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| Year End 2019 Poll | Login/Join |
Diamond Card Talk Member |
So we are at the end of another year and it's time for our annual re-cap. I dropped most of the questions this time around. We all know that the hobby has become more expensive, that autograph cards are the most popular hit and that it's hard to pick answers to questions that are not black and white, but have different shades of gray. I put in a few general ones anyway, but its your comments that are most important. So please add a few lines after you vote to expand on your replies and tell us what you think about anything that happened in the hobby this year and/or where you think we non-sport card collectors are headed in 2020. HAPPY NEW YEAR and HAPPY CARD COLLECTING TO ALL! | ||
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Contest Czar |
Every year changes. I have made more individual card purchases then in the past. I am trying to close the door on some sets. I finally finished the 1994 Marvel Masterpieces 150 card Gold foil signature parallel set! As I am watching less television and movies there are less sets I want to work on. Going to do the Umbrella Academy next year with my wife and daughter. Made a couple of new trade friends this year. That has been extra nice. | |||
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| Silver Card Talk Member |
Time to be Debbie Downer ... This was by far the "worst" year I've had as far as non-sport collecting. Topps and Upper Deck do very little that interests me, Cryptozoic has scaled down their non-sport licenses to just a few, and I've become turned off to a lot of Rittenhouse's heavy reliance on incentives and varying autograph designs, which I'm not a fan of. I'm tired of the gimmicks - tired of box/case prices going up while simultaneously the quality content of boxes/cases is going down - tired of watching the aftermarket prices/values tanking on eBay - tired of the same sets and the same signers and the same licenses over and over and over. And any fresh title that does come out I have no interest in. I've sold off quite a bit of my collection this year, which I have mixed feelings about. I feel like I should but at the same time I don't want to. I find myself reminiscing about the "good old days" of non-sport collecting for me which was when I started in 2006 to around 2012. But now it just doesn't feel the same. Not enough sets I'm interested in and too few collectors left to share whatever excitement there is. Honestly the one bright spot I discovered this year was Fright-Rags. I have a soft spot in my heart for a lot of the 70's/80's horror films. Plus their cards are just something different, something new. I bought a bunch of their Halloween boxes just recently (which I still have sealed) and everyone seems to say their cards are well done. The box price is high, but with a smaller company and small print runs I realize they probably can't charge much lower and still make a decent profit. So yeah, the horror cards have kept me afloat - for now. And I'm curious to see what Rittenhouse does next year with Twilight Zone and Game of Thrones. But overall this has been very much a down collecting year for me. | |||
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| Platinum Card Talk Member |
I've definitely been collecting more this year than last year. Been trading a bunch on ePack -- more trades for me in 2019 than I've done probably ever. I've been able to find several individual cards I've been after for a while this year too. In all I've had a really fun year collecting. | |||
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| Platinum Card Talk Member |
On the negative side my buying at shows has dropped to almost zero. There just don't seem to be dealers at shows I'm going to anymore. | |||
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| Gold Card Talk Member |
For which method were most of my cards acquired this year I wanted to select individual and card lot purchases because I did both - got lucky with a couple of 20-50 card lots and a few sets. I went with individual purchases, though, because I buy a lot of singles. I actually had less money to spend this year than last (projects really thinning out with one job) so I had to look for good deals and did find some. I'm satisfied with what I was able to buy and didn't sweat what I couldn't. Like Logan, I'm disappointed with what the big card companies are doing but am encouraged by what small companies like RRParks, Viceroy, and Monsterwax are producing. They're trying to make interesting sets while also limiting their risk. We all understand it's even more of a gamble now predicting which TV show or movie will catch fire with collectors. I also understand Logan's point about there being so few recent sets to get excited about. I was never a big box buyer but did get all the Star Wars Widevision, the early Star Wars Galaxy sets and stuff like a few of the Comic Images art issues and Dart's Titanic. These days, it's more fun finding that next card in an old promo set or getting a good deal on one I hadn't seen before. | |||
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| Gold Card Talk Member |
I know what you mean. It's tough to find a card dealer at a collectibles show now. When there is one, he's got lots of stuff I wouldn't buy like Pokemon and random stickers.
