cross your mind to buy this junk?

h/t Cardboard Icons

Worst of the Worst 2004-2009 #2 - 2008 Topps Lettermen Football

Over the last five years, there have been quite a few products that havent lived up to billing. Whether its shorted hits, bad design, or lack of content in a box, there were more than I can count. Here is my countdown of the worst of the worst, and I will go into a little of what makes them so bad. Of course, for some, the shittiness extends beyond mere words, but ill at least try to capture it with each post.

The number two worst of the worst, 2008 Topps Lettermen, was so bad that it actually crossed the barrier between sports blogs. Blogs that usually commented only on Baseball or other sports picked this up because no one could fathom why Topps would ever put out a product like it. Back when this came out last year, letter hype was at an all time high, with many products trying to capitalize on the signed manufactured letters and how popular they had become. First being released in Basketball, Topps took letters to a whole new crappy extreme by creating a product that was exclusively focused on signed letters. The price was astronomical, the cards were horrible looking, and the concept reeked of Topps rushing to capitalize on a fleeting fad.

Then they decided to bring it to football, and I am still shocked to this day what ended up happening. Unlike Basketball's autographs signed directly on the letters, Football incorporated the worst looking cop out of autograph technology in the history of this hobby: sticker autos on manufactured letters. Let me repeat that so you don’t have blood shoot out of your eyeballs. STICKER AUTOS ON MANUFACTURED LETTERS. This means that instead of doing letters in a way that at least made this product stomachable for many collectors, they decided it wasn’t worth their time to even get the prime focus taken care of correctly. This horrible idea took cards that already looked like boring and unimaginative shit and made them 1000 times worse.

Oh, but wait, it gets better. They also created manufactured number patches and manufactured logo patches where the sticker wasn’t even put on the card in a normal place. Instead of going across the manupatch like the stupid letters, they were put off to the side and affixed vertically. The results were visual abortions. I have to say though, my favorite part of this whole thing was when they took all the different craptastic designs and X-fractored them to create hundreds of needless parallels. As if having stickers on your letters werent bad enough, now you had more parallels than Triple Threads, all numbered for each individual letter. Fucking gross.

Lastly, as with all Topps high end products, the price was just as much of a drawback as the product design itself. This pile of two week old camel shit cost about as much per box as a Matt Ryan SP Authentic Rookie Patch Auto. Yes, instead of buying one of the best cards of the year, you can have a 200 dollar box of turds. I have never said this in my life, but I would actually support you buying a box of Triple Threads over this. I cant tell you how much I laugh at the people who bought cases of Lettermen and thought they were getting "OMG SIKX MOJOZ!!!"

When it comes down to it, I just cant imagine who decided this was a good idea. Im guessing it was the same people who created Triple Threads, Sterling, and all of the rest of the products that triggered the golden rule of Topps. Now that Topps football is gone, we can all rest easy, but I have a feeling that Baseball is going to feel the brunt of this blow. My condolences to those fans.

Tuff Stuff Wants To Discover What's Wrong With The Hobby

Recently, Tuff Stuff has taken it upon themselves to go over what readers think is wrong with the hobby and to look for possible solutions. I think its a bold step, but in my opinion, a generally horrible idea in this format. First, the average reader has no fucking clue as to what is truly the more IMPORTANT bad things, and that will lead to a pretty boring list. Second, half the major problems in the hobby stem from things the magazine does themselves. Anyways, here is what their list will probably be, followed by mine.

TUFF STUFF PROJECTED LIST (not in order of importance):

1) Redemptions - I have said it before, its more the players than the companies that have problems with redemptions. If the players dont sign, the cards cant go out. I think the expectations set by the company, replacements for unsigned cards as well as lack of updates are the bigger problems. I will give kudos to Topps for publicizing their redemption updates via twitter.

2) Number of products - I cant tell you how much I hate it when people say that product variety is a problem. There are five million car companies, but no one ever complains that they have too many choices. Number of products as a complaint is shit. Just buy what you want and shut up.

