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Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Thursday, August 19, 2021MLB and Players’ Union Trade Topps for Fanatics in Deals to Shake Up Trading-Card Universe
RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)
Posted: August 19, 2021 at 03:46 PM | 46 comment(s)
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1. The Duke Posted: August 19, 2021 at 03:53 PM (#6035176)Topps was in the process of going public via a SPAC, with the special shareholder meeting to approve the deal happening next week. Should be interesting.
Not sure if this is what you're asking, but my understanding was that Panini (Donruss) and Upper Deck had licenses from MLBPA but not MLB, so they were allowed to put out cards with the player likenesses on them, but they couldn't use team logos. If Fanatics got the exclusive license not just from MLB but the MLBPA, as the article says, then I don't think Topps or those other companies will be allowed to produce any cards with current player likenesses once the existing agreements expire.
Back in the day I knew what ever player (who had a card) looked like. If I experienced the game through cards (as I did as a kid) today I don't know that I'd really have a good sense of what the players looked like.
Precisely. Card collecting isn't the hobby any more. Card gambling is. Box breaks, razzing, and whatever other gambling games have sprung up around it. OOOOooooo!!!! I hit a 1-of-1 purple-border reverse-back alternate-image throwback-jersey no-number-on-back-"error" chrome super-mega-retro-refractor Bryce Harper! Quick, let me get this to PSA so I can throw it on eBay and have some moron pay me $1000 for this rare and treasured collectible.
People complained about these trends when I was still collecting cards 25+ years ago. I feel like that ship has sailed.
Or we keep getting further and further away from our births.
I think during the junk wax years, the players unions were handing out licenses to anyone who had a print shop but over time they realized a single manufacturer would pay more for an exclusive license than 10 companies would pay for non-exclusive licenses.
Even those are corrupted by greed. Until 1974, the relative scarcity of the high numbers was due to market realities of fewer cards being bought toward the end of the season and the short prints were a way to get more players into the set into those final series. Now in the Archives sets, the short prints of all the star and rookie cards are nothing more than a cash grab through manufactured scarcity for set collectors chasing the key cards, and the short-print variations are pointless lottery ticket filler for the razzers and breakers. I mean, who the hell is paying $150 for any Jonathan Villar card just because he's pictured in a throwback uniform? Some bigger fool did.
The only modern set I have with short prints in the base set is 1998 Upper Deck because they waited until the 3rd series to short-print some star cards, and I was too deep into it by then. The rest of them I boycott on principle even though I'd really like the 1965 and 1968 Archives sets... or Heritage... or whatever they call it.
the nice cashier at Turner's drugstore made a deal with us so that if one of us somehow acquired a whole QUARTER, we not only got the 5 packs of 5 cards each - she'd throw in a 6th pack for free.
good times.
in the past decade, I bought some of the Topps Archives packs which not only featured card designs of three different years (and three different decades), but lots of Hall of Famers - some going back more than a century.
I can't really explain the dopamine rush from seeing, say, a Ty Cobb card in a set design (front and back) from when you were a kid.
but Topps has always been weird, frankly.
if any of this inspires you to go to Topps.com to see what 2021 cards might be worth buying - yeah, that's not gonna work. one of the few companies, perhaps, with a core product that they don't market to those who visit the website.
Then I discovered Who's Who in Baseball.
Anyway, Topps announced this morning that they are scrapping their plans to go public via a SPAC.
For a nickel (same price as a candy bar), we got 5 cards and a stick of bubble gum.
And the two most valuable Topps sets (1952 and 1953) came with 6 cards in a pack along with that stick of gum. At our local chain of drug stores, where they sold gum for 6 packs at 19 cents, you could buy an entire case of 24 packs for 76 cents.
My kindergarten level allowance of a nickel a week was just enough to buy a pack of 1957 Topps.
I've wondered the same thing. There's an artist named "Gypsy Oak" who does extremely cool limited-edition card designs, baseball and other sports, and I actually emailed him once to ask if he had to procure licensing for his likenesses (and I never heard back). I was wondering if an "artwork" is somehow different from a photo, even if that artwork is based on an identifiable photo.
you're going to wait a long time. My understanding is that the current queu is taking over a year.
Indeed it is, even with incredibly high fees (the cheapest tier currently accepting submissions is $200 per card), underscoring just how much this mindset has infested the hobby.
Has the added bonus of not having to negotiate with any kind of athlete union. Just make the check out to Dana White, he'll tell the goons where to stand for their photos.
What's even crazier is that grading is now extended to magazines like Sports Illustrated. In 2018 this one had a hammer price of $1,135.25, and it wasn't even signed:
11/14/83 Sports Illustrated Vol. 59, #21 with Dan Marino 1st Cover Appearance - CGC Graded 9.4
The market, at least in Canada, seems to be softening. A year ago, you had to pre-order everything or else it would be sold out. This year, I'm seeing lots of stuff still available. My local Wal-Mart is perpetually empty, though.
Classic baseball cards: The golden years, 1886-1956
The photography on SC is great. A&G and GQ are too similar to me and I can't stand the A&G inserts.
You're right about the absurdity of basketball and I too buy the (ungraded) cards I want now on EBAY.
That cards fluctuate with players' immediate performances just shows a) how imbecilic many collectors are these days, and b) how trading cards have become commoditized as a new asset class.
That's interesting. "Nearly" $2B over 24 years sounds an awful lot like $80 M a year AAV. Assuming there's some adjustment for inflation then it probably starts at (say) $50 M and finishes at $120. That AAV can't be 10 times bigger than any previous deal, can it? I'm guess Clark means that the biggest deal they've previously signed was around $200 M total, as in they've never been able to get more than a 5, maybe 10-year deal on anything before.
Regardless, the number 10 is a big number however Clark means it. Now I wonder is this enough money to provide a disincentive for a union work stoppage?
We can have Bally but we can’t have Topps
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