Common Superstar Autos

[jmatchett]

There was a post on here that got me thinking about pulling those superstar autos.

Prior to 96/97, the only autos from the "big" brands (not Classic/Panini Durivage/etc.) were the Score Orr autos, UD Hull's Heroes autos, Score Richard autos, Ultra Roenick (and maybe Oates?) autos, and the 1-per-pack from the "crazy expensive" BAP from the previous 2 years. I maybe be forgetting a few, but they were beyond rare (remember the 94/95 BAP "VK" auto?). In 96/97, SPX put out a Gretzky auto (I was lucky enough to pull 2), Donruss Elite (I think) out out the Hart To Hart series featuring autos of Lemieux and/or Lindros. BAP continued its 1-per-pack auto. Point is, unless you were spending tons of money on BAP packs, you weren't lining your trade box with autos.

Flash forward to today. Almost every product that offers autos has a Gretzky, Lemieux, Orr, or "Mr. Hockey" auto available in it. Back then, if you pulled an auto of one of those guys, it took Fort Knox to get it. I mean, a card that a hockey legend actually autographed??? How cool is that!?!? Now, I see people trading cards autographed by the 4 best skaters of all time PLUS MORE for the new auto SP patch of the hot rookie of the week. Autos of common players are treated like trash, or worse, game-used cards. My point is, the market has become so flooded with cards autographed by the game's all time greats that they've lost the appeal they used to have. I remember when I pulled the Lindros/Lemieux Hart to Hart dual auto, the entire shop came over and was in absolute awe. Now I'd get an "Oh, cool pull, man." I just wish that companies would actually restore value to these cards by changing what players actually should have an auto'd card (how many more Gilbert Brule autos will UD mass include into every product), and change how hard it is to pull them. Just my take.

[RGM81]

This right here is possibly the Gordian Knot of the hobby:

"I just wish that companies would actually restore value to these cards by changing what players actually should have an auto'd card (how many more Gilbert Brule autos will UD mass include into every product), and change how hard it is to pull them. Just my take."

How do we determine who "should" have an autograph card? Your Gilbert Brule may be another collector's Chris Kunitz who may be another collector's Alex Kovalev.

If we go ahead and chop out certain players from products because they're "plugs" or third-stringers or back-up goalies or whatever is deemed to be an undesirable this week, we could end up with entire teams not being represented in a particular product. And that's entirely not fair to followers of that team who want to be able to enjoy the hobby just as much as a Habs fan or a Leafs fan or a Penguins fan gets to.

There was a product released last season--I believe it was SP Authentic--that had a total of 9 cards for the Florida Panthers. That included the base cards. Imagine if you're the poor schmuck that gets stuck with that team in a group break. You don't even have much of a hope of "at least I'll get something" from it.

So say that UD/Panini were to restrict autos to the Top X Scorers in the NHL. A lot of very popular players are going to get cut because of a weak production season, or an injury, or simply because they're defencemen who don't rack up a ton of points. Not only are you severely restricting the pool available to you, but say that Player 87 doesn't get some cards back on time. Well, the checklist is now even weaker due to him being a redemption. And let's not forget the most fundamental factor: premium players cost more. Want to get Patrick Roy in your set? One signature of him will cost you the same as 20 signatures of a lesser light. If only the best are in the product, production costs will go up and that cost will be passed along to the consumer.

There is no easy way to do it that pleases everybody. If Upper Deck were to take six months off from releasing autographs of Sidney Crosby in their products because they felt that there's too many on the market, all the people who demand new Sidney Crosby autographs are going to turn to Panini to get them.

The cat is already out of the bag. There's no way it's going to go back into it. Collectors will always demand more.

[pwaldo]

You are always going to have 50% of the collectors who want stuff cheaper while the other 50% of the collectors want stuff to be more expensive. I fall in the I like have some cards being special. I still remember every guy in baseball that had super impossible to pull autograph cards throughout the 90s. Nomar, Pedro, Mike Piazza, Greg Maddux, McGwire, etc. Now some of those guys are still hard to find but most are getting run into the ground. And I'm not bitter about it because I don't have any autographs of any of those guys but it is just that I have always believed in having some autographs being "special". I would rather have Jordan's autograph be something rare in basketball and be somewhat of a chase than to be something common.

That's something I feel shouldn't just be done with autographs either. The whole reason insert cards were something special and desired in the early 90s was because they were rare. Same thing with game used cards. If you pulled one you felt like you just hit the lottery. But if everyone is a winner than winning doesn't really seem that special in my opinion.

[cygnusx1]

This right here is possibly the Gordian Knot of the hobby:

"I just wish that companies would actually restore value to these cards by changing what players actually should have an auto'd card (how many more Gilbert Brule autos will UD mass include into every product), and change how hard it is to pull them. Just my take."