3) Lack of kids/cost of boxes - Again kids havent been the primary focus of the hobby since the late 80s, and yet people think they are the answer to everyone's problems. Complete crap. As that relates to the cost of boxes, its easy to blame the companies again, but the players are just as much to blame. There are still a lot of lower end products that are good, and yet the variety thing comes into play again. Yes, there are very costly products, but they dont account for everything.

4) Fake patches/cards/autos - I agree with this one, but the only solution is a photo database that is easily accessible to everyone. There are a few users who have taken it upon themselves to take care of this themselves, but it isnt perfect.

5) Some sort of eBay complaint - eBay sucks at doing some things, but is great about others. I will say that I would take eBay the way it is any day than having to buy singles at shows or at stores.

MY LIST (not in order of importance):

1) Price Guides - There is no reason for a price guide, especially one that is run by people making money off the hobby. The guides out there present unrealistic expectations of value, and cause more problems than they solve. Their existence continues to show that this hobby is more about vanity and money than about fun.

2) Boring concepts / Gimmicks - This hobby has spiraled into a snoozefest of products that are not designed well and feature horrible concepts and themes. Its time to get a better design team in there that focuses more about a good looking product. No more rehashes, no more copycatting.

3) Beckett - Their arrogance of their place in the hobby, as well as the fact that they serve more as an ad vehicle rather than an objective source is detrimental to the people that still follow them. Beckett as a group is underhanded, vindictive, and ethically objectionable, and has yet to provide a worthwhile contribution to the hobby. They also have a public relationship with a card company that breaks all sorts of moral rules.

4) Grading/Authentication - there is no need for it, especially by humans. Besides being completely subjective and arbitrary, it is commonly used as a publicity machine as well as a way to please large customers. On top of all of this, Beckett sells their own graded cards. As for the authentication, there are so many stories of people sending in IP autos they themselves have gotten and not getting auth. Just shows that humans are just that, human.

5) Complacency of the companies towards Fake autos/Fake Patches - There hasnt been much done to counteract the criminal empire created by thieves on eBay. Ebay wont do anything, the card companies wont do anything, and the collectors only have so much of a voice. Until a bigger focus is made policy, we will continue to be victims of the great douches of the hobby.

6) Boxes for Review - Again, this whole practice solves absolutely nothing, and creates a ton of problems. There are currently more than 50 different groups of people who receive free product the companies. More than half hold a vested interest in the product's success. That means, ad money, publicity, reviews, etc. This is not just for highly produced stuff, but also the very limited products too. Beckett received 4 boxes of 2009-10 Exquisite Basketball. That is close to 2400 retail dollars of swag. Completely unacceptable considering that they price cards for over 50% of the uniformed hobby.

7) Lack of communication - Card companies are about as transparent as a lead door in this industry. There is rarely any info transmitted that actually gives collectors what they want, and that needs to stop. There needs to be better websites, more feedback, and more involvement with the collecting public. Talk to the boards instead of with Beckett.

8) Brand/Player/Sport exclusive contracts - there is nothing worse for collectors than exclusive anything. This should be at the top of everyone's list. The fact that there is only one NBA license and only one MLB license is ridiculous. It is also ridiculous that players like Jordan, Kobe, Lebron, Jeter, Griffey, A-Rod, Pujols and company are only able to sign for one brand. That is a poor situation. Look at the NFL, there is no exclusives and it is one of the best places to start a player collection. So many choices, and that is a great thing!

In all reality, there could be a huge economic disaster, worse than the last few years, and the hobby would still survive. People like to collect shit. That will always be a given. The industry part may fall by the wayside, but cards will always be a commodity. So, to put together a list like this is easy, but pretty much ineffective. The effective part comes from the buying public, as they need to put their money where their mouth is. I have been practicing this for the last few years, only buying the stuff I like, instead of wasting my money on stuff that is just there, or buying because I am bored. As a result, I have a collection to be proud of, rather than a hoarded mess of cards I have no connection to. Hopefully others will follow suit and not give their money to products and company that shouldnt get it.

Product Review: 2009 Playoff Absolute Memorabilia Football

Ok, I have waited to post this review to see if there was anything that could really redeem this set in my eyes, and so far there has been very little to do so. I saw a few boxes broken with pretty horrible results (unlike Beckett who had some great results, as usual) and I just cant find a reason why this set was done the way it was.

