2014 NFLPA Rookie Premiere & 2014 Topps Inception Football Preview

The 2014 NFL Players Association Rookie Premiere is currently underway in Los Angeles.  Fortunately for us card collectors, Topps has been posting some good pictures of the upcoming releases on their Twitter feed.  Below are some of the pictures.

2014 Topps Inception Football Inscription Card

I actually grabbed the above picture from a video.  It shows what the new 2014 Topps Inception Football inscription cards will look like.  I think they look awesome.  I like the ornate gold foil inlay which frames the team logo, and which is underneath the player name.  It's smart of Topps to only put gloss on the actual player image rather than over the entire card.  By not putting gloss on the area where the player will sign this helps ensure that the autograph doesn't smear or scratch off so easily. 

This one is actually a preview of 2014 Bowman Football.  The cards are a little hard to see but from you can see they do look very nice. 

Brandin Cooks is showing off a old school mini.  Notice all the jerseys stacked up behind him?  That is why I don't usually buy or pay a premium for rookie year patch autograph cards.  Those jerseys will hardly be touched by the players.  At the most, each will be worn for minutes or mere moments just so the card companies can claim them as being "event used" or "player worn." 

 Another Inception preview, with tons of jerseys stacked in the background.

Overall, the cards Inception cards look pretty nice.  Obviously, the biggest draw for Inception is that it will be the first high-end release for the 2014 NFL rookie class and it will have tons of on-card autographs.  Unfortunately, some of the players are depicted on their cards as wearing number "00", which is because they haven't been assigned a number yet by their team. 

2014 Topps Valor Football Preview

Topps Valor will be returning in 2014 after taking a year off after its debut year in 2012.  I was probably only one of three people on Earth who liked 2012 Topps Valor Football.  I thought the theme was cool, the cards looked beautiful, and I loved all the on-card rookie autographs.  Oh, and the tins were awesome also. 

Unfortunately, while the cards were great in theory and looked awesome, the execution was a little sub-par.  First of all, the checklist was lopsided and a little weak.  Most notably, Russell Wilson autographs were missing from the product.  Many NFL teams were not even represented on the checklist at all.  The price for a hobby box was way too expensive too.  Even presently, at a very reduced price of about $130 a box (via Blowoutcards.com), I think it's still too expensive to break for only two rookie autographs, one veteran autograph, and one patch card.  That's about $43 per autograph, or about $32.50 per hit.  Finally, way too many of the cards suffered from really really REALLY bad corner and edge damage. 

I was really hoping to see Valor return in 2013, but it didn't.  Perhaps Topps was taking some time to re-think what they wanted to do with this product before bringing it back in 2014. 

Well, it's 2014, and Valor is back.  How does it look?  The first previews have me concerned.

The 2014 mockups look way different than the 2012 cards.  Change isn't always a bad thing, so long as it's for the better, but I'm not so sure this is for the better. 

The first thing which jumps out at you is the background image.  Now instead of a fairly blank background the 2014 background will be the team logo on a checkered design.  This change wouldn't be so horrible if it stayed within the whole gladiator theme, but I don't think it does.  The 2012 cards had a very subtle sky and coliseum background image on the cards which -- in my opinion -- did induce mental images of ancient gladiators, swords, and awesome movie scenes from the movie Gladiator.  This logo and checked background doesn't make me think about gladiators at all.

The second thing which worries me are the sticker autographs.  Maybe Topps will get the players to sign on-card and the stickers in the previews are there just as a precaution, but one of the great things about the 2012 Valor set were the on-card rookie autographs.  Topps needs to continue the on-card trend. 

The patch autographs look awesome.  You can clearly see the whole gladiator shield design element working well with this cards. 

The gladiator theme continues very nicely on the patch cards.  While the patches do look very reminiscent of Supreme patch cards, the design element is nice and ancient Roman feeling. 

Perhaps the biggest change to Valor will be the pack-out format.  Instead of one tin of only six cards, it's now going to be a 20 pack box, four hits per box (autograph, autograph relic, jumbo relic, and patch card), and the base set will now be a whopping 200 cards!  This change seems to signal Topps' intent to make this product more of a collectible middle-end product rather than a high-end product.  I'm not against this move but I hope Topps continues to focus on the quality of the product.  The 2014 base checklist should include all 32 NFL teams.  It should have hits for every NFL team.  All the top 2014 rookies should have autographs in the product.  The price point should be cheaper.  And the cards need to be packed in better manner such that they don't all suffer edge and corner damage. 

