quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
I have read where this product was hand seeded and packed. I don't know if Leaf has always done that, but it seems possible. If true, it means that you are breaking boxes and cases with balanced autograph cards rather than just random.

Just watched a case break....not sure if it supports the hand seeded theory or not. Almost one 1/1 per box if that sort of thing is important to you.
Another big factor for me is already having their autograph. I already have 22 of these and only 9 of them are on my want list all of which are on the lower end of cost.

Box 1
Betsy Baker 1/1
Kate Jackson 5/5
Simu Liu 8/8
Hailee Steinfeld / Alaqua Cox 1/2

Box 2
Mike Love 1/7
Cobie Smulders 4/8
Jeremy Davies 5/5
Carmen Electra 3/5

Box 3
Penelope Ann Miller 1/6
Jason Lee 3/3
Hasbulla 9/15
Famke Janssen 6/10

Box 4
Donna Pescow 18/20
Tim Curry 1/4
Dana Wheeler Nicholson 2/5
Ewan McGregor 2/2

Box 5
Matt Servitto 2/3
Barbara Eden 1/1
C Thomas Howell 1/1
Jason / Jeremy London 1/1

Box 6
Clay Harbor 2/7
Richie Ramone 9/10
Julie Dawn Cole 13/15
Gene Hackman 1/1

Box 7
Ronnie Magro 13/25
Jason Lee / Jeremy London 2/7
Timothy Busfield 5/10
Marisa Tomei 1/1

Box 8
Joyce DeWitt 2/3
David Dastmalchian 2/7
Linda Ronstadt 6/8
Chevy Chase 7/20

Box 9
Lil Uzi Vert 1/1
Denise Richards 3/10
Carmen Electra 9/15
Charlie Sheen 1/1

Box 10
Theresa Tilly 3/8
Jimmy Walker 4/7
Morgan Fairchild 4/5
Chevy Chase/Randy Quaid 1/4

Thanks for that info, I rarely watch breaks unless it's in the LHS.

I'll give you strictly my own estimate of those boxes. In some cases I already have the better signers, so I really don't care for any more. In other cases, the better signers have drastically come down in price due to the increasing supply, so they don't really carry the box anymore. People like Chevy Chase, Charlie Sheen, Carmen Electric, Cobie Smulders, and Denise Richards are going for under $70 now in regular ranges. Does the 1/1 matter? Not to me.

I think the Box 4 has 2 good hits with McGregor 2/2 and Curry 1/4.

The Hackman 1/1 easily carries Box 6, but it proves the point of hand packing because the other 3 signers are low.

So does Box 7 with Tomei 1/1 being the big hit, though not nearly as big as Hackman, and not much else worth anything in it.

The only box I would have liked was Box 3 for the Miller and Janssen. However I have already picked up those cards and they cost less than $130 for both.

The other 6 boxes have maybe 1 signer or 1 card that someone might like, just of little interest to me. For myself, I would want to add only the Hackman and McGregor from this case, so it's a good thing I'm not the one who bought it.

Another thing I fall into occasionally is the new card looks much cooler that the one I have. This is why I picked up another Ray Liotta last year.

Yeah I think the McGregor/Curry box is one that exceeded the box price. In a month we can add settling value to this list and see how this pans out for the collector. Tomei is a good hit but now that she is signing for UD and Leaf AND hitting cons I see her stuff dropping.

I've seen some Pacino in this product but wondering if it is just left overs. Fuggetaboutit is a really stupid name for a subset.

Will probably check out a couple more videos and see if the 1/1s hold consistent.

One of the signature subsets to 2024 Pop Century is "Scripted", which is basically an inscription card with the signer adding either a movie/title or their character's name after their autograph. Most photos seem to be of the candid variety, but Leaf doesn't seem to care about mismatches either.

The one I picked out is Tom Berenger's "Scripted" with the inscription of "Inception". Only problem is that photo is clearly of him in "Platoon". One would think that he should be asked to write "Platoon", if that is the only photo they chose to use. Would have made for a better card too. I didn't even know he was in "Inception".

