Excited for 14-15 products and only UD as NHL licensed

[MW Connection]

Who else is stoked for next years hockey products. With Panini gone the market will have 1/2 as much product. This will lead to less of a water down effect. Also, less sticker autos from the king of the sticker - Panini. This will be an awesome thing for the hobby market as UD already makes the best products and now there will be less overall product on the market. It will only help to restore some of the value lost over the past 5 years.

[Frej]

Wonder if prices will stay the same for a hobby box?

[cygnusx1]

Is it confirmed that they'll still have the same amount of products as this year? When they had the monopoly thing going on, they made 20+ sets a season, and not surprisingly there were some major duds. I actually found Panini to be good for the hobby as the competition forced both companies to try harder.

[RGM81]

I don't know where you're getting this idea that only one company around = less product on the market.

Upper Deck will producing at least 19 releases next year. During the peak years of the first UD Exclusive Era, they put out 22 products. There's still going to be the same "too much of everything" on the market except now it's all going to have an Upper Deck logo on it instead of being divvied up between UD and Panini. They've already confirmed that they're bringing back MVP as a stand-alone product next year. You can likely bank on seeing the return of other products that they've had to shelve for the past four years because they could only put out 11 releases per year during the shared license era.

In no situation is a lack of competition a good thing, and for whatever drawbacks and faults one may find with Panini (and they've certainly seen no shortage of them in the past four years), they pushed Upper Deck to up their game in terms of releases, value for dollars, and redemptions. A lot of people were very unhappy with UD by the end of the 2009-10 season and were really hoping that Panini would inject some fresh lifeblood into the hobby.

Oh, and that whole "sticker auto thing" - it's mid-April and to this point of the year Upper Deck has released only three products which are even partially featuring hard-signed autographs. Those were the Signature Pucks/Ice Scripts in Trilogy (the RC's and base parallel autos were stickers) while SPGU offered up the Marks autos and SPx had the Shadowboxes/Retro 96-97 rookies--both of those products feature sticker autos galore. Everything else has been stickers. Panini has already released Dominion, Crown, and Playbook--two of which are entirely using hard-signed autographs. So they're knotted at 3 apiece with Panini actually having released more hard-signed content to date.

Look, I get that you're a strictly Upper Deck guy. That's your prerogative and everybody is free to collect what they like and express their own opinions. But you have shown a real tendency to go out of your way to slag on the other companies. Referring to ITG as "unlicensed garbage" is offensive to not only supporters of that company's products but also to the people who work at ITG to produce fantastic products within the limitations they face without an NHL/PA license. Again, that's your opinion. But when you let the facts get in the way of an argument, it's just being argumentative for the sake of it and that doesn't benefit anybody.

[reoddai]

Who else is stoked for next years hockey products. With Panini gone the market will have 1/2 as much product. This will lead to less of a water down effect.

Past experience indicates that this is not true. There will be just as many products and a very similar watering down effect.

Also, less sticker autos from the king of the sticker - Panini.

I kinda consider Panini and UD equivalent in hockey sticker auto production. Do you have any proof that Panini is way worse or are you relying on the always super persuasive "isn't it obvious" argument that is utterly worthless? I want to see some counts.

This will be an awesome thing for the hobby market as UD already makes the best products and now there will be less overall product on the market.

First part is subjective. UD has made some great stuff. Habs centennial in 08-09 was great. Cup is often well appreciated as is SPA. Panini though had some nice stuff. Prime and dominion were well received. I also liked the first score over any OPC I've seen in the past 10 years. As for less product, keep thinking that, but seriously, go out and count the releases. If there's a decrease at all, its going to be something like 24 to 22 products.

It will only help to restore some of the value lost over the past 5 years.

Then I guess that means that you plan to buy heavily over the next few years since everything will have more value. As long as you're putting your money where you mouth is. Good luck with that.

Cheers,
reoddai

[bdiam]

Who else is stoked for next years hockey products. With Panini gone the market will have 1/2 as much product. This will lead to less of a water down effect. Also, less sticker autos from the king of the sticker - Panini. This will be an awesome thing for the hobby market as UD already makes the best products and now there will be less overall product on the market. It will only help to restore some of the value lost over the past 5 years.

For those of us who are old enough to remember when "Pacific" came into the market, brought innovation, new ideas and were eventually crushed by the crooks at Beckett and others, we already can see that history will likely repeat itself.

