Mem Card Madness
In the more than 10 years since the history-making advent of the memorabilia card, there have been 416,739 memorabilia cards produced, an average of 34,728 cards per year, since 1996.
What are your thoughts on that? This does NOT include multiples of the same card.
I saw this tidbit on a page in the new Beckett Sports Card Monthly, which will be out in about a month. Here’s a sneak peak at a couple of pages I found in the editorial area today. Click on the photo for a closer look. — ph
Tags: Beckett, Memorabilia, memorabilia cards
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February 8, 2008 at 6:14 pm
that’s insane
February 8, 2008 at 10:25 pm
That’s why memorabilai cards aren’t worht squat anymore unless it has a low production run and is a superstar. Why buy the packs when you can pick up memorabilia cards for a fraction of the cost of what it would take to get them in packs. Card companies are putting themselves out of business.
February 8, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I’m not a fan of memorabilia cards, or autograph cards for that matter. I think the premium inserts have hurt the hobby by driving up pack prices.
February 8, 2008 at 11:16 pm
it wouldnt be so bad if they just stopped making memorabilia cards of sucky players
February 8, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I think it is out of control and they should really start regulating it. It has ruined a lot of aspects of card collecting and has ruined a large amount of Baseball history. I think that it is cool to get them but they are becoming way to overproduced. When they first came out it was godly to own a game used card, now you can pick up a Mantle Jersey that once sold for over $1000 for less than $150. They are getting to the point where they are not even really game used, they just wear the jersey for a minute well they run a lap and then they change into a new jersey and do it again and over and over so that UD and Topps can cut them up.
February 9, 2008 at 12:03 am
i strongly agree with don and jose, but let me add one other point. what about the little man who can’t afford the high priced hobby packs and boxes. they should limit the amount of cards, and the retail packs and boxes should also have the great cards that hobby boxes have. not everyone can afford a $200 or even a $300 box or $75 or a $150 pack. things need to be evened out. thanks
February 9, 2008 at 12:52 am
I really like getting memorbilia cards from packs and sometimes they’re worth the money to buy packs, but when I get a common player with a piece of his bat or jersey, i’m thinkin how can i get some of my money back. It would be great if they didn’t make so many and they just made them of the stars or record setters. But I do think that card companies should make a lot of one or two players per year so that the kids that collect can feel the excitement of pulling a memorbilia card.
February 9, 2008 at 4:58 am
They can get rid of all the single color swatch cards and continue issuing multicolor patch, bat and auto cards in my eyes. Pulling a single color jersey swatch or auto of some guy I’ve never heard of or one that doesn’t even make it out of the minors really sucks when you’re paying a couple hundred bucks a box. PREMIUM should mean just that….PREMIUM!
February 9, 2008 at 11:29 am
I don’t agree at all with those who think we should only get memorabilia cards from only superstars! Not everybody collects LeBron, Kobe or Howard. There are thousands of player/team collectors who like those game-used cards from lesser-known players. As for the “when I get a common player with a piece of his bat or jersey, i’m thinkin how can i get some of my money back”, well when you buy a pack or a box, if you think about making your money back, then you’re not a collector but a gambler.
I agree with the fact that the companies have to make their game-used cards harder to pull, in any product. Back in 1997 or 1998 when you pulled a Upper Deck game jersey that meant something, now with one game-used every 3 or 4 packs in the cheaper products, it does not mean anything anymore.
Let’s get back to beautifully designed insert sets, 1 or 2 memorabilia sets, one autograph set per product, with decent prices.
February 9, 2008 at 1:25 pm
stop the bleeding, stop insulting use with BS blogs that you know won’t amount to anything. as long as we pay the outragous prices for card companys to destroy more sports history ie: jerseys, bats, balls. ect. this is life in the the buiness would, not the collectors would. i know some will say your just mad because you can’t or did not profit. you are right i am a collector a set bulider. but i can’t even do this because i have to spend to much in case cost to just compleate the base set because of auto’s or game used that are part of the base set. look it simple just stop over producing auto’s and game used. i think your pockets are full enough.
February 9, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Memorabilia cards, along with the sticker autograph, are the bane of the hobby. Whose bright ideas were these? Why not keep jerseys and bats intact? What’s wrong with that? And why should I want a card created with a cut autograph off of a HOF plaque that’s autographed? These cards look stupid! Card companies, please, put out fewer issues and keep putting your effort into quality products. Also, not everything needs the 1/1 parallel. How much longer are 1/1s going to hold any value? This is being said from someone who loves some of the modern retro sets…Cracker Jack, Old Judge, Turkey Red, UD Goudey, A&G and Heritages. So I care what is going on. And I’m looking forward to the new season. It is always nice to see who the new rookie stars will be and watch young players become HOFers. Still loving baseball!