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:

The one I picked out is Tom Berenger's "Scripted" with the inscription of "Inception". Only problem is that photo is clearly of him in "Platoon". One would think that he should be asked to write "Platoon", if that is the only photo they chose to use. Would have made for a better card too. I didn't even know he was in "Inception".

I saw that one....left me with no possible interest in it. Fortunately some of them do say Platoon. I like my earlier pop century Tom signature. Interesting the Inception with 2 hrs left is at $18 and Platoon with 2 hrs left is at $31.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mykdude,

Boy, that's a young Tom Berenger. Not sure I'd be able to identify him from just the photo alone. Good, clean signature though.

The Pop Century auctions have been hit and miss for me. I don't act nuts, so I lose more than I win. And I really can't stand waiting on an item for 5 days when the bids stay low, but in the last minute, or last 6 seconds more likely, the price multiplies 5 times over. By that time you find out that it went passed the BIN that you could have taken 5 days ago.

Interesting both cards numbered to 5....Inception sold for $26 and Platoon went for $103

Looking at the three available Berenger cards from this year the stickers match. So one of three things happened.

Leaf simply doesn't care and quality assurance during card assembly is low.

or

He was asked to sign too many of one kind or simply misunderstood the instructions. So far I am not seeing any stray "Platoons"

or

It is intentional to create another sub level of collector desirability.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
It is intentional to create another sub level of collector desirability.

That's the reason I'd bet. Rather than adding the expense of making another card with a different photo in the same "Scripted" subset, Leaf just asked him to write in another movie title. Perhaps other names or characters will turn up too.

As for the difference between $26 and $103, is a printed "Platoon" that much more important than a printed "Inception"?

I would say that the first thing to consider is the quality of his signature and the film title is secondary. Pop Century's photo selection is just plain bad in general. So the autograph appearance should be why you choose one over the other. If that is equal, no doubt the "Platoon" card should find more demand and therefore be priced higher. However, if you are just looking to add the signature of a good actor to your collection, there are bigger signers to bust that $100 barrier on in my opinion. I would stick with the bargain.

Got bored and decided to calculate a case break sale on ebay.

$4,826.35

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Got bored and decided to calculate a case break sale on ebay.

$4,826.35

Are you basing that on the case break you posted above? Assuming that a case could be bought for $3,000 (both $2,800 and $3,200 have been mentioned), profit would be about $1,800, again assuming all autograph cards were sold. If that is the case, without McGregor, Hackman, Tomei and Steinfeld, I don't see a whole lot else there. Are they worth roughly $1,000 each?

How are you arriving at the card prices? There seems to be big swings in those sold listings, and people do seem to be paying more for smaller number ranges and #1 cards. Also auctions and BINs are producing different results. It's pretty hard to nail down an average price for these cards of the same signer and subset, at least as far as I can see.

No..a case break auction sells to every possibility listed in the set.

So even though there are only 40 cards in a case, the auction listings can go over 200 or 300 individual chances.

Basically a lottery for the case breakers.

An example is someone will bid $150 for a chance at Clint Eastwood. If Clint is in the case...it's a good deal. If he isn't the house wins.

This is why you see some case breakers who are completely ignorant of what they are opening. They don't care.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mykdude,

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
No..a case break auction sells to every possibility listed in the set.

Oh thanks, now I get it. Yes, I have seen those case break lotteries posted before but have never gone into one. The idea of spending my money to come up completely empty would bother me too much.

Of course some people will always bet on those big signers, but the odds are bad. I'm kind of surprised that there are so many willing to take the chance that it still supports this kind of lottery. Makes more sense to be a pessimist than an eternal optimist.

Unfortunately Pop Century is practically designed for the case breakers. This why product cost isn't going down any time soon.

I did two of them..won the first one and lost the second. That was it for me.

I do like to watch the videos to give me an idea of what is getting pulled.

Looks like Cole Hauser's autograph has hit the dirt from two years ago. The one on the right is mine.

So I see new Pop Century Pearl 2024 autograph cards are now out. The problem is that, as far as I can tell, the autograph cards are from the exact same signers as the just released regular 2024 Pop Century. Only they want more for the same signatures because, well I guess it says "pearl" and "pearl" sounds more elegant.

