What's the future of game used?

2009 Ultimate Collection to some degree has brought new life to the GU market in my eyes. This is simply because they've brought something to market that we have not seen in a great while: lots of quality jumbo patches, even some vintage.

This got me thinking about the GU market and its future. Modern day player jersey cards are worth very little anymore, there are more Honus Wagner bat cards now than ever before, Babe Ruth jersey cards abound and so forth.

I wrote a bit about the GU market and some thoughts for it in the future here at the blog:

http://pennysleeves.com/2010/02/game-used-what-is-the-future/

Let me know what you think.

I think the market will come tumbling down when it's proven both Topps and UD are inserting non game used swatches and marketing them as game used. I'm not talking about using vague verbiage like "relic," such as Topps did with the Ruth seat cards; I'm talking about putting in fake swatches. They're already doing it, too bad collectors are too lazy and complacent to care or even question/demand an explanation about where the supposed "game used" items were acquired

JoshHamilton said:

I think the market will come tumbling down when it's proven both Topps and UD are inserting non game used swatches and marketing them as game used. I'm not talking about using vague verbiage like "relic," such as Topps did with the Ruth seat cards; I'm talking about putting in fake swatches. They're already doing it, too bad collectors are too lazy and complacent to care or even question/demand an explanation about where the supposed "game used" items were acquired

Click to expand...

Would UD or Topps even provide this information? Outside of it being provided in a discovery process in a lawsuit I don't ever see it surfacing.

masonphillip said:

JoshHamilton said:

I think the market will come tumbling down when it's proven both Topps and UD are inserting non game used swatches and marketing them as game used. I'm not talking about using vague verbiage like "relic," such as Topps did with the Ruth seat cards; I'm talking about putting in fake swatches. They're already doing it, too bad collectors are too lazy and complacent to care or even question/demand an explanation about where the supposed "game used" items were acquired

Click to expand...

Would UD or Topps even provide this information? Outside of it being provided in a discovery process in a lawsuit I don't ever see it surfacing.

Click to expand...

Well, I would hope to ease collectors' minds about the authenticity of cards they are paying tens and hundreds of dollars for. Then again, collectors don't seem to give a ****, so they're partially to blame.

If you have a nice gamer of a superstar or HOFer, go try consigning it to a major auction house. No way in hell they'll let you consign it without some sort of provenance. Why should it be any different than card companies being held accountable? Collectors should be demanding to know some hard facts about the authenticity of cards they're spending money on? With both manufacturers' spotty history and shady ethics, would you really be naive enough to blindly believe everything they tell you?

Oh, and with their seemingly endless supplies of prewar flannel (both pants and jerseys): the majority of prewar game used is sold through major auctions like REA. Far more often than being sold privately. There is a finite and very small (and expensive) supply, yet a seemingly infinite amount of inventory that both UD and Topps have at their disposal. Give me a break.

Ultimate is nice and is selling great, I dont see it bringing back game used as a hot item again. The Ted Williams patches are from his coaching and non playing days. I am sure compaines use game issued bats and jerseys in cards. The jerseys have all the proper tagging just never made it on the athelete or in his hands. Like has been said, Without a lawsuit they will not prove the use of the items in the cards. When Topps made the josh Gibson bat cards, They were made using a game issued bat and not a game used bat.

Dead before we know it.

Heck, even autographs are slowly going downhill.

The blog asks: "what must card manufacturers do to keep the game used concept fresh?"

An interesting question, but does GU really need to be fresh? Do base cards need to be fresh?

There's only so much one can do to a piece of cardboard that size - and most people like their cardboard to be a certain size. Innovative design, useful stats on back, nice photography will always be the most important elements to a card.

uniquebaseballcards said:

The blog asks: "what must card manufacturers do to keep the game used concept fresh?"

An interesting question, but does GU really need to be fresh? Do base cards need to be fresh?

There's only so much one can do to a piece of cardboard that size - and most people like their cardboard to be a certain size. Innovative design, useful stats on back, nice photography will always be the most important elements to a card.

Click to expand...

i wonder what would happen if there was a set with the base cards being gu :?:

Yes, - but technically they'd be 'fabric' and not 'cards' :lol:

Why not buy the whole jersey at that point?

jeff550 said:

uniquebaseballcards said:

The blog asks: "what must card manufacturers do to keep the game used concept fresh?"

An interesting question, but does GU really need to be fresh? Do base cards need to be fresh?

There's only so much one can do to a piece of cardboard that size - and most people like their cardboard to be a certain size. Innovative design, useful stats on back, nice photography will always be the most important elements to a card.

Click to expand...

i wonder what would happen if there was a set with the base cards being gu :?:

Click to expand...

that would be sweet. gu jersey giveaways. I was thinking putting gu swatches into base cards

uniquebaseballcards said:

Yes, - but technically they'd be 'fabric' and not 'cards' :lol:

Why not buy the whole jersey at that point?

jeff550 said:

uniquebaseballcards said:

The blog asks: "what must card manufacturers do to keep the game used concept fresh?"

An interesting question, but does GU really need to be fresh? Do base cards need to be fresh?

There's only so much one can do to a piece of cardboard that size - and most people like their cardboard to be a certain size. Innovative design, useful stats on back, nice photography will always be the most important elements to a card.

Click to expand...

i wonder what would happen if there was a set with the base cards being gu :?:

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

jeff550 said:

uniquebaseballcards said:

The blog asks: "what must card manufacturers do to keep the game used concept fresh?"

An interesting question, but does GU really need to be fresh? Do base cards need to be fresh?

There's only so much one can do to a piece of cardboard that size - and most people like their cardboard to be a certain size. Innovative design, useful stats on back, nice photography will always be the most important elements to a card.