How do we determine who "should" have an autograph card? Your Gilbert Brule may be another collector's Chris Kunitz who may be another collector's Alex Kovalev.

If we go ahead and chop out certain players from products because they're "plugs" or third-stringers or back-up goalies or whatever is deemed to be an undesirable this week, we could end up with entire teams not being represented in a particular product. And that's entirely not fair to followers of that team who want to be able to enjoy the hobby just as much as a Habs fan or a Leafs fan or a Penguins fan gets to.

There was a product released last season--I believe it was SP Authentic--that had a total of 9 cards for the Florida Panthers. That included the base cards. Imagine if you're the poor schmuck that gets stuck with that team in a group break. You don't even have much of a hope of "at least I'll get something" from it.

So say that UD/Panini were to restrict autos to the Top X Scorers in the NHL. A lot of very popular players are going to get cut because of a weak production season, or an injury, or simply because they're defencemen who don't rack up a ton of points. Not only are you severely restricting the pool available to you, but say that Player 87 doesn't get some cards back on time. Well, the checklist is now even weaker due to him being a redemption. And let's not forget the most fundamental factor: premium players cost more. Want to get Patrick Roy in your set? One signature of him will cost you the same as 20 signatures of a lesser light. If only the best are in the product, production costs will go up and that cost will be passed along to the consumer.

There is no easy way to do it that pleases everybody. If Upper Deck were to take six months off from releasing autographs of Sidney Crosby in their products because they felt that there's too many on the market, all the people who demand new Sidney Crosby autographs are going to turn to Panini to get them.

The cat is already out of the bag. There's no way it's going to go back into it. Collectors will always demand more.

Not only that, but if only X amount of players were allowed into the auto sets based on accomplishments, the market for their autos would be watered down. Similar to the way they are already watered down, despite the fact that you already have scrub autos in sets. If you remove the scrubs, you'll get either A) More autographed content from the superstars to the point that it's no longer valuable, or B) Such long odds for said autos that people will complain about the lack of hits in the product.

No matter what, someone will take issue with whatever product is released.

[jmatchett]

This right here is possibly the Gordian Knot of the hobby:

"I just wish that companies would actually restore value to these cards by changing what players actually should have an auto'd card (how many more Gilbert Brule autos will UD mass include into every product), and change how hard it is to pull them. Just my take."

How do we determine who "should" have an autograph card? Your Gilbert Brule may be another collector's Chris Kunitz who may be another collector's Alex Kovalev.

If we go ahead and chop out certain players from products because they're "plugs" or third-stringers or back-up goalies or whatever is deemed to be an undesirable this week, we could end up with entire teams not being represented in a particular product. And that's entirely not fair to followers of that team who want to be able to enjoy the hobby just as much as a Habs fan or a Leafs fan or a Penguins fan gets to.

There was a product released last season--I believe it was SP Authentic--that had a total of 9 cards for the Florida Panthers. That included the base cards. Imagine if you're the poor schmuck that gets stuck with that team in a group break. You don't even have much of a hope of "at least I'll get something" from it.

So say that UD/Panini were to restrict autos to the Top X Scorers in the NHL. A lot of very popular players are going to get cut because of a weak production season, or an injury, or simply because they're defencemen who don't rack up a ton of points. Not only are you severely restricting the pool available to you, but say that Player 87 doesn't get some cards back on time. Well, the checklist is now even weaker due to him being a redemption. And let's not forget the most fundamental factor: premium players cost more. Want to get Patrick Roy in your set? One signature of him will cost you the same as 20 signatures of a lesser light. If only the best are in the product, production costs will go up and that cost will be passed along to the consumer.

There is no easy way to do it that pleases everybody. If Upper Deck were to take six months off from releasing autographs of Sidney Crosby in their products because they felt that there's too many on the market, all the people who demand new Sidney Crosby autographs are going to turn to Panini to get them.

The cat is already out of the bag. There's no way it's going to go back into it. Collectors will always demand more.

I'm not really sure HOW you'd determine it. I guess you can't really. But I remember, for instance, pulling an SPA SOTT of Ryan Potulny. That's great for Ryan Putolny and, I guess, his parents, but I doubt anybody other than set collectors would be very happy to pull his auto. Maybe they could have eliminated him and put in a player who's actually an NHL regular instead of a guy with a few cups of coffee on his resume.

