New Feature: Man at the Shop With Submarine Shane

Most of you are familiar with Submarine Shane from his work with Mario over on Wax Heaven, and now he will have a similar place here on SCU. For those of you who havent seen his previous exploits, Shane loves breaking boxes, and busts just about every product that is released. He has offered his reports as an informative look into what people actually get when they go to the shop and bust wax off the shelf.

This past week, he was able to visit his local shop with the hopes of busting some of the new products, coming away with two high dollar breaks. For the first one, although he is a professed triple threads hater, he said he bought two boxes to try his luck and see what he could pull. He had some nice luck with one of his boxes, but the other had the normal triple threads content. In his words, “I opened those and wasn’t too impressed.”

Here are the scans:

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

In terms of normal Triple Threads ideals, the Stafford is a good pull, but even in this case, I wouldnt touch it with someone else’s ten foot pole. As I said before, spelling out “Prime” in diecut windows is absolutely the dumbest thing I have ever seen. When the “I” is the same size as the player picture, and the card looks like that, I cant believe people actually like this product. The other cards are the typical two dollar hits you usually get from a box, and overall, Shane took a bath on these boxes.

Shane also revisited an old favorite, 2006 National Treasures, with the hopes of leaving with something more than a story.

Here are the results:

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

The Theismann/Riggins card is probably the best pull, though the Roethlisberger logo /10 is a good one too. I would say this is a pretty below average box, though some of the cards like the Montana /25 are ones that I wouldnt mind having. Nothing spectacular, but at least its better looking than the Topps abortion from above.

Shane describes his day as, “I think it would be safe to say that I should have opened the Treasures first and forgot about the Triple Threads,” and I wholeheartedly agree. Obviously.

Check back periodically, as I believe this is a pretty important service Shane is providing to the readers here at the site. Instead of relying on adver-breaks from companies that send their boxes out, here are actual breaks from boxes people buy every day.

Thanks again to Shane for offering to do this.

Innovations and the Industry

Over the last few years, we have had a handful of innovations in cards that have spread the market to the point of nauseum, much to the dismay of many collectors. However, despite the fact that these cool innovations have become over done by each of the manufacturers, one thing has yet to undergo any real innovation since the early part of this decade. For the cards, we have had logo patches, letter patches, manu-patches, shadow box cards, PETG cards, etc, but for the boxes themselves we have seen the Tin, the one pack box, and the Exquisite style box. The card tech has actually explored different limits of printing, while the box itself has improved little more than just modifying the packaging.

What if new packaging and configurations could bring new life to the thaw that has happened in the industry lately?

As an example, an iditter (a twitter idea) came to me yesterday, one that isnt the answer to everything, but could be fun for those of us who break at hobby shops. What if the manufacturers took the hobby content that was normally in a box and developed it into an organized pack war type configuration? Instead of splitting the box with arbitrary means, the new pack war configuration would be set up to deliver equal chances at advertised content for both collectors, and would have bonus packs or something for the winner. For instance, you have two individually wrapped mini boxes a la finest (thanks Cardboard Icons), with both having special content configuration inside. There would packs as normal, but each side would have equal numbers of hits. In addition to the two boxes themselves, there is a winner box with extra hits and packs. Point system and instructions could be included, and it could even bring about organized play. Aside from people just breaking up the content and selling it, the cards would present an interesting draw for card shops. It would encourage collector competition (already an inherant thing for us) and the cards themselves wouldn’t be any different than a normal hobby box. The winners box could have extra perks, but I think this is something that needs to be at or around the level of a normal box to be successful, rather than the pack war stand alone product from Topps a while back.

Another example would be the packaging itself. Rather than opening packs and cards, what if companies went back and took a page out of fleer’s book and offered signed jerseys, footballs, helmets, etc. Each box a collector would buy would contain a claim card for a specific product that could be shipped to them like a redemption. Tristar has already done amazing with the Hidden Treasures mini helmets, but taking it a step further would be awesome. I don’t think it would be a bad idea to create a set around it, but the focus needs to be the full size shit.

Going further, with high end products, I have preached pretty extensively that card protection and seals need to be included with the cards. This means pre-emptively encasing the cards in holders with seals, thus preventing counterfeits and damage in transit. I approached some of the high end producers a while with the idea, but the general consensus was that packaging and supplies would raise the cost of production way too much to make it worth it. To that, I pointed out Sportkings and 2007 Topps Chrome, which seemed to have it all down pat. Either way, I don’t think this will be a reality for a long time.

Regardless of the lame ideas I can come up with in a few minutes off the top of my head, I think it bears notice that packaging should be just as much of a focus for innovation as the cards. Considering that a cool looking box like 2006 National Treasures can change people’s mind about possibilities, it becomes essential to get shelf marketing to the top of the priorties list. This means for Target and for Wal Mart as well, as many shoppers who may not be collectors are the sports fans that the companies are chasing. If you can get your products noticed by team fans, this could be an untapped resource.

What if you had a product based solely on players in a certain division or on a certain team? No more busting wax and walking away with stuff from teams you don’t collect. Im not talking about team sets either, Im talking about actual hobby boxes with team themes. Not bad for us team collectors, right?

Now, I am not in any way tuned into the cost of producing a product, but these ideas are just the tip of the iceberg for what is possible. I think we need to shift our thinking and prevent thinking from ceasing once you get to “outside the box.” Lets start thinking FOR the box.