LeafCeo
Upstanding Member , Leaf Trading Cards
Gregg,
Being fair, UD has managed to handle their consistency and brand equity for unsigned rookies VERY well... I give them HUGE KUDOS for what they have been able to do with young guns.
Leaf Exclusive Nico Hischier
- Thread starter malsk
- Start date
Gregg,
Being fair, UD has managed to handle their consistency and brand equity for unsigned rookies VERY well... I give them HUGE KUDOS for what they have been able to do with young guns.
LeafCeo
Upstanding Member , Leaf Trading Cards
Noted!
LeafGregg
Leaf Trading Cards
Young Guns isn't the example I was referencing. Innovation and consistancy aren't the same thing. Innovation is creating something new or reinventing. It is a metamorphoses.
They have done well holding the values of young guns. That isn't innovation.
We will just have to disagree BG
LeafGregg
Leaf Trading Cards
This post I agree with! It will be done!
MNwild10
Banned User
As referenced earlier, the problem with comparing baseball rookies to hockey rookies is that they're not equal. In baseball people chase prospect cards. Check Bowman baseball and you'll see the higher prices. Trout, Bryant, Harper, Benintendi, Judge and on and on. Values are insane for simple autos. My point in short, Young Guns should be compared to Bowman 1st Cards, not Topps RCs.
Derek K.
Derek K.
penguinfan
Verified Trader,
I did just break 1 box of metal....got a redemption auto of Jack Eichel ......Still deciding on if I should just sell it or redeem it(or trade it). Since I don't collect Eichel I'd probably be better off selling/trading. Never had a redemption from Leaf so I don't know how long it might be to receive. Not loving the stuff I got from SPA.....At least I got a Tkachuk /99 from UD ice.
LeafGregg
Leaf Trading Cards
Eichel cards are ready to ship right now!
RGM81
Verified Trader
We hockey folks love our hard-signed autos. That aspect is what sets apart the SPA's from the other stuff. They look great, you know the player has actually seen the card, all that cool business. It's tougher, it means more work and more lead times to get the product ready in a timely fashion, but in the end it's what the customer wants most.
I don't know how it works for you guys setting up your autograph sessions. I suspect UD and the PA aren't going to invite you in to the Rookie Photo Shoot to pull Nolan and Nico into a side room for signatures. But with your model perhaps comes the opportunity to do things outside the box--maybe produce a card right after their respective first games, send out Gregg or someone right to the player, get them signed, and sell direct to shops and customers. Maybe that's a way to be able to reach collectors without having to wait for the next product line to come out and that type of card may not "fit" with the rest of what's happening.
Elias Devil
Verified Trader
My exact sentiments. No desire to pick up a Patrick or Nico auto of his CHL team unless it finds its way to the bargain bin. Even without the issue oh no logo licensing, Devils cards have not been showing up in these releases outside the Brodeurs here and there. Heck, even going back to the ITG days I had a few discussions with Brian about how small the Devils representations were in their 90s and Lord Stanley's Mug sets, despite being one of the faces of the league on the late 90s.
I'll leave it at that because my opinions on these threads are too negative for Gregg
cremona71
Verified Trader,
I could go off on quite the rant but I am going to keep it as short as I can. Please keep in mind this is my opinion albeit an educated one.
Leaf is smart to go after top rookie autographs because that is Upper Decks bread and butter. The hockey card hobby's life blood is a strong rookie crop. Strong rookie crop means strong business and despite what people think Upper Deck is the only player in the game. Leaf could have easily gone after any non contractually obligated HOF player but they didn't. They went after a nobody. They want to play hardball with Upper Deck which they are very much allowed to do.
What bothers me most is that this type of decision will not help the hobby. Next year is a bad rookie crop and that alone will turn people away. When you then add the fact that the largest and most relevant hockey card company will be without these signatures it makes things even worse. While the consumer will be fine as they have choice in what they purchase the real issue will be retail in Canada. I can see a good size of shops shutting down.
This is a strong business decision for Leaf. Whether it will be a good one or not will remain to be seen.
