Unpopular Opinion: Death of the Set Builder == Death of the Hobby

[Stryfex]

I've been doing alot of thinking about this subject lately so I figured it could be a good discussion on the forum - although potentially a polarizing subject.

It's very much factual that the hobby is (and has been for a long time) trending away from set builders to player/team collectors, hot rookie collectors and rippers/flippers. My theory is that the "set builder" is the backbone of the hobby as it currently exists and as more and more set builders convert to other forms of collecting or quit altogether, the hobby will implode. I know this is a bit of a doom/gloom comment but I personally believe this is already happening - although not yet to the degree that it's not reversible.

We're already seeing a fairly severe situation where products are very expensive but almost everything from the product is valued FAR FAR FAR below the entry point of the product and only a select few cards are worth even the break-even point for the product, let alone greater. I believe a big part of the reason for this is just an expansion of supply/demand - collectors especially through the facilitation of group breaks are opening up massive amounts of product, but only a tiny amount of those cards actually have demand on the marketplace. A set builder requires 1 of each card/player while a player collector only requires 1 and a rookie/investment collector only requires 4-5. Since those last 2 collectors are the majority of the hobby at the moment, you have that 1 or 4-5 players generating demand on the supply, but the vast majority of it is seeing very little demand at all.


Whether we like to acknowledge the financial value of cards having importance or not, to a large contingent of collectors it matters. A collector that spends $150 on a box of cards likes to move the cards they don't need to acquire more of the ones they do need (or just make the hit of the $150 less heavy). if almost everything they open in that $150 is worthless they will feel discouraged and purchase less and less boxes. I'm still not sure how/why people buying boxes of the cup sell stuff on eBay for like $5....if you spent like $700 on a box with 6 cards in it...why not keep the card instead of trying to get $5 for it?

Recently when Brad left CnC he did an AMA on reddit and in one of the questions he answered he discussed that lots of money was exchanging hands in the hobby but gradually over time it was fewer and fewer people accounting for all those transactions.

What do you all think? Do you think there's anything that can happen in the hobby to bring back set-collecting or is it dead forever? Is there a way that the hobby can re-configure to more properly support the habits of collectors?

[Thick McRunfast]

Very good topic for discussion, Stryfex.

I haven't bought packs since the 1990s and only recently began following the hobby again, so the answers some of the questions I'm going to ask might already be out there. Regardless, I think one thing that must be considered is the younger generation.

(1) Are kids interested in completing sets? If not, how does the industry increase interest?
(2) Is completing a set even financially feasible these days?
(3) Do card companies put out a standard, low-budget, easy-to-complete set, or do even the basic sets include short prints and other cards that make it difficult to put together the full set?
(4) What if card companies offered some sort of reward to collectors who do complete a set? Has this already been tried?

On the plus side, I think sites like SCF make it easier for a set collector to put together complete sets, right? I mean, that's a big reason why I signed up. I'm trying to complete some of my childhood sets from the 1980s and 1990s, and it's been fun making trades and helping other collectors to complete their sets and expand their player collections, too.

Hopefully the hobby is still made up of a variety of collectors with a variety of interests. That's how it would stay the most healthy.

I don't like to think that the majority of collectors are just buying packs, pulling the inserts, and tossing all the rest in a box without even looking.

[sparty07]

DO you have a link to the AMA?

Thick, MVP, O-Pee-Chee and O-Pee-Chee Platinum are cheaper products designed for rainbow/set collectors and they are encouraging set collectors online with the various achievements they have been releasing recently.

[RGM81]

There's a lot of good discussion questions/points in there. Good topic!

Personally, I switched away from building sets back in 2010. While I did have some fun in my early years in the hobby building Black Diamond each year (the double-triple-quad made for fun chasing) eventually I made the decision that I wanted to focus my hobby dollars, which were and still are pretty limited, on building my Habs player collections. There have been a couple exceptions since then as I did the 2013-14 Prizm and the first Team Canada sets, but for the most part I've been player collecting for seven years now. I 't think there are still plenty of set-builders out there among the older guard these days.

