quote:

Originally posted by Chuck Bartowski:

quote:

Originally posted by Juelle Lou:

quote:

Originally posted by Chuck Bartowski:
I like that the Anna Torv that I purchased is holding its value for the most part. I like that the rarer cards in the CZE sets hold their value. Heck some of the cards have increased in value since the release of the various sets. That's a rarity in this hobby nowadays...

My question is, why though, what's your opinion on why the Crypto autos hold there value better considering the quality of the cards are nowhere near as good as Rittenhouse, yet...

Well I would say the autographs have been very well done...The Vampire Diaries set especially so I don't think quality is an issue with them.

I think that they have also done a good job of not overproducing any of the sets, and keeping the rare cards actually rare.

So you don't have any problems with your TVD auto card edges? The Guild autos were better, that's for sure so hopefully they are getting better in the way that they pack the cards in the wrappers.

Yes, I do love what they do with the layout designs for their autos that's for sure. Especially love the designs Vampire Diaries set base, chase and autos, I haven't received my case of the Fringe yet(I had pre-ordered and paid for it months in advance of it's release, but because GoT came out sooner I asked for it to be held back because of customs fees) and I haven't really been watching the auctions on the 'bay, so I don't know what they look like. But I do also love the look of the Guild set, and I really love the wrappers

I know I have been very critical of Cryptozoic, and I guess I was expecting them to be Inkworks (my problem, not theirs) I was pretty disappointed in quality control for the TVD set and I guess alot of us were expecting them to be like Rittenhouse in how they go about their auto collation.

But it is good to have another company making cards for us, and like you said they are only still getting on their feet and we just need to give them time I guess to sort out their problems. And letting us know when, where and what promos they are handing out.

As a dealer, to say that I am happy that their business model differs from that of RA would be a vast understatement.

I personally have not had any issues with the cases of CZ products that I have opened thus far and am more than pleased that the sets/cards tend to retain if not grow in value. Quite the stark contrast to most of RA's products which tend to take a nosedive after the first couple of dealers set the market low.

quote:

Originally posted by igman7:
I personally have not had any issues with the cases of CZ products that I have opened thus far and am more than pleased that the sets/cards tend to retain if not grow in value. Quite the stark contrast to most of RA's products which tend to take a nosedive after the first couple of dealers set the market low.

Do you think that has to do with the case incentives?, as in buying so much to get the 3/6 incentives then selling everything else really cheap, as I have read people say elsewhere.

Sorry to keep going on about it, I'm just very curious as to why the Rittenhouse products don't have or hold the same sort of value that Cryptozoic does so far.

What I'm beginning to think is that Rittnehouse makes too much of a product and I'm thinking Cryptozoic isn't making enough?
I understand that Crypto wants their products to be Rare and collectable, but they are on a fine line between having something relatively Rare(which makes it highly collectable and valuable) and practically nonexistent(like Chuck talks about the Guild's Codex auto) which prices too many people out of the market.

As a retailer too, I have to echo Igman7's point. I think this also points to the 'problem' with the way that our cards are distributed, and the way some companies incentives work. As a retailer, if I buy less than 18 cases of Rittenhouse product, I cant compete. Consequently I've stopped buying Rittenhouse product completely when I used to buy 3-10 cases. It's not the cards, they're great, its just math. (or maths as we say in the UK

The 'problem' with CZE is that the inserts are all in the packs, even the lack of auto's and damaged cards make the pack pulled ones even more valuable. That's a really good thing. If you break a CZE box it'll yield at least the value of the box, as people cant dump the cards as they received an 'archive box' for buying 18 cases, plus other incentives.
If you buy a Rittenhouse case, then at least half the boxes will yield less value than the boxes cost. Some substantially so. Read the case breaks.
So its your choice. The hobby is evolving, and so should the way you buy cards. If the price of a companies product traditionally dips later, then buy the cards later. If a companies product price goes up, then buy it soon. If it's cheaper to jigsaw your set together on eBay, go for it. 90% of the time, you'll save money. Read the box breakdowns and make an informed choice. All the information is out there. I cant believe sometimes that collectors can spend up to $3000 on boxes and then end up disappointed. Can you think of any other hobby where that happens?

The definition of madness is doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result. That goes double for breaking cases and boxes.

Jane don't feel bad about complaining, it's your right and that's what these forums are for. I know how you feel though, I dare criticised Quotable Voyager and people acted like I'd kicked their granny in the head for insulting the sacred cow of card manufacturers. If you don't vent your thoughts card companies will never know how the products are received or if they can make improvements for the future.

