The "did you know" thread

BBCgalaxee · May 19, 2016

Drop some knowledge

In the 80s, Panini use to make stickers for Topps

The first Rated Rookie designation appeared on the backs of certain '83 Donruss cards

The first Finest product was not '93 Baseball. It was a small factory set of football issued in 1992.

There's only one Baseball Hall of Famer pictured in a Yankees uniform on his Topps RC (Cox).
All the other notable HOF Yankees rookies either appeared before '52 or with a different team.

Topps stated in 1992 that If 92 Bowman bombs, they will cancel the brand.
How different would the RC market be without it?

1993 Finest packs had an srp of about $3 but shortly after release they were selling for $15-$20 a pack.

mizzouboy · May 20, 2016

The "did you know" thread

Aledmys Diaz is probably 1 of the top 3 rookies atm and doesnt have a single official card

-Kyle

DaClyde · May 20, 2016

Some minor league baseball card trivia...

TCMA also produced the SSPC sets from the 1970s, and eventually they partnered with CMC (around 1987) to produce minor league team sets when it became too expensive to do it on their own.

Ultimately CMC absorbed TCMA's minor league team set production. I don't know that there was any transfer of properties here or if CMC simply took over when TCMA bowed out of the card market. In late 1990, Impel Marketing bought CMC.

What was TCMA is now the company PhotoFile that produces licensed photos for most of the big sports leagues.

Fleer bought out ProCards in late 1991.

Impel Marketing, who produced the Line Drive minor league sets in 1991, became Skybox International, which was bought out by Fleer (which was briefly owned by Marvel Entertainment)

Upper Deck picked up the scraps of Fleer after Fleer's bankruptcy.

With all that said, it would be interesting to know whether or not Upper Deck actually owns the collective trading card assets of TCMA, CMC, ProCards, Impel and Skybox.

predatorkj · May 20, 2016

Ok, I have nothing to add. But can anyone shed light on why fleer and eventually donruss/playoff went out of business?

BiggioBrooks755 · May 20, 2016

predatorkj said:
Ok, I have nothing to add. But can anyone shed light on why fleer and eventually donruss/playoff went out of business?

Same here

BBCgalaxee · May 20, 2016

predatorkj said:
Ok, I have nothing to add. But can anyone shed light on why fleer and eventually donruss/playoff went out of business?

I believe Fleer ran out of money and couldn't pay the players and league.

Donruss lost their baseball license in 2005.

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mrmopar · May 20, 2016

I think you are a member at Net54, right? Have you seen Mike Aronstien's son posting on there? His handle is TCMA. He has sometimes shared information about the company when people have asked. However, I asked for a closer scan of something a few times in a thread and was ignored. That bothered me a little, even though he didn't owe me anything. He might have at least declined the request.

DaClyde said:
Some minor league baseball card trivia...

TCMA also produced the SSPC sets from the 1970s, and eventually they partnered with CMC (around 1987) to produce minor league team sets when it became too expensive to do it on their own.

Ultimately CMC absorbed TCMA's minor league team set production. I don't know that there was any transfer of properties here or if CMC simply took over when TCMA bowed out of the card market. In late 1990, Impel Marketing bought CMC.

What was TCMA is now the company PhotoFile that produces licensed photos for most of the big sports leagues.

Fleer bought out ProCards in late 1991.

Impel Marketing, who produced the Line Drive minor league sets in 1991, became Skybox International, which was bought out by Fleer (which was briefly owned by Marvel Entertainment)

Upper Deck picked up the scraps of Fleer after Fleer's bankruptcy.

With all that said, it would be interesting to know whether or not Upper Deck actually owns the collective trading card assets of TCMA, CMC, ProCards, Impel and Skybox.

predatorkj · May 20, 2016

BBCgalaxee said:
I believe Fleer ran out of money and couldn't pay the players and league.

Donruss lost their baseball license in 2005.

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I am aware. I was wondering exactly how, if anyone would possibly know, fleer ran out of money exactly? Were they doing something wrong? I always loved their products and they seemed to be doing decent with sales weren't they? Maybe it's something we will never know.

As for Donruss, why did they lose their license? Is this around the time they decided there were too many products out? If so, I'll will totally agree with that. For around two years I was contemplating getting into the hobby but neglected to do so because any walk down a card aisle at walmart(and yes they were fully freaking stocked back then, almost making the aisle now look like a bad joke) or a look in a recent Beckett was mind boggling. A billion new cards and all of them were worth a fortune(according to our esteemed colleagues at Beckett). Yet you go to walmart not knowing the real score and buy a $100 worth of packs and get one Pedro Guerrero GU jersey card and wonder what the hell?

