“Again?”
Part 1 – “Writing on no sleep brings out a tad of sarcasm and attempted humor”
Dear Topps….
I am a loyal customer of yours named James Kennedy. I have been with you since I was 5 years old. 25+ years later, and I have treasured our relationship. I still do. But Topps, you are raking my eyes like a Ric Flair thumb to the eye….Here is a snapshot of your site after I typed in my Chrome exchange card numbers. “Exchange card numbers”….How f-ed up is it to even have to say all those words:
Topps’ man in the suit extolls: “Exchange redemption card…. randomly inserted…. sometimes, at an equal rate…. sometimes, but were not telling even if that’s not the case, although the redemption exchanges WON’T be what you get…..Silly collectors……..time for a wrapper redemption throwing party!” Their PR rivals Casey Anthony’s.
That aside though…..and I have to admit this is easily…..EASILY the best non-draft picks set to come out in ages. (Ages. That makes me feel old) The break was awesome but it didnt lull for more than 2 packs in a row. Amazing. Parallels were added- not untastefully- led by the dreamy (OK Lorraine McFly) “Sepia Tone” refractors /99. I dunno what Sepia Tone is but I know it makes a cool looking insert. Half black. Half white. Ebony and Ivory. Flavor Flav and Bridgette Nielsen. Magic Johnson and any white woman. They just go together.
So, Topps, let me get this straight. You release the product this week. I CLEARLY bought it AFTER the release. For the third time in 3 products, not only do you keep people waiting forever like a baseball card DMV, now you decided, “We can’t get a half-retarded kid to type in 10 letter/number codes at some time prior to release. My God- it feels like you repeatedly slap me in the face. And hit me in the nether regions. And decide that the “nether regions” will preside over all our worlds like it did when me and Jim Hellwig (The Ultimate warrior to you peons), visited “Parts Unknown” ten years ago. In fact, on the way there we opened a Bowman Box. Those were the days.
From Topps’ website:
| Please enter your Redemption System User Name (email address) and Password. If you forgot, please click here for help.
Note: The Topps Redemption System requires a unique account. Do not use your topps.com username and password. |
| Your account has been locked due to multiple incorrect entries. Contact Customer Service |
Now my account is frozen. Because they didn’t put the codes in yet. But that’s just the start of it…..
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Part 2- “The Morning After Pill”
I pulled this yesterday. Thought I had a GOLD MINE. Doesn’t that say “a set?” You bet. Is that what I’m getting? Of course not. Only because the half retarded kid ALSO works in the “allotment department.” (AKA- the “We Can’t Count Guy,”and “Guy who doesn’t type in combos of numbers and letters of exchange cards prior to release.”) Now, I am too am retarded, so I mean no harm, but c’mon guys.
My favorite blog, ToppsArchives, said this yesterday regarding the CLASSLESS move by Topps on a repeat basis:
Due to the anger produced by recent news, it wouldn’t be fair to write a review for 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball. Instead of writing a review, I’ll just look at the 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball Checklist; specifically, the autograph checklist.
Anyway, Topps doesn’t deserve any credit the way they play bait and switch, but I gotta tell you this set is outright awesome. Top autographs of Mike Pineda, Zach Britton, the enormously priced Craig Kimbrel, the low-priced for some reason Alexi Ogando, Brandon Beachy, Julio Teheran, Eric Hosmer, Freddie Freeman, and Brandon Belt consist of the best checklist for a Topps product in years. But ASC owner Josh posted yesterday this disturbing news:
Topps is clarifying that the redemption card in the just-released 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball stating “ You have just received a set of 2011 USA Baseball Collegiate National Team Autograph Cards” is good for either a 5 or 6 card pack of USA Autographs and not all 22 subjects.
All USA Autographs are incremental hits on top of the 2 on-card Rookie Autographs guaranteed per hobby box.
Two things stick out here:
1) Another bait and switch by Topps on a product
2) The fact that the owner of an enormous marketplace is putting more emphasis on educating customers than ignoring the snafu and leaving clientele in the dark. Its people like Josh that can change this “firestorm” as its been said. And remember, I am NOT an employee of Atlanta Sports Cards, so I have no stake in giving the owner high praise or not. (I do get employee discounts though. Sometimes, its better than actual money. Mmmmmm.) Josh Pankow, who is one of the most respected players in this industry has taken this no holds barred approach. And his two serious competetors, or any other big wax dealer for that matter, would NEVER do that. Too scared.
Josh and I will spend the whole morning on the phone some days and talk Hobby. Its some of the best banter I’ve ever been involved in. We’ve discussed how much Topps really cares about their customers. And we’re both beginning to wonder how much they really do. Examples from last 18 mos:
- 2010 Bowman Stephen Strasburg redmptions that took forever
- A press release the day Gypsy Queen dropped saying the 2-auto per box promise was a lie- it was 1 auto.