Cryptozoic has terrible collation, however they are a new company and still working out the kinks. Though don't expect Cryptos cards to maintain their value much longer as they'll start flooding the market with the main cast signing again which will devalue previous cards. Unfortunately it's a catch 22 which means unless they add some innovations they'll go the way of Rittenhouse.

Juelle Rittenhouse sells so poorly on the secondary market and their cards hold no real value for several reasons.

1) Rittenhouse continually overestimates demand. The demand isn't their to ramp up the prices. Basic economics.

2) Overexposure and milking products. Exactly how many autos of Robert Picardo do we need floating around? How many pathetic guest star signers can you cram into one release after you've already released the decent signers?

3) Case Incentives. Juelle you're right Rittenhouse using them to force dealers to buy more of their product. Unfortunately as the demand is not there even most of their case incentives sell dirt cheap. This business model will probably hurt them in the long run as how many times can dealers take losses?

4) **** licenses. Trek and Bond are virtually milked dry. Spartacus, Brady Bunch, Warehouse 13 are too niche with limited commercial appeal. Stargate is a rotting corpse. I find it weird that Crypto is on the scene five minutes and scores TWD and BBT. Where the hell was Rittenhouse?

5) Premium Packs.

6)Failure to adapt.


Cryptozoic will eventually face the same problems as Rittenhouse. To be honest the card industry really does feel like it's dying.

quote:

Originally posted by Juelle Lou:

quote:

Originally posted by WarriorBabe:
I have been critical of another release whereby the base set (now selling for an average of $50) is too expensive in my view. My view has been critisised. I'd never expect to collect all autos/pw for a set as that would be unrealistic on my budget, but not being able to afford a base set, which to me is a fundamental part of a release, is crazy. Some people seem to think there is nothing wrong with a base set costing $50. I beg to differ!

So I guess those that can pay top dollar or have the rare cards already don't need to worry about prices and think the rest of us are being unreasonable!

Over $50 dollars for a base from a normal box/case release does seem very unreasonable (ie, Inkworks Twilight, I think they are slowly starting to go down in price though finally). I haven't bought any sets though from premium packs yet so I'm not sure what base sets for those go for.

It is a premium pack set, and I guess I need to look at other pp releases to see what the base set's are going for.

But it's still totally unaffordable for me, not to mention a huge disappointment. As I said before, I don't expect to be able to afford all PW/autos, or come to think of it the high-end ones, but to not be able to afford a base set is bad in my view.

As a collector though, I don't want the prices to be high. I don't want to have to spend 1K to finish and auto set. Haven't these high prices for the big names put people off collecting some of these sets altogether?

Collecting cards is meant to be fun. If all you do now is find negative things about it, the enjoyment is no longer there.

I think that RA needs to drop some of it's old licenses and concentrate on what's in right now. They've already got Game of Thrones, which was a good one to get, but should be trying to snap up Once Upon a Time and already looking into Defiance and Revolution.

Crypto needs to work out some of their collation issues and maybe spread out some of their signers a bit. Why get all of the big 5 for TBBT for the first season? Save some for a new set otherwise you're just going to get repeat signers and some people aren't interested in collecting the same actors all over again.

quote:

Originally posted by Cobalt_Blue:
Cryptozoic has terrible collation, however they are a new company and still working out the kinks. Though don't expect Cryptos cards to maintain their value much longer as they'll start flooding the market with the main cast signing again which will devalue previous cards. Unfortunately it's a catch 22 which means unless they add some innovations they'll go the way of Rittenhouse.

This may or may not happen. Sure if they suddenly make main cast members common autos then you may see a drop in the price of those autos, but if they remain rare (and there is no reason to think that they won't), the prices of the autos on the previous releases should not be affected that greatly.

Hi all,

Just to address a few things in no particular order.

1. We were horrified with the job that the printer did on Vampire Diaries. (I've stated this before) We will never use them again.

2. The gating factor for autos from top hot stars is 100% dependent on how many they will do. If we could get more, we would. I can tell you that we are extremely lucky to have the entire main casts from BBT, VD, and Fringe signing at all. WB-TV is extremely supportive of the trading cards and this wouldn't be possible without them.

3. Don't expect us to flood the market with those top cast members in future sets. We couldn't, even if we wanted to - which we don't.

4. Repeat signers from main casts will get a different treatment in future sets whenever possible. (combos, dual sigs, etc.)

5. Collation - with some of the hottest shows we are going to sometimes have a greater range of auto quantities. We try to minimize it the best we can. For something like not getting a base set in a box our customer service person is always happy to help you out.