Click to expand...

i wonder what would happen if there was a set with the base cards being gu :?:

Click to expand...

2001 Upper deck Diamond Connection had cards 1-90 base, 91-120 RC, and 121- 630 game used cards part of the set...This set was a nightmare because they messed up the packaging..supposed to be 3 jerseys per box and there were only 2...Then they sent the extra card in packs to dealers and thats went it all went downhill with that product

Personally, I still enjoy game used cards. I realize they're overdone and authenticity is being brought into question, but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy finding one in a pack. I won't go out and spending more than a couple bucks on a nice jersey card, either. But someone else said even the autograph is declining, and I agree with that, too, to which I wonder, how is a sticker autograph - which is being placed across all levels of a product on various ranges of serial numbering - any better than a random piece of fabric??

2003 Playoff Piece of Game Baseball, game used part of the base set

uniquebaseballcards said:

The blog asks: "what must card manufacturers do to keep the game used concept fresh?"

An interesting question, but does GU really need to be fresh? Do base cards need to be fresh?

There's only so much one can do to a piece of cardboard that size - and most people like their cardboard to be a certain size. Innovative design, useful stats on back, nice photography will always be the most important elements to a card.

Click to expand...

I think innovative design is a way of keeping something fresh, yep.

Ballpark Collection is mostly game-used base, too, though I can't imagine many people actually treat that as a "set".

I think it depends on the "game used" card. Too many people have bought in to the serial numbering rather than seeing the big picture. You can have 10 cards serial numbered of 50 made from the same jersey. Rather than acknowledging 500 jersey cards too many are putting emphasis on the numbering of 50 as though there's only 50 cards with that swatch of jersey. Certain patch cards will carry a premium IMHO but that depends on the sport as well. Logoman cards are great and all but a player can potentially wear 162 jerseys that can be turned to logoman cards while an NFL player can only provide 16. A lot of variables to take into consideration for sure.

RITM said:

I think it depends on the "game used" card. Too many people have bought in to the serial numbering rather than seeing the big picture. You can have 10 cards serial numbered of 50 made from the same jersey. Rather than acknowledging 500 jersey cards too many are putting emphasis on the numbering of 50 as though there's only 50 cards with that swatch of jersey. Certain patch cards will carry a premium IMHO but that depends on the sport as well. Logoman cards are great and all but a player can potentially wear 162 jerseys that can be turned to logoman cards while an NFL player can only provide 16. A lot of variables to take into consideration for sure.

Click to expand...

All good points. You are right on about serial #'ing. I remember buying a Juan Gonzalez 1998 Upper Deck insert off eBay shortly after it released. It was /2000 and I think I paid $5 or so for it. I was absolutely stoked to have a card that was limited to 2000.

Now I pull cards out of DEEE that are /50 that don't sell for $.99 on eBay.

Yeah sometimes. It depends on the set the card is from. A card #d to 100 in a very popular set > a card #d to 100 in a set nobody seems to collect.

RITM said:

I think it depends on the "game used" card. Too many people have bought in to the serial numbering rather than seeing the big picture. You can have 10 cards serial numbered of 50 made from the same jersey. Rather than acknowledging 500 jersey cards too many are putting emphasis on the numbering of 50 as though there's only 50 cards with that swatch of jersey. Certain patch cards will carry a premium IMHO but that depends on the sport as well. Logoman cards are great and all but a player can potentially wear 162 jerseys that can be turned to logoman cards while an NFL player can only provide 16. A lot of variables to take into consideration for sure.

Click to expand...

masonphillip said:

RITM said:

I think it depends on the "game used" card. Too many people have bought in to the serial numbering rather than seeing the big picture. You can have 10 cards serial numbered of 50 made from the same jersey. Rather than acknowledging 500 jersey cards too many are putting emphasis on the numbering of 50 as though there's only 50 cards with that swatch of jersey. Certain patch cards will carry a premium IMHO but that depends on the sport as well. Logoman cards are great and all but a player can potentially wear 162 jerseys that can be turned to logoman cards while an NFL player can only provide 16. A lot of variables to take into consideration for sure.

Click to expand...

All good points. You are right on about serial #'ing. I remember buying a Juan Gonzalez 1998 Upper Deck insert off eBay shortly after it released. It was /2000 and I think I paid $5 or so for it. I was absolutely stoked to have a card that was limited to 2000.

Now I pull cards out of DEEE that are /50 that don't sell for $.99 on eBay.

Click to expand...

After thinking about it some more I can see even more "event worn" cards hitting the market and more emphasis being placed on some premium patch cards. I have seen logoman cards in recent baseball and football products that were either "event worn" or not worn at all. Of course this will create an added premium on legit game worn cards. The next horizon I can see card companies going is to provide an entire logo patch as a redemption for patches not fitting on one card. I love me some Ripken cards and could live with a couple of patch cards. However, give me an opportunity to own an entire "8" or Oriole patch and I would get excited.

Couldn't agree more with serial numbering! I just don't get it (in most cases), especially with game used and autographs. A sticker from the same sheet is applied to various colors of border or whatever, yet one is more "rare" than the other? How is that not the same thing?

I did a post on this with the on-card Sweet Beginnings autographs in Sweet Spot: http://pricelesspursuit.wordpress.com/2 ... numbering/

One is numbered to 499, the other to 65. But how can the /65 possibly treated as more rare? Cahill signed the same stack, and there are 564 Cahill Sweet Beginnings autos out there. Some just happen to have a different color border. If the autograph is all you want, why not just get the less rare version for a lot cheaper? And this is coming from the guy who pulled the more "rare" version and STILL doesn't like it!!