Is anyone sick of "vintage" ??

[geschrocks33]

I do too.

Time to replace POE in Cup with the US or European equivalent. For two reasons.

1. Fans of those countries' national teams deserve the same treatment and would likely do as well as the POE is given the same print run treatment.

2. Year after year of doing the POE has degraded all prior years demand for the cards. Why do a 7th version of Toews POE when you can do a first version of Selanne or Fedorov? Assuming of course UD can get autos of enough non-Canadian players to make it work. Come back and do POE every 3rd year or something like that.

I agree here as well. From a US collector I would definitely be all over a similar release with US players. I love USA themed cards. Not to mention, there are plenty European collectors that go bonkers for their stuff. From my experience, Finnish and Swedish collectors can be some of the most hardcore guys around. I guarantee inserting Finnish, Swedish, Russian, etc. hockey players would do well.

 

[uvic99]

There's too many cards of pretty much every star player past or present. The Team Canada cards are like everything else...if it's a good idea, they'll eventually over do it.

 

[aflamesfan]

In the same vein, and no offense to the masses here, but I'm totally over Canada hockey everything with regard to cards. I get it, they can ice 3 full all star teams and have a hockey heritage like no other. terrific.

But c'mon, someone pony up and get it done for the other countries. Hockey is a global game, regardless of Canada's dominance. UD please don't be so ignorant to think the other teams cards wouldn't be snapped up quickly, or in some cases, quicker.

This hobby needs a lot of new ideas and fresh influx of stuff. Programme of Excellence for the umpteenth time is just as boring as the 800th Ovechkin parallel this year and all these "vintage" guys again and again.

They did this to some extent with the Global Chirography Autos in SPA this year.

Would be cool if they extended it to the UD1/UD2 Canvas set to add to the POE Canvas Subset.

 

[LeafCeo]

I was reading the thread about Nolan Patrick that I missed while I was moving, and there's a lot of interesting back and forth about Leaf's trying to revamp their offerings, and people losing interest in Leaf and in general the hobby being in a weird state of flux right now.



And I guess it kind of triggered something I've been thinking for a few years now....



At what point to "vintage" memorabilia and autos get played out? Seeing UD stick like 20 vintage guys in every set is boring to me at this point. I lived and collected through the years of Mario, Gretzky, Yzerman, Sakic, etc... I'm sure they help sell products to a degree, but I assume at this point everyone who wants a Patrick Roy patch card, jersey card, patch auto already has one.



Are any of these guys even highly collected anymore? Or have those collectors just given up knowing they're chipping away at a veritable iceberg of cards of their player?



Is Leaf/ITG fading because there's been 150 different memorabilia cards of every HOFer at this point? The secondary market is ripe with Richard, Howe, Hull, etc auto's and memorabilia. Who's going to pay $300 a box to add more onto the ebay pile?



I understand there's definitely a niche, but at what point are we done with new cards of old players?

Interesting post... I believe Canadian currency , lack of value and ROI on licensed products (and occasional issues with player licensed as well), Connor Mania plus overall economic uncertainty in Canada have contributed substantially.

On the whole, Leaf/ITG has a higher ROI. However, it's hard to overcome the above challenges regardless.

Brian




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[sedinfan]

Count me in for the "not sick of vintage" club... other than my Sedin obsession, I'm really not that interested in current NHL players and have zero interest in breaking any wax that falls into the "McJesus or bust" category.

I'm really just a collector at heart, and I love building sets that meet two main criteria for me... they have to look nice and feature the history of the game.

Now there is a ton of stuff that gets pumped out that does not meet my criteria, but since I'm not into the hobby with the expectation that my stuff will be "worth" anything one day, it really doesn't bother me if certain players or eras are "overdone". And really, the manufacturers will never make a product that appeals to ever single collector, but I'm glad they do keep producing product because every now and then I find a gem.

I found ITG 1.0's approach really appeals to me - too bad I came to set collecting right as their last product was released, but looking back I just love the variety of niche products and interesting subsets - from team-specific stuff like Motown or Blue Blanc et Rouge, to era stuff like Decades 80's, to Stick Work, or my fav Lord Stanley's Mug, lots of stuff that I'd love to master set collect one day. Or even within a product, subsets that focused on brothers, 500 goal scorers, captains... love that so much had a theme to it.

Looking at the upcoming Leaf Ultimate, we've got single, dual, triple, quad, and sixes signatures... triple and quad memorabilia... equipment... signature memorabilia... signature relics ... and ultimate card - these are all basically one or more autograph and/or one or more swatch of a bunch of good players. Decades and Pioneers are yet more bunch of swatches grouped by era. Not that there's anything wrong with this stuff, but none of it is distinct enough from any other set with a bunch of auto and/or memorabilia featuring roughly the same players...