I understand that it's frustrating that the demand for some of these shows is driving prices up but on the positive side a lot of new collectors are coming back or being exposed to the hobby. I spoke to dozens of lapsed collectors who have come back at SDCC.

Thanks!

Scott

quote:

Originally posted by Juelle Lou:
So you don't have any problems with your TVD auto card edges? The Guild autos were better, that's for sure so hopefully they are getting better in the way that they pack the cards in the wrappers.

I only opened 6 boxes of TVD and I didn't have issues in any of them. I literally pieced the TVD set together card by card (except the base set). I agree that it is an expensive thing to do. I think I ended up at around $1750 total for the autos and costume cards (although I did pick up two versions of M7, two versions of M10, 4 versions of M11, and I have all three color variations of M17). The nice thing is that the value of this set is probably at or more than what I paid for the cards originally. That is a pretty rare thing in this hobby.

quote:

Originally posted by Sidewinder:
As a collector though, I don't want the prices to be high. I don't want to have to spend 1K to finish and auto set. Haven't these high prices for the big names put people off collecting some of these sets altogether?

So, If you get a duplicate of the best auto that you can pull from a pack, you would not like to get a high value when you sell it off for other things you need?

Actually, from being on a sports dominated site, there are quite a few fans who have been drawn in by the Cryptozoic line.

I'm one of the newer members around here. Those that have dealt with me, probably know I've plunked down a good chunk of change on nonsportscards in the last three months. Crypto's Walking Dead and BBT drew me in.

I'm sorry the o.p. doesn't like Crypto's model, but I much prefer it to any others out there. Yes, it is expensive to get a master set, and I agree it's awful opening a case and not getting a certain autograph, etc. I had a similar experience with a case of Walking Dead. BUT Crypto always goes out of their way in regards to such matters, and I'm not sure if you'd ever get a response like I have from Topps.

quote:

Originally posted by Scott Gaeta:
Hi all,

Just to address a few things in no particular order.

1. We were horrified with the job that the printer did on Vampire Diaries. (I've stated this before) We will never use them again.

2. The gating factor for autos from top hot stars is 100% dependent on how many they will do. If we could get more, we would. I can tell you that we are extremely lucky to have the entire main casts from BBT, VD, and Fringe signing at all. WB-TV is extremely supportive of the trading cards and this wouldn't be possible without them.

3. Don't expect us to flood the market with those top cast members in future sets. We couldn't, even if we wanted to - which we don't.

4. Repeat signers from main casts will get a different treatment in future sets whenever possible. (combos, dual sigs, etc.)

5. Collation - with some of the hottest shows we are going to sometimes have a greater range of auto quantities. We try to minimize it the best we can. For something like not getting a base set in a box our customer service person is always happy to help you out.

I understand that it's frustrating that the demand for some of these shows is driving prices up but on the positive side a lot of new collectors are coming back or being exposed to the hobby. I spoke to dozens of lapsed collectors who have come back at SDCC.

Thanks!

Scott

Scott, with regard to Fringe, I don't think anyone can accuse you of flooding the market when 9 of 16 autographs are listed as 'Rare'. Again, I get that you're not getting 1000 Josh Jackson signatures to flood the release. I agree that wouldn't be good. Maybe some people do prefer collecting by paying $500 for an autograph card because there are about only 100 of those cards or so out there(I don't know this for a fact, only guessing). I do not when the whole release seems to be like that. It's made me re-think a couple of cards from other releases I thought were out of my range, but layaway is looking good!

You are correct though, you have some great licenses and did some very nice work with the ones I've seen. I'm sure some 'lapsed' collectors have jumped back in.

quote:

Originally posted by igman7:

quote:

Originally posted by Sidewinder:
As a collector though, I don't want the prices to be high. I don't want to have to spend 1K to finish and auto set. Haven't these high prices for the big names put people off collecting some of these sets altogether?

So, If you get a duplicate of the best auto that you can pull from a pack, you would not like to get a high value when you sell it off for other things you need?

Actually, from being on a sports dominated site, there are quite a few fans who have been drawn in by the Cryptozoic line.

Well it's pretty unlikely to get a dupe top auto from a Crypto product unless you buy multilple cases. I'm no longer a case buyer, I might buy a few boxes or a few premium packs.

So far I like what they've done. As limited as some auto cards are, I can't help but think other card manufactorers wouldn't have gotten whole casts to sign, and if they did I'm certain some would have been 9-case incentives etc. forcing collectors to pay. Ok, the chances of pulling a Kaley Cuoco auto were slim, but at least when my boxes arrived I knew I had as much chance as the next person.