February 9, 2008 at 8:14 pm
And that number is presuming you don’t have any doubles…
February 9, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Nobody can afford to collect anymore unless they are super rich. I have to scrounge and save and try to make money off of other cards to buy and keep the cards I want. I’m a Dan Marino collector and I have over 1400 different Marino cards. But I will NEVER EVER IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD have them all. Because the genius card companies decided to come out w/ 10 1/1’s of each player in a set. There’s a blue one and a green one and that’s the only difference but they are all 1/1. The insert sets today are absolutely weak. Gone are the creative ideas and beautiful designs. None of these cards today can match the beauty of a 95 zenith z-team or 95 fleer aerial attack. It’s just a canvas for a swatch. If you pull the base insert without memorabilia on it you feel like throwing it in the trash. I’ve got Marino cards from 98 serial numbered of 50 that book for $250 and Marino cards from 2007 serial numbered of 50 that book for $20. That just about sums it all up right there.
February 9, 2008 at 10:31 pm
CRAZY!! Some are nice too have, but as stated in other post, so many calls for low value. Also how can there */100, */75, */50, and etc. when you add them up its more than the number printed. We, as consumers, are just paying more for a certain color. I have the same auto, jersey, or whatever just a different color. Go with one parallel of the GU items and RC’s. Yes, I’m at fault of buying certain #’ed cards, but I have started looking at the whole perpective of why get the */50 when I can have same card #’ed a little higher, for a cheaper price. I say GO BACK TO THE BASICS!!!
February 10, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Thats TOO MUCH!! They should cut down on the thumbbnail pieces and if they’re going to make game used cards they should be jumbo, a patch, or come with some kind of significance.
February 10, 2008 at 1:29 pm
i have mixed reviews about game used autos yes it crazy to buy one over 200 or more just yesterday i went to one of my favorite stores and they wanted $499 for the box i was like what are they crazy and you only pull 7 packs. i do like getting game sued it’s nice that you can get a chance to get an auto 1 per box and 2, 3 pieces if they did that i would of never pulled the best autos and best game used i ever pulled in my life. but these days an all star piece can run you 15-20 bucks hopefully the hobby can get better
February 10, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Memorabilia cards are simply a microcosm of us. Americans. Society. Humans. Baseball card collectors. You and me. However you want to slice “us”.
We think that if one donut is great, two must be better. We think that a sports car will make us cooler than a minivan. We think that if owning a home is great, “owning” a really big one that we can’t afford must be better. We think that if a Babe Ruth insert card is great, a Babe Ruth insert with a single jersey swatch must be better. That is, of course, until we get the Babe Ruth single-swatch jersey card. Then we think it sucks and that a multi-color or dual-swatch card would be even better. More, more and still more. We never have enough.
Then something funny happens when we finally figure out that we can’t have everything we want. We cry foul! We claim that others are ruining our fun. We kick and scream like little kids. We threaten to go home and take our ball with us. We belly-ache that it isn’t fair. We point the finger at the manufacturers and say that they are ruining the industry.
If you don’t like all the game-used cards…stop buying them!!! If you do get one you don’t want, find someone less fortunate than you and give it to them. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it whether or not it has a patch, a single white jersey or no jersey at all.
February 10, 2008 at 3:17 pm
With the spectrum of card collecting having been changed drastically in the last thirty years, i think it is passed the point of blaming only the memorabilia cards.
It used to be a miracle to get an autograph on your card, and having a piece of a players pants,shirt,shoes,hats,etc inserted into a card was about as likely as getting a seat on the next space-flight mission at NASA. Parallel cards were the treasure in the eighties and nineties, but almost anyone could find them–even w/out the http://WWW.
Now, almost thirty years into the world of collecting (for myself), the hobby has been segregated into a class system.
There are the die-hard collectors that try and buy EVERYTHING they can, for their collection. Then there are prospectors that pay out-the-nose to bust boxes and keep only these Auto and memorabilia cards we’re talking about. And then there are the player collectors (prop’s for being old-school) and Team collectors (rep) that are blind to all cards but their intended targets. Of cource people being people, there are variations and tangents here but you get the point.
