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| 29 May 2006 11:22:50 am |
 TOPPS ALEX GORDON AND K.O. THE ERROR RACE |
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Have we really gotten to the point in the hobby once again where the “error” card is what we are chasing? It seems to be so if you are watching what is happening with Topps and the Alex Gordon card no. 297.
The card has several versions including one which the center is cut out but the border is in tact. Actually the same card in Topps Heritage is in the same vein. One big name person, namely Keith Olbermann of ESPN, has paid $7500 for one of these cards. Someone using the eBay name merkle923 has spent $42,000 on these cards. What is going on here?
Are they really true errors and very limited product or is someone forcing the “error” card craze of 1990 into a return engagement. Here is what happened basically.
Gordon, a hot prospect, was expected to be on the 25 man roster. However at the last minute he was demoted to AAA. Under rules set up for this year by Major League Baseball no one could print his card in an MLB set. Topps had to remove him from their Series One Baseball. The cards had already been printed.
In an unusual event Topps shipped Wal-Mart its boxes first and the hobby stores several days later. This never happens and varies greatly from the Topps stance of “hobby stores first.” The Wal-Mart boxes had the un-cut limited edition Gordon cards no. 297. Cards in the hobby store boxes actually were the same card but with the center bladed out. Huh?
Now wait, if MLB said take the cards out then take them out. We understand how the Wal-Mart cards got out as they were produced and packaged earlier possibly. No problem unless they were hurriedly packaged after the MLB mandate. But if you had the full cards in your hands, as Topps evidently did, and you were supposed to destroy them why didn’t you destroy them?
Let me see, you took them aside, cut them with a razor blade and put them into packs saying your were told to take out the Alex Gordon cards and you did, except for the border which doesn’t identify Gordon. Now you put them into the packs and ship them to hobby stores? Hmmm.
Topps Heritage was shipped somewhat later and you had the same thing happen with the cut out cards. You supposedly knew well in advance of then you couldn’t have Gordon in your product but you pulled them, cut them and then inserted them into packs.
This really does smack of the “fake error card” craze of 1989 and 1990. Everyone in the world knows when Donruss released several different versions of the 1990 Nolan Ryan card it was to get people to chase the “errors.” It was a gimmick to get people to buy more packs to get the variations of the Ryan card. There were yellow stars, whoops white stars, whoops stars on the left; darn it stars on the right. Then again why was it Ryan who had all these errors? Could it be he was the hottest player and most recognizable? Every collector would want to have all of those valuable versions of the best player in the game.
Now we have several variations of the Alex Gordon error card and the rarest went to a retail giant where MLB wants to reach new collectors. Turn them onto a possible $10,000 card and they will buy. They may not venture to a hobby store but certainly to America’s Biggest Retail Chain.
It is a gimmick for sure if it is true the company planned the whole scenario but it might also be just dumb luck too. We certainly don’t have a problem with advertising values of cards on the secondary market but we do have an issue with mis-leading the public in an attempt to get them back into collecting.
Olbermann had signed a contract a few years ago with Topps to write insert information for the company and its Topps 206 throw back series. Olbermann is the man driving the error card craze and admitted so when he said on the air he was “Playing Warren Buffet” with the Gordon cards and driving it up. He stated he buys to sell as well as collect.
We are NOT suggesting Olbermann and Topps are working together or if the name behind merkle923 is doing the same. It is unusual the way it has happened and the way Olbermann and his purchase of one of these cards at $7500 are driving sales of Topps Series One Baseball.
Stay tuned. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : kckings |  Comments[0] |  Trackbacks [19998] |
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| 17 May 2006 10:41:18 pm |
| "Kinky Boots" a delightful film for everyone |
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“Kinky Boots.” Either a name for a pretty cool film or something you might call a cat doing what you may think is a bit strange. The latter being left to your own imagination, we’ll tackle the former. Not a bit too strange Kinky Boots is actually a pretty decent film.
The British movie directed by Julian Jarrold, is funny, sad, a bit twisted and above all poignant. Inspired by a true story Boots tells the tale of two men who were rather disappointments to their fathers. One secretly, the other not so.
