I've been collecting sports cards since I was six years old. I still collect and I always will.
But as the years have passed and many collecting options have appeared, I've learned what I enjoy and what I just don't care about.
I like:
- Cards with hard-signed autographs
- The person actually held the card and signed it
- Autographed baseballs
- I love the feel of an official MLB ball with an auto on it
- Collecting an old set
- I always loved the 1956 Topps Baseball design and now I'm putting it together
- Non-sport/celebrity autographs
- Actors, actresses, and celebrities from shows and events I've enjoyed... and of course, as noted above, hard-signed.
- Team collecting
- Go Habs Go!
- Player collecting
- Choose a player and go all-in... although it's easier when they're not a superstar.
I dislike:
- Cards with sticker autographs
- I have yet to see a sticker autograph on a card that looks nice.
- Group breaks
- When a box is opened, I want all the cards for myself... and group breaks have increased the availability of rare cards therefore decreasing their value. They cause a glut of cards to just be dropped into the market place.
- Tape on top-loaders
- Put the top-loaders in a team bag if you're shipping cards! Stop ruining top-loaders!
- Cards with signed fabric
- Sooner or later the ink will bleed into the fabric
- Most cut-autograph cards
- It's possible to collect some impressive autographs thru cut-autographs products but so often the design is lacking.
These are the first things which come to mind.
How about you?
4 comments:
I like group breaks, but really only when they are case breaks. This way, there's a much bigger guarantee that I will at least leave with something.
ITG does decent sticker autos, but no one else has found a way to make them really work.
The thing I hate more than anything, though is one-colored patches. The whole idea with a patch card is to show multiple colors, but when there's just one color, it might as well be a solid jersey piece.
Matt is right. In The Game does sticker autos the right way. 9 times out of 10, you can't really even tell without really getting in there. Dr. Brian Price has made sure ITG designs are top notch and will always up to snuff with collectors.
I too, hate tape on toploaders or any holder for that matter. Specifically, scotch tape/packaging tape...anything of the clear/transparent plastic-cello hybrid type. Masking tape or Painters tape...I can deal with...especially painters tape.
My biggest annoyance is the "Franken-card". Anything with a player in one team jersey, while the card specifies a different team. My all time favorite is when one of these gets the trifecta treatment. I have 3 Bill Guerin cards in my PC that show just this phenomenon. He is in a Sharks jersey, the card says the team is the Islanders, and there are jersey swatches from his Dallas Stars jersey. Imagine orange and blue card designs with a Sharks blue jersey contrasted by green and gold swatches.
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I'm in the minority, but my biggest question is why does every product have to be rookie-centric? Why do the leagues and PA's prohibit making sets of current stars and retired players? I get the expense, but why do they not even allow it?
I'm also with t about the franken-jersey thing. Get the right pictures on the card.
And what goes along with that are the increasingly vague write-ups on the back about what the swatch actually is. Topps is now so non-committal that you're not even sure if the piece is from the guy pictured on the card. "Event-worn" pieces are a complete waste at this point.
The other practice that I've seen a few times is where they'll put a parallel or some other nice variation in one series of a product, and then switch it out for series 2 or beyond. First happened in 2009 Topps baseball. The BlackMarts came in whole blasters for series one, but then they were 1-per-pack or less for series 2 and update. Thanks for wasting my time, Topps.
I could go on but most of my pet peeves are more baseball oriented....
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