Buy Donruss products. It’s that simple.
Lately it seems as if The Hobby is full of nothing but angry, bitter collectors. The sad truth is that the industry has fallen on hard times and companies are doing anything and everything they can to keep collecting alive.
When you fire that angry message on a card forum about Goodwin Champions inserting pieces of the Titanic, remember Topps is just as guilty of such gimmicks. Did you forget the DNA relic of the Bigfoot and a certified autograph of the Invisible Man?
This hobby is meant to be enjoyed. No one is forcing you to buy Upper Deck or Topps products, right? If you are really that miserable it’s better for your health and the rest of the collecting community to just walk away. No hobby should upset you that much.
If you are constantly complaining about non-sports figures in your baseball product I would recommend Donruss’ 2008 baseball line-up. It was truly the only gimmick-free brand you could find and while they were not perfect by any means, they kept it simple and for many that worked extremely well.
Time to post my angry rant on Beckett...
Can I get an amen!
bingo. i use to talk on the beckett message boards all the time, but then i got into blogging and barely ever talk on message boards anymore. people just look for things to hate because they have nothing else better to say.
lol i like those types of gimmicks! They are fun and different.
Could not agree more. It’s one thing to express opinion, but a whole different thing to hate/bash/criticize other people/products for the sake of hating.
There is enough variety out there to find something you like. Allen & Ginter has gimmicks. Don’t like it? That’s fine – don’t buy a hobby box. Go retail, blasters, or just the occasional pack. Same with Goodwin, or whatever. Want baseball only? Like Mario said, turn to Donruss, or *gasp” Topps or Upper Deck flagship sets, or Goudey, or First Edition (ok, maybe I’m the only one picking up $1 packs!)
Its funny how you bash Donruss for labels but then just come out and say they are the only true baseball brand not falling into the gimmick trend.
donruss will someday put one of the big boys out of business.
Bashing can be fun if it’s light-hearted and not too serious. After all, as baseball fans, who hasn’t bashed a player on their favourite team for blowing a save or stranding runners on base? Personally, I wouldn’t touch like 80% of the products mentioned on this blog; but, there are enough products out there that you don’t need to buy a box if it specifically has stuff you absolutely don’t want.
Hoiles, I like to cover all the bases of releases… as everyone collects something different.
The negativity I speak of is coming from Upper Deck’s Facebook page and many different message boards.
Oh, I definitely appreciate the job you and other bloggers do in reviewing everything so I know what 20% to spend money on (so I don’t become one of these unfortunate bashers)
Mario
You seem to be defending Upper Deck an awful lot these days. Allen and Ginter, one would certainly expect by now, is perceived to have odd cards in it so there is no surprise when you pull a non sport auto or the invisible man auto. Personally I have no trouble with it, but the accidently on purpose gimmicks are stupid. Topps and UD are both guilty.
With that said, the UD Buysner card was a cheap shot, Razor is potentially an Upper Deck shill and the Michael Jackson cards are just classless. They are trying to make moneyoff, some would say exploit, the man’s death. The titanic cards are fine with me, just a piece of history.
I wouldn’t say that I am bitter toward UD, Topps, or Donruss (Tristar and Razor don’t enter the conversation for me), but it does tick me off when I get gimmick like the astrik card instead of my Boof Bonser sweet spot auto.
It’s not just Ginter that has crazy cards, though.
2008 Topps had a fake player.
2007 Topps had Bush/Mantle/Jeter
Upper Deck also has tons of gimmicks but it’s part of The Hobby. People were up in arms over the Presidential Predictor cards in 2008 Upper Deck but Topps also had presidential candidate cards. Both companies do these things and that’s what this post was about.
Only Donruss stears clear of gimmicks.
BTW, there is no bias here. Both UD & Topps get fair coverage when I feel they have done something wrong.
http://completist.wordpress.com/2009/06/24/upper-deck-icons-a-tough-sell/
I guess I’m guilty since I’ve had a comment deleted from Upper Deck’s wall. My main beef with Upper Deck is that it seems like they ignore the average collector. They fluff off their lower priced sets to get stuff like Black and Ultimate out there. I asked them why the change to O-Pee-Chee wasn’t mentioned on Facebook when they could have saved a lot of grief and they danced around that answer. I’m still waiting for the 40 cards that I was shorted from my 2009 Series 1 Baseball box after sending multiple e-mails and exchanging e-mails with someone from Upper Deck. It gets frustrating because this is just a hobby and it is supposed to be fun, but getting cards with roller marks and rounded corners right out of the pack isn’t fun. Packs are too expensive these days for shoddy quality control and there are too many hoops to jump through and too long of a wait when there are damaged cards.