The Valor product line has huge potential, in my opinion.  Topps needs to address the problems which kept so many people from buying it in 2012.  If they're able to do that, then I think they'll have another successful product to add to their already impressive list of successful products. 

Sports Card Thickness

If you haven't checked out BCW's blog, you should.  They have some great tips on their blog and plenty of information about their products.  One great blog post is the one on card thickness.  If you can always remember the below tips, you'll never have a problem with knowing what thickness magnetic or toploader that you need for your cards!

• A regular sports card is about 20 points thick.
• A regular Topps base card is about 18 points thick.
• A card sleeve is about 4 points thick.

Basically, all you need to remember is that your typical sports card is 18 to 20 points thick!  If you can remember that, and you have some extra base cards lying around, you can always figure out the exact thickness of a card by stacking those base cards next to it.  This is a great way to figure out what size and thickness magnetics and toploaders you need. 

BGS Beckett Grading Tip: Centering

Of the four Becket Grading Service (BGS) subgrades -- centering, corners, edges, and surface -- the card's centering should be the easiest for you to evaluate on your own.  The only tool you're really need is a ruler.

It's important to keep in mind what makes for a good centering subgrade.  Beckett's own website provides guidance on this issue:

Pristine 10 centering must be: "50/50 all around on the front and 60/40 or better on the back."  

Gem Mint 9.5 centering must be: "50/50 one way, 55/45 the other way on the front, and 60/40 or better on the back."

Mint 9.0 centering must be: "55/45 both ways on the front, and 60/40 or better on the back."  

Understanding what the above language means is critical to making sure you're only submitting cards for grading which should receive a 10 or 9.5 on its centering subgrade.

The first important note to take away from the above language is that the card's front centering is way more important to obtaining a good centering subgrade than the card's back centering.  Even with 60/40 centering on the back of the card you still can get a 9.0, 9.5 or 10 subgrade on the centering subgrade depending on the card's front centering.

The second important note to take away from the above language is that to get a centering subgrade of 10, the card's front centering must be 50/50 all around on the front.  This means that the card should not be off-centered left to right or top to bottom.

The third important note to take away from the above language is that if the front of your card is off-centered both left to right and top to bottom, then you can only get as high as a 9.0 subgrade on centering (although you certainly might get lower).  A subgrade of 9.0 on centering allows for the card's front centering to be off both ways, but only by a small margin of 55/45 both ways.  However, to get a subgrade of 9.5 on centering then the card's front centering must be 50/50 one way and only 55/45 the other way.

In conclusion, if your card is off-centered on the front in both directions, meaning top/bottom and left/right, then there is no way you're going to get a 9.5 subgrade on centering.  Most likely you're going to get a subgrade of 9.0 or less on centering.  This can hurt your overall grade significantly as since the general BGS rule is that your final grade cannot be more than 0.5 higher than your lowest subgrade.  (I've covered the basics of the BGS grading formula in this previous post.)

Centering is one of the easiest subgrades for you to control and measure when you're buying cards either on eBay or COMC.  If I'm buying a card on eBay or COMC which I would like to submit for BGS grading, then I am very careful to evaluate its centering in the pictures or scans.  Since COMC uses high quality scans on their website, this makes measuring centering very easy.  I'll often enlarge the scans and use a ruler to measure the centering on the card to make sure it will garner a high subgrade.

Keep the above tips in mind when choosing cards to submit for BGS grading.  There should be no excuses for not getting a 9.5 or higher on your cards' centering subgrade if you know the BGS grading criteria and are careful to evaluate your card's centering.

2013 Topps Five Star Football is Awesome But Beware of Ink Stains on Corners

Having watched a ton of 2013 Topps Five Star Football box and case breaks on YouTube, I finally gave into buying some singles.  I had heard that some boxes contained cards which had black ink stains on the corners.