... That being said, Ultimate Journey is a neat idea, if it's not just 'whichever equipment we happen to have' but for each player featured there's a swatch from every team they played for, that's a neat little subset. Haven't seen a preview of the milestone goals subset, sounds like a cool idea if executed well. So there's a couple things that depending on the design and checklist I could be intrigued by.

To me, I don't really mind if vintage in general is "overdone", as long as every now and then we get a gem worth collecting. Here's a little sample of the sets I collect - I love how everything has a pretty distinct and different look from anything else I collect. If you pick and choose just the stuff that appeals to you, I think there are a number of worthwhile options out there to collect if you're a true collector at heart!

2008-09 Masterpieces, such a distinctive look, possibly my favourite autographed cards of all time.

2014-15 Masterpieces - I love hockey art, wish there were more all-art sets. Did I mention I'm a sucker for art?

While I disliked the majority of what Panini produced, what a nice clean design that really shows off the autographs and a great player selection in 2013-14 National Treasures.

I think Leaf hit a home run with their Vintage Memorabilia subset in 2015-16 ITGU. Perfect vintage photograph feel, nice touch with a flourish of foil but not too flashy.

And last but not least, Lord Stanley's Mug, I mean those Mega Patches, just the preview picture of that subset hooked me so bad I had to master collect the entire set, some pretty nice vintage in the other subsets too!

 

[Bossman22]

File me under NOT sick of vintage. To each their own but I prefer a mix of new and especially vintage when it comes for my collecting dollar. Still majorly bummed out about O-Pee-Chee not including the Legends subset in their annual release. Biggest card count of any set and no legends? What? Considering OPC IS a throwback style set that was a major let down to many collectors and not just myself. Cue the Clark Griswold rant but I digress. Bring on Parkhurst and the tylenol I say. It's been 5 years already..and to those who insist that you can have too many(?) Orr, Roy or Bossy (in my case) check yourself. The auto's are simply incredible not to mention legible and the mystique of that bygone era is unparalleled.

 

[LeafGregg]

Count me in for the "not sick of vintage" club... other than my Sedin obsession, I'm really not that interested in current NHL players and have zero interest in breaking any wax that falls into the "McJesus or bust" category.

I'm really just a collector at heart, and I love building sets that meet two main criteria for me... they have to look nice and feature the history of the game.

Now there is a ton of stuff that gets pumped out that does not meet my criteria, but since I'm not into the hobby with the expectation that my stuff will be "worth" anything one day, it really doesn't bother me if certain players or eras are "overdone". And really, the manufacturers will never make a product that appeals to ever single collector, but I'm glad they do keep producing product because every now and then I find a gem.

I found ITG 1.0's approach really appeals to me - too bad I came to set collecting right as their last product was released, but looking back I just love the variety of niche products and interesting subsets - from team-specific stuff like Motown or Blue Blanc et Rouge, to era stuff like Decades 80's, to Stick Work, or my fav Lord Stanley's Mug, lots of stuff that I'd love to master set collect one day. Or even within a product, subsets that focused on brothers, 500 goal scorers, captains... love that so much had a theme to it.

Looking at the upcoming Leaf Ultimate, we've got single, dual, triple, quad, and sixes signatures... triple and quad memorabilia... equipment... signature memorabilia... signature relics ... and ultimate card - these are all basically one or more autograph and/or one or more swatch of a bunch of good players. Decades and Pioneers are yet more bunch of swatches grouped by era. Not that there's anything wrong with this stuff, but none of it is distinct enough from any other set with a bunch of auto and/or memorabilia featuring roughly the same players...

... That being said, Ultimate Journey is a neat idea, if it's not just 'whichever equipment we happen to have' but for each player featured there's a swatch from every team they played for, that's a neat little subset. Haven't seen a preview of the milestone goals subset, sounds like a cool idea if executed well. So there's a couple things that depending on the design and checklist I could be intrigued by.

To me, I don't really mind if vintage in general is "overdone", as long as every now and then we get a gem worth collecting. Here's a little sample of the sets I collect - I love how everything has a pretty distinct and different look from anything else I collect. If you pick and choose just the stuff that appeals to you, I think there are a number of worthwhile options out there to collect if you're a true collector at heart!

2008-09 Masterpieces, such a distinctive look, possibly my favourite autographed cards of all time.

2014-15 Masterpieces - I love hockey art, wish there were more all-art sets. Did I mention I'm a sucker for art?

While I disliked the majority of what Panini produced, what a nice clean design that really shows off the autographs and a great player selection in 2013-14 National Treasures.

I think Leaf hit a home run with their Vintage Memorabilia subset in 2015-16 ITGU. Perfect vintage photograph feel, nice touch with a flourish of foil but not too flashy.

And last but not least, Lord Stanley's Mug, I mean those Mega Patches, just the preview picture of that subset hooked me so bad I had to master collect the entire set, some pretty nice vintage in the other subsets too!