Leaf is smart to go after top rookie autographs because that is Upper Decks bread and butter. The hockey card hobby's life blood is a strong rookie crop. Strong rookie crop means strong business and despite what people think Upper Deck is the only player in the game. Leaf could have easily gone after any non contractually obligated HOF player but they didn't. They went after a nobody. They want to play hardball with Upper Deck which they are very much allowed to do.
What bothers me most is that this type of decision will not help the hobby. Next year is a bad rookie crop and that alone will turn people away. When you then add the fact that the largest and most relevant hockey card company will be without these signatures it makes things even worse. While the consumer will be fine as they have choice in what they purchase the real issue will be retail in Canada. I can see a good size of shops shutting down.
This is a strong business decision for Leaf. Whether it will be a good one or not will remain to be seen.
RocketRichard
Verified Trader
I never called your product garbage though? I said signing players to exclusives is garbage. which it is.
I also didnt speak for anyone but myself, so save the "i find it insulting that you dare condemn them for what they like" are you serious? did you even read my post? because nothing i said even came close to speaking for anyone else but myself. I also didnt even mention UD so im unsure why youre pointing out the last time they made a card of someone i collected.
I think my criticism of the effort on that card was fair, i understand you may not be able to get images of every player, i dont know how that process works so i cant speak on it, but every other player that was represented with a jersey from what i saw was at least represented with an actual team jersey. not a practice jersey (or whatever that was).
LeafGregg
Leaf Trading Cards
That is a fair point and yes a better jersey could have been utilized in this situation. Hopefully, it won't be an issue next year if we get a deal in place with Dan Cloutier for Masked Men
DredJAw
Upstanding Member,
Damn.
After re-entering the hockey market because of the great rookie crop and redirecting some of my comic book money towards high end auto RCs, I gotta say, this is rather dissapointing.
Actually, this is really dissapointing.
After re-entering the hockey market because of the great rookie crop and redirecting some of my comic book money towards high end auto RCs, I gotta say, this is rather dissapointing.
Actually, this is really dissapointing.
foley2k
Verified Trader
When did Leaf change their stance on redemptions? I seem to recall you putting out a inscriptions card with 'F--- Redemptions" hand written on it.
notoriousrob101
Verified Trader
You don't remember? They care about collectors so much they would never have them wait on a card. The new line will sound like "in an effort for collectors to receive a high quality product we have inserted redemptions."
LeafGregg
Leaf Trading Cards
Thanks for your highly constructive response.
Actually we do hate redemptions and rarely have them. In the case with The Eichel in Metal, the cards were ready the day after product release and ship immediately.
geschrocks33
Verified Trader,
What a read this thread is....I'd like to hit on a few points.
1. Exclusives suck. And they suck the most for the collectors. So while Leaf & UD continue to do this the only people suffering is the consumer, which is a shame.
2. I think I say this every time but regardless of whether you agree, disagree, or completely hate the Leaf folks, kudos to them for showing up on here, discussing, and taking the heat that they get.
3. An important point that was mentioned somewhere above I think by Richard: HARD SIGNED AUTOS.
This point is directed straight at BG/Gregg for you guys to potentially build from it. You guys want to make a statement with your exclusive guys (Patrick, Hischier, Eichel, etc.) give us some hard-signed content to collect, and good hard-signed content. I want to use the Eichel Rookie Year as an example. If I'm wrong in these below please let me know because I would love to know what else is there.
You signed Jack Eichel to an exclusive, and his auto'd rookie content was strictly in your products. The amount of hard-signed Eichel rookie content was IMO sub-par. As far as I can tell, these are the products containing Hard-Signed Eichel's from his rookie season:
Leaf Trinity
Leaf Q
Superlative
3 products, and Leaf Trinity has 2 different pictures of him for the hard signed content. Here's where we get a little sub-par:
Leaf Trinity is not a hockey product.
Leaf Q is also not a hockey product.
Leaf Trinity did have a few autos inserted into 15-16 Heroes & Prospects so I will give them 1/2 credit for that as a hockey product.
So essentially half of the Eichel Hard-Signed Autos from his rookie year were inserted into non-hockey products. So to pull them, you needed to purchase Baseball, or Multi-sport products.
