Preview: Leaf ITG Superlative Vault

[87sluggo]

There were just too many spectacular cards in our Customer Service stock to destroy. So I created this product at this price point to allow collectors, who never had the opportunity to buy Superlative products, to collect some these amazing cards and add them to their collections. The only way these cards could be released was with the special Vault 1/1 stamp so that they would not affect the insertion numbers in the original products.

I honestly thought you'd sailed off into the sunset there, Doc :D

There's a discussion on another site about all of this, and this question arose - What would YOU have ITG do with all of the leftover stuff, destroy it? That's just insane. Or funnel it through eBay maybe? That's just unethical. This, then, is one solution.

The SRP is $115.99 from what I've been told. Which is not bad for four Superlatives. I personally wouldn't want to try to make a set or subset out of any of it, but as one-offs? I missed out on Bleu, Blanc et Rouge the first time out, I would love a second chance at a few of those. And a card is a card is a card, right????

[Gallinator]

I think this will sell out very quickly! I don't like the stamping but understand the reason for it AND the confirmation that these are in addition to stated print runs (with the stamp being the best/easiest way to make that differentiation when these cards hit the secondary market). Not sure why there are three different colors, though - aesthetics?

Kudos to Dr. Price for coming on and clarifying and even BIGGER kudos for the price point! This is one of the best ways to get these cards into the hands of collectors.

I hope there are some left in the Vault to hand out to your old VIP members as a thank you (<cough, cough> Sakic for me! lol)

[bdiam]

Just when you think that Leaf couldn't make a worse decision after their last release, they "double-down".

Leaf is like a vehicle that skidded off of the road and got stuck in the mud. Instead of taking their time and coming up with a logical "longterm" solution, they instead have shifted in 4WD and floored the gas pedal. After burying themselves even further after the Ultimate Memorabilia debacle, they have now gotten out of the vehicle, placed chains on the tires and are ready to floor it again. Unfortunately for Leaf, that brown substance that they are sinking in isn't mud and the new philosophy of "destroying the past" to keep afloat in the present, will equate to no future.

I can appreciate their situation (maybe not precisely but enough to understand) and respect Dr. Price's honesty but while a customer might still buy an item that has some mud stains, continuing along "this business path" won't convince anyone that what they are seeing and smelling is really mud.

Perhaps a good place to start, might be to take down that "Hope and Change" poster (of a certain hero to some) that is hanging in the Leaf boardroom and re-place it with some words of wisdom from Vince Lombardi. It couldn't hurt!

At this rate, the next Leaf product (solution to their problem), will be to place explosives under the vehicle and blow it clear from the mess.

[bprice]

Collectors, to clarify, this is not a Leaf product. So please do not blame Leaf for this concept.

Leaf is working hard to establish themselves in the hockey card hobby. There might be some bumps in the road but it is not for lack of trying.

There always seems to be a lot of blame thrown around in these type of threads but in this case the blame is misplaced.

As I said earlier, I respect all opinions from collectors, including the opinion of the post above.

Brian Price

[canucksfan007]

Is there a checklist?

[thehip66]

Well this does make a little more sense now that it is not buybacks , but old ITG inventory

But to clarify if the original superlative card at release had a stated /9 copies were all those 9 released in the original product and these were replacements if one of the 9 were damaged or were there say only 8 originally released and this is the 9th now with a stamp ?

[habscards]

Just when you think that Leaf couldn't make a worse decision after their last release, they "double-down".

Leaf is like a vehicle that skidded off of the road and got stuck in the mud. Instead of taking their time and coming up with a logical "longterm" solution, they instead have shifted in 4WD and floored the gas pedal. After burying themselves even further after the Ultimate Memorabilia debacle, they have now gotten out of the vehicle, placed chains on the tires and are ready to floor it again. Unfortunately for Leaf, that brown substance that they are sinking in isn't mud and the new philosophy of "destroying the past" to keep afloat in the present, will equate to no future.

I can appreciate their situation (maybe not precisely but enough to understand) and respect Dr. Price's honesty but while a customer might still buy an item that has some mud stains, continuing along "this business path" won't convince anyone that what they are seeing and smelling is really mud.

Perhaps a good place to start, might be to take down that "Hope and Change" poster (of a certain hero to some) that is hanging in the Leaf boardroom and re-place it with some words of wisdom from Vince Lombardi. It couldn't hurt!

At this rate, the next Leaf product (solution to their problem), will be to place explosives under the vehicle and blow it clear from the mess.

I am sorry but this post is all wrong. What should Dr. Price and ITG do here? They have an abundance of excess stock. How should they have got rid of it? Should they just have thrown to cards out? I am pretty certain that these cards were produced to be used as redemptions to box break programs at the Expo and the National. This is a great way to blow out their inventory. To all of my knowledge this is the last hurrah for Dr. Price and ITG. I am assuming that he is in retirement as opposed to making these boxes a really high price he has decided to make it a very reasonable price. Nothing at all is wrong with this.

[Cunnuc]

It's a lot better doing it this way than having your inventory/vault liquidated to unknown buyers who try flipping the cards as if they were genuine. Like I said before, I still see Pacific Rookies like Datsyuk sell on eBay as if they were genuine rookies but they have no serial number on them. I remember buying all of mine for $5 each many years ago, not $25 thinking I needed it for the set. No confusion here with Superlative Vault. Only way to tell a Superlative Quad Jersey Silver from a Superlative Vault Quad Jersey Silver is the Vault 1/1 stamp on it.

$119 SRP.. I'm guessing that is USD so that would be like... $200 at my LCS lol. Still, I want some. I collect ITG for the same reason everyone else does, for their memorabilia, player selection and hard-signed autos. I already know I will be buying a bunch of older boxes of ITG at the Spring Expo but I never thought I would be buying Superlative until now.

[brian045]

either ITG or leaf has to have 100s of shields sitting around as ITG didn't use very many in products. Maybe some in this?

[comfortably9numb]

I get the mixed reaction, but the good thing is that this product might be completely loaded with amazing vintage hits. If $110ish is the price range, I might pick up a box or two.