Design/Creativity

Aside from the rehashed RPM design and stale concept of the entire set, the actual design of the rest of the product's ridiculous number of subsets is horrible. Starting with the Tools of the Trade all the way through the War Room stuff, it all just screams typical Panini crap design. In addition to an awful look, each card features weirdly cut swatch windows and the ugliest of gaudy raibow fucking foilboard.

Since the RPMs are the focus of this set, Ill start there. The design is pretty much the same it has been since 2003 or whenever. It hasn’t really changed other than the fact that they now have as many parallels as Beckett has conflicts of interest in their magazine. Yeah, that many. You have the regular "NFL", a diecut of the NFC or AFC, their number, a jumbo jersey, a jumbo patch, a brand logo, a nfl shield, a jumbo jersey auto, a jumbo patch auto, a brand logo auto, and a shield auto, among others. The stupid thing is that so many of these parallels feature swatches that intrude into the player's photo, thus making the card pretty pointless and fugly. In addition, they used stickers for everything, so the black autos (some of which still feature college number inscriptions) don’t really work well on reflective board and dark colors. Also, the fact that almost EVERY parallel features those stupid and needless football swatches, makes me want to scream. I don’t care about some football that a player played catch with for two throws. It has less connection than including a napkin they wiped their hands on during lunch. DITCH IT.

Moving into the subsets, Panini has pretty much outlawed square swatches in their design, as if that would solve the problem of them placing them in horrible places on the cards. Unlike the other companies, however, instead of making symmetrical borders to the windows, they pretty much just cut them out like a five year old with their first pair of scissors. Then, when you think about the crazy lines on the card that Panini has been known for, and you can see where asymmetrical swatch windows would look ridiculous. Those swatch windows are often placed where they break the line borders on the cards, making it seem like they were not factored in when the card was designed. This is pretty common with Panini products, because they parallel every one of their cards to fucking hell. First they create the base card, parallel that 10 times, then add in a swatch, then add in an auto. Its all very backwards, and leads to an awkwardly balanced card.

The only redeeming part of the entire thing may have been the Absolute patches. These cards look good because they arent paralleled (big shock). They feature jumbo patches, placed correctly, and usually with multiple breaks in a huge window. It fits well, and makes me wonder why the set wasn’t done more like these cards. These cards will be prime for the patch fakers to exploit, but they look like they may be the only part of this set that actually had some thought put into it.

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Autograph Cards

The autograph cards in this set pretty much fit in with the rest of the crap that is featured ad nauseum in Absolute. They are rarely well done, and not one of them is on card. The stickers arent focused on like Topps' bordered boxes, but they are hard to miss on the rainbow foil board.

I would say that the Canton absolutes (a horrible conceived concept of a subset) is the best looking of all of them, but im not sure why they didn’t focus more on getting design filled with cards that could actually go well with the stickers.

The RPM autos are numbered to 299 and have five billion parallels, so the effect of pulling one is getting to be a lot less than it used to be. Then when you see some of the players STILL having stickers with their college number on it and you start to get even more frustrated. When you look at the jumbo swatch autos, its clear that there is just too much on the card to begin with, especially with the inclusion of the stupid football swatch in the corner.

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Relic Cards

Holy fuck, I don’t even know where to start.

The thing that most pissed me off were these pro-bowl tools of the trade cards, and it bothers me what people are saying in response to their addition to the product. First, none, yes none, of the pro bowl swatches are game used. They are all from an event that was held at the event. The same will be true for triple threads and everything else. These swatches will be a focus of a few more sets this year, which makes me throw up in my mouth when I think about it. Panini has singlehandedly taken a nice pull out of the set and turned it into a joke. The cards look stupid, and I cant even think as to why people are so excited over them. At least with the rookies, there is no choice, but with the vets, there is a choice. Event used crap should only be used when there isnt anything else, and to try to slip one through the five hole and make people believe these are real is junk.

