Ok, I've been thinking about this for the past few days and I've decided Topps needs to go sit in the corner for a while and think about what they've done. I'm going to take a little break from Topps until I'm over this short print gimmick thing. I banned Upper Deck for a month over screwing up an insert set (which they recently fixed anyway) and here Topps goes and undermines the integrity of their entire flagship
brand.
Now, the Fukudome and WBC friends cards didn't bug me all that much. I thought it was bloody stupid for them to yank the rookie cards from the set and let their competitor have a monopoly on those rookies for at least a month or so, but they're probably going to stick them in the Red Hot Rookie redemptions anyway. Dumb move, but it doesn't affect me none. The Schwarzenegger and Gore cards hit a little closer to home as I was trying to complete the candidate card set. Oh well, I got both the nominees at any rate and there's a new political set to drool over in series two anyway. The thing that set me off was that goddamn Santana card.
The idea of it is stupid to begin with. Making up a "highlight" card for an event that is supposed to happen four months in the future is goofy by any standards. There are plenty of All-Star and Hall of Fame caliber pitchers who haven't sniffed a no-hitter anyway, and to prognosticate that Santana would not only pitch one, but on the last day of the season yet on a licensed baseball card is a little groan worthy. That's not what bugs me though. Numbering it 661 is what bugs me. Make it a no numbered card and I'd ignore it. Make it the same number as the base Santana card and play it off as a "variation" and I'd be cool with it. Adding it to the base checklist and having a Topps official come out and state that it's "
extremely short printed" is insanity. Seriously? Part of the
base set is so freaking short printed that there's been exactly one of the damn cards to even show up on eBay? And the Topps base set, mind you, a brand that has been all about the base set since Sy Barger was an intern. And it's not a hoax either, it's been
confirmed.
You know, I have
eight monster boxes in my basement that are all full of Topps cards going back to 1952. There are a few sets, a few near sets, a lot of half finished sets that get less and less finished the farther back you go. But they're still full of
Topps and all full of
sets. And in one fell swoop, Topps has undermined that history with one gimmicky card that some suit is smirking over as he brags about extremely rare it is in a press release. Basically what Topps just told me, as a paying customer, is that our base cards aren't really worth a damn anymore and there's no real reason to build a set. If you want a set, get a factory set. Better yet, but one each of the 9 or 10 we'll release this year. But still buy plenty of wax to try to chase a cut auto or a patch card or a letterman card or one of our gimmicks. Um, Topps, sorry to break this to you, but I've been buying boxes all this time so I could build the base sets. The inserts were fun bonuses, and I collected some of those sets as well, but it was still at the heart of it all only about the cards. Now you just told me that I can't have a base set, because you thought it would be better for your bottom line to put in the set a card of an event that hasn't happened yet and probably will never happen and to make it so rare that exactly one has surfaced to far. Well, if you call flushing 57 years of collecting (you know, that thing you print on all your Gold Parallel cards) right down the drain profitable, then hey, knock yourself out.
I bought a box of Topps Series Two the first day. Not because I wanted to rip it and put the good stuff on eBay, not because I was afraid the price would go up, not because I wanted to find a rare card, but because
I love collecting Topps sets. You've just taken that away from me with card #661. Now, I
can't collect the 2008 Topps set simply because you chose to put that number on the back instead of no number or JS-NoNo or SP1 or the Prince symbol freaking
anything but number 661. I have a box of Topps Series 2 sitting in front of me with half the cards still in the packs waiting for me to write about them on my blog (giving you free advertising, by the way) that I just flat out don't want to touch anymore. I have no interest in them right now. I have less interest promoting your product that you obviously don't believe in any more. Some will say "just get over it" or "collect the rest of the set and forget about that card" but the problem is deeper than that. There's a vocal group of people on the internet that gripe and complain about these gimmick cards. Part of the reason that we don't like them is because of what happened in 2006. The Alex Gordon card had to be pulled due to the new rules, not all of them were, and no replacement for that card was offered for the set. That means a whole lot of people are missing one lousy card from their 2006 Topps set because of the Alex Gordon mistake. The thing is, that was a
mistake, this is on
purpose. You made it so I and hundreds of collectors like me will always have a hole in my 2008 set
on purpose.
I don't trust you anymore Topps. Unless you do a major mea culpa and insert a Santana
doesn't get a No-Hitter on September, 28th, 2008 card in Updates and Highlights and also number it 661, my set is always going to be incomplete. When you do that to a
set collector,
on purpose, they tend not to want to bother with your products anymore. I'm afraid to buy any Allen & Ginter now. I've been wanting to buy 2008 Allen & Ginter since before I bought my box of
2007 Allen & Ginter and now I'm afraid to buy it. What crap are you going to pull in that set? If I buy two or three boxes of it to try to complete the set like I did the 2007 set, are you going to add a card 351? Will it be a 1/1 card? What are you going to do next, Topps? And Allen & Ginter is
not like base Topps. I could have waited a few months on this product on still found it at every hobby shop and retailer. Allen & Ginter I have to buy it the first day, and be standing outside the store before the UPS guy even gets there or I'm going to pay $125 a box instead of $85 and I can't and won't pay that much for a box of Allen & Ginter. So what do I do now, Topps, I'm asking you. After three years of goofy short print/error cards in your Topps products I'm gun shy now. This year also gimmicked up your Heritage product with super short print variations, indicating to me that ALL set building products are fair game.
I'm pushing the rest of my box break till later. Maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe never, but it's gonna be later. The only reason I'm not banning Topps from the blog altogether is that there's some vintage stuff I've like to post about soon and I'm not letting Topps' stupidity get in the way of that. I seriously have to rethink how I collect cards now though, and that's including deciding whether I want to continue collecting at all. Was it worth it Topps? Was the mention on a couple of hobby periodicals and a few blogs worth possibly losing a customer who has been buying your product almost non stop since
1981? I don't have a lot of time in my life for hobbies anymore. If you continue to make this hobby not fun for me I'll have no problem finding something else to do with my time and my money. In the meantime, don't expect any free advertising from me anytime soon.
Note the high number of superstars in that list. I've kind of lost track of football this year, but the only non shorted superstars that immediately come to mind are Peyton Manning, Adrian Peterson and Larry Fitzgerald. You have a 1:110 pack shot at everyone on this list. Think about that when you're about to plop down your 5 bucks for a hobby pack.