Charlie’s dad owns a shoe factory which makes shoes the old fashioned way; to last a lifetime. Anyone in business today knows that isn’t the way to stay in business. You have to have planned obsolescence. In other words, Detroit makes cars to last until the warranty runs out so you will go out and buy a new one. The owner of the factory never understood this and when he dies the son realizes dad was basically keeping his town alive by employing people to make shoes which weren’t being sold (yes a pun was intended here).
Charlie goes looking for solutions only to stumble into the lair of Lola. The Drag Queen is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. We’ll stick with Lola here. The unlikely pair (Lola’s dad was a boxer who wanted him to be a boxer) strike up a friendship when Charlie realizes there is a niche market in making women’s boots to hold a sturdy man, or transvestite.
Well you can pretty much figure the rest. The lines are good, the story moves along and although there is some real predictability here, the tale is kinda fun. There are some really good lines to remember. For instance Lola tells Charlie about his dad wanting him to be a fighter but there really isn’t a market for cross-dressing boxers these days.
Sara-Jane Potts is truly delightful as Charlie’s friend and love interest, Nick Frost as a hard headed factory man is also a plus as are the various characters who work their way through the story at the shoe factory.
If you see it on DVD we understand the ending was planned differently and not quite as upbeat, but seeing it either way will be an experience. Don’t let the boots on the poster fool you. This is enjoyable for any gender and any style. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : kckings | Comments[0] | Trackbacks [10939] |
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| 14 May 2006 03:03:54 pm |
| REDEMPTIONS, WHO NEEDS THEM? |
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Is there anything worse than pulling redemption card out of a $5 pack of trading cards? Yes there is. Pulling a redemption card out of a $60 pack of trading cards.
More and more often collectors are pulling redemption cards out of packs and the thrill is gone right away. The main culprit at the moment seems to be Upper Deck. All companies have them to a certain degree but UD is at the moment KING of the redemption world. And it seems to be getting worse not better.
Later in the week we hope to have a story on the redemption issue and you will be amazed at the sheer number of redemption cards in the marketplace just this year. And, on top of that the number of cards being sent out as “replacements” for the redemption cards. Pull a hockey redemption, wait, wait, wait and finally get a Football card instead? It’s happening.
Companies are always working on solutions and we hear it all the time but it’s not gotten better. It has gotten much worse.
Where does it end? It ends with customers being so fed up they stop. Think of it this way. You bought a Lottery Ticket and won $50,000! But the company didn’t have the $50,000 so they sent you $10,000 instead. Would you take it, or would you fight. You’d fight. At least we hope so. It’s the same with trading cards.
If you don’t have the autographs, don’t put a redemption card in the pack. Require the card be sent before payment. Oops can’t do that. Too many hobby companies have stiffed players in the past and the players won’t return the cards until they get paid. Can’t blame there for this one.
There must be a better way. There must be. Why is it some companies can do it with very few redemptions while others massively put them in their products? Can you blame consumers for just starting to say NO More!?
Few people are going to talk to us on the record and likely none at the card companies so we are doing our own investigation. We hope to have a full blown story in The Brill Report later this week if not next.
Stay |
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Category : General
| Posted By : kckings | Comments[0] | Trackbacks [10935] |
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| 10 May 2006 09:50:41 pm |
| KIDS ARE NOT WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR IN HOBBY TV ADS |
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THE FOLLOWING IS AN EDITORIAL AND WE WELCOME EDITORIAL RESPONSES FROM RESPONSIBLE INDIVIDUALS OR GROUPS. EMAIL US AT brillpro@prodigy.net if you wish to respond. Thank you,
Bob Brill
Publisher
The Brill Report
First of all before you start throwing things at me let me state “I love kids” and if you ever come into our hobby store you will generally leave believing we are one of the best places a kid would ever want to be. We treat them very well. So when I start talking about how we need more than kids and how the powers which be in big league sports licensing want to talk about targeting nothing but kids, don’t start throwing rocks.
