Friday, May 27, 2016

Five things I hate about this hobby.

As you probably know by now, I don't really like to talk about things that I dislike. Card collecting is an escape away from the pain of "real life", I am in pain 24/7 but cards make me happy...usually. There are some things I dislike about the hobby immensely, sometimes even venturing into the realm of true hatred...some are just merely annoying, but are on the list anyway. I could have gone over 5 but chose not to.

What I hate the most is the hardest to show with a picture. Of course, the lack of a picture is perfectly apt because what I hate the most is small sets. I'm not saying every set should be huge, and include everyone...but there should be at least one set a year that includes every player in the NBA. There are at the very least 450 players in the NBA at any given time. Panini usually refuses to give us a set with any more than 300, they issued a set in 2015-16 and laughably called it "Complete" even though it only had 330 cards. NO. That is NOT complete. A complete set would have had 450 cards!

I call out Panini because they currently have the exclusive license but Topps and Upper Deck did the same thing. UD was the last to truly do it right, and that was back in 2002-03.
Press Pass was the same with NASCAR. They had the exclusive license from 2001-2014, yet for almost all of those years they couldn't figure out that in a card set for NASCAR, you should show cars. That concept was one they just couldn't figure out most of the time. When they started the exclusive license, they limited most sets to 50 cards, but when they eventually went higher, the sets weren't any better, because instead of giving us actual action photos, we got endless subsets that were mostly all the same, but occasionally were different...but still not good. One set that sticks out as very poor was a set on drivers' "star signs". Yes, really. While I miss getting new NASCAR cards I don't really miss Press Pass. In all those years of exclusivity for Press Pass, the only time they ever actually got it right was 2011, when they issued a 200 card set that actually had cards for each driver's car that they included. (they ignored some drivers totally, mostly in the Busch and Truck series)

#2 is Mirror Foils. I've talked about how little I like them in the past...but since I got my new scanner going two weeks ago today (as I write this) I've worked on them almost exclusively and I loathe them even more now. They've managed to suck the fun out of one of the very few things that I get any enjoyment out of at all. I am always scanning and I normally scan about 150 cards a day...both front and back. Since I began working on the mirror foils my output has fallen to about 35 cards a day, fronts only. It's taken so much fun out of it that I'm spending time writing posts like this instead of working on scanning/editing or even posting to the Database!
I know that cards are not designed to be scanned, they are designed to be held in hand and enjoyed that way...but I've generally never cared for mirror foils even back when I had no idea what a scanner was, IE, the 1990s. They show fingerprints much easier, if you happen to be looking through cards with the window open and the sun hits them they hurt your eyes, etc.
This is one of the easier mirror foils to scan, 2004-05 SPx
Terrible!

That's not even the worst. This is some college set. I can't be bothered to keep track of college sets so I couldn't tell you which one.
OK, so when I uploaded the scan I can see it's Collectors Edge Impulse 1998. But which parallel is this? I have no idea. I don't even really care all that much. I despise the NCAA more than anything on this list, because they treat their players as if they were slaves. (I have a theory on why they treat basketball worse than other sports that's related, as well) That's a whole other topic but you will notice I almost never show any college cards on here...and probably never will, at least until the NCAA is overthrown/massively restructured to where they don't force players to go hungry, or even use their own name.

I don't have a problem with mirror foil used for a player's name, team name or card brand, but when the entire card is mirror foil, then I have the issue.  This issue is probably not as much of a problem for people who aren't scanners/bloggers. I certainly didn't start to hate these cards until I began scanning my entire collection, in 2009.

#3 is people who don't take care of their cards. Now, I've had a few get damaged on my watch, including some earlier this week when my high-powered fan blew them off my table and they landed on the edge, getting damaged. But that was an accident. This...how do you not care so much that this happens?!?
I know the picture isn't great but I did it with my cell phone. The Thomas card is bent clear in half, by the way. 
Sadly, these are neither duplicates nor the worst condition cards in my collection. I have an Ernie Irvan card from 1995 Upper Deck that I'm pretty sure was run over repeatedly in the street- has holes in it, even. But it's the best copy I have so it's part of my collection. Another thing that irks me is when you get cards in trade and they have greasy fingerprints all over them. I've had it happen more than once. Please, people, don't handle cards until you've washed your hands after eating potato chips or the like!

