Over the last two years, Peterson has become a 100% redemption player due to his unwillingness to adhere to the normal signing schedule that card companies require. There will always be stickers that can be reused from as far back as the offseason from 2007, but, for the true on card sweetness, its a waiting game for the new shit. This leads to a problem when you see a card that you know is going to be ridiculously amazing, but you know that its going to be six months before the package shows up at your door.
Such is my dilemma, and I know a lot of you out there have similarly experienced the months that are necessary to get a card you have wanted. The question remains as to whether or not the wait is worth the end result. I say yes and no, but it also has a lot to do with your connection to the card and your connection to the player.
For a player collector, sometimes redemptions are a necessary evil, especially if you are waiting on some of the cards that will be the best of the year. Since my favorite products are always SPA and Exquisite, I have to come to terms with the fact that I will have to wait for Peterson to sign his stuff. Since UD cant produce these cards far enough ahead of time, the cards need to be redemptions – I get that. But do I risk my money under the auspices that at any time he can just decide not to sign any more?
I have risked it before, at least twice, once with great results, once with a replacement outcome. This time, I think I may risk it again and buy a card out of Philadelphia that should be one of the best auto cards until SPA in January. Thats the impatience in me, despite the fact that the card probably wont be signed until SPA actually hits shelves. Thats me, though, and I am positive that the card is something I need to buy. Yet, if I had pulled it out of a pack of a player I didnt collect, it would be on ebay faster than you could say boo.
The problem is, that redemptions are practically only there for the player collectors around to begin with. People who pull the redemptions rarely ever hold them if they dont collect the player in some way, and I believe that is why so many of them end up on eBay. Now that its also very easy to do it online instead of sending them in, its even easier to just throw it up there as an incentive for the people out there that like it. Hell, you dont even need to ship the card most of the time.
Call me a junkie for hard signed cards now that I am spoiled enough by UD’s great commitment to those sets, but I wonder if others out there are willing to take the same chance on some of these as I am. I realize that most collectors blame UD and their replacements for the redemption dilemma, but there have to be other addicts out there like me looking for their next fix. Otherwise the market for these redemptions wouldnt be what it is.