Mindful that the cards might have ink stains, I took to eBay and bought some singles.  I was careful the entire time to check the pictures and scans to see if the corners were stained.  More often than not, you just couldn't tell from the pictures.  Furthermore, as since most eBay sellers are looking to sell their cards for the highest price possible, they will not disclose any defects to the card anyways.  Basically, you're basically just buying blind. 

My first single came in the mail a few days ago.  It was a gorgeous card of a player that I PC, but one of its corners clearly had a black stain to it.

Black ink stains on the corner edge.

I notified the seller.  He has offered a refund, and claims that they didn't see the black ink stain on the corner.  Who knows whether they really did or not.  I suppose if they are a volume seller who doesn't have a lot of time to take an additional five seconds to look at the card's four corners then I guess it's plausible.  More than likely the seller probably knew about the stain, and didn't want to disclose it hoping for whomever bought the card to not see it or not return it.

Be aware when you're buying Five Star singles that the cards may have ink stains on the corner.  It's unfortunate that Topps is having this problem with this product, because it is ruining otherwise beautiful cards. 

eBay Best Practices: Communicate with the Seller Regarding Any Problems

You've just received an item in the mail from a seller on eBay.  You open up the package only to discover that something is wrong with the item.  Perhaps it was not as described or it was partially damaged in transit due to poor packing protection.  What do you do?

It's always a good idea to politely contact the seller and notify them of the problem.  Most sells will respond and offer you the ability to return the item for a refund.  Sometimes if they're feeling super generous they may refund you part of the sale price or let you keep the item.  Other times, they may even reimburse you for return shipping costs although those are normally borne by the buyer.

In any event, politely communicating with the seller is never a bad idea.  If they don't respond to messages to help resolve your problem then you should feel no remorse for leaving them neutral or negative feedback.  (As of the date of this blog post, eBay sellers can only leave buyers positive feedback so you should have no fear of receiving a retaliatory negative feedback.)  Your last resort to an unresponsive or uncooperative seller is to open up an eBay claim.  As long as you have messages and pictures to prove your story, you should be able to convince eBay to rule any disputes in your favor so you can get a refund. 

Beckett Grading Service (BGS) is NOT an Average

One misconception a lot of people have with Beckett Grading Services (BGS Grading) is that the "formula" is an average.

Here's a tip:  BGS does not use an average. 

I've covered the basics of the BGS forumla in this previous blog post. 

BGS gives more weight to your lowest sub-grade(s) than your higher sub-grades.  For example, if a card has sub-grades of Centering 9.5, Corners 8.5, Edges 8.5, and Surface 9.5, the final grade will be NM/Mint+ 8.5 and not a final grade of 9.0 which is the average.

Centering 9.5
Corners 8.5
Edges 8.5
Surface 9.5

Average = 9.0
BGS Final Grade: 8.5

Remember, if two of your subgrades share the lowest subgrade score, then your final grade will be equal to that lowest subgrade.  

How to Verify the Authenticity of PSA Graded Cards and Flips

One great way to determine if a PSA graded card is authentic and not counterfeit or fake is to use the app "RedLaser."

The app is free, and is available for the iPhone.  Use it to scan the PSA barcode on the "flip" (the paper tab at the top of the slab which has all of the card's information printed on it).

RedLaser will read the barcode, and show a number.  That number should match the serial number shown on the flip.  If it doesn't, that means it's a fake!

Keep in mind that even if the barcode matches the serial number, it could still mean the card is fake or the slab has been tampered with in some way.  But this is one great and easy way to determine if a slabbed card is counterfeit or not.

Try it yourself!  Below is a PSA 10 Michael Jordan rookie card.

If you use RedLaser to scan the barcode, it should read the barcode as "90576975" instead of "90168589" which is printed on the flip.

Clearly, this flip is fake and the card inside the PSA slab is likely counterfeit too.

NFL Draft Is Less Than A Week Away!

The NFL Draft is less than a week away and I'm stoked!

If you PC players from a certain college, now is a great time to buy their cards.  Once the draft happens all the team collectors and the player collectors will be scooping up the rest of what's out there.  I've been taking advantage of the pre-Draft market and buying my favorite college players for fairly cheap.  I'm interested to see what teams draft my guys and in what round they're drafted.

