Five star

[661fish]

Okay. Picked up a case of this expensive stuff last week and did quite well. Got a rainbow parallel Jr. auto redemption, Aaron auto/ bat relic, Bryce Harper #ed to 150 auto, David Wright auto/relic book, and a Freese/Wainwright/Beltran/Holliday patch book #ed to 5. Overall very pleased with what I pulled. But that was it. However as you all know the condition that the cards come in is heartbreaking. Yes there is chipping, but if you remember Five Star Football had chipping and still came out way better because they were packed in a box and placed inside the foam. Not Five Star baseball!! The cards are placed inside the tight foam with no box causing the corner damage on almost every card. What a let down, not to mention the design got old real quick after looking on Ebay to find that the colors of the desgin to be pretty boring. Five star Football looked way better. The base set is also disapointing the way it was designed. For the price of these cards at least make sure the cards dont have soft white corners when you pull them out. Yes it is a new exciting product. I could not wait for it, but who ever gets stuck with a Matt Kemp redemption should know that all his on card stuff from every Topps issue this year has yet to be signed. Way to many redemptions really hurt the product. Anyone else want to chime in with their thoughts?

[pwaldo]

Is there a reason why Topps and other companies think that high end stuff must be thicker? Is it some trick to fool customers into thinking that because a card is 20 times thicker than another card then it is better? I mean if the cards were standard size or a little thicker you probably wouldn't have so many chipping issues with the product. Most high end stuff has cards that are thicker which doesn't make sense considering thicker cards are harder to store and easier to damage unless you buy into the belief that a thicker card is some how more expensive for some reason.

[Redman5006]

Is there a reason why Topps and other companies think that high end stuff must be thicker? Is it some trick to fool customers into thinking that because a card is 20 times thicker than another card then it is better? I mean if the cards were standard size or a little thicker you probably wouldn't have so many chipping issues with the product. Most high end stuff has cards that are thicker which doesn't make sense considering thicker cards are harder to store and easier to damage unless you buy into the belief that a thicker card is some how more expensive for some reason.

LOL! I have had this same thought before.

[the 'stache]

The only possible explanation I can come up with for the thicker card stock is that Topps doesn't want the bowing that Chrome cards have. If that were the case (I don't buy it), well, congrats, Topps. You have cards that come out of the box flat, yet with dinged corners and chipped edges.

It makes no sense to me. Topps knows that card value and condition are intrinsically linked. If they're going to charge their customers an arm and a leg for their "high end" product, you'd think they would package the cards in a way where they wouldn't get damaged.

I have very few thick cards because they are so so prone to damage. I love the Exquisite football cards from a few years back, and I've been lucky enough to get mine in great shape. But the thicker cards now are a joke, and I won't buy boxes of em. I'll wait until the cards are put up on Ebay, and buy those with high quality scans and a return period. I'm not going to assume risk for something so expensive.

[pwaldo]

Yeah I can generally tolerate some chipping or damage to a card considering I grew up in the 1980s and they threw anything into a pack of cards but 5 Star has been ridiculously bad and given that it is the first impression of a super high end product into the baseball world that makes it even worse. Anybody buying the is stuff is going to be seeing the damage and that will be deadly to the brand.

When Upper Deck introduced the $100 pack before in Ultimate and the first $1 pack in Upper Deck they had high quality features that blew away the competition at the time and it almost made you believe that the money was worth it for the pack. Five Star to me just seems like an expensive and poor quality version of their other brand Museum Collection.