I am posting this because Tamara suggest that I do so in the inkworks piecworks thread. The information on the other end of the link in this post pertains to Razor and Inkworks so it might be of some interest to a few of you. If not fair enough.Razor Rumours and Inkworks info

That's the same link & information you posted last week here.

quote:

Originally posted by Kennywood:
That's the same link & information you posted last week here.

If you read the post I made I actual said that already, I am aware that I posted the link, it was another member who asked me to post the link in it's own thread.

I said very clearly I am posting this because Tamara suggest that I do so in the inkworks piecworks thread

which is the thread you just linked to.... but thank you for linking this link to the link I linked to last. Or something. Like I said some people may be interested some may not be. whatever

Sorry. The lack of punctuation made what you originally said difficult to understand.

This is all my PERSONAL opinion.

<moderator hat off>

I've read through your blog a couple of times. I really can appreciate what you are doing, the information you are gathering and the effort it takes to do it and post it for the public.

That said the post is pretty heavily anti Razor and I just don't really understand why.

You make several points in your blog, and I'm sure I won't hit all of them, but:

You say that Upper Deck and Razor may be connected -- true or not I'm not sure why it matters to me as a non-sport card collector.

You say that "Many dealers will agree that they (Razor) almost single handily killed the secondary market value of most inkworks autographs," but the simple truth of that is that if Inkworks didn't have 70,000 autographs sitting around there wouldn't have been any issues. Additionally many dealers think that Razor has done a good job in distributing these cards in a way that gives the dealers a product to sell, rather than having Razor simply sell directly to collectors for what is likely more profit they created a product that many dealers have done VERY well with. Time will tell what the outcome of this is, but I can't think of a better way to get that many cards into the hands of collectors in a short period of time. The other option would have Razor selling autographs on eBay for YEARS killing the value of these cards for a long time (See Sports Time autographs -- they were sold off directly to dealers who slowly sold them off for several years and destroyed the value of all of these cards, even the rare ones). Clearly it's not a great situation no matter how you cut it, but what is a better option? Personally I think they've done very well with what they have done.

Finally there is the discussion about forged autographs making their way into Razor products. Clearly that is unfortunate, but given the number of autographs they've purchased for these products and the reports and the ridiculously high percentage of autographs in the market that are rumored to be forged I'm not shocked that it happened a small number of times. What I think is important is that Razor stood behind their product.

Again I really appreciate the effort and information, I'm just not sure why it's so anti-Razor.

I mean: I don't care if they are affiliated with UD, they made lemonade from lemons with Ink Vault and Ink Archives, and they fix issues with their cut signatures. I don't see the downside -- sure in a perfect world there never would have been 70,000 autographs to make those products, Inkworks would still be around, and there wouldn't be criminals out there forging autographs -- but we don't live in that world.

Keep up the good work, I do enjoy your blog. . .

Jon

quote:

Originally posted by Kennywood:
Sorry. The lack of punctuation made what you originally said difficult to understand.

LOL Yeah I am not always great with the punctuation I am the first to admit that

Jon:

I can understand what your saying, I guess it may seem anti Razor to some, but I like to think I attempt to be fair to the subject (one of the reasons I talked to Brian before I wrote it).

I guess the connection to Upper Deck would be of interest to some (not all) non-sports guys as well as sports folks for a few reasons,

One of them is simply the contrast between sports and non sports is shifting, we are seeing more and more sports sets containing non sports cards, and the fields are starting to blur together at the edges, and another off the top of my head would be that I guess it adds to a pattern of behaviour, and conduct, which can impact anything they do. I guess I see it as more about the company itself than the subject of the cards.

Now that said for anyone who has NOT read the link, Brian Grey unequivocally states that there is no connection between UD and Razor

Again I will hold my hands up and say I am not a fan of the sets that Razor are releasing, when they use other companies cards at least. Perhaps that coloured the tone, but I try and stay as close to the facts as I can. Razor seems to pop up lot, and when they do it's often not in a positive light.

Your points about inkworks massive backlog of cards are also well made, for whatever reason they did have an (In my opinion) excessive amount of back stock.

And again hands up to Brian, if you can prove its a fake he always stands by it and sorts out the problems, he's also massively approachable. I hope that comes across as well. It wasn't my intention to make it anti Razor as such, more just to lay out the facts and let others conclude what they wished. I just sort of followed the progression of writing as it went on. I will give it another read now with your comments in mind though.

Thanks,
Jason

I felt the blog was anti-Razor as well, and really, there's no need for it to be, what Razor did with the Inkworks autos was a good idea. I think 70,000 of anything is way too much, and I wonder where Inkworks would be today if they had inserted 2 autos per box rather than just one.

I think they would be in the same place they are now, out of business. People didn't stop buying there products because of the lack of inserts as such, I truly believe that they had some very unfortunate calls in relation to the licensing, and products they released, even when packed with good inserts failed. I also think that Razor is due some criticism though it was certainly not meant to be a hate razor post.

quote:

Originally posted by Don Norton:
I wonder where Inkworks would be today if they had inserted 2 autos per box rather than just one.

Interesting point. . . while on many releases I don't think it would have made a difference as they ended up with some licenses that didn't pan out, there are some releases that could have benefited. For example Alan often was quoted as saying he'd make Veronica Mars 3 after VM2 sold out. . . there are a TON of Kristen Bell autographs popping up, perhaps if those were inserted a little more liberally more of that product would sell. The same may be true for the Osbournes after seeing a bunch of Ozzy autos and Jack Variants (redemptions, I know, but it seems like more could have been inserted).

Unfortunately great sets like the Spirit suffered due to things outside of Inkworks control and that probably did more harm than selling more cases of Veronica Mars and Osbournes could have saved.

Jon