Then, I saw the rest of the cards. I tried to find a relic card that wasn’t bad, and aside from the absolute patch set mentioned above, there is absolutely nothing. Most of the time, 3 out of 4 hits in your box will be a relic card, and you should see what some of them look like. None of them look like they were designed with a swatch in mind.

Lastly, enough with die cutting weird crap into the cards. Jersey numbers are one thing, but when you start diecutting the name of the fucking conference they play in, you are walking a thin line between shit like Sterling and Triple Threads and normal junk. Maybe this is just a signal to stop with the plain swatch cards.

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Value To The Collector

People freaking love this set because they are blinded by the swatches and autos they can pull. In reality, there arent many strong points in terms of memorable parts of the set, so everything kind of blends together. That means that there are no cards that really are worth buying these boxes for, and the value of the whole comes down considerably. The Auto'ed RPMs will hold value until Limited and the like, but once those come out, it will be tough to get much for any of them.

The boxes will cost more than average products, and its rare that you will make your money back. Because the set is so over dilluted with poorly designed jerseys and stuff, it will be tough to find boxes that will make you feel good about the purchase you just made. As with any product like this, its always better to buy the singles than to spend 120 dollars and buy this.

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Overall Impressions

To me, its pretty sad what Absolute has become. It used to be something that was a fresh start to the products with rookie material in it, now its just ugly, boring, and poorly conceived. Even the Tools of the Trade cards have sunk to a below bottom standard, and that makes me angry. Im hoping that eventually Panini gets the point and realizes what they are doing has put them at the bottom of the barrel for design in football.

Average Rating =

2009 Product Leaderboard (SO FAR)

1. Topps Chrome (4/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). Upper Deck Football (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). UD Philadelphia (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). Topps Football (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). UD Icons (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). UD Heroes (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). UD Draft Edition (3/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Playoff Absolute Memorabilia (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Bowman Sterling Football (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Donruss Threads (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Donruss Classics (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Donruss Elite (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Playoff Prestige (2/5 GELLMANS)
8(t). Bowman Draft Picks (2/5 GELLMANS)
15. Score Inscriptions (1/5 GELLMANS)
16. Leaf Rookies and Stars (0/5 GELLMANS - NR)

Review Not Necessary: 2009 Leaf Rookies And Stars

I didn’t actually realize that Leaf Rookies and Stars comes out as well as UD Philadelphia, but to tell you the truth, I am glad that was the case. This is due to the fact that even though Rookies and Stars looks nothing like last year's product, which is a feat for Panini, it could be the worst design choice of the year. In fact, im not even going to waste the hour writing the product review, only to give it less of a score than Score Inscriptions got.

R&S takes the same idea as Inscriptions of going "urban" with the design, incorporating graffiti like bordering, as well as a weird obsession with paint spills. The text and font choice is just as bad, as the way it is featured could not look more stupid. Imagine the way a neon sign looks when it is turned off, and you have the font for some of the subsets of R&S. Otherwise its just weird looking stencils.

This product is also FILLED with floating plain swatch cards with hundreds of parallels, just the way Panini loves to do it. Honestly, why are these cards even necessary? Oh, right, because they are too lazy to fill out a whole set.

Lastly, we have the worst of the worst. As if you thought the Panini style Manu-patch autos werent enough in Prestige, THEY'RE BAAAACKK! Only this time, the players are stuffed onto a smaller border and covered in a paint spill. Cmon, enough with this poop of a product.

Ill be honest, of all the products that have been released since 2007, Leaf Rookies and Stars is the one product that I have never bought a single, pack, or box of, mainly because the cards have always been so stupid looking. The main rookie part of this set has helmet off pics, so it makes it even less attractive to me, and the design has NEVER been good.

Add this set to the list of products that needs to get the axe.

Product Review: 2009 Score Inscriptions Football

I know this is a little late, but Score Inscriptions has released and I feel obligated to review it, despite the fact that many of you would never even think of buying a pack of it. Basically, this set has replaced the Score Select junk that seems to make its way onto the market each year, even though they really did nothing to make this set worth anyone's time.