Who would ever try and start collecting in this hobby’s now massively-confusing atmosphere? And why don’t the companies see the confusion and shockwaves they create with four parallels of every base card and RC (that are now certified under a new ‘law’), Autos of over 3/4 of the base set and countless material cards of whatever they could find, plus three printing plates, printing plates with autos,Send-in Auto cards that don’t ever get produced (thanks for the john smith auto i got instead of a Hanley R. auto—Bowman
ok,i’m done venting.
good luck everyone
February 10, 2008 at 5:23 pm
I agree with the fact that its to much stuff out there but at the same time I am a rc collector I believe that there getting better with all the stuff for rc I just wish you could get a real auto on every card not a sticker and that the number was really how many where there see the problem bowman had this year and then you can go and look at other products every year it never fails I don’t evern think they do it totry to sell more I just really believe they can’t count that still doesn’t help the collector’s I wish I could just like one player but I just like cards I love the reds and Jr but I collect all the rookies I can from every year at least the top ten and besides having to send in cards and stickers and the numbering problem I don’t really mind much!!! Yeah I would like it if you could collect a set but you can’t have it all
February 11, 2008 at 12:06 am
Bar none, there are tons of memorabilia cards you can find nowadays, we have gemn mint 10s and michael jordan rookies, come on folks, get your college michael jordan rookies.
February 11, 2008 at 10:14 am
That number proves that the fun has been taken out of collecting for most people. Saldy, I have to get GU/autos to make trades anymore. Kind of a bummer, but I guess that is where we are headed as a hobby/business.
February 11, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Hopefully this will find its way to the message board…Cards and Cards and more Cards. I love hearing from people there are too many cards in the industry. Lets take a look back into time when 1988 almost 100,000 sets were produced by Topps Company. This carried into the 1990’s and finally soomeone said hay, lets break production and add less cards but more sub-brands, making the industry flooded for people who collect a specfic player…more inserts…more subsets…and (paralell) sets.
The prices changed also. NOw you can buy a pack for about $3 whenin the 80’s it was 55 cents…doesn’t seem fair. We all have the late 1980’s stuff in our collections…We got board in the 90’s and started copllecting Basketball…then Footabll caught on too. With Emmitt Smith and the pheonominal Dallas Cowboys and of course the Magestic BULLS…We loved sports then.
Progression set in and all that was important was the almighty DOLLAR. Cards for $60-$100 first year out…crazy. We should refuse to believe that the corporations are not connected to each other in some tight wound conspiracy to defraud the consumer…I called Upperdeck and the told me I would have to wait to see the Beckett release price before I could pre-order thier product…that was not cool. I buy cards because they are nice to own and I am a collector. I link with other collectors and do take pride in not stealing cards like I used to do as a kid. I almost lost my mind trying to make amends for all those times my buddies got together and made fools of each other with a bum deal…back and forth…back and forth.
Today I go to school, work and belong to some civic organizations just to stay real and straight…I spent years in my room searching, breaking boxes, going through sets, making sets, once in awhile I would stop to eat. Oh yeah pricing, I would price according to the catalog…Beckett or Tuff Stuff guides. NOw its my own formula.
I collect to collect, I do not care how many cards are produced and frankly my collection woould not be deteriorating because of ovewr production. I make it happen when I want to by cards. I enjoy the game of collecting. I can make money and no one is to say I can’t, but I keep in mind that there are well over 1 BILlion people in this world, more like 3-4 billion and I am not going to stress out about 500,000 different cards…Production is here for the collector and price is here for the business man…I am a collector and I want to have cards to collect. Thank you Topps, Upperdeck, Fleer/Skybox and the other smaller companies for producing my cards and allowing me to sell when i feel like it…whats up with the copyrights if we are selling them?????
February 11, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Something to think about…if they only made a select few memorabilia cards (auto or game-used) of a select few players every year, then the demand for the cards would drive up the price and most collectors (not a few…but like 95%+) would still be left out because they couldn’t afford the card to begin with. Having more available means more of a chance for everyone to get a piece of the action. Think of it in terms of cars…it would be really nice to own a luxury sports car with a 6-figure price sticker, but most people simply can’t. Now if that’s all that the car industry produced then most people wouldn’t have that opportunity to afford one and thus could not drive! Having more simply means more people have a chance to own one, two or even thousands…at a very affordable price. This, in turn, attracts more collectors who might not be able to buy the $200-500 boxes, but can find a nice card or lot of cards (should they desire) on ebay for much less. I usually buy in large quantities (ebay lots), keep what I want, and sell the rest back on ebay…making money (not losing). That works really well for me. I also have a 5-year old son who loves memorabilia cards, no matter who the player and whether that player is an All-Star or a back-up catcher. I say that supplying more cards keeps the overall prices down. If you can’t afford the high-priced stuff, then don’t buy it. I would make one suggestion, though. Base sets should be simply that…base cards. No more autos or game-used in the base sets. Have a REAL rookie card, then have a paralleled/inserted AU or GU rookie for the purpose of those who WANT to collect that certain player or wants to pursue the parallel or insert set. All I can say to those with the desire to have less…be careful what you wish for. You might find that when supply doesn’t meet demand, then you will no longer be able to afford some of the “cool” stuff like autos and game-used. Who does that benefit? Only those that can afford the stuff and they will PRICE the cards for whatever they want.