The real point was, as pwaldo said, when everyone's a winner, then winning isn't as special as it used to be. Base cards used to actually have value because the inserts were so hard to get, and inserts used to have crazy value (93/94 Donruss Elite is a good example). But now, the market is so oversaturated that it seems like the joy of pulling one of those "special" cards is lessened due to their being so many of them. It's very nice that more people can have a big card of a legendary player, but at the same time, it was pretty cool when you had THE card of him, where as now there are 5000 of THE card of him.

[RGM81]

That's inevitable though when you've got 11 products each for UD and Panini, plus however many extra that ITG does in any given year.

Unless it's a player that is very restrictive of his autograph and when/where/how often he'll allow it to be used, or a guy like Paul Kariya that never signs anything, there's always going to be more stuff. Even Crosby autos are coming down in price due to volume; perhaps it's only a matter of time until he/his camp begin to relent on the "no dual signatures" policy to keep things fresh.

[CoolHandLuke]

I think that some saw that when auto and jersey as well cam out in set, back in the days, no many was using internet. So hit seem really hard to come by. Then internet got more and more popular, ebay, trade sites. So now we see all the cards being pulled and we get the impression they are easy to get because we can trade for them and we can buy them on sites, not just show.


But in fact the number of auto made kept increasing until after the strike in 2004 and then stabilized until Panini came in. Result 5,000 more unique cards with Panini competing with UD. UD did push it up after the strike but Panini push it up even more. Mainly the demand is there and manufacturer just respond to it. Here the numbers

1990 0
1991 149
1992 40
1993 34
1994 284
1995 732
1996 579
1997 947
1998 973
1999 1334
2000 1848
2001 1688
2002 3259
2003 3034
2004 2965
2005 9572
2006 8677
2007 9134
2008 9119
2009 9063
2010 14820
2011 14943
2012 8425 Strike affected the number of release

So UD really push those out big time, raising from 3,000 to 9,000 unique cards a year, Then Panini coming in to compete with UD pushed it a other 5,000 more to 14,000

So the constant increase in the number of card with auto, along with how easy it is now to see, trade or buy them due to high communication tools that were not there 25 years ago just give it more the feeling about availability. Also back in the days, when you look at how many card with auto produce by a player would be so little but year after year these accumulate so for a player like Gretzky, of course today not only there is more in a given year but also overall the number keep going up

wayne gretzky 874
Patick Roy 1015
mario lemieux 902


So of course when we see these number and it's only unique cards. imagine how many if we would multiply it by print run. But even this number is not possible to calculate since many don't have a print run. So there are maybe many ten or even 100 of thousand of cards for each player.

Yet we still pay big money for these players...

So

[30ranfordfan]

I understand totally what the OP is saying, but I'm not sure what you do.


Pandora's Box was opened, regarding GU & Auto'd cards, in the 1990s..... and the box was then ripped to shreads throughout most of the 2000s :)


If autographed cards were much more rare, if game used cards were much more rare, for certain - they would command much higher dollars. If they were limited to only the "best of the best" they'd be far more valuable.


Think about a Gretzky Autograph for a moment. In the 1990s, there were so few "pack pulled" autographs of his, they were worth 100s, sometimes 1000s of dollars (depending on what they were). Now? You can get a "decent" one for about $120. Maybe less, if you look hard.

Why? Becuase UD is pumping out 100s more of them every year, and the demand isn't there to sustain the high prices they used to get.


Game used is the same thing. What a Crosby jersey card sold for 5 years ago.... vs now.... the prices have dropped drastically. Why? Most people don't want to own 300 GU cards of Sid. They want one or two nice ones, they've got them, and they're not paying top dollar to get more copies. A few collectors out there?? Sure, but there isn't enough of them to see as high of a price on those cards.


What can you do to chance this? To make these "hits" more valuable? I would suggest there is nothing that UD or Panini (or ITG) could do at this point. Using Upper Deck's products as an example:

- They limited game used content to SP Game Used, Ultimate, and The Cup only
- They limited auto content to SP Authentic, Ultimate, and The Cup only.
- Make The Cup the ONLY set that contains Auto / Game Used cards.

This would probably have a decent effect on the overall value of those cards. There would suddenly be less GU / Auto content on the market - Rookies (in particular) from those sets would likely jump a bit in value.

What this wouldn't do, is remove the glut of autos / game used that have been made for the last decade. Even if they made no more than 150 new Sidney Crosby jersey cards this year - there would still be the 1000s they've already made in circulation. Same for any other player you can name.

It would also, likely, kill most their other brands. UD Series 1 / 2 would get by fine - as it's non-auto'd RCs that are the big drivers of those sets. (I would LOVE to see them drop all GU / Auto content from those releases, and lower the price by $10 per box - regardless of any other configuration changes they might make). Sets like Trilogy, Black Diamond, SPx, etc - They couldn't make it without the GU & Auto hits though. No way.