Excellent post! Good analysis. As we work on the 2016-17 calendar we are working on providing a more diverse product portfolio. Many of the products You mention above, the niche type products, just didn't receive the support to warrant bringing them back. As the old ITG regime didn't return many to the calendar. However, we can do a much better job of working themes and cool hockey niche collections into our existing releases.

You mentioned certain aspects that appeal to you with Ultimate and ones that did not resonate. That actually is a good thing, in a way, as you stated can't make products that everyone can agree on, but maybe certain aspects can appeal to a diverse set of collectors within a product.

The upcoming product releases will have a nice change with Lumber Kings, Masked Men and Sport Kings Hockey, which should appeal to your artistic tastes! these are all unique and a nice change from traditional products.

We are also most likely going to bring base cards back to Heroes and Prospects with a lower price point, but still strong content.

We have had internal discussions about a team themed or season themed release as well.

Excellent discussion everyone!

 

[oiler8]

But c'mon, someone pony up and get it done for the other countries. Hockey is a global game, regardless of Canada's dominance. UD please don't be so ignorant to think the other teams cards wouldn't be snapped up quickly, or in some cases, quicker.

I actually agree with this- it would be nice for UD to Do a Team Canada set released in Canada, USA set in the States, Sweden in Sweden etc etc- maybe not exclusive to each country but perhaps 80% sold in the corresponding country. I think it would at least be worth a try. Good idea.

 

[newfiecomicguy1]

I love vintage and would rather have vintage players than modern. However the over saturation of autos and gu makes people sick of it. I think the problem with some of the sets is the same design over and over. Collectors don't like cards without players pictures on it or team logos. Back in 2002-03 pulling a low number card from ultimate bring less than 10 and 1/1 meant something. Current leaf got so many different parallels of the exact same card just a slight colour difference. I understand both sides of the hobby towards vintage. A big issue is current players can wear 10 jerseys a night if they want. With vintage the amount of jerseys available is already done there is no more. I am much more likely to buy Ud or older ITG ultimate and bap cards of vintage players, I have no interest in modern player gu and autos.

 

[gobuffalo2331]

I agree with the majority. When I came back into the hobby in 2005ish after taking 3-5 years off I started to collect the cup, ultimate, modern start autos and that only lasted for about six months. I found it got boring real quickly as owning a Crosby or a Sakic auto didn't feel special as there was always dozens on ebay to be had at any time. I quickly started to back collecting 90's stuff. I mean most of the hard stuff is SO dried up it's wicked hard to find. The stuff I chase surfaces 0-2 or 3 times a year IF that! Now that makes for a really fun chase for me. It gives me a "high" so to speak when I do come across stuff I'm looking for because it takes months or sometimes a few years to find. I love it! And the tough 90's inserts still sell VERY well which adds some excitement too it.

 

[MMarch]

Not sick club here, the only modern cards I will buy are of vintage players, I don't touch anything of current or recent players.

 

[ChuckNorrisFearsSid]

What I'm sick of more than vintage is one subset, being paralleled 8 times, most of which are /20 or less, in effort to create perceived value. I griped about this with another member on another forum and we both agreed that rather than making 8 parallels of the same subset, make DIFFERENT subsets!

I'd rather get a plain Gump Worsley jersey than a marginal player numbered to 8 that happens to be the 4th lowest print run of that particular parallel.

 

[Chillychow]

Not sick club here, the only modern cards I will buy are of vintage players, I don't touch anything of current or recent players.

Ditto here.

I focus on the memorabilia cards and would LOVE to see more (read new) players added to this list from the early '70's, '60's and '50's. Jersey's are fewer and more expensive so there won't be many made in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps they can be featured in a higher end set (Leaf Pearl??) just these vintage player pieces and perhaps cut autographs (no current players). Hmmm....

 

[gobuffalo2331]

Ditto here.

I focus on the memorabilia cards and would LOVE to see more (read new) players added to this list from the early '70's, '60's and '50's. Jersey's are fewer and more expensive so there won't be many made in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps they can be featured in a higher end set (Leaf Pearl??) just these vintage player pieces and perhaps cut autographs (no current players). Hmmm....

I agree the Vintage memorabilia is rare to begin with, so the cards are rare themselves. A lot of the memorabilia in the ITGU this year was just filthy.

LOVE your avatar by the way dude. :dance:

 

[Tripredacus]

My only complaint is that all the players chosen to be featured are also ones where autos or GU have been acquired. I would rather see more cards of players just for the sake of the players. Photos are still important things. More like Fleer Legacy and Throwback, Parkhurst with the auto parallels, even Masterpiece is OK. Autos for guys who don't normally get autos.

One of the things that was unfortunate for people in the US was that we didn't get a lot of cards in our Topps set, with so much that was made in Canada under OPC for players on teams we never saw. Why even stop at NHL. At least in the early 90s there was tons of sets made for non-NHL teams. How about some minor league teams or teams from around the world?