Thursday, April 17, 2014

Really, Topps, Again??

Time for another post blasting Topps for reusing pictures.

Billy Williams was included in Gypsy Queen for the first time in 2013.  I was happy about that and put picked up several of the cards.

Billy didn't make the checklist in this year's Gypsy Queen. He did manage to score a place on the /25 Jumbo patch relic list.  One of these popped up on Ebay last week.  It was a BIN for $34.95.  I like Billy, but not that much.

Plus, I didn't really like the card.


Here's why....the used the same picture as with last year's Gypsy Queen.  They didn't bother to make an new one!  Lazy!!!!  The mopes at Topps must have said that since he's not in the base set, he's not worth creating a new picture....just reuse last years.  Idiots!

Another problem....look at the bottom of the card and you'll see that it says "Game worn patch".

I'm pretty familiar with the Cubs uniforms over the years and I don't recall them wearing a piece of wood.

Topps, if you're going to use a piece of a bat, which is fine, then say so on the card.

I've seen these jumbo patch cards for other players and there were more with bats and others with just a big piece of a jersey.  In both cases, that's not a patch.  There is a fear (very real) that scammers will buy these up and substitute a fake patch piece, which would turn them a tidy, ill-gotten profit.

So, let's recap....

Topps reuses a picture again, calls a bat a patch, and enables scammers to rip off collectors.

Nice.


5 comments:

  1. Nearly $35 for that card on eBay. Yuck. That card is so infuriating I don't know if I'd pay a tenth of that price.

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  2. Cardfoolery! Post a link to this post on their Twitter account and get their attention. They should know that collectors are discussing this and aren't happy.

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  3. And Topps got an exclusive license why?

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  4. When you are the only game in town, does quality control matter?

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  5. This is why I don't like Gypsy Queen. The whole thing seems lazy and thrown together. I wonder if Topps has different teams of people working of different specific sets. This year's Heritage is so well done with excellent design and execution. And then I see GQ and it looks as terrible as always with the same issues it always has - bad photo selection, bad graphics, bad copy writing. Maybe GQ is done by the awful interns or something? There has to be a reason....

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