The fact of the matter is very few people who live in those ivory towers at MLB, MLBPA, NBA, NHL and NFL have ever been in a hobby store let alone understand the dynamics of the business at the street level. Don’t get me wrong. Some have been in a hobby store. None have ever worked in one or owned one. There may be a few suits who’ve been there but they went over to the other side once the corporate paycheck was cashed.
You are going to see lots of TV commercials (Finally after years of pushing for this!) from the powers that be. These commercials have a fun, nice little focus attempting to get kids, youngsters involved in collecting trading cards. Nice idea but money NOT well spent. What gets kids excited about trading cards is the same thing which gets adults excited about trading cards --- value!
When do non-collectors even think about trading cards?
1. when they hear of a card selling for $10,000, $25,000, $85,000 or even $1 million.
2. when some scumbag dealer rips off some little kid of his Babe Ruth card his grandfather left him by giving him $20 for the $3000 card.
That’s it. Not much else gets their attention. So having Alex Rodriguez talking about how he collected trading cards or whatever isn’t going to get their attention. Having Alex Rodriguez tell them how he plays Baseball on his video game will get them very excited. Kids love video games because they do stuff. Baseball cards don’t do stuff. They do nothing.
Except they do, do something for the collector. And who is the collector? He is the guy or girl with what I believe is a “collecting gene.” No one has done a study on this but if they did I really believe they will find a gene which causes people to collect stuff. We used to call them pack rats. Today we are collectors.
Put it this way; If a kid’s room is very messy but he knows exactly where that yellow marble with the small chip on it is, behind the half painted toy soldier in a little brown box in the third drawer down where he keeps his sox --- that kid will be a collector. I guarantee it.
Now if the kid is neat, his room is in order, and he throws trash away? Well he won’t be a collector. He may be a speculator and make more money than any of us by collecting pictures of dead presidents, but he won’t be a collector.
This is because collectors are born, they are NOT made. You can’t make someone collect if they aren’t a collector. They may join the fray under pressure from their friends but they’ll bring those cards back in later on and try to sell them. They don’t want them and will likely take pretty much anything for them.
Now let’s get back to the Powers that Be at the big league level. They are well meaning folks but until they realize the way to bring people and kids into the hobby is to talk about values; the dollars they are spending will be fruitless. They are requiring the manufacturers to spend millions on kid promotions and killing these card companies by limiting the brands with a lot of the brands being “kid friendly” cheap packs.
Folks, the kids don’t want cheap packs! They want value. If they can’t pull something cool they won’t be back, unless they are already a collector and in that case you don’t have to spend too much money to keep them coming back. If you want new collectors you need to emphasize value.
The state lotteries realize this. When do people buy lotto tickets who don’t buy them regularly? When the jackpot is enormous is the answer. The same principle applies to cards, to new fads, to gaming products, new trends in clothing. It is all about value and to a certain extent image. You gotta be cool, you gotta look cool, you have to have it because it’s cool therefore making you cool.
And in the same breath why are you spending millions on getting kids into collecting? Adults are who is keeping the industry going and alive. Adults who spend hundreds of dollars a week. Sure the collecting base is getting older and we need new blood. New blood needs to come from adults with disposable income who are not collecting now. Target them as well as kids and you bring in the mix.
As a hobby store owner I have some children who collect sports cards. We have few who collect gaming cards because we don’t target them. We lose out on some cash by not catering to gaming but we chose to concentrate on our adult and young adult (in that order) sports card collectors.
If we did wholesale gaming with tables and tournaments my adult sports collectors would stop coming. They did during the Pokemon days and it took us a long time to get them back. They want to collect and collecting with kids isn’t their cup of tea for the most part. That is unless the kids are well behaved and collectors as well. Then they are very appreciative and will pass on their knowledge of collecting to the younger age group. We see it all the time.
Spend a lot of that TV money on attracting adult collectors who want value. There are a lot of “fans” out there who previously collected cards. Winning them back with mainstream TV ads is important. To be honest no hobby store can survive and make an honest living catering to mainly to kids buying inexpensive packs of sports cards. If we don’t sell $1000 a day on the average we won’t be around for very long, and you don’t get that selling $1.29 packs of cards.