#4 is people thinking cards are meant only for kids. Um, no. Cards were meant and originally marketed towards adults, the idea of marketing them to kids dates to just before World War II, when most adults were busy fighting for the future of the world. Trading cards as a concept date to the 1870s and for the first 40 years of the hobby were almost solely sold as a premium in cigarettes.
The majority of cards, throughout the history of the hobby, have been purchased by adults. The market is finally starting to realize that adult collectors are what keeps it alive, but they've gone too far the other way, with Panini producing a $6000 pack of cards in 2015. The so-called super premium sets could very, very easily have made the list.
I did start in the hobby when I was 4 years old, and I've never left, but I didn't truly appreciate it until much later, after I hit my 20s. This is something I will be doing for the rest of my life, no matter how long that is. (it almost ended already at least once). If I live to be 100, I will still be collecting cards, so perhaps what I should be calling for is people to appreciate it as a lifelong thing, not something that should only be done while young. Even when I was young, I hated to be spoken down to, which is something that is done in the hobby from time to time.
As a kid, I certainly wouldn't have been able to appreciate a card like this-
although I have always loved error cards, which this is. Note the foil location on card.

Going hand-in-hand with this is people who refer to the hobby as a 1990s fad, or who call any cards junk, IE, the term "junk wax". One, the hobby is in it's 14th decade, it's not a fad. It predates the automobile, airplanes and competent medical care. Not a fad. My least favorite hobby term is used by people to whine about the period of time circa 1988-95. This was the glory days of the hobby, the time period when it reached it's most prosperous, most wide-spread; The people who use this term are usually not true collectors but just in it for the money, when they can't sell their cards they whine about it because everyone has them already; yes, there was a lot of cards produced in that time, but they were produced because there was a demand for them, it was truly the best time in the hobby...cards were everywhere. Anyone who truly loves the hobby should be wishing for a return to cards being everywhere, not something that only a select few have access to. This is the only time you will ever see the term "junk wax" on Cardboard History...literally, ever. Unless, of course, I am insulting somebody who uses the term...THAT is a possibility!

#5, I don't really hate #5. I am...vexed...by #5. It's more of an annoyance than hatred, but an annoyance it is.
That is cards with purposely rounded corners. I'm not talking about vintage cards that have had a hard life, and the corners that were once there are gone- I'm talking about rounded on purpose for no good reason. Take this card that I just scanned tonight-
I have not finished cropping it yet but you can see the rounded corners. Now here comes the problem...
Now that it's been properly cropped you can barely tell that the corners are rounded. This is solely a problem for people who scan their cards; for single use collectors they probably don't even know this problem exists, but for those of us who go beyond just collecting- IE, scanners, bloggers- it can be something that's annoying.
This is from a 48 card set, so doing front and back, there are 384 corners in the set. I'll be lucky if I get 10 of them to show properly in a scan. In the end, I do the best I can, but I know it won't really be perfect. Nothing ever is, really.
This set DOES have a reason for rounded corners, but not all do. This set, made using lenticular plastic on the front, would be very sharp with pointed corners...sharp enough to cut yourself on.



I know it's somewhat...irrelevant to real life, but I rarely rant so please allow my flights of wording here.

Now get off my lawn!

20 comments:

  1. This is without a doubt, your very BEST blog ever! You hardly ever complain in real life and this post made me crack up. It is rare when a post makes me laugh out loud, but this one did!

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    1. I glad I was able to make you laugh. There may be a "Five MORE things I hate about the hobby" coming in a month or two...

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    2. Leaving out words might make the list

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  2. I will use the term "junk wax" from time to time as a descriptor of the era of cards. That said, I suppose it's more accurate to say it was the "overproduction era" and not "junk wax."

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    1. Yeah...although for "overproduction" I still have wantlists for most sets of the era...

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  3. I have to whole heartily agree with #1. This is why I'm kind of in favor of multi-series sets like Topps baseball and when they use to do it with Basketball. Since the checklists are made well before the set goes to print you need multiple series spread out through out the season to allow for call ups and trades. I mean this was why Topps started putting out a traded set at the end of the season! For as great as Panini's customer service and outreach is sometimes they really don't get it.

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  4. #3 can be hard when you have a little ball of terror lurking at your feet. Luckily my daughter has only got her hands on a couple of cards.

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    1. I have the same problem with my 2 year old son.

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    2. I have no female companionship, or prospects for that matter, let alone a kid, so that's not something I have to deal with

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  5. I'm definitely guilty of using the term junk wax on my blog, and I'm sorry if I've bugged you with it. I remember when I first returned to the hobby in 2012, I was a little offended to discover the term, especially seeing as the vast majority of my childhood collection would fit as "junk" under the definition. But now, like Tony L. said, it's more of a short way of saying cards from the late 80s and early 90s. "Overproduction Era" is a gentler way to say it, but is a little more wordy.

