Something Upper Deck should do

[flopfish]

After a night of complaining about SPA I decided to think of a solution to making it more valuable. All I had to do was think back to the first ever high end box I opened, coincidently SPA... But of the 2009 baseball variety. It was a sweet product to open for $120. You got your money's worth of hits and had very few base packs. There were enough subsets to appeal to most collectors, rookie content AND veteran content. My box at the time was bad but it was FUN to open. I ended up getting a rookie lettermark of some scrub named David Freese (kept it until after the World Series for obvious reasons) along with another lettermark /35 and a Future Watch Auto. Also I had some base parallels and some nice inserts, most of which were low numbered. Now, what does this have to do with SP Authentic Hockey? Simple. Combine SPGU and SPA. The products fit perfectly with eachother, here's why:

Most people don't care for the rookies in SPGU. Replacing them with Future Watches and making them fall 3 or 4 per box like SPA would increase people's interest in the product. Also, you can get rid of the unnecessary $1 GU in SPGU and have it lower numbered, like the patch autos /100. At the same time, you can keep in By The Letters, Letter Marks, supreme patches and sticks in. Also, keep all of the GU from duals to 8 ways along with the SPA auto sets. Take the future watch autos and make a short print set /499 and a regular /999

A box would look like this: (10 packs)
-3 FW RCs (minimum 1 auto)
-1 Auto GU card (lettermark, etc)
-1 non-rookie auto
-1 GU card
-1 additional GU/Auto card
-3 additional Inserts #999 or less (Holo FX, essentials, etc)

A case would look like this: (10 boxes)
-2 SP FWA /499
-1 3+ GU card
-1 FWA Patch minimum
-3 additional patches
-2 2+ Auto cards
-1 auto card /50 or less


Even at $160, the product brings value and excitement. Keep base cards to a minimum like 2-3 per pack and people would be happy.

This also frees up a spot for an additional product like OPCP or Black...

Thoughts, ideas, concerns?

[MatsSundin13Rocks]

I absolutely think this is an awesome idea. The value in SPA is just not there for the vast majority of boxes. This would make the breaks more interesting and add more value to them.

[mortuus]

I dont think they care anymore.. they just gonna throw out whatever they feel for and people still are gonna buy it :(

[RGM81]

Why stop there? Throw in SPx as well.

[Johnsson]

flopfish, I think you underestimate the production costs for a set, specially for hard-signed autos. If one assume they cost 10-15 bucks a card to produce and getting signed, 6 autos alone would cost more than half the box price and that's isn't very realistic (specially if one only wants stars to sign).
Also making some FW short printed isn't a good solution, to many set-collectors would quit if the good RCs doubled in price and even fewer boxes would have a good rookie.

Why stop there? Throw in SPx as well.

I've been worked on a "SP-mashup" for a while. My problem is that I have to many sets (50) and cards (almost 2700, this years SPA has around 900), and that's exactly what I wanted to fix since I think it's one of the main problem with sets today, they have to many cards and sets to chase.

I uploaded the spreadsheet on google for those whos interested: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...ENVVWRocV85bHc

I tried to make a set that incorperated the best of each of the three sets (SPA's rookie and smooth design, SPx's inserts and experimental lust and the memorabilia from SPGU), but they have grown apart so much now, that fusing them together is much harder than I thought.

I don't know what sets to remove or making fewer cards of, I guess one could remove the parallels, but that's SPx's main theme.

I also made some economical calculations (in the economy-sheet) to see what the odds were for each card and how much they would cost to produce and what their value would be (these are my estimations).

[ncm7772]

I dont think they care anymore.. they just gonna throw out whatever they feel for and people still are gonna buy it :(

Unfortunately, you're probably right. In fact, I KNOW your're right! I think this would be a great idea, but it's all about the almighty dollar.

A perfect example of this is this year's SPGU. It was only a couple of months ago, we all saw these abysmal breaks, I mean just awful. 1 no-name scrub auto and 2 $2 GU's were the average box. At $180 a pop!!! And people still continued to buy it!! That's why Upper Deck will continue to put all 3 sets.