One guy I've been tracking is Oregon State wide receiver Brandin Cooks.  I think he has potential to be a great wide receiver in the NFL despite his smaller size.  I've been charting his 2014 Leaf Metal base prismatic autograph rookie cards for some time now.  It's been interesting to see how the market prices vary over time.  Below is the graph.

This graph follows the eBay sale prices (sale price plus shipping cost) for all of his base prismatic autograph rookie cards.  Thus, I was not tracking any of the shorter printed parallels.  The sale price is on the Y-axis, and the date of sale is on the X-axis.

Each blue dot represents a sale on a given day.  The red dots represent a moving average of the last ten sales.

This graph reveals a few interesting trends.

First, prices start out fairly high when the product first released in late February 2014.  Most of the cards were selling for anywhere between $10 to $15.  Over the next two weeks the average price dropped considerably, at which point cards were selling for anywhere between $6 to $10.

This trend is not unexpected.  Prices for singles are always high immediately after a product's release as the hard core collectors with deep pockets go on eBay buying binges to nab all the cards they want.  Once that event ends, and all the hard core collectors are satisfied, prices tend to drop to more reasonable levels.

But then things start to get interesting about three weeks after the product's release (March 22, 2014 on the graph) -- prices start going back up slowly. This is shown by the slow rise of the red dots. 

Why is this?

This is mostly due to the supply of the cards.  Two weeks after the product's release, the market was flooded with cards.  Just look at all the blue dots around the March 15, 2014 date.  The laws of supply and demand state that if the supply curve increases, but the demand curve stays the same, the equilibrium price will drop.  This is what happened.  Tons of people were breaking Leaf Metal around that time and had started to put the cards up on eBay for sale.  With tons of cards for sale, bidders had plenty of options (cards) to bid on.

But starting three weeks after the product's release, and more noticeably after four weeks following the product's release, the supply of the cards available had gone down.  Notice how few blue dots there are in April and early May.  Less people were opening the product, and less cards were available for purchase on eBay.  The laws of supply and demand state that if the supply curve decreases, but the demand curve stays the same, the equilibrium price will go up.  This is exactly what happened.  With fewer and fewer cards available to buy on eBay, bidders were getting into bidding wars.  Other sells would put cards at above-average Buy-It-Now prices and would actually get buyers making that purchase just because there weren't any other options available. 

It will be extremely interesting to see how the prices will react once Brandin Cooks is drafted.  I imagine that if he is drafted high in the first round, all the people who have been hoarding his autographs will put them up on eBay to sell them to all the team collectors who are PCing their team's draft picks.  This would represent both an increase in the supply curve and an increase in the demand curve.  This could result in prices going up, or staying about the same since the increase demand will be offset by the increased supply. 

On the other hand, if Brandin Cooks is drafted lower than expected, while we still might see a flood of cards return to the market, the demand may remain stagnant.  If this happens, prices might go back down.

One final takeaway from this chart is that if you're looking to flip, timing is always key.  Buy cards a couple weeks after the product's release once prices have gone down to reasonable levels.  Then, sell them later on once the supply has dried up, or right after the draft when demand is likely to spike again.

I'll be updating this chart for at least a month following the draft to see what happens to his prices.  I may even continue updating this chart throughout the entire 2014 season to see how his prices react to his performance.  This should be interesting to follow. 

Leaf Best of Football Unopened Is Riskier Than Risky

When it comes to buying packs (and/or boxes) of sports cards, every sports card collector knows they are taking a risk.  That risk is the possibility you'll get nothing of extraordinary value in that pack -- like all base cards.  Of course, on the other hand, there is always the possibility you might get something totally awesome like a $200 hit.  More often than not, you'll end up getting less money back than what you paid.  That's just the name of the game.  We all know of that risk, and accept it when we buy products.

But one such product takes this risk way above and beyond what I think is reasonable.  That product is 2014 Leaf Best of Football Unopened Edition. (Currently priced at $155 on Blowout Cards as of April 25, 2014.)

In this product you get one cut autograph which is slabbed by BGS, and one sealed football box.  At first thought this product might not seem so bad or so different from buying a hobby box of football cards yourself as you might do every few weeks or every month, but I think it is.

When you choose to buy yourself a hobby box of football cards, you tend to buy what you want and what you like.  Why buy a hobby box of a product whose design you hate?  By choosing a hobby box of a product you like you are ensuring that you're getting a product you like.  This choice is a benefit to you as a consumer.