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    1. I first heard it around the same time (I never left the hobby)...my first thought when I read it was the person who said it was high or something. A blogger being wordy...who'd a thunk it? ;)

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  6. I agree with some of these. #2 the all foils UGH that leads the most to #3. As I get older and the eye-sight goes the foil gets more and more annoying. At least with tiny print you can grab a magnifying glass (even a smudged dirty one) and kind of read the tiny print. But foil print you have to twist and turn the card and catch the light just right to read the damn player name.

    #4? The "Silly Topps cards are for kIds" thing I am in partial agreement. Like you I have NEVER liked being talked down to. I hate that it seems now-days the government does that too us, they lie at every turn, but that is a different discussion for a different place. OK yeah the card makers are now wise to the fact that the adults buy the cards and are a huge part of the collecting market, but we are not made of money. Sure inflation over the last 50-60 years has made everything expensive, but when a box of cards is $100+ and has only 1 pack of 5 cards or less. Something is terribly wrong with the industry.

    Which brings me to the "investors" vs. "collectors". It seems that right now we are in a period where the investors are the majority. They are the people who are only in the collecting for the money, which they really shouldn't be unless they have Oh the Mickey Mantle, Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Walter Payton RCs. Then there are the collectors (which a majority of bloggers are) who are in it "for the love of the game" er "love of the hobby".

    Oh and I too have been guilty of using the term "Junk Wax" I primarily use it as Tony and Gavin (defgav) have said to describe the Overproduction years. Again a time when the investors ruled the hobby. Well that and the fact that there were at least a dozen card makers each making a dozen or so sets (much like to day with about 4 or 5 major makers making 2 or 3 dozen sets each year) in numbers in the millions, where as in earlier days they were maybe in the 100s of thousands if that much. That coupled with the investors who looked back at the cards from the 50s and 60s when they were kids or their parents were kids and thought, Wow let me buy a couple dozen to a hundred of this rookie card of this hot new star Joe Schmo from Hannibal, MO and in 20 to 30 years it will be worth a few hundred. UM NO that DIDN'T happen. Sorry folks, cause the card companies overproduced Mr. Schmo's RC and now you are stuck with 89 of his cards that are barely worth 5 cents total. Now the card companies are committing the sin of makings thousands or at least hundreds of parallels of the base cards in their dozens of sets and making dozens of insert mini-sets and parallels of the inserts. I think my thoughts are crisscrossing and derailing so I'll stop now.

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    1. Oh don't get me started on "investors"! They are the enemy of true collectors in every hobby. Pretty much every problem in every hobby is caused by so-called investors. I've been pretty much blind for years but the minor use of foil as an addition to a card I don't mind at all.

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  7. One thing that irks me is the number of parallel sets now.

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    1. That doesn't really bother me...I love parallels. I actually like getting parallels more than inserts. They may have gone overboard some lately (one NBA set of 2014-15 had 37 parallels!) but I do think a lot of the parallels that are very similar could be done away with. What I don't like is when a single parallel has multiple SN in the same set. Like some cards are numbered to 50, some to 25, some to 199, etc. Panini does this all the time.

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  8. On point #1; I remember reading in a Beckett from the 90s that manufacturers are only allowed to put a player on 5 cards in a master set by the NBA. Except if the player is a spokesperson like MJ to UD. So Fleer could not put Jordan or Iverson in every insert set they got. None of us knows what is in the contract between Panini and the NBA and the Players Association. The cost of releasing a truly complete set might outweigh return, because of the state of the hobby these days.

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    1. That hasn't been the case in a long time if it ever was...I think Beckett may have made that up. I remember reading it as well now that you mention it but they have been exceeding 5 for a person since at least 1994-95 on a regular basis.

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  9. Number 3 is sooooooooooooo me. I hate when people don't take care of their cards. It makes me cringe to see just a corner with just a tiny dent. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

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    1. I have been known to add damaged cards to my collection but I usually talk the price down. I love a cheapo card. One of my local shops (no longer does cards) used to shove Upper Deck relics into normal sized toploaders...every week or at least it seemed like it, I would pull the card out, show them how it got a crease in it, and get a dollar or two knocked off the price. And it was usually only 2 or 3 dollars to begin with. It drives me nuts when a card gets damaged on my watch...as I get most of my cards in bulk lots though I have a bunch of damaged cards like shown above.

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