Design/Creativity

As if Select wasn’t bad enough last year, this year had no where to go but up. It didn’t really offer much improvement in the base set or in the "hot rookies," but it is a better look. Don’t get me wrong, I would never think of this product as even in the same zip code as the top of the pack in terms of design, but it is a little better than the year before. I really dislike that Score has become of a place where graffiti artists go for their card design, as it makes everything look really weird and busy. For the last few years, its almost like they want the cards to look like they were spraypainted on the inside of an overpass tunnel, but they never really hit the mark. This set pretty much looks like an afterthought.

The Hot Rookies look as ridiculous as they did in 2008 and 2007, and you can see that this whole concept needs to be scrapped faster than any future Family Guy spinoffs. Score was better when it was just a low end solution to one's hankering for set collecting, and adding in all these weirdly named parallels and awful insert sets hasn’t done much to bolster value.

The one seemingly redeemable factor about this entire product is the 1989 Score remake SPs. Each of the premiere rookies has their own addition to the iconic set of Sanders and Aikman, though the cards don’t feature much of what made the old cards great except for the border design. I could see these cards as a great addition to a set that actually matters, but I just don’t think there is much you can do for any Score branded set anymore. Im not a fan of these cards myself, only because of the helmet off pics, but I can see the appeal for people who don’t really care. I may pick up a Harvin just for kicks because these cards will be so cheap.

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Autograph Cards

The autograph cards in this set are pretty standard for any low end product. Slap a few stickers on the base cards and parallels, and you have yourself a set that many unsuspecting collectors will buy. The problem is, with so many oddly numbered parallels of every card, I would say you could have some scrubs with close to 1500 autographs in this set. Really, there just isnt much to say other than "This set contains autos. Yay."

The 1989 Score reprint autos should be pretty valuable to start, only because they are exceedingly rare in a low end set. It would have been cool to see some on card autos here, but we all know that Donini thinks of hard signed as an exception rather than the rule. I may buy the Harvin auto later this year when the price of the set drops 80%.

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Relic Cards

There are no relic cards in this product.

Value To The Collector

Right now, it will cost you close to 100 dollars at some stores to buy a box of this junk. I am completely serious, and I saw it a few places at more than 100 bucks a box this weekend. I can tell you right now that any packs or boxes of Inscriptions bought at that price is money you are throwing in to a fire. You may end up with three autos, but the value will drop faster than Mike Singletary's pants at halftime of a 49ers game.

For the last 2 years, Score Select has dropped more than 60% in terms of box price over the year, and even at 29.99 for a box, its still too expensive. Most people are just starved for good products, so they will open anything they can find just to test it out, and really, I cant tell you how stupid it is to even consider buying any of this product at the price its at right now.

When it comes to the value of the actual cards, the 1989 Score autos may hold SOME of their value, but the rest of the set will not. Don’t waste your time.

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Overall Impressions

Its Score Inscriptions. I don’t need to say anything else.

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2009 Product Leaderboard (SO FAR)

1(t). UD Icons Football (3/5 GELLMANS)
1(t). UD Heroes Football (3/5 GELLMANS)
1(t). UD Draft Edition (3/5 GELLMANS)
3(t). Donruss Classics (2/5 GELLMANS)
3(t). Donruss Elite (2/5 GELLMANS)
3(t). Playoff Prestige (2/5 GELLMANS)
3(t). Bowman Draft Picks (2/5 GELLMANS)
8. Score Inscriptions Football (1/5 GELLMANS)

Product Review: 2009 Donruss Elite Football

We are four products into 2009, and Elite is the first product that actually holds some value for the collector in the long run. However, while looking at the final product, there were a few major questions looming that I may not have been able to get past. I was able to view a whole case broken by my friend, with disasterous results, but I am not going to focus on the pulls. Just the cards.

Design / Creativity

This year's Elite is basically Prestige Chrome, and from my review of Prestige, you can pretty much get the feelings I have about this product. First, the set looks eerily familiar, or rather very close to last year. There is also an ugly addition to the base cards with the electrical storm that seemed to be present at the printing of these cards. In the words of my friend "What the fuck is this? Are they on the set of Crank?" Ha.