What I think has been the tipping point for the hobby in recent years has been the influx of new collectors who came along during McDavidmania in 2015-16. I'm going to preface this by saying that I don't have anything against the new collectors or that "they're doing it wrong," but they changed the game to the extent that their demands changed the way Upper Deck released products. In that year, and to a similar extent in 2016-17 as well, products were centred almost entirely around those rookie superstars. So when @Stryfex says, "group breaks are opening up massive amounts of product, but only a tiny amount of those cards actually have demand on the marketplace" I think he's bang-on. Many (not all) of the new guys don't care about the second tier rookies or the semi-stars--they want McDavid, McDavid, McDavid, and maybe a little bit of Matthews. The rest they're happy to dump so that they can get more bucks for the next group break or the next razz. Meanwhile, you look at the overflooded market that is COMC and what the huge production numbers for 15-16 and 16-17 have done for Young Guns cards. In past years, even a bum would be worth a couple bucks in a deal. Now, you can get guys like Max Domi and Matthew Tkachuk for under five bucks. That's not good for business.

All that said, and in a strange roundabout way Leaf has actually forced UD's hand for this upcoming season to make changes...to revert to an older model, the pre-McD if you will. Because Leaf locked up both Hischier and Patrick to autograph exclusives, this will probably be a terrible year ahead for rookie cards. Tyson Jost can only carry things so far. There may be a breakout star, possibly. But UD is going to have to focus more on reliable veteran content for autographs and stuff to sell product. I imagine production will be down quite a bit compared to the past two years. Some of the filler sets may get dropped or melded together to deliver stronger releases.

And the ace in the hole...that Spectrum Bounty program worked really, really well. For the first time in a long time, I saw people actually striving to make trades to build a set. Sure, many people just bought the codes, but lots of guys were looking to make deals to complete their set so that they could get the super-cool parallel set. I dealt away one of the Tier 3 Leafs rookies for a Carey Price Cup auto patch. That's how bigly people were chasing those cards. Hopefully, maybe, that chase for people ignited a spark that wasn't there before and will get them chasing sets in the future. I'm sure UD will do future Bounty programs as part of their initiative to restore "healthy collecting habits" to the hobby. Because I think they too know that the current system isn't sustainable.

[Thick McRunfast]

Thanks for the info, sparty07. Good to know there are options.

If I decide to collect modern cards one day, I think I'll probably start with one of the O-Pee-Chee offerings.

[30ranfordfan]

There are lots of different ways to collect, I don't think any single way is the "right way".

I will preface this by talking about my own collecting habits:

I have certainly built a lot of sets over the years. I had completed every UD Series 1/2 from 90-91 through 15-16. Since I really got back into things in 2009, that was the product I went after each year. Did the base... did the YGs... didn't care much for the inserts (outside of the Hockey Heroes, which had some continuity in the continued numbered set year over year), jerseys, or autographs. Later seasons where Update cards existed from SPA, I grabbed those too... there was a couple of other 'XRC' type cards mixed in there as well.

After 15-16, I called it quits. Sold off the whole collection. Was taking up too much space, cost me too much $$$ annually to build it, and the time & effort it required just wasn't worth it to me anymore (I had a few other life changes last year, lol.)

I've still got some other sets kicking around that I'd love to get rid of, and a few I don't want to move. A couple of older sets I'm still working on, and I'll probably chase the Tim Hortons stuff again this year (even though I have not completed last season's).

Mostly: I'm into expanding my Oilers collection, and continuing to build on my Ranford collection. That's it (I also cleared out most of my HOFers, and other "random nice cards" last year).


I do not think products, as they are today, are sustainable.... and lack of set building as a big part to play in that. Forget going to the ulta high-end products like "The Cup". Consider a mid-ranged one, that's been around forever, and is VERY popular: SP Authentic.

I'll use 15-16... there's been over a year to look at the set.