Which leaves Superlative as the only stand alone hockey product he had hard-signed autos available in.
However, there were a total of 31 Eichel autos in the entire product. /25, /5, and 1/1. To my knowledge, he was pictured in his Boston University uniform for all of these cards.
Leaf Trinity: Pictured in Red Sox jersey (throwing first pitch) or his Pre-Season jersey (#41)
Leaf Q: Pictured in his Pre-Season jersey (#41)
Superlative: Pictured in BU jersey
So not only did you make it extremely hard to pull a hard-signed Eichel Rookie Auto from a hockey product, but not a single one of his hard-signed Rookie Autos have him pictured in his actual Buffalo Sabres #15 Uniform. I think that's a pretty big swing and a miss on the Rookie Auto stuff. I realize hard-signed content isn't the easiest to obtain, but when you sign a monster Exclusive like that, you should have at least a little more than I mentioned above, and at least 1 Rookie Auto of him in his actual uniform. I don't mind having BU cards, or promotional cards like the first-pitch stuff, but you couldn't throw in a hard signed #15 Sabres card at least once?
To compare, I think this is what he would have had if UD had the full reign of him for hard-signed auto RC's:
Champs AU RC
OPC Platinum AU RC
SP Authentic AU RC
Ultimate AU RC
Cup RAP
Premier RAP
I won't count Ice because he true RC is the /99, but there would have been hard-signed content there, and in UD Black. I'm not saying you need 8 hard-signed products, but more than 1-2 hockey products containing hard-signed content would be nice.
I was very upset & annoyed when I learned that you guys had signed Eichel, but I let it all cool down and decided to check out some Leaf stuff and wait for a nice hard-signed Eichel for myself to pick up, just to at least have one in the collection. Products came and came, and never did an appealing card stick out to me that I wanted to acquire with hard-signed content. I did end up acquiring a Leaf Trinity Jersey/Auto with him tossing the first pitch, mainly because a close friend in the hobby had it and it was an easy deal, just so I could have at least something hard-signed from his rookie year, but my point is the choices were slim pickings, and that was more frustrating than the exclusive itself.
If you take one thing away from this post, please use hard-signed content if you are going to use rookies as exclusives. People prefer hard-signed over stickers probably 99 times out of 100. It's tough, but it may help you out in the long run. And use better photographs. You have the exclusive deals on these guys, use their official NHL uniforms. Mixing in college, international, promo uniforms are cool, but your official content should trump all of that combined.
Thanks for reading,
Derrick
1. Exclusives suck. And they suck the most for the collectors. So while Leaf & UD continue to do this the only people suffering is the consumer, which is a shame.
2. I think I say this every time but regardless of whether you agree, disagree, or completely hate the Leaf folks, kudos to them for showing up on here, discussing, and taking the heat that they get.
3. An important point that was mentioned somewhere above I think by Richard: HARD SIGNED AUTOS.
This point is directed straight at BG/Gregg for you guys to potentially build from it. You guys want to make a statement with your exclusive guys (Patrick, Hischier, Eichel, etc.) give us some hard-signed content to collect, and good hard-signed content. I want to use the Eichel Rookie Year as an example. If I'm wrong in these below please let me know because I would love to know what else is there.
You signed Jack Eichel to an exclusive, and his auto'd rookie content was strictly in your products. The amount of hard-signed Eichel rookie content was IMO sub-par. As far as I can tell, these are the products containing Hard-Signed Eichel's from his rookie season:
Leaf Trinity
Leaf Q
Superlative
3 products, and Leaf Trinity has 2 different pictures of him for the hard signed content. Here's where we get a little sub-par:
Leaf Trinity is not a hockey product.
Leaf Q is also not a hockey product.
Leaf Trinity did have a few autos inserted into 15-16 Heroes & Prospects so I will give them 1/2 credit for that as a hockey product.
So essentially half of the Eichel Hard-Signed Autos from his rookie year were inserted into non-hockey products. So to pull them, you needed to purchase Baseball, or Multi-sport products.