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| Gold Card Talk Member |
For me it's been the same for the past few years. Any sets from the big card companies in the USA I am interested in are just too expensive with exchange rates and customs charges. All the sealed product I buy now is sketch sets as IMO they offer the best value and chance of a big hit. I still look at Ebay but only UK sellers as again postage and customs make what look like good prices into poor ones. Also the Facebook groups for sketch cards have enabled me to do more trading than in the past. | |||
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| Silver Card Talk Member |
Sorry to veer off topic, but one more thought... I have a suggestion for companies to make box breaking enticing and exciting again. It seems that in pretty much every box from every company you get either 1 auto and 1 wardrobe card, or 1 auto and 1 sketch, or 2 autos, or just a sketch, or just an auto - but some combination of bigger hits is pretty much guaranteed. Why not keep those numbers as the baseline of what you're guaranteed, but throw in something extra here and there at random? Don't have any boxes or cases be duds, but have some boxes and cases be off the charts good. I remember the days of "hot" boxes, or "loaded" boxes, or Rittenhouse inserting unmarked archive boxes at random in cases. I'm not saying you have to go to that extreme, but how about Rittenhouse throwing in an extra Shatner auto here or there in a Star Trek or Twilight Zone box, where technically it isn't supposed to be. Or some other mid-range auto. Have a box with 3 or 4 autographs instead of the advertised 2. Or Cryptozoic throwing in an extra Caitriona Balfe or San Heughan here and there in Outlander boxes. Just enough to make opening boxes fun and exciting again. Nowadays when you open a box and pull your guaranteed one auto, you might as well just stop. Or when you get the big hit in your case, there's almost no need to open the other boxes. You know you're not going to get anything else good. Well this would take that boring predictability away. Make us believe that any card can be inside of each and every pack, regardless of what we just pulled previously. Give some incentives to the collectors for a change to keep us buying and opening.This message has been edited. Last edited by: Logan, | |||
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| Bronze Card Talk Member |
Could be more this year, as my Inkworks wants list is getting smaller I have had to purchase more expensive cards. And as I seem to have to buy cards LOL I have branched out a bit and are purchasing some of the rarer and scarcer promo cards if I think that they are cheap enough. But next year might have to go to facebook for my purchasing , As shipping, fees, and extra taxes imposed this year are getting out of hand. Will try to do more trading also | |||
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| Gold Card Talk Member |
I also remember people talking about "hot" boxes in the old days. I think a few people pulled more than the average amount of "1st Day" cards in "Mars Attacks Archives" back in 1994-1995 and more than the normal amount of refractor parallels in "Star Wars Finest" in 1996. I don't look at box breakdowns all the time but I do check sometimes. Do people still do better than the stated odds sometimes or does that never happen now? I know even in the old days some people got next to no chase cards occasionally, balancing off the lucky boxes perhaps. I don't remember being unusually lucky nor getting skunked. I agree companies should be trying to make box and case buys more enticing especially since such a buy is becoming noticeably more expensive. If a company won't let some boxes be better than average in terms of big hits, maybe they could insert some kind of surprise card not in the advertising and let word of mouth get out there. Add a sticker or chromium version of a card that looks good with that effect and insert it in a few of the boxes in a case or do a prototype variant of a card and add it to the top of some of the boxes. Make it look like you want to do something extra for collectors of the set. This message has been edited. Last edited by: catskilleagle, | |||
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| Diamond Card Talk Member |
Overall I was satisfied with the cards I bought in 2019. Although I thought the majority of my money would go toward individual card purchases, I actually wound up getting multiple boxes. I spent more than I intended on Game of Thrones InfleXions and picked up quite a few Twilight Zone Rod Serling Edition boxes. I didn't think I was going to like UD's Bond, but darned if I didn't, and I went in for that too. On the flip side, I did find myself saying NO to many titles that I would have at least sampled in prior years. I avoided everything Star Wars in 2019 because I already have too many autograph cards of unknown actors in rubber heads. Right there it cut out a big chunk of the new releases. Thanks to Lynne I picked up the only Star Trek Discovery auto I wanted. I followed neither Twin Peaks or Lost In Space and had no choice but too pass on CZE's Outlander and DC Heroes and Villains. So there weren't any hard decisions for me this year really and I think that's why I was content with what I got. Apart from looking forward to the 8th and final GoT season, I think I'm just going to have no expectations for 2020 other than knowing I'll find something of interest, even if its gap filling. I do sense that there will be many good bargains on autographs and sketches from premium and even ultra premium products in the not distant future. Jess as an aside, better than the "hot boxes", do you remember when archive boxes were actually packed out in cases and sometimes were even left unmarked? Those days seem so old, nobody even used the word incentive.  And Logan, most card makers have decided to concentrate more on case construction rather than box construction for at least the last four years, if not more. It has taken awhile to alienate the box buyer, especially on favorite titles, but they are getting there. When the case buyers can't risk breaking product and no customers will buy boxes at SRP, that's when they may consider your suggestions.  This message has been edited. Last edited by: Raven, | |||
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| Gold Card Talk Member |
Yeah, one of the companies would be doing itself a favor slipping in an unmarked archive box into some cases. The case buyers will still buy cases but why not give box buyers a shot at a golden ticket too? Get people excited.