On the other hand, still no Penny joy for me... *sniff*

While I haven't bothered collecting some of their sets, Cryptozoic's line-up has been very impressive. Fringe being the first product of theirs I had purchased/collected, I was really disappointed with my case and another 6 boxes I purchased. In my case I was shorted 2 autographs. I contacted customer service and gave them a list of autographs I pulled. The replacements that case were of autos I had told them I pulled. If I remember correctly, I pulled 3 Ryan McDonald autos and one of the replacements I got was him. Huge disappointment. I was also shorted 2 autos from my other 6 boxes and am awaiting for the replacements to arrive.

My overall issue was coalition. I made 12 base sets off of my case. But only 5 boxes actually came with enough cards inside to complete a set on its own. And out of the hundreds of singles I was left with, I had 20 copies of the same card for quite a few of them. I think that is just ridiculous.

In the six separate boxes I purchased, I was only able to complete 4 base sets with only 2 boxes having enough to make a set on their own. It wasn't until I combined my singles from my case that I was able to complete 2 more sets. In addition to that, about 50 cards were miscut and had to send them in for replacements.

Yes of course we can always contact customer service about issues with incomplete base sets in a box. But the problem is it shouldn't be that common of a problem in the first place. For the collectors that this product is bringing in, how many are actually going to stay if this is how much of a problem it is?

I am a huge fan of Fringe. And I am glad that there is a set at all. And once I got over the problems I had, I took the time to enjoy the set because it is really great. I thank Cryptozoic for this release. I just hope the next sets will have less kinks in it.

You cant collect something that you cant find. I havent bothered with Cryptozic products for that very reason. Theres just no point collecting their cards if Im never going to see the ultra rare cards even for sale, let alone being able to afford to buy them.

I will just avoid this company and stick with the other excellent sets that are being produced elsewhere.

This thread is an interesting read and I guess I'll weigh in with my 2 cents.

For the most part I think Cryptozoic has done a fine job and is a breath of fresh air to the non sport hobby.
The negatives all seem to be related to the printing and packing out process where some sets had damaged cards and there seems to be trouble getting the proper number of "hits" per box, but these are things that will surely get fixed.

The positives are many:

1- They get new and exciting licenses
2- They get virtually every possible big signer for their releases (many who have never signed before)
3- The cards are on card autographs
4- The cards hold their value

Some people complain about the expense and difficulty of getting master sets, in reality they probably aren't that different that many RA releases that have a number of Very Limited and Extremely limited cards, those sets will also take multiple cases.
I'd also argue most collectors are not master set collectors, although the numbers of those collectors on a board such as this is probably higher than the hobby as a whole. I think collectors have been spoiled by being spoon fed sets that are too easy to make, think of all those Inkworks sets where you basically got a master set per case, with maybe the exception of 1 tough autograph, collectors were "one and done", open a case and put your set away. They were too easy and too plentiful and never held value.
Cryptozoic so far has had a very good feel for production numbers too, they produce a bit less than there is demand for rather than trying to meet demand exactly and risking oversupply. Someone mentioned Game of Thrones, a perfect example of overproducing a popular license. It has a huge signers list and they were all varying degrees of "limited" and the license is insanely popular, if it would have remained 6000 boxes with the original signers list it would have been absorbed quickly and demand would have remained high, but adding duplicate autographs (same signers in a different format) and upping production 50% the release became bloated. Sure, you have a few cards selling well, but you have a lot that sell very cheap.

I've bought boxes of Crytozoic products and while I haven't pulled anything huge from them I did get a couple of personal collection cards and a couple of cards that sold well enough that I did ok (I actually have done better with loose packs from the cards shop getting a Parsons auto in 8 packs of BBT and a Seth Gable auto from 3 packs of Fringe).
I'd go as far as saying Cryptozoic has reignited my interest in the hobby and I think the competition is what has driven RA to seek out some exciting new licenses (True Blood!)

I never thought people complained about Inkworks sets being too easy to complete. There seem to be quite a few people who just want to go out and buy an archive box anyway, so obviously some aren't into the collecting/chase aspect anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by Sidewinder:
I never thought people complained about Inkworks sets being too easy to complete. There seem to be quite a few people who just want to go out and buy an archive box anyway, so obviously some aren't into the collecting/chase aspect anyway.

Some people go that route. I have a case of True Blood coming and I will probably piece together a master set. The "smart" thing probably would be to buy an Archive box as they will got for about the price of 2 cases and between the autos I don't pull and the 2 multi case incentives it would probably be cheaper in the long run, but it wouldn't be as fun or challenging to me.