In the case of Pacific and at the time Pinnacle brands, the "eventual collapse" began with the "moving" of all of the un-sold / un-wanted wax product. This was soon followed-up, by the "give-away" of all the unredeemed and extra cards left in stock, to an existing wholesaler. While most of the Pacific stock was absorbed by a couple of private collectors, the Pinnacle stuff hit the market quick - remember when a Mirror Gold Gretzky went for $3000 to $300?

What did Upper Deck do in the meantime? Boxes suddenly went from 24-packs/box in some cases, to 18-packs/box, while the price of the box went up. In addition, redemptions increased because if you didn't like it - tuff. Within two-years, the market was flooded with UD junk - allot of Retail product to-boot, since they make allot higher margins with the retail stuff. Basically, with no competition, they had no incentive to make better products.

By this time (between a year and two years since Pacific and Pinnacle were done), the market (ie) the collectors had absorbed as many singles and dis-counted wax boxes as it could handle. The 3-5 large wholesalers who had allot of the wax, basically "let loose" and dumped the rest onto the secondary market. Personally, I remember buying 07-08 Zenith for $100-$125/box and still did well moving it at that price. Then, one morning, my phone rang and my wholesaler offered me as many boxes as I wanted........for $40/box.

I spoke with the same wholesaler this past week and presently, very quietly and behind the seen, there are 1-3 "parties" who are "jockeying/vying" for the cache of un-sold/un-relased product that will remain, once Panini's contract expires. Of course, nobody from Panini is ever going to admit such a thing is happening, as they still have upcoming and current products, that they need to sell. There are people who will choose to ignore this and that's fine, I mean, my taxes are supporting them for a reason. These are the same people who didn't believe that the price on the first year of Dominion had been slashed within a month of it's terrible release. Anyone see what that garbage is selling for / can be purchased for today?

The bottom-line, is that sadly, history always repeats itself - especially in the memorabilia world. Many of the people who have sunk huge dollars into Panini products the past few years, will soon find themselves in the same position that those of Pacific and Pinnacle collectors, a decade back - owning product that will eventually plummet in it's value. It likely won't happen as quickly as it did in the past but all the signs are still there.

As for Upper Deck, they stopped caring about the collector along time ago and with free-reign once again, they can start worrying about the bottom-line again, as opposed to spending that time, energy and money, on making their product worth what collectors pay for it.

Of course, there is also ITG who keeps doing what they have been doing, since their inception. License or no license, they've shown little or no interest in altering their "template" and seem happy with their status-quo. The same people who have always loved ITG products, continue to buy their products today. Conversely, the same people who have never purchased their products, continue to avoid it today.

If history is any indication (and it usually is), collectors can expect to see a very soft and in some cases a "crash" in prices, over the next 3-5 years. All one has to do is presently visit ebay. "Many" of the largest buyers over the past decade, not so quietly, have become sellers, with all of their big cards that were once un-touchables, available for the first reasonable offer.

[13stepper]

I have to disagree with all of you about "Upper Deck stopped caring about the collector" comments. I've had my feuds with Upper Deck, some of them I've publicly posted, I have an ongoing issue at the moment. Still, to paint them with this color is sincerely not true, I believe Upper Deck tries their best to ensure every collector with a "real" issue is looked after.

Anyways, back to the original purpose of the thread, putting aside the product quantity debate, I am looking forward to seeing some of the cancelled products make a return. Regarding market value, no one can deny that as a whole, the secondary market for Upper Deck cards is MUCH stronger then Panini cards.

[mq13]

Everyone has their favorite products and that is their choice. I don't believe a single vendor will provide more stable prices on the Sports Card market. For me I will only collect UD cards if I trade for them or buy them at a steep discount. I prefer ITG over any other Vendor. Panini had a couple nice products and UD has a few also. I am in this as a collector and this seems to be a seller speaking. I only collect cards as a HOBBY. That is all this is. Some people make this a living and that is their choice. But the people who drive up the prices are the ones ruining the Hobby for all. When you go to shows all you see are adults. Rarely do I see children going through boxes of cards. The sad part is only the Hardcore collectors are keeping this afloat.

[route42nj]

I am not excited about this at all.

Competition drives innovation and keeps costs reasonable. I like choices. One less manufacturer means less of a choice for me, the collector.

[subban7677]

I am not excited about this at all.

Competition drives innovation and keeps costs reasonable. I like choices. One less manufacturer means less of a choice for me, the collector.

This.