- A press release the day 2010 Bowman Chrome dropped saying there ould be no BRYCE HARPER autographs (whoops, huh?)
- No press release on the now inamous 2011 Bowman Platinum set that has since tanked about how the patches were mostly worth under $5, and that the stars had been crossed off the checklist- the one INSIDE THE BOX.
- The USA debacle in 2011 Topps Chrome
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That’s not all: Theres a possible hobby destroying idea that the Top 10-12 NFL draftees would ONLY appear as PARALLEL autos, making the odds of pulling Newton, Locker or Mallett about 24 times harder than pulling Mark Herzelich. Who’s gonna keep buying boxes? I’m already DONE with EVERY Topps 2011 Football release. Nice Cards. But how many Jordan Todman and Roy Helu cards can I get? Answer: In over 45 Topps football brand boxes, I’ve pulled 14 Todman autos and 11 Niles Paul autos. Cam Newton? One dual card in Inception out of 25 . Locker: 0. Mallett: 0. AJ Green: 1. Julio Jones: 0. That’s SEVENTY BOXES. When are collectors going to say enough is enough? And Upper Deck? Not much better. In 8 Sweet Spot boxes I hit I Kaepernick and one Ponder. That’s all. More than Topps’ 0 Ponder’s and Kaepernicks though.
So what’s going on? Truth is, this concept was concieved because since Football rookies are in some 50 products a year, at years end, there are a TON of any one guy’s auto in the past. So now, to keep “across-brand” printruns down, they SP every good player. Upper Deck at least kept SOME players (Kaepernick, Dalton, Ponder) as non-SPs in Sweet Spot 2011. This kill-or-be-killed strategy by Topps will KO the Football hobby. No question.
And if Topps keeps up this PR nightmare- I don’t care what anyone says: This will mark the beginning of the end of Topps being a player in this Hobby. Hard to think of that, but this is KILLING collectors, and enraging dealers (How can dealers be happy that 1/3rd of the autos were chopped from 2011 Bowman Platinum? That’s false advertising and now the product has dropped more than considerably considering what it should have been.)
Its time for LEAF to step up. They could seize the Hobby now. The newly announced baseball 2011 Draft Set is a MASSIVE step. Panini, with their so-so cards, has to step up. Upper Deck needs more than just great football sets. (Anyone seen any 2011 UD Football boxes lately? Not many, because I heard distributors can’t find anymore.) Topps needs to stop lying. It’s so pathetic. They need to do away with sell sheets.
This was supposed to be a Topps Chrome 8-box break but I’ll do that later today.
This needed to be said.
And something, trust me, something, will be done about Topps’ awful false ads. You can only kick sand in a dog’s face so long……Those who think that ths will be put up with? See what happened to other companies that made mistakes:
- TriStar
- Press Pass
- Just
- Razor
- Donruss
- Fleer
- Wild Card
- Pro Set
Topps isn’t immune from bad business practices. So, yeah, 2011 Topps Chrome is a PHENOMENAL set. Yet, everywhere I turn this morning, all anyone wants to talk about is the USA redemption stuff. Topps: Get going or you will Get Gone.
Jamie Kennedy
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- 2011 topps chrome wrapper redemption
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Just a follow up to this.
First off, in fairness to Topps they NEVER solicited anything about these Autograph Redemptions being Sets. They were mis-printed on the redemption cards. End of story. So, this isn’t a case of bait-and-swtich. They didn’t tell people this to try and sell extra cases. Was it a major error? Absolutely. Was it a blatant error trying to get people to buy it and then replace it with something else? Absolutely NOT.
Secondly, as for the Football RCs Jamie mentioned I’d like to try and explain it. I don’t think the good RCs are any harder to get than normal. Here’s the deal. There are A LOT more hits this year than normal. That’s why there are more of the “so-so” hits. The companies can’t afford to put a ton more Newton, Ingram, Gabbert, Green, Jones, ETC. So, they have to use more of some of the lesser known guys. Hence the abundance of Taiwan Jones. The thing to remember with this is that Topps has to use the “bigger” hits wisely. They need these guys to be very plentiful in the higher end products at the end of the year. They assume they can sell Inception, Platinum and Finest without overloading them with the higher end RCs. This isn’t true in regards to products like Triple Threads and Five Star. As bas as it feels to pay $90 for a box and not get a good RC hit. It feels a lot worse when you pay $200 or $400. This is no different than any other year. If you went back and opened 70 boxes of 2010 Finest, Platinum, Elite, Prestige and Rookies & Stars you’d find the same thing. Sometimes you can open 1 box and get lucky. Sometimes you can open 70 and not so much.
Josh