Redemption cards. Good or Bad Idea?

[nikemikey222005]

I'm sure this was probably talked about before but I was wondering what the reason for a Redemption card is? If they can put that stupid card in a pack why not put the regular ones in? Especially when they have expiration dates...People can sit on boxes or cases of a product but if someone eventually buys them or the owner opens them, then what's the point of a redemption?

Basically if people don't REDEEM all the Redemptions wouldn't the original card be more valuable?? or at least short printed which should make them worth more? If there's any good reason to have these cards please fill free to enlighten me because I cannot think of any good purpose to have them floating around in boxes...yea some do Buybacks but still they are limited and people don't know how many are floating around that they DIDNT buy back.

If there's a way to start a petition to ban these let me know, because I'm all in for it!

Thx

[canucksfan007]

Its not a good idea. Its not a bad idea.

Its necessary.

Card companies would love to not have redemptions, it would make their lives a whole lot easier than ours.

It is impossible to not have redemptions, unless card companies simply omit the player from the checklist that didnt get their cards back in time. How POed would people be if someone like Sid didnt sign for 6 months ...... can you imagine, no Sid autos for 6 months of releases. Then can you imagine the card companies side, if customers knew Sid was not going to sign for the next 5, 6, 7, whatever it may be releases.

Impossible to get around. What I have done with my redemptions:

1 - If I pull one, move it and be done with it as fast as I can

2 - If I want a card thats a redemption, simply wait till its live and pick it up then.

I havent dealt with the redemption process in over 5 years now

[pur3strpker0]

I will agree with the statement above. Without redemptions we would not have products that deliver. People shell out lots of money purchasing high end products like The Cup and Domion. Imagine if these products just got rid of the top rookie and the top stars just becuase they were redemptions. Of course this problem did not ext roughly 20 years ago but times have changed.

And to play devils advocate (if this even is considered that). The companies themselves hate redemptions just as much as the collectors. It costs them time and more $$ to produce the redemption itself. After that they have to produce the acutal card and then ship it out. Of course companies would like to eliminate the process of shipping it out during the initial product release but as Canucksfan said many would be POed that their favourite star player did not sign for an X amount of time and decided to scrap the player all together.

I consider redemptions a necessary evil.

[scarrman]

A couple good points. The point about unredeemed redemptions = a more valuable SP of sorts. I have always thought this myself, you would think there would be fewer available. But it seems these cards do make their way into the hands of collectors when you send in Redemption A, which the card manufacturer will never be able to fulfill, so they send you a redemption, call it Redemption B. Well Redemption B ends up being all those unredeemed cards that they have left over. It seems they recycle back into the market anyway.

What about the cards that they cancel, don't even put the redemptions out for fear the player just isn't responding. An example is Lindros in Parkhurst Champions. They killed all his sigs from the set, but in the end they did get them all back and inserted them in whatever random series. Kind of a nice gesture to at least get the cards back out.

I much prefer pulling the card, vs redeeming and waiting, but then it's kind of a double shot of excitement. You pull the redemption "yes, check this out!!", and then you get the excitement of opening the redemption envelope. Sort of the same as your home team scoring, you cheer, then they wave it off, refs check the replay, it's a goal!! Cheer again. Same thing.

[Kessel_fan_87]

I don't mind redemptions if its a hard signed auto, If its a redemption for a sticker then I'm really ticked.

[nikemikey222005]

but even today you can still buy older series of The Cup and they have useless redemption cards in them. Unless they recycle them with buybacks or by other means then that's just a useless card. My friend has bought some older UD Ice boxes from 09-10 and pulled a couple decent redemptions but cant do anything with them. I looked at some 11-12 Certified rookie redemptions on ebay today that are for sale and they expired May of 2013 and I'm assuming people aren't catching that lol.

If the company wants to put superstar player X in their series they should have X amount of cards signed by him before the release date. Or postpone the release date. Work out some contract with the player they need to live up to. (just my opinion) I pulled a Schiefele or however you spell his name from 11-12 Certified and waited many Months to receive it in the mail. Heck there was a LOCKOUT in the NHL...you mean to tell me that player couldn't find time out of his day to sign a few cards? lol His agent should have been all over his @$$. Or just make some contract up with companies that the players will only sign X amount of total cards per year and factor out how they want to disperse that into their series

[nhanna68]

Better than not having a chance at that card at all. . .but the wait sucks.

[Gallinator]

Nothing worse than buying an older box and hitting a BIG one only to have it be way past expired. Of course, the box price is generally discounted a little by then, but not nearly enough to make up for it.

I will say that Panini has been very good about redeeming cards after the expiration date; the only reason expiration dates are on there at all is to limit the obligation to honor the redemption.

Or how about we just all buy ITG cards and not worry about redemptions at all?

[30ranfordfan]

Needed, unless companies would pull the card from the checklist. That would work for some cards, but if it's a top rookie, crosby, etc - they can't pull those from packs, and are forced to do redemptions.

Expiery dates are also needed. Usually they're 3 years after the product was released. They can't sit on cards in an inventory like that for ever.

But don't fool yourself into thinking unredeemed cards don't get out. That's often what they use for replacments on ones where the card was never made, or the someone got tired of waiting.

[centrehice]

Don't create the card if you aren't going to honor the redemption. That is how I look at them. As Gallinator said, they are only putting a deadline on a Redemption, simply to let themselves off the hook in actually having to do the work to have it sent to a happy customer.


I sent my redemption in on time in 2001, and I still did not get it back.


I am still waiting for a Shawn Thornton 2001-02 SPx "R Numbered" Rookie Redemption. It has now been 12 years. Upper Deck lost me as a customer, as I have only purchased 2 hobby boxes, and that was a little over a year later, but never again.

They have the right not to offer decent customer service, and I have a right not to purchase their products, which I do not. I have bought over 100 boxes of used older 90's-2004 Pacific Products in that time frame so they in effect have lost thousands of potential dollars in sales by not backing their products or their clams.

The fact that they don't do a whole lot to make their end customers happy is the real issue, not the redemption itself. You can always tell good companies from bad, by the way they treat their customers, and not by just the quality of their product.