Whoever thought that short printed autograph cards couldn't flood the market is not keeping up with Leaf's business model of burying us in muti-colored multi-subsets in multi-short ranges from multi-Pop Century titles.

Got that? Basically, it means that the sum total of sticker copies from any given Pop Century signer is anybody's guess. Also anybody's guess is how long it will take to exhaust the sticker supply so that new and maybe nicer cards don't keep showing up, also in short printed ranges. How does this not dilute the value of even the important signers, while also reducing some of them to mid-level values? It does.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
So I see new Pop Century Pearl 2024 autograph cards are now out.

I believe the Pearl is a subset of Pop Century and I gotta admit they look nice. There was something called the Code Red edition that promised 1 pretty red signed card per box along with 3 other regular Pop Century inserts.

Leaf has been cranking out more than one set per year with one of them more of a short print using the same sticker batch. First we had Red White and Blue now it is Decadence. Like you I am also more interested in total number of stickers signed than 50 different card types with silly numbers on them.

But here is the REAL mystery

The assumption with all of the big 1/1 cards is the celebrity signed one of each card type. Take Michael Douglas for example:

BA-MD1 Michael Douglas 50 cards
CS2-29 Michael Douglas / Charlie Sheen 50 cards
NS-MD1 Michael Douglas 50 cards

Because everything with Douglas is 1/1 there can only be a total of 150 Douglas sigs in this set. This is if he signed one of each card....the check list only says X number or less. Zero is certainly less than x number.

So far Clint Eastwood has been on enough checklists that put him around 600 if he signed enough stickers to be placed on every version of the cards over the past two years of product.

Did Leaf buy that many stickers at private signing? Judging by how many Eastwood cards have sold at auction I would almost have to say yes.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
Whoever thought that short printed autograph cards couldn't flood the market is not keeping up with Leaf's business model of burying us in muti-colored multi-subsets in multi-short ranges from multi-Pop Century titles.

Reminds me of a Beckett article I read from 2009 at which time was listing nearly 30,000 1/1 cards just for Baseball. It amazes me that bubble has yet to pop.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
Reminds me of a Beckett article I read from 2009 at which time was listing nearly 30,000 1/1 cards just for Baseball. It amazes me that bubble has yet to pop.

The bubble has already popped for long time collectors trying to stick to the old rules. Like many segments in society today, this collectibles hobby has veered off its course and predictions are pointless. The more we kept saying cards and autographs are not investments, the more money kept pouring in. The more we kept saying that boxes cost too much and have too little value, the more the prices increased.

This is no longer a collectibles card market. It's a financial market. The new people spending big bucks have come in to make even more money because that's how it's being pitched to them, and the pandemic really accelerated it faster than normal growth would have.

So we who think we know something about collecting for enjoyment are running around like Chicken Little yelling "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" for years and years and it's still up there bluer than ever. I guess I'm turning bitter today.

Wow, the in-demand cards become less limited as the celebrities sign more limited/very limited/extremely limited/1 of 1 cards (or just stickers). Meanwhile, the actual autographs are slowly decreasing in quality as shown in the Cole Hauser examples.

Did you get more of his last name four years ago?

P.S. I hope all you autograph collectors find your favorite 1/1 by any one particular celebrity. With so many, you'll probably find a good deal at some point in the near future. Promo collectors sometimes have to wait twenty years for a good deal on a card.

quote:

Originally posted by mykdude:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Raven:
So I see new Pop Century Pearl 2024 autograph cards are now out.

I believe the Pearl is a subset of Pop Century and I gotta admit they look nice. There was something called the Code Red edition that promised 1 pretty red signed card per box along with 3 other regular Pop Century inserts./QUOTE]mykdude.

Not sure why the Pearl card listings call them an insert. In the past Leaf has used Pearl as a high end brand. There are boxes that bear the name. I thought the sub-sets were like "Scripted" and "Starlet". These Pearl cards didn't show up with the first release of Pop Century or Pop Century Metal.

Yeah there is an "Inscription" subset in the Pearl cards. I'd call it a brand in the Pop Century franchise.

It seems like Leaf is using different third parties to contract these sticker signings. I don't know why all these hard-to-find people are suddenly so available either.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Raven,

I have a feeling this all part of killing the Brian Gray era.