The State of Topps?

[Jayworld]

On my recent post about Donruss 2014 cards, I was expressing in a way how great it is to have a modern product that is NOT Topps. From my understanding (and please help me here, as I've been "out" of modern day collecting on a consistent basis since the late 1980s), baseball card manufacturers are limited now in the various products that they can make available to the public, yet Topps, especially since it became the sole licensed MLB maker of cards about 3 years ago, has produced a GLUT of product each year:

1. "Regular" Topps baseball card series
2. Topps Heritage
3. Topps Archive
4. Topps Opening Day
5. Topps Gypsy Queen
6. Topps Museum
7. Topps Pro Debut
8. Topps MLB Chipz
9. Topps Stadium Club
10. Topps Top Tier
11. Topps Triple Thread
12. Topps Turkey Red
13. Topps Tribute
14. Topps Heritage Minor League
15. Bowman
16. Bowman Chrome
17. Topps Chrome
18. Topps Allen & Ginter

I'm sure I'm leaving out some, but my goodness, almost 20 or over 20 products a year? Good grief (to quote the great Charlie Brown), that seems to be even more of an overproduction than that overproduced glut of the 1990s. Is there truly enough variety of modern collectors (as I understand several of these products are geared towards the specialty markets) to support all these products? This is one reason I am attracted to Panini and their Donruss 2014 Product and their Cooperstown product…. Thoughts?

[steve B]

Production is nowhere near what it was in the early-mid 90's.

Maybe more sets from Topps, but they're not overproduced, and a few of them are very niche products.

I haven't looked at the Donruss stuff this year, but from the photos that are online with the reviews it's just rehashing the 80's designs just like archives and heritage. (I seldom buy those but they are popular)

Panini wasn't that far behind last year, they had nine sets just in baseball. And about that many for basketball football and hockey too.
And somehow they've got Beckett the company pushing "unlicensed stuff is fake and worthless" to give them a glowing review with only a MLBPA license. That's less than wild card had with the NFL when a licensing dispute put them out of Beckett and out of business.

I've bought a few packs, and somehow their stuff just does nothing for me. The inserts are nice, but the rest just seem cheap.

And I don't like that they avidly promote the jersey/bat/whatever cards here but don't make them for any of their other worldwide markets.

I was a fan of a lot of Donruss products, but just can't get excited about them as a Panini brand

Steve B

[ALR-bishop]

Up until 1994 I collected anything listed for Topps in SCD. After 1994, when the great proliferation started, I bought only the regular set and any update, just to keep the run going. But while all my sets to 94 are in binders, the 94-2013 sets are still in factory boxes. Starting in 2001 I started the run of Topps Heritage sets, and have then all in binders with any updates. I do like the Heritage sets

[Rich Klein]

Originally Posted by steve B

Production is nowhere near what it was in the early-mid 90's.

Maybe more sets from Topps, but they're not overproduced, and a few of them are very niche products.

I haven't looked at the Donruss stuff this year, but from the photos that are online with the reviews it's just rehashing the 80's designs just like archives and heritage. (I seldom buy those but they are popular)

Panini wasn't that far behind last year, they had nine sets just in baseball. And about that many for basketball football and hockey too.
And somehow they've got Beckett the company pushing "unlicensed stuff is fake and worthless" to give them a glowing review with only a MLBPA license. That's less than wild card had with the NFL when a licensing dispute put them out of Beckett and out of business.

I've bought a few packs, and somehow their stuff just does nothing for me. The inserts are nice, but the rest just seem cheap.

And I don't like that they avidly promote the jersey/bat/whatever cards here but don't make them for any of their other worldwide markets.

I was a fan of a lot of Donruss products, but just can't get excited about them as a Panini brand

Steve B

Seve -- Wild Card is still listed in the Beckett on-line price guide. I searched for 1991 wild card Favre and found this link.

http://www.beckett.com/search/?term=...1&tmm=extended

There were many reasons Wild Card lost their license but all their 91-93 cards are still listed in the On-Line Price Guide. And if Wild Card is no longer in a print Beckett publication, I would wager that is because the product is too thinly traded and/or almost no one cares. Remember there was a proliferation of over produced issues at that time. I was there at Beckett for the Wild Card problems -- and let me tell you, I'd rather we'd have pulled those cards in 1993 from our listings and just left them in our annual guides then.

And as for the MLBPA deisgnation. Since Panini does have that, you can't really say the cards are not licensed. They are not licensed by MLB but the MLBPA designation counts for quite a bit, especially if there are signed cards in the product. Thus why shouldn't Beckett price and review those cards.

