Hey everyone,

I thought I'd make a quick post and let everyone know that I'm going to be spending the last two months of the year prepping for 2019.

I would love to get some feedback and suggestions regarding what you'd like to see for next year. I think I'm going to make this an annual thing.

I have many ideas but I want to hear from you. So, please, leave comments below and help me out. Thanks!

So I think you are going to get a lot of suggestions people have voiced in other threads on Card Talk. You might be sorry you asked.

For myself, I would suggest longer and less superficial articles. I don't like the space lost to full page and half page pictures that add nothing to the article at hand. I do like pictures of cards, especially autographs and sketches.

I would like to see more regular columns carried in every issue. I would like to see as much space and as many pages as possible dedicated to the magazine. I would like to read more articles about card collecting tips, card manufacturer processes for creating products and sketch artists. Autograph cards get all the attention, they should be well represented and covered in NSU. I'd like to learn how manufacturers get some signers and why they miss other signers, as an example.

For the price guide, comfortable size font please. I like that the supplemental guide has been limited to more or less recent products, but why certain sets like the 1962 Civil War News or the 1952 Look 'n See still make it in is beyond me. Why so much space for 1985 Garbage Pail Kids? Just a couple of examples of sets that can't be moving much for the average collector, there are others.

And something has to be done to better condense the big franchise titles. Buffy autograph cards need to be listed, but using a page and a half of the guide to print mainly the bolded set titles does very little. Same thing with Harry Potter and James Bond. Star Trek and Star Wars seem more reasonable to post since demand is higher and on-going.

Finally, if cards are not ready to be priced they shouldn't be in guide. Blank spaces are OK for just released sets, but older than 4 months out should have prices on everything that is not 1/1 or never showed up. I don't like blank spaces in price columns, as it tells you nothing.

As always, just my opinions.

Page 4 of this thread has stuff posted in 2018 that might be relevant going into 2019 ...

http://nonsportupdate.infopop....527007096#2527007096

Not meaning to be self-serving, but I would love to read articles or interviews with sketch artists. Stranger Things alone has something like 150 artists on it, so there is no shortage of content to be mined.

Yes, it's a lot of the same stuff. The magazine needs more articles and columns. I haven't timed myself but it feels like I'm done reading it in 10-15 minutes. Beckett took over NSU two years ago. I can understand new owners needing some time to tinker with the layout and try out a different version of the price guide but it seems to me that it's time to expand the magazine.

If readers are talking a lot about sketches on Card Talk, there should be more articles about those. The first sketches I ever obtained were at San Diego Comic Con (97 or 98). Dark Horse was giving out cards to be signed by their artists and some of them added a quick sketch. You don't see much mention of those anywhere but the sketch card idea has tons of fans now. I've seen some great stuff on display here on the forum and elsewhere online.

I think it's Smithsonian magazine that has a column every issue about what was in that month's issue 100 years ago. NSU isn't that old but maybe it could do something similar with a column about some facet of the card world of 25 years ago - a particular card, subset, set, or manufacturer from 1994.

Jess

quote:

Originally posted by Heroes For Hire:
Page 4 of this thread has stuff posted in 2018 that might be relevant going into 2019 ...

http://nonsportupdate.infopop....527007096#2527007096

I'll chime in as well. First, I agree with each of the other posters above. Also, the reason I subscribe is mainly to increase my knowledge of this beloved hobby.
I want in depth information, that can only be delivered through the magazine's article contributors. Years ago, for example, Michael Beam wrote an article on Desert Storm cards which was infused with his advanced knowledge of that genre and made for excellent reading. Your base is right here, on this board!
I suggest you reach out to the members of it who have displayed that expertise about their particular field of interest, be it sketch cards; autograph cards; Star Trek; Star Wars; James Bond; promo cards; cigarette cards; garbage pail or any other sub-genre and ask them to write an article about the pursuit of their endeavor. Another alternative would be to do interviews of collectors on this board so that they can discuss their passion and impart their knowledge to the rest of us. Each article or interview would then become a repository of additional guidance for future generations of non sport card collectors.

I'd like to see a hot list for individual base and insert cards to go along with with autographs.

I’d like to see some type market analysis similar to the “pricing insider” found on Beckett News. The examples below are about WWE Topps Now cards from late October and early November.

https://www.beckett.com/news/w...ett-pricing-insider/

https://www.beckett.com/news/l...ett-pricing-insider/

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
For myself, I would suggest longer and less superficial articles. I don't like the space lost to full page and half page pictures that add nothing to the article at hand. I do like pictures of cards, especially autographs and sketches.

I would like to see more regular columns carried in every issue. I would like to see as much space and as many pages as possible dedicated to the magazine. I would like to read more articles about card collecting tips, card manufacturer processes for creating products and sketch artists. Autograph cards get all the attention, they should be well represented and covered in NSU. I'd like to learn how manufacturers get some signers and why they miss other signers, as an example.

I concur that space is concern for each issue. I'd like to see more content to read in each issue and maybe to achieve that is to have smaller pictures. Maybe the two-page splash spread photos that introduces a feature can be trimmed down to one page.

For example, in the December/January 2019 issue, pages 18-19 for "The Trading Truth" has a lot of "X" on those two pages might have had a similar effect on just page 18. Perhaps changing to perspective to horizontal could have kept that dramatic effect even though that's more work for the reader to turn the magazine sideways. Also, the pictures on pages 20 & 22 could be minimized to accommodate more of Ryan Cracknell's words on each page. Similar changing of perspective could be done for the Superman and Wrestling features.

The potential pages saving for more content might be:
Pages 12-17 is 6 pages, re-imaged to 4.
Pages 18-23 is 6 pages, re-imaged to 4.
Pages 24-27 is 4 pages, re-imaged to 3.

Granted changing the perspective to horizontal for each feature introduction might be too dramatic of a change. But maybe 1 or 2 of them per issue along with the re-sizing of photos could add a couple of pages more "Non-Sport News," "The Hot List," or for rotating sponsored collector focused column for letters to the manufacturers and/or staff in the additional space.

I think it would be interesting to see articles discussing autograph cards from actors who have lots of different autograph cards -- i.e. William Shatner and Stan Lee.

For example you could have an autograph checklist, information about the first autograph, most expensive autograph, rarest autograph, most sought after etc.

A similar discussion on a specific sketch artist over several sets could also be interesting. First set, most sketches in a set, most sought after set, etc.