February 11, 2008 at 7:31 pm
unless the companys focus on adding VALUE, not just spam items, each year more and more people will see exquisite boxes out at $999 and just will grab 400 and will go uying to the bay. and sooner or later the poor dudes that still believe opening a exquisite box is worth it for the money, will end up busting. And oops, suddenly we got “007 exquisite at $500 half sale price… nice job upperdeck. youre risking your business, GL, i will keep on buying at the lowest possible price my collection.
February 11, 2008 at 9:22 pm
Over production and greed have ruined the hobby. What use to cost me a quarter back in 1986 now cost 1.99 + tax I dont even think I paid taxes on the packs in the late 80’s !!!! And now people pay thousands of dollars to rip open a couple of boxes and hope they dont get a jersey card. Please stop cutting up history and putting it on worthless crap. Here is an idea take the jersey and wear it . Cutting up a Babe Ruth jersey or bat is about as dumb as me going out to my car and taking a torch to it , cutting it up into little pieces. Then what would I have to drive to work tomorrow? The card companies have lost their freakin minds!
February 11, 2008 at 10:34 pm
As a rookie card collector I am upset by the auto and game used rookie cards. What once where considered subsets or inserts are now considered the main rc. Now my base RC’s are worth fractions less. Ive quit collecting new releases and I never buy packs or jersery cards….DO YOU HEAR ME UD AND TOPPS. Now I collect pre 90 rc’s back to the 60’s and 70’s. The new era of the hobby stinks. The only way I would buy any new product is if UD or Topps released a very nice insert free set of beautifully designed and quality made cards, including one card of every player that suited up in a season. No shortprints, no glossies or prisms, just nice cards with great designs and photography.
February 11, 2008 at 11:57 pm
No wonder the card industry is in such trouble these days.
February 12, 2008 at 2:47 am
I love that you can own a piece of game used stuff but it is just crazy now. One thing I hate the most is when a company makes an insert set that has a tiny picture of the player and then a huge empty space where the parallel of the card has a game used piece. It looks like crap because it is off-centered and you know its worthless. I am starting to like how companies are finally taking the congratulations off the back and adding other information. I guess they realize it’s not really anything to pull a game used card anymore.
I think more sets should stick with the old basic of A nice well designed base set, ONE parallel set that is decently numbered. Then nice insert sets. Not 4 or 5 Parallels of each card. It’s just dumb. Hopefully the card companies will read through this and give us what we want.
February 12, 2008 at 10:04 am
There really is not much to discuss about this topic anymore. The time has come to tread memorabilia cards as if they were base cards. For kicks, how many base cards were produced over the same period? What would the numbers look like from 2003 to current for both GU and base?
February 12, 2008 at 10:15 am
Here’s an idea that may be off but has me thinking. In lower price point sets you can have memorabilia cards of players (both big name and lesser known) but at a lower quantity (maybe one or two per box). In the higher price point sets have memorabilia cards of the better and well known players and a slightly lesser quantity. Here’s the kicker. Instead of chopping up a jersey or bat of a lesser player and diluting the niche of memorabilia cards, have a 1/1 redemption and win the entire bat or jersey!
February 12, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Single player and team collectors are what drive this hobby. They are the ones who actually have a passion for the collectibles these companies are putting out. And how do the companies reward us? By making it impossible to keep up and sucking us dry. They are the parasite and they are killing the host. They’ve burnt so many good collectors that now the hobby mainly consists of gamblers trying to hit the lottery w/ their box purchase. This year TO DATE there have been 878 John Beck releases, a quarterback for the Dolphins with some promise but could also end up in the common pile in a year. The main culprits are Absolute which has 40 different Beck releases, Leaf R&S and Playoff Playoffs w/ 44, SP Chirography w/ 46, Topps Co-Signers with a whopping 56, and the worst of the year is Topps Triple Threads with 66 DIFFERENT JOHN BECK RELEASES!!! And they expect us to pay over $100 a box for that? Yeah they are all numbered of 18 or 36 or 99 because they are a slightly different color but cumulatively they are in the thousands!
February 12, 2008 at 12:28 pm
JasonH: What you describe is exactly how things work now. There have even been redemption and contest cards to win complete uniforms and pieces of equipment.