The subsets have also dropped considerably in terms of looks from last year. The throwback threads is a perfect example of how bad this has gotten. Last year, the cards were so good looking, I actually went out and bought my first non-auto jersey card in a year. This year, they look stupid to me, mainly because the jersey looks like an add on piece rather than part of the design like last year.

The staple of this set, Passing the Torch, has been updated - I guess for the better. It is no longer a front and back card, making it much easier to display. I don’t think the design is awful, but I don’t think it lives up to being THE cards from this product. Plus, when you look at every other company, not many have their crown jewel cards available in millions of parallels, unless you look at Topps High End. But that doesn’t count.

Also, im not sold on this mirrorfoil they have coating each card. In previous years it has become extremely succeptible to pack fresh damage, and my friend's case definitely felt the brunt of it. Many of his cards were damaged, and though they werent too important, its frustrating. I think they need to get rid of this practice of using condition senstive materials to produce their cards. That is the one thing Topps has down with chrome and finest.

Lastly is the diecuts, something I used to like a lot. However, as a result of the coating on the cards, I saw a lot of damaged diecuts in my friend's case. Some people love these cards, but I am indifferent, something you could attibute to my lack of love for the base cards. I don’t think it’s a win on these, but its not a fail either.

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Relic Cards

The floating swatches are back, and Donini fails to incorporate the windows into the product with any sort of good ideas. Most of the time the windows look like add ons, as said before, Im guessing because of how many parallels they have of each card. See, with UD, most jersey cards are designed to avoid the floating windows, most likely because the jersey window is incorporated into the design, and the sticker is added later. With Donini, it seems like they just try to fit everything onto a pre designed card. This leads to cards that have floating and out of place jersey windows that don’t fit into the overall feel of the design.

I am continually disappointed with Donini relic cards, they never do favors for my eyes. After the Prestige debacle where cards were designed that covered up the players with swatch windows, I thought things would get better. They didn’t.

I mentioned above that I didn’t like this year's throwback threads set. Chain reaction and Prime Targets are worse than those, and you have to look hard to find a good looking relic card in this product.

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Autograph Cards

I am a big fan of paralleling the base cards with auto'ed versions, but its tough to find the autos in this set with the time travel residue, the dark cards, and the black marker that was used. I think when it comes to designing auto cards, you have to figure that a special light space needs to be present. On Bowman chrome last year, Topps did a higher half circle. On many other cards from last year, a light picture with a background included is used so that the stickers don’t blend in. None of this consideration was used for Elite.

As for the College ties autos, the cards look completely unbalanced. The autos weigh down the cards completely on the bottom and things look out of place when you throw a sticker on card designed as a base insert. Same thing tends to happen with many of the other subsets with auto parallels, and I think its scary that people think this shit is "cool." Have we gotten that complacent?

As said above, I liked the PTT autos not being front and back this year, but I still hate all the parallels. I didn’t like that they switched to two tiny pics on the side, however, when you get into duals on one card, its tough to avoid. The PTTs are still the best cards of the product, but for this set, its not saying much. I sincerely hope Classics is much better. Yet, with that school colors preview we got, I am very, very scared.

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Value to the Collector

This is the first set of the year that minimally holds its value, especially in the low numbered diecuts and autos. I think its possible to make some money on a break of this stuff if you get lucky, but if you are looking to keep what you pull - wait for later sets. The PTT autos are some of the more valuable Donini duals, and have been the focus of many collectors who have liked the set.

The rookies arent going to hold too much value unless they are low numbered, but the diecuts and status cards should hold well over the months. I call this set Prestige Chrome, and its funny that the parallels of the RCs really fit this mold.

Lastly, I think its within your best interest to buy the singles as the price of the box is most likely not going to be eclipsed by what you pull. Still not an awful product to buy if you are looking for cards that wont be hurt by the release of the post premiere sets.