The reason gimmicks are upsetting, is I feel like it is a waste of money for 1 the card companies to design (things such as ginter autographs of non existant things) and 2 a waste of my money. I buy a product hoping to get players of the sport the product is from. I don’t really see why it is hard to do that. Billy the Marlin autograph, I mean…really? Some 18 year old intern who wears a costume is now a baseball player? Waste of money to design and produce that card, waste of my money to get that card compared to any baseball player.
I don’t rant because it won’t change anything, and I still love the hobby. But as much as I love it, I don’t like getting ripped off by gimmicks and it seems to happen more and more in a wider range of produts.
I completely disagree with the walk away from the hobby sentiment because you are unhappy about a product. Collectors are the consumer, they have a right to voice their opinion and try and get companies to improve products.
Fair enough, beaverman. I don’t think there is anything wrong with expressing your feelings over a product. I have been doing so since the first days of Wax Heaven.
What bothers me is how one company gets bashed for doing what has been everyday business for the past few years.
I agree with beaverman3001 – If I buy a baseball pack, I want baseball players… if I buy a football pack, then I want football players. I don’t want made up players, photoshop efforts, or some other pieces. And this is why I don’t buy new packs that often – I don’t like the gimmicks.
Backing Donruss? Don’t let the fatman read that, he might choke on his chili dog.
I see your point Mario, don’t bash 1 company, but bash them equally and fairly if someones agenda is to stop gimmicks. However, not everyone buys from all the card companies, some people prefer certain companies over another so to expect a average consumer to have the product knowledge to be able to make a judgment on all releases I think it a little short sighted.
Most collectors are casual, and buy MAYBE 1 box a month, if that. So to expect them to equally bash topps and upper deck is expecting too much, in my opinion. They won’t see all the gimmicks and such to compare. Some collectors also buy strictly high end and also won’t see the gimmicks as high end products seem to be immune to the stupidity that is non athlete hits.
This alone has shifted me towards making my purchases into high end only products, or very specific products such as sweet spot classics where you know you aren’t going to get screwed by gimmicks, sans a terrible celebrity cut.
good thoughts mario. That asterisk card has to be the dumbest thing ever, the only reason its not a complete kick in the nuts is that you can get an okay chunk of change back.
The gimmicks don’t bother me a single bit. The asterisk, the bigfoot card, billy the marlin, poley walnuts, none of these bother me a single bit. Hell, make a product with nothing but these cards and melvin mora autos! Why? Because I don’t buy boxes anymore. I will never pull this stuff because I’m not going to spend my cash on something that gives even a remote chance of getting one of these things. And for all of the people whining about the gimmicks, would it really kill you to read the checklist before you buy a box or is doing a little research about something just too crazy of an idea?
I think that what the card manufacturers are forgetting is that their new releases are not only competing against each other, but that they are also competing against every possible other way a collector could spend their money in the hobby.
For people who like to rip stuff, there is tons of cheap wax from the last 25+ years out there, often from products that are much better looking than the stuff coming out today.
For set collectors and player collectors, there are tons of sets and/or individual cards.
Or to put it another way…
Dollars spent this year on 2009 wax: $0
Dollars spent this year on other cards & boxes: $1000-$2000
Most collectors have a lot of different ways of spending their hobby budget, something that manufacturers would do well to remember….
Mario mad props for this article AMEN AMEN AMEN
Rminus you have a way of making me laugh. Another thinly veiled shot across the battleships bow. I want a wafer thin slice of Nathans hotdog in my Kobayashi card next year.
I agree it’s just a Hobby!
Remember this collecting thing brings us all back to our youth,right? No company has a gun to your head telling you hey buy this product or else! Do your reseach find a pack/box/etc you like and than open it.It’s that simple….
I agree with much mentioned here.
I usually tend to avoid forums because of the negativity associated with them. I tend to view this hobby as a positive experience and a way to network and meet people and learn about the hobby. I am not out to find the ultimate hit and make a quick buck.
I think a lot of the negativity has to do with the extremely high priced hobby boxes that have increasingly difficult odds of pulling a nice “hit” card. The more you spend, you tend to expect something good eventually, much like if you continually pump bucks into a video poker machine, you will get increasingly aggitated if you end up not hitting the big one.
As for the strange cards, I view A&G as a fun escape from the regular player builder sets. Just a fun little experience to pass some time before the 2010 cards start to hit the market. This set is supposed to be fun.