Quality of 09 Rookies Autos

numbern9ne

numbern9ne

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Last year, I thought Eric Johnson had a pretty prolifically bad autograph... looks like a lot of this years rookies have taken a page out of his book...

Exhibits A thru D

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This one takes the cake...
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Any one notice any others?
 
It's UD's fault, getting young players to sign thousands of cards and stickers is creating bad habits by getting them to rush through them with squiggles. Carey Price for example used to have a legible autograph, it's been shrinking with every new set it seems. Erik Johnson had a decent auto at first but over the course of his rookie year alone they got more and more lazy. There are exceptions of course, like Jack Johnson, but for the most part it just seems the players are over-signing and their signatures are suffering.
 
Yeah, I've found that most of them look pretty bad.

At least the examples you've posted are somewhat creative, unlike Frolov and Samsonov, among many others.

EDIT: I was going to mention that I was waiting for someone to blame it on UD, but I see someone has already. This hobby is so predictable!
 
I dont wanna flat out blame UD, but I bought 2 boxes of ITG HP last week and pulled Karl Alzner, Jared Staal and Jared Cowan autos, and they all looked more legiable then these, that they probably only signed 200 tops, not 2000.
 
Inferno said:
It's UD's fault, getting young players to sign thousands of cards and stickers is creating bad habits by getting them to rush through them with squiggles. Carey Price for example used to have a legible autograph, it's been shrinking with every new set it seems. Erik Johnson had a decent auto at first but over the course of his rookie year alone they got more and more lazy. There are exceptions of course, like Jack Johnson, but for the most part it just seems the players are over-signing and their signatures are suffering.
Click to expand...

Jack's sig is so purty :)
 
Inferno said:
It's UD's fault, getting young players to sign thousands of cards and stickers is creating bad habits by getting them to rush through them with squiggles. Carey Price for example used to have a legible autograph, it's been shrinking with every new set it seems. Erik Johnson had a decent auto at first but over the course of his rookie year alone they got more and more lazy. There are exceptions of course, like Jack Johnson, but for the most part it just seems the players are over-signing and their signatures are suffering.
Click to expand...

Problem is collectors keep demanding more and more in terms of autographs. So it's a chicken and egg deal - you get less autos in products, and then they scream bloody murder even louder. Yet enough needs to be made in order for it to the NHL and the PA to be paid while making a return for the company - NO COMPANY does it out of the bottom of their hearts

So where does the cycle end? You can't have it both ways
 
On a more serious note than my first post, here's my two cents:

I personally don't care as long as there's at least SOME effort to pen your name. As long as a guy doesn't have the Vernand Morency "V" going on, I'm cool with some squigglies.

These guys sign a buttload of things so we can have autographed cards to chase and squeal like little girls about acquiring. They're bound to make their 'graph a bit more stream-lined.
 
filewich's isn't that bad; sort of Cam Neely-esque to me. honestly, i'm glad they signed AND returned to UD. we get a redemption, we say redemption sucks. we don't get a redemption, we say the player/auto sucks. :p
 
Inferno said:
It's UD's fault, getting young players to sign thousands of cards and stickers is creating bad habits by getting them to rush through them with squiggles. Carey Price for example used to have a legible autograph, it's been shrinking with every new set it seems. Erik Johnson had a decent auto at first but over the course of his rookie year alone they got more and more lazy. There are exceptions of course, like Jack Johnson, but for the most part it just seems the players are over-signing and their signatures are suffering.
Click to expand...

To be fair, doesn't ITG do the same thing with their products?

By the time Luca Caputi got done with his stickers for last year's Heroes and Prospects set, He went from "Luca Caputi 17" to "Lisa Catti 11"

-m.
 
pathshot said:
In many cases, I'm sure that's what's up. However, some always take pride in their signature no matter how many they sign.

-m.
Click to expand...


And that's the larger problem - you'll still see a lot of the old-timers have great signatures - they care about what they put out...
 
Hama said:
And that's the larger problem - you'll still see a lot of the old-timers have great signatures - they care about what they put out...
Click to expand...

true and some just sign the way they sign normally. i don't sign thousands of signings (though i sign off on enough paperwork) but my signature normally doesn't include every letter anyways. my signature has always had squiggles. :)
 
Maybe my post sounded a bit harsh. UD does great when it comes to providing large numbers of autographs for collectors, but it gets to a point where there is just too many. How many people paid $120-$150 for a box of Champs only to pull Cory Murphy and Mike Iggulden autos? The market is flooded with low-tier Champs autos and it was enough to keep me from buying more boxes, so that's at least one customer lost to over-saturation of autographs. I am holding off on buying SPA until I see more breaks for the same reason.

This economy isn't helping either, I'm sure as a way to keep costs down they would get more lower-tier players to sign as a way to maintain volume without having to pay the stars big money.

As for ITG doing the same thing, I'm sure they get players to sign as much as they can but when you compare the sheer volume of products between the two manufacturers the numbers wouldn't even be close. ITG goes for quality, UD goes for quantity. When you have 20 or so products compared to less than 10 that's a lot of extra content to come up with.

I love pulling autographs as much as the next guy, but I would take one Jarome Iginla or Ilya Kovalchuk over a dozen Jon Filewich's.
 
Inferno said:
I love pulling autographs as much as the next guy, but I would take one Jarome Iginla or Ilya Kovalchuk over a dozen Jon Filewich's.
Click to expand...

Don't forget that Filewich is depicted with the wrong team, 3.5 months after being traded to St. Louis.

Are there any cards depicting Joe Thornton as a Bruin by chance?

-m.
 
I can cut UD a break on hard signed autos where the player is depicted on the wrong team... working in the printing industry, I know how much lead time there must be to print, get em to the players, get em back, pack em out, box em, ship em. But on a base card in one of the later sets like Trilogy, Hossa was still pictured with the Pens, come on.
 
The autos are representative of the quality of the rookies this year! No one would complain if Crosby or Ovechkin had an auto like Drew Doughty because he's Crosby or Ovechkin. Few people actually care what the auto looks like when they pull it if it's a superstar. Only when the players are not as good or do not hold as much value do people then complain.
 
paulxing said:
The autos are representative of the quality of the rookies this year! No one would complain if Crosby or Ovechkin had an auto like Drew Doughty because he's Crosby or Ovechkin. Few people actually care what the auto looks like when they pull it if it's a superstar. Only when the players are not as good or do not hold as much value do people then complain.
Click to expand...

Two words: Sergei Samsonov.

Also, Roberto Luongo's signature has been complained about on the forum, and he's in the superstar echelon.

-m.
 
pathshot said:
Two words: Sergei Samsonov.

Also, Roberto Luongo's signature has been complained about on the forum, and he's in the superstar echelon.

-m.
Click to expand...

The only Luongo auto I have in my collection is his auto from 97-98 Beehive - you can actually make out his ENTIRE name
 

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