One of the things that I dislike about collecting non sports cards is that it's wasteful. Most of us are buying boxes for the chase cards, and unless you forgo the fun of opening packs yourself and instead buy the chase cards directly, you are going to end up with several base sets per every set of chase cards. And with things like Marvel Beginnings for example, where there's a 35 card chase at 1 per 72 packs, someone could end up with hundreds of base sets before they completed the chase set.

So here's a solution: make bigger base sets. If they made a base set that was perhaps 5 thousand different cards, and divided them up into series. For example cards 1-500 in the first three months of the year, cards 500 - 1000 in the next three months in series 2 boxes, etc. And at the same time - have ALL the chase cards evenly distributed among all the series, that way if someone bought enough boxes to complete the huge base set, they would have a good chance of completing the chase set.

The current trend is premium packs that have around a 36 card base set, which really isn't base cards at all because you could say that they are all inserts.

Personally I haven't bought a traditional box product in over two months because I can't find them, so my overstock of base cards seems to be in the past.

Seriously though, the largest sportcards sets ever topped off around 900 base cards, so 5000 cards in non-sport is pretty impossible, even in installments. What would be the subject that has not already been done to death? How would a manufacturer put such a massive project together when even small releases are taking so long?

By the way, issuing a set in series was the Topps model for baseball cards in the 50s and 60s. That is why the high numbered cards of those eras are always priced higher. By the time the final series was printed the demand had dropped and those cards were shortprinted. Even when the subject was baseball and there were no chase cards, people lost interest in large sets.

It is because the baseball sets had no chase cards that they lost interest.

As for the subjects it could work it, it would have to be a huge franchise. Star Wars, Marvel, etc. They could make a card for every character, no matter how obscure, so they could use a few thousand base cards easily just on the characters. They would have a lot of chase sets distributed evenly over the entire series like scratch n sniff, glow in the dark, holograms, in addition to the standard autograph and sketch cards. Maybe somewhere between 300 to 500 chase cards in all.

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
The current trend is premium packs that have around a 36 card base set, which really isn't base cards at all because you could say that they are all inserts.

Personally I haven't bought a traditional box product in over two months because I can't find them, so my overstock of base cards seems to be in the past.

Seriously though, the largest sportcards sets ever topped off around 900 base cards, so 5000 cards in non-sport is pretty impossible, even in installments. What would be the subject that has not already been done to death? How would a manufacturer put such a massive project together when even small releases are taking so long?

By the way, issuing a set in series was the Topps model for baseball cards in the 50s and 60s. That is why the high numbered cards of those eras are always priced higher. By the time the final series was printed the demand had dropped and those cards were shortprinted. Even when the subject was baseball and there were no chase cards, people lost interest in large sets.

There was a sports issue that had a very large base set. It was called 2008 Upper Deck Documentary. There was one card for every team for every game. 4,890 cards in the set with a parallel set (1 gold card per pack) There were only two insert sets not counting the parallel set. This product was a total bomb! The set was too large and the autographs were weak. I am a set builder and wanted to do that set but it didn't make any sense. The price point was too high (I think it was like $50 a box) and you would need around 3.5 cases to make the base set.

I agree that the sets could be bigger. Maybe 180 cards instead of 90 (like the multiple of 9 for the pages!) Marvel Beginnings is a good set. The base set isn't too large, could be a little smaller. I hate the thought of them cutting up a vintage comic book to make a card but it would be neat to pull and there weren't many of them but I am sure they will do that in future products. The holograms should have been easier to pull. Even 1 a box and you still need 72 boxes with perfect collation.

Marvel Universe was close to a Home run in my opinion but the base set could have been bigger. My issue anymore is that there are too many sketch artists in the products. When DC Legacy came out in 07 they had 60-something artists, now with Marvel Universe it is more than double that.

quote:

Originally posted by James7:
It is because the baseball sets had no chase cards that they lost interest.

As for the subjects it could work it, it would have to be a huge franchise. Star Wars, Marvel, etc. They could make a card for every character, no matter how obscure, so they could use a few thousand base cards easily just on the characters. They would have a lot of chase sets distributed evenly over the entire series like scratch n sniff, glow in the dark, holograms, in addition to the standard autograph and sketch cards. Maybe somewhere between 300 to 500 chase cards in all.

I agree that it could be possible with franchises that have expansive universes but there would have to be some kind of trade off which would most likely manifest in the quality of the set as a whole.

The Star Wars Galaxy set for example uses a combination of original artist work, artist work used in licensed material such as comic books, and what I like to call other cards which include the likes of video game models.

I would hate to see a 5000 card set with 2500 crappy video game stills or a bunch of reduced comic book scans. To provide a quality set of 5000 cards would be so time consuming that I can't imagine a company undertaking such a task. After all it's in the companies best interest to make these sets in a way to maximize profit.

5000 cards of any subject is just overkill. And, the manufacturers normally pay by the picture to some extent.

Marvel Beginnings is a good balance, I think.

Another one which is similar is Star Wars Galaxy, soon to be up to 7 sets of 120 cards, or 840 cards in the set so far. The etched foil cards all go together to add some continuity.

But really, who says you have to pull every card to collect a set. That's what dealers are for. When you've opened enough boxes you just switch to filling in the holes from your Friendly Dealer who also broke product but has outlets for the base sets (usually).

Nothing wrong with thinking outside the box, but this one might be a bit too far outside.

Ed

Having collected for 20+ years now my biggest problem is starting to be space to store everything .

I find myself wanting base sets to be smaller and with some recent releases have not bothered with anything other than the autographs/sketches/costumes as I simply have nowhere to store a bulky base and chase set.