If you're like me, when you buy a hobby box of football cards, you may also tend to avoid products which have expired redemptions.  Not all companies honor expired redemptions.  Upper Deck and Topps will not honor expired redemptions, but Panini will.  If you're concerned that you might get a hit which is expired and will not be honored by the company that produced that product, then you should avoid that product.  The choice to choose which product to buy in order to avoid expired redemptions is another benefit to you as a consumer.

When you buy a box of 2014 Leaf Best of Football Unopened Edition, you give up both of those benefits.  You don't get to choose which football box you're going to get, thereby running the risk of getting a product you hate.  You also run the risk of getting a football product which has expired redemptions which will not be honored.

In my opinion, losing those two benefits is enough to make me not buy 2014 Leaf Best of Football Unopened Edition.

Now, I know some people might be thinking that there are some benefits to buying this product.  I suppose there are.  Like any other packaged sports card product, you have the chance at hitting some great cards and getting back more money that you paid for the box.  For example, maybe your cut autograph will be Dan Marino.  If it is, that is awesome!  And maybe the football box you get is Topps Five Star Football, Upper Deck Exquisite or Panini National Treasures -- all very expensive hobby boxes which cost more than the $155 you spent to buy the Leaf Best of Football Unopened Edition Box.  More than likely though, you're not going to get a National Treasures box.

One of the box breakers I use frequently (Breakerz Anonymous) did a very nice analysis on the "recover rate" -- the amount of money you'd expect to recoup when you buy a box of 2014 Leaf Best of Football Unopened Edition.  He watched all the available case breaks for this product on YouTube, crunched some numbers, and estimated that the "recovery rate" is 62.1%.

In other words, if you spend $989.95 buying a case of 2014 Leaf Best of Football Unopened Edition, you will on average lose $375.34 for opening it just to see what football boxes and cut autographs are inside.  That figure does not take into account what may be inside the actual football boxes themselves.  Once you open up those football boxes you are likely going to suffer another loss of money as the value of the cards in that box, on average, will not cost more than the value of the sealed box.

Imagine the level of frustration you would have if you paid $155 for a box of 2014 Leaf Best of Football Unopened Edition, you open it up, your cut autograph only worth about $20, and your unopened football box instead was 2013 Topps Magic (Blowout price of $51).  Talk about a brutal punch to the gut.  If you open up that box of 2013 Topps Magic, you're probably only going to get $20 worth of cards in return on average.  So at the end of the day, after spending $155 for a box of 2014 Leaf Best of Football Unopened Edition you could be left with a $20 cut autograph and $20 worth of cards.  That's a "recovery rate" of 25.8%.

One guy on the Blowout Cards forums said he paid close to $200 for a box of this product, got a Joe Schmidt cut autograph ($5 to $10), and his sealed football box was 2010 Topps Chrome Football ($65 on Blowout).  He opened up the Chrome box and didn't even get an autograph!  Things might not have been so bad had he pulled a Tim Tebow, Sam Bradford, or Dez Bryant base rookie card but he didn't even get any of those guys either!  In total, he probably had around $15 worth of cards in the end.  That's a "recovery rate" of 7.5%. 

That last anecdote was a brutal one, and probably one of the worst ones you'd see.  Could anything be worse than that?  Yeah.  How about getting a product full of expired redemptions.  I couldn't find the tweet or post, but I remember seeing one guy complaining about getting an old Upper Deck product, ended up getting a redemption for a high valued card, but that redemption was expired!  (Upper Deck does not honor expired redemptions.)  So this guy basically had a "recovery rate" of 0% from the football box.  I can't remember who exactly he got for his cut autograph but it wasn't anyone super valuable.

Frankly, I don't know why people buy this product.  I'm guessing people just don't think enough about all the product's risks.  If they did, I think they would realize that the risk is just way too much to endure.  The possibility of getting a product you hate makes it risky.  The possibility of getting a low-value sealed football box makes it riskier.  And then the possibility getting a product with expired redemptions makes it insanely risky. 

I don't blame Leaf for making this product, but as a consumer I'd stay far away from this product and would never buy a box of it for myself.