There are 129 Cubs cards in this mosaic. They are 44% of the 296 2023 Cubs cards that I have purchased this year. They were all bought after the season ended on October 1. I find that to be ridiculous.
It's not that I was putting off my purchases. I try to get my cards within a couple weeks of their release. The problem is the release dates, with so many coming after the season has ended.
In the old days, after the season you would have the update set and maybe one or two others. I get that after covid, with the supply issues, products were delayed. But by 2023 that shouldn't be the case any longer. Sadly, it still is.
What makes the problem look worse is all the products that Topps cancelled for this year. Not having Gypsy Queen, Fire, Gold Label, Gallery, and others has cut into the number of cards I have for this year. My 2023 total is going to be about 65% of the total cards I had from a few years back, and an even smaller percentage from the 2016 and 2017 numbers. Having 129 post-season cards out of a smaller number of total cards really jacks up that percentage.
I looked at 2019, the last pre-covid year, to see how out of whack the 2023 numbers are. I have 496 cards from 2019 and just 296 from 2023. Of the 496 cards from 2019, there are 91 that were bought after the season ended, which is just 18%.
And I'm not done with 2023. We still have Stadium Club and Heritage High numbers coming out, which will boost the 44% even higher.
Baseball cards should come out during the baseball season, not the football season.
Agreed.
ReplyDeleteTry being a hockey collector. 2022 sets are still not even out yet.
ReplyDeleteThe worst part is the release dates are bunched all together and during a time of year when money has to go to other things.
ReplyDeleteThe release dates are a joke. And these monopolies can't even blame Covid supply chain issues anymore. They just don't care.
ReplyDelete2024 Topps is a mystery - no release date or design yet??!? Usually Topps would have a teaser in summer. And how has Stadium Club not come out yet? Its December!
But yeah, Upper Deck is worse with hockey releases, If you can believe it. 2020-21 SP legends was released *this* March. The Cup is about two years behind, and that's their super premium release high-end breakers used to chase. They might as well discontinue it now.
Agreed 100%
ReplyDelete