What If Manufacturers Logged Patches on a Grid?

[RGM81]

While in Kelowna I was chatting (extensively!) with Dean at Players Choice Sports and he mentioned something that I've been turning over in my brain for the last couple weeks and increasingly find to be an awesome idea. What if the card makers did the following:

Scan the jersey and make a grid for the patches/logos, so that when they cut up the jersey and put the swatch into a card they would also log it into their records. When the card is printed the grid location would be indicated on the back along with a link to the company website where the collector can look at the grid in full.

As an example:



Say I pull a sweet Carey Price 3-colour patch card 31/50. I would flip the card over and it would have "G2" on the back along with a unique number used to identify the player logo on the card. I can then go to the website and punch in that number, and see what pieces of the jersey were used for the entire print run on the card. 23/50 could be E8, 48/50 could be F13, and so forth.

Imagine how cool this would be.

1. It lets the collector see the actual jersey that was used and from where on the logo it comes from. This is something I've always thought was pretty cool, whether it's a Penguins eye or a shoulder patch on a Calgary jersey.
2. What is the biggest problem facing the hobby today? Patch-faking. The Kenny's of the world would be put out of business because collectors would have an invaluable database that they could turn to in order to verify the authenticity of the patches on their cards.
3. Depending on how far the company wants to go with the jersey identification process, they could even say when and where the jersey was used. Imagine punching in that code to discover that the Carey Price piece was from a jersey that was used on April 5, 2008, the game that you attended in person?

Of course, there are drawbacks.
1. Time - I don't know how much time the manufacturers spend cutting up the jerseys and getting them on to the cards now. Whatever it is, the scanning, the logging, and the data entry would add a not-insignificant amount of time to the process.
2. Money - more time on the process = more money to the employees, which might make it cost more than the company perceives it to be worth.
3. Internet storage - having a database with possibly multiple jerseys for some 500+ players would take up a lot of space on the Internetz. It would take quite the undertaking to get it all set up.

I'm sure that there are many other pro's and con's to such a concept. I would like to hear them from my fellow collectors. If Dr. Price would like to weigh in on this matter, that would be a truly valuable insight as well.

Discuss.

[mr ozzie]

While the idea is sound, the manpower and resources to keep it going will be very taxing - especially from a company that just cut 25% of its workforce.

[bidds55]

I like the idea in principle, but it would take a card company willing to sacrifice profit in order to offer to produce the best possible product to use such a process.

Realistically, this would add value to the cards, but not enough to offset the costs to the manufacturer without adding at least 50% to the SRP to the product, which in the case of the Cup is already extremely high.

[Prime B]

Great idea in theory Richard but unfortunately it will never get close to fruition.

Personally, I no longer bother myself with this patch crap.

I made a new rule to live by:

If it's an UD memorabilia piece, I assume it's not real and/or photo shoot, if it's ITG, it is legit. Simple as that.

I will never buy another UD plain memorabilia card without an auto because I can at least verify the auto is good by looking at it, the patch I cannot.

So if I have an UD auto patch/jersey card I know at least I have a good auto but my or may not be losing on the patch.

Honestly, at this point, I can accept that because this hobby is is a downward spiral and I just want to have fun!

[gomaz]

Awesome idea.

Will never happen in the hobby's current state.

[Qwikflipz]

If Upper Deck wants to not fall flat on their face. they need to look at something drastic like this. We have people who think it is all fake. But they don't think ITG is fake. If UD cared a second, they would try to proof they are legit. UD is, in a word, garbage.

[Puntown]

great idea...this would also pretty much stop all fakes from being introduced as you could cross reference the number to see if the same patch swatch is in the card or if it has been pulled out...the money to keep this going would propably not be worth the spoils

[roy.the.greatest]

It is a great idea.

On my side, I would really like to have a Made To Order program with the available memorabilia pieces with a grid database updated in real-time (let's say ITG would have a website with code and password indicated on each Made To Order card), so we could order online the exact pieces of memorabilia on our desired Made To Order card. It would be fantastic.

[gilp11]

If Upper Deck wants to not fall flat on their face. they need to look at something drastic like this. We have people who think it is all fake. But they don't think ITG is fake. If UD cared a second, they would try to proof they are legit. UD is, in a word, garbage.

i love it you have a want list full of upper deck cards yet upper deck is "garbage"

[jonpop]

What makes anyone think ITG is all legit? Its probably from suitcases and old towels.