However I do think now, it's really stagnant now.

DaClyde · May 21, 2016

predatorkj said:
I am aware. I was wondering exactly how, if anyone would possibly know, fleer ran out of money exactly? Were they doing something wrong? I always loved their products and they seemed to be doing decent with sales weren't they? Maybe it's something we will never know.

Fleer, like Topps, began life as a candy company. I think where Fleer forgot their basic business planning (regarding diversification) is that in the 1990s, they sold off their candy operations to focus solely on cards. Topps has always had the candy side of their business to keep money flowing in, even if it was just Bazooka and Ring Pops. I think Fleer's failure was self-sabotage by losing their non-card related revenue stream and thinking they could succeed just by riding the current wave of trading card fad.

[MENTION=4047]mrmopar[/MENTION] yes, I'm a member over at Net54 (aren't we all on all the same boards these days?), and have tried to pry details out of Mr. Aronstein to very limited success. I'm glad he's a member over there, and I've really enjoyed reading his account of the hobby around his father's business, but he really doesn't answer all that many questions.

finestkind · May 21, 2016

Topps sued Fleer in the late 50's or early 60's to keep Fleer from putting candy in their packs of sports cards. At one point Fleer put cookies in packs. Topps said it was all about the candy kids were after.

Gjb70 · May 21, 2016

The first case of Upper Deck cards went to Tulsa's Baseball Card Store, the first LCS I ever went to. According to Wikipedia...

ASTROBURN · May 21, 2016

predatorkj said:
Ok, I have nothing to add. But can anyone shed light on why fleer and eventually donruss/playoff went out of business?

In the case of Fleer - the Grass Family, specifically Alex and Roger, founders of the Rite-Aid chain of drug stores - purchased Fleer from Marvel Entertainment.

It was a fantasy purchase; something akin to winning the lotto and buying something outrageous.

However, it was a fantasy indeed. Martin Grass (Roger's older brother and chairman of RIte-Aid) was indicted by the feds on charges of embezzlement and other fiscal malfeasance. Monies stolen by himself and several others, including Roger, were forced to repay $1.6 billion back to creditors.

Whatever profitable elements of the family's holdings were sold off to repay those creditors - that included Fleer.

It's really unfortunate, because they actually did some really good things while they owned the company - including introducing the first "Letterman" inserts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Grass

In the case of Donruss-Playoff - they shared a very similar fate to that of competitor Upper Deck four years later.

In that: A personality issue came into conflict with the business interests of MLB. Or more specifically MLBPA's Licensing and Business Development Division - which was (and still is) headed by Evan Kaplan.

Ann Blake (who also went by the name Ann Powell) was the CEO of Playoff who purchased the remnants of the late Pinnacle Brands - rebranding her company with the Donruss name in 2001.

IIRC, in early 2004, Evan Kaplan instructed Donruss-Playoff to reduce the products they produced because of complaints by distributors, hobby shareholders, and hobbyists. DP retorted that in order to meet the contracted payments previously agreed to - they had every right to produce the products. Essentially giving MLBPA the finger - Donruss-Playoff continued their production runs in 2004. And even though their MLBPA license was valid for several more years - they lost the legal battle in 2005.

Could they have worked out the payments?

I heard on the grapevine back then that it was the grating/demanding personality of DP's CEO that ultimately caused an irreparable rift between the two parties. Again, that's was the stink at the time.

Lance

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RStadlerASU22 · May 21, 2016

I've wondered what caused Pinnacle Brands to not be profitable enough to go out of business. From Score 88'-1998 there wasn't really a GU or Auto market like it was starting in the early 00s. (though 1996 Leaf Sig etc existed) Basically my point being card creation costs were not that high. Mainly just development/technology. And I can't remember that many flops, so I'm wondering why their plan wasn't profitable. Anyone have any insight on what missteps they took. [MENTION=2418]George_Calfas[/MENTION], I think maybe knew some people there and maybe he has some ideas?

Ryan

predatorkj · May 22, 2016

Well our friends over at the MLBPA seem to have done the hobby no favors. Whatsoever.

rsmath · May 23, 2016

surprised evan kaplan is still the head of licensing for MLBPA. If a tweet about license revenues from trading cards to MLBPA is true, it's been in a decline since 2008 and has held mostly steady per year since 2011. Obviously things were growing when you had three companies producing MLBPA licensed cards.

you'd think someone would be fired from their job if they aren't able to grow revenues over the course of almost a decade.