They would also be depending on Panini (as the other licensed manufacturer) to do something similar. If Panini did not, then Upper Deck cutting down its production, it wouldn't have much of an effect at all.



This is not 1990, when Upper Deck made a Series 1 / Series 2 of hockey cards (and a French version) and called it a year. They run off 11 products, and have badley inflated the retail costs of them - so they can make more money. The only way to justify those prices to consumers..... is to gaurentee hits, and for most collectors (today) hits are Autos & Game Used, Inserts are junk. Too expensive to have nothing but superstars, so you've got fill the sets out with the smaller names.


(I don't want to sound like I'm picking on Upper Deck here. They've got a longer run in the hockey card market, and their products are easier for me to talk about, becuase I know them much better. What I've written about UD here, same thing could be said about Panini).


End of the day, they've got a business to run. Yes - this is a hobby for you and I, but it's a multi-billion dollar industry for the companies that work it.

[jmatchett]

Well, as you say, if they did limit GU/Auto stuff to only The Cup (which is a whole different topic to discuss), they would likely stop producing 11 sets. And you know what? I'm fine with that. Black Diamonds survived for years on the diamond system (the first year I think the <><><> cards were 1/box) and later, parallels. If UD only put out UDI/II, SPA, and 1-2 other sets, that would be fantastic. Limit the amount of throwaway inserts and you'd actually get back to building a strong foundation on the entire contents of a box, as opposed to just looking for the 1 big hit.

I guess I just missed the days when you didn't have to have $25K+ of annual disposable income to be able to really compete in the hobby. Back when the "expensive" stuff was BAP at $11/pack, most people could spring every now and then for a 24-pack box. Now, if I wanted one PACK of The Cup (it's a pack, not a box), my wife would murder me. Maybe it's me being selfish, but it really sucks that UD has taken what used to be a kids' hobby and turned it into a fairly cut-throat business ruled by adults. I've had countless other people who've been driven out of the hobby by this trend, and I really think our generation will be the last one to enjoy the hobby, as I doubt many kids will want to continue it for years when they're busting pack after pack of Victory and see people busting case after case of The Cup.

[30ranfordfan]

If the NHL & the PA declared tomorrow that they would license only 10 trading card sets per year, and no more than 4 sets per any single manufacturer, I'd welcome it.

The manufacturers, PA, and NHL would hate it though - becuase it would hurt their bottom line.

UD in particular, but card manufacturers in general, yes - that's what they have done. They've taken a kids hobby, and turned it into big business. I don't think you need anywhere near $25k to 'compete' in this hobby though. IMO - I don't really care what other people want to collect, what they deem to be "good" cards. I haven't spent anywhere near that, but I don't feel I've really missed out on any cards that I truely wanted for my collection.

At the end of the day, it's supposed to be fun. Sure, rookie cards from "The Cup" are more desirable than ones from any other set..... and while I'll admit that I would love to own a Taylor Hall ARP /99, without even going to eBay - I know that the price is something far more than I would spend on it, so I don't even bother looking.


I do agree though, the way this hobby has shifted over the last 15 years will (eventually) be its undoing. The contents of most boxes are throwaways now, becuase so many people have no interest in sets, despite the fact that manufacturers keep making them.


UD Series 1 will be a HUGE hit when it comes out next month. Why? Becuase people will be chasing about a dozen of the 50 rookies, the canvas versions of many, the serial numbered versions of all rookies, and that's about it. When that's the market that companies are trying to cater to - why would they change?

Well, as you say, if they did limit GU/Auto stuff to only The Cup (which is a whole different topic to discuss), they would likely stop producing 11 sets. And you know what? I'm fine with that. Black Diamonds survived for years on the diamond system (the first year I think the <><><> cards were 1/box) and later, parallels. If UD only put out UDI/II, SPA, and 1-2 other sets, that would be fantastic. Limit the amount of throwaway inserts and you'd actually get back to building a strong foundation on the entire contents of a box, as opposed to just looking for the 1 big hit.

I guess I just missed the days when you didn't have to have $25K+ of annual disposable income to be able to really compete in the hobby. Back when the "expensive" stuff was BAP at $11/pack, most people could spring every now and then for a 24-pack box. Now, if I wanted one PACK of The Cup (it's a pack, not a box), my wife would murder me. Maybe it's me being selfish, but it really sucks that UD has taken what used to be a kids' hobby and turned it into a fairly cut-throat business ruled by adults. I've had countless other people who've been driven out of the hobby by this trend, and I really think our generation will be the last one to enjoy the hobby, as I doubt many kids will want to continue it for years when they're busting pack after pack of Victory and see people busting case after case of The Cup.