There are 95 Rookie Cards in it. I'm focusing on the rookies because I want to focus on the autograph content, which drives both the product sales, and the product manufacturing cost.

35 are "unsigned", though they got Matt Murray to sign his cards that were supposed to be non-auto'd.

61 Autographs, 34 "base".

Of those Base: Eichel sells in the $50 range. Do any other unsigned rookies break $5 ? I doubt it.
Of the 61 Autographs: McDavid will top out over $1k, a few others sell in the $50-$100 range, another dozen will get $10-$50.... and the remaining 40 (or so) don't break $5 very often.

Why not?

Well, let's be honest. How many people are currently chasing a Sam Britton or Matt O'Connor or Colin Miller Autograph - Hard Signed, Rookie Card, whatever??? Not many.

How many people set out to be one of the collectors that will build one of the 999 possible sets? I would think not many. Do 100 of these sets get build per year?


So the lack of set building for a set like this, it keeps demand for those cards lows. How many collectors want that Matt O'Connor Future Watch? Goalie collectors, Sens collectors, Rookie collectors, maybe there's a Matt O'Connor fan somewhere, maybe he (and family and/or friends??) collects?? Let's be REALLY optimistic and say that drives demand for about a quarter of the print run. After that?? Who is left that actually wants to own the card???

McDavid's prices can be driven by speculators. Buy it now, sell it in 5 years when it's hard to find, and make a heafty profit. Nobody is going to buy a card of a guy with 1 NHL game on the speculation that it will rise significantly in value.

Now multiply that by EVERY release. Set builders, competing with player & team collectors, can and will drive the price of something up. If set builders go away (and I think you're right, they are) then there is less competition for the card..... and the prices go down. That makes wax a tougher buy for people, since they see a smaller and smaller return on their purchase.

Does it mean the hobby is doomed? I don't think so, but at some point I think many of these releases need to be reinvented.

[Maggot]

The lack of a $.99 pack (Score, Collector's Choice, etc) is the death of the hobby. Kids can't afford this anymore so there's no one to replace us.

[30ranfordfan]

Kids not getting into the hobby is definitely a problem - but I don't think a 99-cents-for-10-cards pack would do anything to address it.

Collecting cards is not something many kids these days seem interested in. I don't have a lot of first hand knowledge of it... but a good friend of mine was collecting for a bunch of years, thought it would be something he'd get his sons into... didn't matter if they were 4, 8, or 12: Despite dad being really into it, they looked at him like he was nuts wanting to build sets of cardboard pictures of hockey men.

The lack of a $.99 pack (Score, Collector's Choice, etc) is the death of the hobby. Kids can't afford this anymore so there's no one to replace us.

[pwaldo]

I'd say that set collectors stop being a thing really about 10 years ago in this hobby and that they haven't been a dominant force (death of a set builder = death of the hobby) since the early 90s. It just became too expensive to put together a set by mail once the post office rates basically tripled. The hobby has stayed around because of the player collector (keeping a secondary market alive on eBay) and the resurgence of hot rookie cards. This is also why boxes are now becoming packs and packs are now just one "hit".

That isn't to say nobody should collect sets or anything but remember years ago it was really the ONLY way to collect as you couldn't really do much else. Player collecting would only result in you having a handful of cards and even being a team collector you wouldn't have much of a collection when there was only 1 brand making 1 set a year. Vintage wasn't a thing as they were all still newish so you were basically forced to set collect. But now you have vintage, graded, set collectors, team collectors, player collectors, etc so naturally there will be less of just one type that was dominant and pretty much standard decades ago.

[creasecollector]

DO you have a link to the AMA?

Thick, MVP, O-Pee-Chee and O-Pee-Chee Platinum are cheaper products designed for rainbow/set collectors and they are encouraging set collectors online with the various achievements they have been releasing recently.

Here you go:

Posted in r/hockeycards
https://www.reddit.com/r/hockeycards..._winged_wheel/