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Platinum Card Talk Member |
Individual secondary market purchases rules the year again. Pretty much avoided any boxes from titles that have been run into the ground through repetition. Having some fun with more independent titles, MST3K, Little Shop of Horrors, Sharknado and looks like Ultraman will be getting a multi series treatment from RRParks. Glad to see Lost in Space and Twin Peaks, hopefully the titles will stay limited. Can't really see anything more from TP that could be relevant. Would love to see a release for The Boys and looking forward to the Umbrella Academy. ____________________ Just because it's rare doesn't mean it's valuable. | |||
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Platinum Card Talk Member |
Wouldn't work as Archive Boxes are usually 2 actual boxes now days. I would love to see someone go to Hot Boxes though. Even if it was just 1 extra auto and an insert in every pack. Just something to mix things up. Box sales are down over the last year, I think it has to do with value, price AND boredom. Ed ____________________ Trading Page Now Online: http://www.scifi.cards/trading.html Collecting Sketches of the Character Crystal   | |||
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| Member |
Thanks to being shafted by a certain company at the start of the year, I've cut my purchases to pretty much zero. I am doing the UK Topps Skywalker cards but mostly because of their free availability than anything. I'm generally just disillusioned by the whole hobby, the sales lies and the manipulation of collectors. ____________________ Nothings forgotten, nothings ever forgotten. | |||
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Gold Card Talk Member |
Was very happy to finish my 2013 Golden Age Bad News Bears set:  Pop Century had another nice batch of rando-celeb artists. I wish the card were on paper instead of chrome, but whatever. I'm thrilled to have Jennifer Jason Leigh in my collection, and I still have a few to chase.  A Rod Serling cut signature card has always been a Grail for me and I got one in part thanks to finally letting go of my Robert Downey Jr. autograph for a nice price to a collector in Hong Kong.  From Topps, I purchased most of my non-sport through their online store, the Star Wars Living set, Countdown To Skywalker weeklies, trailer sets, and poster cards, plus some incentive-laded Stranger Things 2 blasters, and various GPKs and Wacky Packs.   Didn't buy much at all from Upper Deck Online, but I love the idea, and will be keeping my account active in 2020. Didn't get much from Crytozoic again this year, their cards have always been a little pricier, but they do tend to deliver the goods. Beautiful cards across the board. Congrats to any player in Cardtown who added a Gadot to their collection. You flashy! Kickstarter, I backed a couple, but don't get the actual cards until 2020. Looking forward to the new Mars Attacks. Fright Rags had a great year with a steady stream of horror film related releases, including Saw and Ash Vs. The Evil Dead, complete sets in a single wax pack, very cool.  Cuyler Smith released his annual collection of pop culture characters in using vintage trading card designs. These are boutique style limited editions and a lot of fun. Looking forward to Series 5 in 2020.  This message has been edited. Last edited by: chesspieceface, ____________________ Everywhere around this burg they're running out of verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. Everywhere around this town, they're running out of nouns. | |||
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| Bronze Card Talk Member |
This year was the same as last year in that every card set I purchased was sketch-focused, and all but one were of the premium pack format (that wasn't an option in the poll so I chose box.) I really do prefer the premium packs over boxes because with the packs, I end up with a manageable number of base cards and inserts overall, plus an outstanding sketch in every pack. I anticipate maintaining the same buying habits in 2020. I just don't have room anymore for 90+ base card sets and I don't like gambling almost $100 for a bunch duplicate base cards and a (more than likely) crappy hit. YMMV, of course. Happy Holidays! ____________________ Debi Reliving my childhood one piece of painted plastic and slab of cardboard at a time. | |||
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| Platinum Card Talk Member |
I also put this one together, added Joyce Van Patten and George Wyner to the list as well. https://photos.google.com/shar...ZUh6QlRPOWNXSW8zN29R ____________________ Just because it's rare doesn't mean it's valuable. | |||
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| Gold Card Talk Member |
Nice, and I already have the Joyce Van Patten in my TZ set, too. I actually had a Vic Morrow autograph (on a small B&W publicity photo for "Combat" also signed by his two main co-stars) but I sold it for something like $350 about 15 years ago. ____________________ Everywhere around this burg they're running out of verbs, adverbs, and adjectives. Everywhere around this town, they're running out of nouns. | |||
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