SPa isn't much better IMO. There are some amazing cards that are going for huge $, but they've screwed up so many boxes it's unreal. We've all seen a bunch of breaks without a single auto. Panini is better than UD this year IMO.

[Mozesmadness]

The only product UD did well this year was Artifacts

[Wickabee]

The only product UD did well this year was Artifacts

Until it came time to get the RED RCs out. I'm still waiting for mine.

[flopfish]

flopfish, I think you underestimate the production costs for a set, specially for hard-signed autos. If one assume they cost 10-15 bucks a card to produce and getting signed, 6 autos alone would cost more than half the box price and that's isn't very realistic (specially if one only wants stars to sign).
Also making some FW short printed isn't a good solution, to many set-collectors would quit if the good RCs doubled in price and even fewer boxes would have a good rookie.


I've been worked on a "SP-mashup" for a while. My problem is that I have to many sets (50) and cards (almost 2700, this years SPA has around 900), and that's exactly what I wanted to fix since I think it's one of the main problem with sets today, they have to many cards and sets to chase.

I uploaded the spreadsheet on google for those whos interested: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...ENVVWRocV85bHc

I tried to make a set that incorperated the best of each of the three sets (SPA's rookie and smooth design, SPx's inserts and experimental lust and the memorabilia from SPGU), but they have grown apart so much now, that fusing them together is much harder than I thought.

I don't know what sets to remove or making fewer cards of, I guess one could remove the parallels, but that's SPx's main theme.

I also made some economical calculations (in the economy-sheet) to see what the odds were for each card and how much they would cost to produce and what their value would be (these are my estimations).

A) $10-15 per card for an on card auto is high. The player would have to be making $8 + per auto on a card if it was that high. Your saying that Bouma, Nemisz, etc. made $8000-13,000 each from signing 999 Future Watches. That's a ton.

When DA has a 12 box case of SPA that they are making money on around $107.5 a box SHIPPED, you know UD is making money on it. A box of Contenders from Panini costs $87 in a 14 box case from DA SHIPPED and you know DA is making money on that as well. Contenders has either 2 on card autos and a patch auto, or 4 on card autos, or 2 on card autos and a 4+ auto booklet. You know Panini is making money on the price they sold it to DA at.

B) SP rookies make a product more valuable while making it cost less to produce, making a product cheaper. Take the 6 they use in SPx, and have 2 fall per 12 box case. That's about what they fall now in SPA anyways, and it works both ways. It may be more expensive, but if you pull one it's worth more.

GU is around $1000 on average per jersey, stars being around $6,000+ but lots of players being around $400-700, and you can get a ton of swatches from a jersey. Even if it's 100, which you can get more than 100, it's $10. You can get 50 patches per jersey minimum by the time you get numbers, name plates, logos, side logos, etc. so then there's another 50 cards, so you are at 150 swatches minimum. It's a lot more swatches than that too, but say it's $7 a swatch

As far as SPx goes, it's too different to include in my opinion. The GU hits out of it, however, are BETTER than SPGUs on average, which is very ironic.

$160 for a 12 pack box:
$15 per auto (3-4) is $45-60
$7 per GU piece (2-3) is $14-21


You're looking at right now $74 per box in those on a high side. Add the cost of printing the base cards and inserts, say another $21 for the 42 cards remaining (36 base, 6 Inserts) and you are at $95 for the box. Add the packaging costs, and say it's $115 a box in cost. Let's say UD makes $20 dollars on a box, and it's $135 for a company to buy a box. Shipping on the 12 box case is around $20. That's $1640 for a case for the LCS to buy. The LCS selling it at $160 has $23 in profit per box before tax. It's pretty realistic even at $15 dollars an auto and $7 a GU piece. There's wiggle room in there as well, and again that's at a high price. What part of that for $160 isn't realistic? Most LCS' would mark it up an extra $10 to $170 anyways a box, so it's a ton of money extra.

[Mozesmadness]

Until it came time to get the RED RCs out. I'm still waiting for mine.

I've had mine for 2-3 months now, but I agree there not even autos those should be out quicker.