BBCgalaxee · May 23, 2016

It was in 2007 when former head of marketing for MLB Judy Heeter called dealers and collectors "a dying breed" when it came to Bowman Chrome.

The kicker? She said that to us IN PERSON at the Hawaii Trade Conference and need less to say, the crowd was not happy and we let her know.

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George_Calfas · May 23, 2016

RStadlerASU22 said:
I've wondered what caused Pinnacle Brands to not be profitable enough to go out of business. From Score 88'-1998 there wasn't really a GU or Auto market like it was starting in the early 00s. (though 1996 Leaf Sig etc existed) Basically my point being card creation costs were not that high. Mainly just development/technology. And I can't remember that many flops, so I'm wondering why their plan wasn't profitable. Anyone have any insight on what missteps they took. @George_Calfas, I think maybe knew some people there and maybe he has some ideas?

Ryan

Pinnacle Brands: Pinnacle Brands is a defunct trading card manufacturer active from 1986-98. At one point it had licenses with MLB/MLBPA, NFL/NFLPA, NHL/NHLPA, NASCAR, and the WNBA. At one time it owned the rights to the Action Packed, Donruss, Leaf, and Score brand names. After going bankrupt, it's remaining trading card assets were purchased by Playoff, Inc -- which now does business as Panini America.

In the mid-'80s, Optigraphics (makers of the popular Kellogg's 3-D baseball cards and baseball coins for the 7-11 convenience store chain) attempted to get in on the burgeoning sports card market with Sportflics. Sportflics were 3-D "lenticular" cards that were initially popular but widely scorned due to their high cost. In 1988, they introduced Score baseball, the first set to use full-color photos on the card backs. The company grew and did quite well until they started expanding through acquisitions in the mid-'90s. In 1994, the newly re-christened "Pinnacle Brands" purchased Action Packed, makers of embossed football and racing cards, and in 1996 bought out Donruss.

Then things started to go haywire. Pinnacle had filled their company with employees with little, if any, experience in sports cards at any level (collector, dealer or otherwise). By 1997 this lack of understanding of how The Hobby operates started to bear fruit. The lingering effects of the baseball strike and hockey lockout had contracted the sports card market faster than they understood, and they started flooding the market to maintain their market share. Their products began to rely on gimmicks, like packaging their cards inside soup cans (1997 Pinnacle Inside), embedded smaller within other larger cards (1998 Zenith), and bizarrely fractured sets made up of cards with all kinds of different frequency (Fractal Matrix). Needless to say, with all these gimmicks and products that didn't serve much of a purpose, Pinnacle began to lose buckets of credibility. It got so bad that in early 1998, a group of dealers in Florida attempted to organize a boycott of Pinnacle products.

In the summer of 1998, after merger talks with Upper Deck and Fleer fell through, Pinnacle Brands filed for bankruptcy. At the time, Pinnacle had assets of only $68 million, and debts of over $300 million! Their assets were purchased at auction by Playoff, Inc. for less than $10 million, who, not coincidentally, is based in the same city (Grand Prairie, Texas) as Pinnacle. Playoff used their football license to issue successful sets under old Donruss names of Elite and Leaf. Playoff applied for but were denied a license for two-and-a-half years to print baseball cards out of fears that another MLB licensee would add more product in an already glutted marketplace.

All this is interesting because Playoff was started in 1993 as the result of the divorce of the owner of Score (which was later renamed Pinnacle Brands). He kept the name and the wife kept the company, which was renamed Playoff. Or maybe vice-versa. That's why they were both in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Either way, the Score of 1993-on was significantly different from earlier versions. And now Playoff produces cards under the Score and Score-owned names. I don't know if any of the divorce stuff is true, but it's great hobby lore

http://www.baseballcardpedia.com/index.php/Pinnacle_Brands

RStadlerASU22 · May 23, 2016

Thanks George , not sure why I didn't look there. I guess I am a lil' surprised to see that amount of debt. I'll agree some routes they took were gimmicks, but those gimmicks costing that much is crazy. Too bad so many companies had missteps costing the biz. And yet the $ Topps has almost allows them to make missteps.

Ryan

predatorkj · May 23, 2016

And to think people now crave these cards from long bankrupt manufacturers. And hate the current stuff.

jbmm161 · May 26, 2016

My favorite sets as a kid where the ProSet football. They where manufactured here in DFW as well not sure if owned by either of those companies. DFW still has Panini and Leaf as manufactures. Crazy to me how much history in Texas the trading card industry has.

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