When Beckett says unlicensed that refers more towards the Broder type issues of the 1980's or other issues with NO proper licensing.

Beckett may do (and have done) plenty of things wrong over the years but these two cases are not them. Both of these issues you bring up were done correctly by Beckett.

Regards
Rich

[steve B]

Originally Posted by Rich Klein

Seve -- Wild Card is still listed in the Beckett on-line price guide. I searched for 1991 wild card Favre and found this link.

http://www.beckett.com/search/?term=...1&tmm=extended

There were many reasons Wild Card lost their license but all their 91-93 cards are still listed in the On-Line Price Guide. And if Wild Card is no longer in a print Beckett publication, I would wager that is because the product is too thinly traded and/or almost no one cares. Remember there was a proliferation of over produced issues at that time. I was there at Beckett for the Wild Card problems -- and let me tell you, I'd rather we'd have pulled those cards in 1993 from our listings and just left them in our annual guides then.

And as for the MLBPA deisgnation. Since Panini does have that, you can't really say the cards are not licensed. They are not licensed by MLB but the MLBPA designation counts for quite a bit, especially if there are signed cards in the product. Thus why shouldn't Beckett price and review those cards.

When Beckett says unlicensed that refers more towards the Broder type issues of the 1980's or other issues with NO proper licensing.

Beckett may do (and have done) plenty of things wrong over the years but these two cases are not them. Both of these issues you bring up were done correctly by Beckett.

Regards
Rich

Interesting that they're in the online guide. I haven't seen the online stuff at all.
They had a deal where if you signed up for the website you got a free month of online price guide. I joined, looked at the web site for a couple months, emailed a couple times about the free month trial, --Nothing. Not even a response saying I'd missed a code or something and it had expired.

If I remember correctly it was the superchrome rookies that caused the whole licensing issue for Wild Card? And that the set was licensed in a way but the dispute was that they were limited to a certain number of sets and superchrome rookies was in a gray area. WC thought it was ok because since it included High series cards it was an extension of that set. NFL considered it new because of how it was marketed. (And was probably right)

I thought that set had been dropped, while the others which were ok remained. I'd have to check the old issues I have around.
You probably recall it better having been there, so I'll consider myself corrected.

I totally understand them being dropped currently. With all the new stuff there's limited space and a thinly traded set that's from more than a decade ago really doesn't rate the space.


We'll have to disagree about the broders. But that's a topic for another thread.

Steve B

[Jayworld]

Steve:
You do bring up good points, especially concerning your statement that current cards are not overproduced in the same numbers like the 1990s. I do agree with that whole-heartedly.

I guess my "complaint" is that there still is TOO many products out there, and yes, I do realize that some of it is a very specialized market.

I was speaking with the local card shop owner recently, and he has friends and good ties with Panini, and he stated that as of now, Panini has no interest in pursuing a MLB license and are fine with just the MLBPA license. Shame, as I'd like to see some real competition to Topps. I thought the Fleer sets of 1983, 1984 and the Donruss sets of 1983-84-85 to be so much better than the Topps designs of those same years, and I thought competition was wonderful (of course, prior to the mass produced years, and now the glut of product and autograph/uniform Pulls era)

Topps seems to have a pretty loyal following still with their "base" cards (I think the designs are too similar in the past 3-4 years and thus boring), and especially the Heritage sets. I actually have purchased a few packs of the Archives sets of the past two years, mostly because:
1. They depict older players and those players I grew up with in the 1970s and early 1980s
2. The card designs are from eras that I actually collected modern baseball cards, so I can wax nostalgic with them

Since there are some "loose" regulations out there, such as Rookie designated cards now, as well as how many different products a company can produce (really I see no difference in this), I would love to see something like:

– Each company can produce only four sets: base (affordable), mid-tier, and high end, as well as a "wild card" set (think Topps Heritage)
– Prices would be more relevant to attract younger kids to our hobby. My goodness, outside of the Topps Opening Day at 99 cents, packs are generally $2.99 and up for 6-8 cards. That's expensive, even for set builders, in my book

[Rich Klein]

Jay -- I love this conversation, this will make for one/two really cool Rich's Ramblings on the Sports Collectors Daily * a valued Net 54 advertiser* site. Of course, my editor wants to me wait a while as he has plenty of my ramblings in the hopper. But I love the wild card memories and will opine on your comments as well.