February 12, 2008 at 10:11 pm
bottom line……..they produce (at outrageous, for the most part) & we buy. If the collectors really want to cut-off the supply……DONT CONDONE the practice. simple math…….no demand=no supply. easier said than done though.
February 13, 2008 at 12:30 am
I think the problem here is that a lot of people want to profit from the hobby. Collecting cards was for me a hobby to see if I can complete a set or pull a cool card from a pack. I never looked to turn a profit from anything I bought (why spend the money to “try” and make money?). I think the idea of the over production of the game used memorabilia cards is to allow kids or those who aren’t willing to shell out a $100 for a pack to recieve something that came from the actual player themselves. A young kid would be thrilled to pull anything game used, but the seasoned trader will be bummed that he didn’t get a big value card. I think a lot of people are complaining only because they’re in the hobby to make money and not so much for the love of collecting.
February 13, 2008 at 11:45 am
I agree far too many game used cards have been produced.. Does the number beckett came up with include those “event worn/used” jersey’s? And when some people pull a game used card and complain that I got some scrub, who wants a scrub.. I always think that there is a collector out there for every player and even though you may not like that player or that player does not command a premium I can alomost be 100% sure that his family members would be excited to have that card
February 13, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Bottom line is that theres so many of them its just crazy. I remember when I got my first back about 11 years ago and then it was a major pull. Really LETS START SEEING SOME CARDS FROM THE PLAYERS WITH ACUAL GAME USE. LIKE GRASS AND BLOOD STAINS AND PAINT SCRATCHES AND MORE. COME ON ITS GAME USED NOT BUTTONED UP AND RAN IN THEN WASHED!!!!!
February 13, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Patches are great. Plain jersey cards in new products are no longer woth the pirce of the cardboard they are printed on. Same way with AUTOS. Where have all the “Player touched, on card autos gone?” The companies don’t want to take the time to get this done so they are now even sending MJ Stickers! Can you believe that? One of the most expensive autos to buy now is going to be on stickers! COME ON! Stickers were made for kids to put on their bedroom doors. Not to have big boys, some who can’t even write their own names, sign to put on a piece of cardboard.
February 14, 2008 at 1:47 pm
I think the odds should be much higher for Jerseys like they were in the late 90s! Also what happen to being excited about pulling inserts! 3-4 inserts a box with 4-5 RCs a box. AND not all the RC were autographed and numbered to 100. If they start producing cards like they used to in the late 90s but make inserts and RCs and Jerseys a little harder to pull…. maybe the hobby has a chance to make a comeback.
February 14, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Set building is the one aspect of the hobby that continues to drive the hobby and teh card companies have lost sight of this. They could easily plesae both crowds by making the memorabilia cards part of the base sets. If a Joe Crede jersy card were needed to build a complete set then it would have intrinsic value to both player collectors, team collectors, and set builders…the rookies would have higher demand and value (just like base cards) and there would not be the bad feelings toward memorabilia cards that exist today. Card companies just need to add value to their packs without adding price..the easiest way to do this is to use redemption cards for whole items (think bats) and use lesser valued pieces from current players for inserts taht are part of the sets….plesae tell me if you think I am off base here.
February 17, 2008 at 4:17 pm
The saddest thing of this huge can of worms is that the card companies will continue to do things they way they have because it is most profitable for them to drive up pack prices. There are some really great suggestions and ideas on here, hope someone reads them that can make a difference.
February 17, 2008 at 4:26 pm
One more thing… just to emphasize the point that everyone on here has made. I left the hobby in the mid 90’s while in high school and college. A few years ago got back into the hobby because of a friend that gave me a jersey piece of my favorite player. Now, when I left I remember jersey cards and autos were the stuff dreams were made of. Pulling one was significant enough to run out and buy a 6 dollar holder just to showcase it. Come to find out 10 years late upon my return that most jersey and auto cards are worth about the same as the holders we put them in
I guess the positive is that I now have more autos and jersey than I ever thought possible, but sadly I feel they have little to no value to anyone but me.
Lifes a garden… DIG IT!
February 20, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Whatever happened to INSERTS? Inserts/parallels were a tougher pull than a memorabilia card today. Remember how valuable a 1:360 insert was worth? Or a 1998 card number 1/25? Why has the value gone down? Why doesn’t anyone collect them anymore? I think they were cooler than just a plain jersey swatch! The same thing is happening to autos now, they are getting almost as common as memorabilia cards. Card values are dropping like stocks. I hope it doesn’t get the “Beanie Baby Syndrome” One day they’re worth alot because you could only buy them in hobby shops, then when you could get them in the supermarkets, the values plummeted…