I have for years heard from licensors all about “little Johnny collector.” There is no “little Johnny collector.” He is a figment of your imagination, he does not exist. What exists is every kid under the sun. They ride skate boards, they fantasize about girls, they steal, they play sports, they eat candy bars and swallow bubble gum, they try to curse and be macho and in today’s world more often than not they spend way too much time getting, expecting to get but not nearly enough time giving. They are savvy on the Internet, they play video games and they talk a language most parents couldn’t figure out if they tried.
In short, they are kids just like the kids 20, 30, 40 and 50 years ago. There is one exception however; technology. You can’t compete with technology in the trading card business and technology doesn’t even work in trading cards, it’s been tried.
What you can do is to appeal to what motivates every person in the world; the Dream! The Dream to be the best player in the world, the Dream to make it in Hollywood, the Dream to be an Astronaut. Dare to DREAM you can pull the greatest card in the world. The cut autograph of Babe Ruth or a piece of Mickey Mantle’s jersey or even a card signed by Cal Ripken.
These are the things kids need to hear if you want them to collect trading cards. Talk about value, talk about something concrete and yes in the trading card business Dreams are concrete. There is a much better chance of you buying a box and pulling a Babe Ruth autograph than there ever is in winning the lottery.
Put it in perspective. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : kckings | Comments[0] | Trackbacks [26906] |
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| 03 May 2006 10:04:41 pm |
| NBA STAFF GETS KUDOS FOR PROFESSIONALISM |
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I want to start this editorial by first applauding the NBA and two of its key people in dealing with journalists. Both Matt Bourne and Lisa Goldberg understood right away when in asking for an interview on a story I was doing for The Brill Report, the need to deal with journalists fairly.
The story is a good one and it deals with NBA licenses being renewed. I could have used a press release which was sent out like some other publications, but there is more to the story than press release details. There are some stories which warrants a news release re-write but not many.
I called and asked for an interview. When Bourne called me back he directed my questions to Goldberg who is head of the NBA’s trading card and memorabilia division. He was correct, she was the proper person, but she was “off site” as they say, or out of the office at some meeting. Bourne asked if there were questions I could submit via email.
My response was the same I and other journalists have been giving out more and more recently. The email interview of an official person isn’t good enough. It lends itself to prepared, canned and PR answers. It does not lend itself to frankness, openness and the opportunity to respond to answers the official may or may not want to elaborate on. This is extremely important in doing a good job on any news story. No, I wanted an interview and I only needed five minutes to ask some key questions.
Very much to his credit Bourne understood completely and within an hour or so called me back with Ms. Goldberg on the line in a conference call for me. I was impressed, very impressed. Bourne was doing his job as he is supposed to and so was Goldberg. They were both completely professional in handling the situation and deserve kudos for doing so. Bourne even called me back right away to make sure there was clarification on one statement Goldberg made and the move was important to the story.
This is becoming more and more rare in the news business. In the world of spin, “doctor and twist it so I sound good on a sound bite news day,” this is really refreshing. Journalists are much to blame as well because we as a profession are becoming more accepting of doing interviews via email, submitting questions to someone we want to interview instead of refusing to do this and instead digging for facts and doing analysis based on those facts.
It is a reporter’s job to tell a story in the best way possible and with the most comprehension. This is what we’ve set as a goal with The Brill Report. We hope to tell the story with the most meaning, truth and some analysis so as to make the story clearer to the reader.
There are those in our business who won’t deal fairly with journalists across the board, especially those who are doing what we like to call real news. The Brill Report doesn’t take advertising so this puts us in a position to question things more readily. Sometimes this may have a negative impact on a company. This doesn’t mean the company spokesman should treat this publication any differently than any other who accepts their advertising and does little in the way of questioning what the company does.
We urge the manufacturers, leagues, PA’s and others to cooperate in this endeavor. It is only to their best interests, instead of not answering questions and hoping the story goes away. In most cases, if the story is a good one, it won’t. |
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Category : General
| Posted By : kckings | Comments[0] | Trackbacks [13266] |
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