Rich

[JBird]

Originally Posted by Jayworld

1. "Regular" Topps baseball card series
2. Topps Heritage
3. Topps Archive
4. Topps Opening Day
5. Topps Gypsy Queen
6. Topps Museum
7. Topps Pro Debut
8. Topps MLB Chipz
9. Topps Stadium Club
10. Topps Top Tier
11. Topps Triple Thread
12. Topps Turkey Red
13. Topps Tribute
14. Topps Heritage Minor League
15. Bowman
16. Bowman Chrome
17. Topps Chrome
18. Topps Allen & Ginter

You forgot
19.Topps mini
20.Topps stickers
21.Topps cubes
22.Topps Finest
23.Bowman sterling
24.Bowman inception
25.Bowman Platinum
26.BowmanBowman Draft Picks and Prospects
27. Topps Five Star
Hmm what else. There also in the past 3 years been
Topps lineage
Topps marquee



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[Jayworld]

Originally Posted by JBird

You forgot
19.Topps mini
20.Topps stickers
21.Topps cubes
22.Topps Finest
23.Bowman sterling
24.Bowman inception
25.Bowman Platinum
26.BowmanBowman Draft Picks and Prospects
27. Topps Five Star
Hmm what else. There also in the past 3 years been
Topps lineage
Topps marquee



Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

Goodnight, Jesse! Thanks for updating the list. That's WAY too much product. Will post scans of the new Donruss cards in my other post tonight (have been asked to do so).

[steve B]

Originally Posted by JBird

You forgot
19.Topps mini
20.Topps stickers
21.Topps cubes
22.Topps Finest
23.Bowman sterling
24.Bowman inception
25.Bowman Platinum
26.BowmanBowman Draft Picks and Prospects
27. Topps Five Star
Hmm what else. There also in the past 3 years been
Topps lineage
Topps marquee



Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk

And we all forgot the team sets. Not sure If they should count as one set or several.

And the redemption sets you get for saving points or whatever from the code cards in the regular set. Are they inserts or a different set?

I do have a hard time expanding the list by including every one-off from the last few years. Lineage was a one time only. Qubi and chipz probably are too.

So I checked online for sets in general. The list at cardboard connection seems inclusive enough for 2013

Topps
------------------------ 30! more than I'd thought. 26 if you leave out the non-card and non-us issues.
Bowman
Bowman chrome
Bowman chrome mini
Bowman draft picks
Bowman inception
Bowman platinum
Bowman sterling
A+G
Archives
Big leagues minis - figures
Chrome
Finest
five star
Gypsy Queen
Heritage
heritage minors
Mini
Chipz
stickers
Museum
opening day
Pro debut
Qubi - rubber stamps
Topps
Supreme - Asia only
Tribute
Tribute WBC
triple threads
Turkey red

Team sets - Not listed, but I'd count them as a different set.

Panini
------------ 12
Americas pastime
Cooperstown
Elite extra edition
Golden age
Hometown heroes
Prizm
Prizm perennial draft picks
Usa baseball box set
Usa baseball champions
Pinnacle
Select
Triple play

Unknown or independent.
--------------------------- 15 - Most are buyback repackagings, but it's not clear if they include any cards other than buybacks, leaf seems to.

Leaf best ofbaseball
Leaf cut signature pride of the pinstripes
Leaf Ichiro immortals collection
Leaf Just vault
Leaf Memories
Leaf Metal draft
Leaf Perfect game
Leaf power showcase
Leaf trinity


Onyx authenticated platinum prospects 1
Onyx authenticated platinum prospects 2

Pastime collection enshrined
Pastime collection milestones

Superbox rookies and phenoms
Superbox series 2

So maybe as many as 57 sets.

The big difference is that many of them are actually quite limited. some of the Topps sets are online only and as far as I know sell out almost right away.

My perception is that the overall market for cards is smaller than it was in 1990, and that the high end stuff gets absorbed very quickly.
At the retail level, I suspect that order quantities are down. I mostly buy the bigger packs or blaster boxes, and the insert ratios stated seem inaccurate. Especially for packs bought late in the sell through. The last batch Of GQ I got had one red and two black minis out of 14 packs compared to stated odds of 1:9 and 1:12 That seems typical for later packs, but it's still early. I'd think the odds are based on the expected orders and they use up the inserts on what the actual orders are without changing the odds.

Steve B

[steve B]

Well, talk about a thread for being wrong!

I tried a couple packs of Donruss today.

Actually a nice looking set. The preview made it look more "archives" with a mix of different designs, but it's very consistent. Fronts sort of like 87, but white borders and square frames. Backs like 88. The inserts were also slight changes to older issues, One was like 88, another like the 85 action all-stars.

And to top it off right next to them on the shelf was..............2014 chipz.

I thought for sure those wouldn't be back. Not that I mind, I like them and they've made the set more complicated.

Steve B