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Overall Impressions

I am very disappointed by Elite, I think this could have been done a lot better, especially if they had thrown in a few new concepts. See, with many other products, creativity factors into new subsets and better designs on the existing cards they are remaking. When you don’t change a thing and you throw it out there just to throw it out there, I am going chide you for your laziness. SP Authentic is the set to buy each year because they do a great job of combining the old with the amazing ideas they have for the new. This does absolutely nothing of the sort, and to me that is very frustrating. At that rate, you should just update your set each year with new cards, a "living set" as I saw someone suggest on one of the boards, mainly because I am so bored with stale concepts.

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2009 Product Leaderboard (SO FAR)

1. 2009 UD Draft Edition (3/5 GELLMANS)
2(t) 2009 Donruss Elite (2/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). 2009 Playoff Prestige (2/5 GELLMANS)
2(t). 2009 Bowman Draft Picks (2/5 GELLMANS)

Where Do We Stand For 2009?

After this weekend, all I have heard is that this year, the card companies are going to be coming at us with all they have. On card autos, player inscriptions, new and wonderous patch ideas, everything. Since the rookies are always the focus of each card year, and secondary values holding at more than expectations on early products, are we seeing a bounce back that no one had predicted would come this early? I mean, Percy Harvin's prestige auto sold for 62 dollars! 62! That is crazy talk for a late first round WR, even though he was touted as one of the most talented in the draft. Either way, some of the new trends seem to be helping us rather than hurting us, as maybe this will give the companies some steam to move through the year.

So far, all we have right now is Prestige, with UD Draft and Bowman DP nipping at its heels on the calendar. Donini's offering was quite less than stellar in my opinion as the value for the collector just didn’t seem to have lasting power. Although it has its plusses, it was mostly a disappointing start to the 09 season. Bowman DP has a nice design, but in all honesty, I don’t see it ever being worth more than the Topps Draft Picks and Prospects sets of years past. UD draft looks ten times better than last year's, but doesn’t have the bang I am looking for. However, with 5 autos per box, Im hoping it will be great, but as with all early products, I am not holding my breath. This begs the question in my mind of how they could just throw these products to the wolves and wait for the dog fight? In an economy that is depleating the necessary disposable income at record rates, why even waste your time with a sub par product? Prestige was definitely that, a throw away to cash in on early hype. It may have gotten some money in the door, but it did nothing but water down the strength of my desire to stick around for the blockbusters like SPA at the end of the year. At least, that’s the way I feel, maybe its different for others who are out there.

From the "coverage" of the premiere, it seems like player inscriptions are the new go to schtick for the companies to draw you in. Ill agree that cool extras like Sanchez writing "El Matador" on a card or "go Jets" has its appeal, but after awhile, that will go away. Im not going to argue and say its not worth it now, because it is. I love the idea of the casual inscription, but as with every good thing, it will become the standard rather than the exception that made it special. Eventually we will long for a regular auto because "See you next year Tebow!" will have been on every card. You know it will happen.

In my interview with two different shop owners that I will post later this week, both said that the market is spread too thin for anyone to have any semblance of a way to collect what they need, let alone what they want. I stand by the fact that I do not agree that there should be 4 products a year, but I will say that maybe its time to rethink the strategy for the year at a time. Both owners said that the kids have been lost and that there is no way to get them back, which makes me think that there could be a large, large problem coming down the road. Matt from the Beverly Hills Card Shop mentioned that in today's hobby, most of the kids that come in only want the 20 dollar packs, or if they don’t, they are left with VERY few choices that still provide them a chance at the stuff they came for. Where does that leave us?

Elaborate patches and unique player signatures only go so far, but you also have to consider that there isnt much money in the industry to take things to a different level either. This is where the stale ideas come in, and I am one of the people they are losing, for sure. Im not saying that I am going to stop collecting right this second, but I am bored beyond belief, despite my enthusiasm in the last post. I am more excited now after hearing reports from the weekend, but I am far from my excitement in 06 and 07. I hope that the companies do not think of autos inscriptions as the out pitch, it needs to be the setup outside. We need something better, and I hope they can find a way to do it. I want them to find a way to do it. Its been 13 years since the hobby has been reinvented, I don’t think I want to go through the innovations that have hit other industries in that time.