Which leaves Superlative as the only stand alone hockey product he had hard-signed autos available in.
However, there were a total of 31 Eichel autos in the entire product. /25, /5, and 1/1. To my knowledge, he was pictured in his Boston University uniform for all of these cards.
Leaf Trinity: Pictured in Red Sox jersey (throwing first pitch) or his Pre-Season jersey (#41)
Leaf Q: Pictured in his Pre-Season jersey (#41)
Superlative: Pictured in BU jersey
So not only did you make it extremely hard to pull a hard-signed Eichel Rookie Auto from a hockey product, but not a single one of his hard-signed Rookie Autos have him pictured in his actual Buffalo Sabres #15 Uniform. I think that's a pretty big swing and a miss on the Rookie Auto stuff. I realize hard-signed content isn't the easiest to obtain, but when you sign a monster Exclusive like that, you should have at least a little more than I mentioned above, and at least 1 Rookie Auto of him in his actual uniform. I don't mind having BU cards, or promotional cards like the first-pitch stuff, but you couldn't throw in a hard signed #15 Sabres card at least once?
To compare, I think this is what he would have had if UD had the full reign of him for hard-signed auto RC's:
Champs AU RC
OPC Platinum AU RC
SP Authentic AU RC
Ultimate AU RC
Cup RAP
Premier RAP
I won't count Ice because he true RC is the /99, but there would have been hard-signed content there, and in UD Black. I'm not saying you need 8 hard-signed products, but more than 1-2 hockey products containing hard-signed content would be nice.
I was very upset & annoyed when I learned that you guys had signed Eichel, but I let it all cool down and decided to check out some Leaf stuff and wait for a nice hard-signed Eichel for myself to pick up, just to at least have one in the collection. Products came and came, and never did an appealing card stick out to me that I wanted to acquire with hard-signed content. I did end up acquiring a Leaf Trinity Jersey/Auto with him tossing the first pitch, mainly because a close friend in the hobby had it and it was an easy deal, just so I could have at least something hard-signed from his rookie year, but my point is the choices were slim pickings, and that was more frustrating than the exclusive itself.
If you take one thing away from this post, please use hard-signed content if you are going to use rookies as exclusives. People prefer hard-signed over stickers probably 99 times out of 100. It's tough, but it may help you out in the long run. And use better photographs. You have the exclusive deals on these guys, use their official NHL uniforms. Mixing in college, international, promo uniforms are cool, but your official content should trump all of that combined.
Thanks for reading,
Derrick
FrozenInferno
Resident Bluenoser, Verified Trader,
^ geschrocks33 makes some excellent points
One product you left out though is the Jack Eichel Collection, which was a boxed set that came with a guaranteed on-card Eichel auto and Jack is pictured in his #15 Buffalo jersey. That's your best bet for a hard-signed Eichel auto.
Nico Hischier however only has a few autograph cards to this point and they are all stickers. I would love to have a licensed, on-card Mooseheads auto for my collection before the CHL deal expires and the airbrushed NHL stuff starts coming out but I don't know if any are in the works. Perhaps Gregg can give us a hint as to what the plans are for Nico.
But yes, hard-signed needs to be a focus if Leaf wants to make the best use of the exclusives.
One product you left out though is the Jack Eichel Collection, which was a boxed set that came with a guaranteed on-card Eichel auto and Jack is pictured in his #15 Buffalo jersey. That's your best bet for a hard-signed Eichel auto.
Nico Hischier however only has a few autograph cards to this point and they are all stickers. I would love to have a licensed, on-card Mooseheads auto for my collection before the CHL deal expires and the airbrushed NHL stuff starts coming out but I don't know if any are in the works. Perhaps Gregg can give us a hint as to what the plans are for Nico.
But yes, hard-signed needs to be a focus if Leaf wants to make the best use of the exclusives.
geschrocks33
Verified Trader,
For some reason I thought I had seen a sticker on one those at my LCS, but you are correct, some hard signed goods there. Thanks for pointing it out.
LeafCeo
Upstanding Member , Leaf Trading Cards
Amen.. I agree we need more hard signed content where possible..
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