Product Review: 2009 Donini Playoff Prestige Football

Here it is, your first product review of 2009, but I will warn you it wont be as eventful as you are probably hoping. Basically, the sets that are going to grace this page for the next two months are just going to be fillers in the calendar until the premiere cards are released in july with Classics. At least you can be rest assured that I am not going to hold back just because these sets swim in the shallow end of the pool.

Starting this year, I am going to be doing the reviews differently. Last year I reviewed things in Good, Bad, and Ugly, but I feel it didn’t do a lot of the reviews justice in the format I had created. This year, ill address four important parts of each set, design/creativity, autos, relics, and finally value to the collectors. It will be a five point rating scale of one Gellman to five Gellmans.

= Don’t even think of wasting money on this
= A poor attempt, but it could have been worse
= Meh. Average.
= Exceeds Expectations
= The Best of the Best.

Hopefully with this, I will be able to set your expectations for any particular set, and still have room for the rants that make these reviews so cathartic for me. With that, here is the first review of 2009, Donini Playoff Prestige.

Design/Creativity

The normal cards in this set don’t look THAT bad for this early in the season. The white background on the base cards looks like it does this set a lot of favors. However, that is really the only plus in design this set has. Pretty much all of the other subsets look like they had some trouble being created as you can tell that Donini cant get past designing their cards backwards. Donini designs cards with the auto jersey subset as the main design, other companies seem like they do it differently. What I mean is this, instead of starting with a base card, adding a relic window and then adding a place for the auto sticker, Donini starts with the Auto Jersey card and subtracts without repositioning. This leads to floating jersey windows and off balanced base cards. Please, go look through your donruss cards, the only difference between your auto jerseys and your jerseys are the presence of a sticker. There is nothing else different on those cards. I guarantee it. Really, it makes me angry because you will always pay for 4 jerseys a box, but really they are just an afterthought.

A redeeming part of this set is the auto RC base cards, which look pretty good. I always love when companies use autos as base parallels, and in the early releases, this is a major staple of each set. However, with the other subsets being pretty awful, its tough to justify an entire product based on the base cards and the one auto set.

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Autograph Cards

As I said above, you buy Prestige because it’s the first. Its become so expensive though, I may have to sway you away from buying it because you DO NOT get what you pay for. The RC base autos in this are quite good as I have mentioned, but the other autos leave a lot to be desired, especially the signature manupatch cards. I don’t understand why these are making a comback, but alas here they are. I think that because all the subsets are obviously designed backwards, your auto cards, other than the base parallel sigs, will look very goofy. Prestigious Picks takes that to a whole new level. If you are lucky enough to pull the auto jersey parallel of those subsets, they look fine, but they are also quite rare (numbered to 10 or 5). Basically the autos here fall below my expectations, mainly because they havent fixed the design abortions from last year.

However, they have included base auto parallels of the vets too, which save them from a total waste in this department.

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Relic Cards

The relics in this set are either going to be college jerseys or vet jerseys, and they will not look pretty when you pull them unless you get very lucky. Based on this, you are going to get windows for the relics that are more than halfway up the card, or over so far to the side that it interferes with the general design of the subset. This set would be so much better if they did it more like UD draft with a focus on the autos (5 per box!) instead of throwing in more jersey cards that wont get you 5 bucks on eBay. If you are lucky enough to pull a patch, which is VERY rare, they will be 2 color at best, as I don’t see Donini using their 'A' material this early.

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Value To The Collector

This set never holds its value because its purpose is to be the first on the market. You will pay 80-100 dollars for the top autos now, but half that as the year moves on. Even if you are a college collector, you should wait for Elite as it is a much better product that holds value more. Add in the fact that you could be paying up to 100 dollars for a box, and you are going to shoot yourself in the face when you get 2 dollars of a return on your cards. Without a doubt, you need to wait to buy some of the better stuff, and luckily its only a few months.

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Overall Impressions

That’s about it for prestige, but the flow has started so start beating your wallet into shape if you can. UD draft is coming on the 26th and Bowman DP is coming around that time as well. Its exciting to have cards coming again, but hopefully we see better stuff with improvements over the last year. This product did not deliver on that one bit.

Average of the Above =