Putting New Blood In The Waters

After some ruminating on the current plight of the industry and the eventual boredom it will perpetuate, I started to think while tweeting earlier today. What are some ideas that I could think of that could add the razzle dazzle back into autograph or memorabilia cards? What are some ideas for products or inserts that could possibly be very cool to find if you opened a pack? Here are some brainstorms I had.

A New “Personal Touch” On Autos
What if there was a possibility of packing out redemptions for a personalized card? You redeem the card of a certain player, and for the next signing, they will personally inscribe it to you. They either go by the first name on the person’s account, or some other way will be figured out. Make these pretty rare, and you have a way to really get people’s attention. I know I would much rather see my name on a card than a player’s favorite food.
Adding More To The Auto Itself
I think it would be awesome to get a list of achievements on a card for a player with the auto. It would be cool to have a card of a certain star or HOFer that listed their career highlights or something to that effect. Stat inscriptions are immensely popular among autograph collectors, and maybe this is a way to get some of the collectors excited as well as some casual fans.
In addition, maybe see if there is a way to get the previous year’s award winners into a set. ROY, Offensive MVP, Defensive POY, Comeback player, etc all have their own subset with inscriptions of what they won. That would be AWESOME.
Awards Are Fodder For Cool
Building on the previous, it would be really cool to get as many MVPs (super bowl, season, and pro-bowl) into one set as possible. Just have them design the card as part of a product that has a lot of signatures. Get duals, quads, whatever, just build on the fact that all of them were MVPs of something.
It would be ridiculous to be able to pull a card where the Offensive MVP, the Defensive POY and the ROY all sign the same card. Without exclusives in football, that should be possible.
To make it even more interesting, have the ROYs do it as well. Have every ROY that is alive sign on to one set of cards designated for their award. You have a good number of players because it is Offensive and Defensive as well.
Sound bytes in Cards
I was shopping over the holidays with one of my good friends and his young kid, and we went into build-a-bear to look around. If you dont know what build-a-bear is, the name is self explanatory. Either way, in the store, they had these little things that you could record your own message and put it into the bear. These things were tiny enough that they could easily be modified to be put into a card. I think it would be cool to get a signed card and hear the player talk about the picture on it, or the game it is commemorating. Dont really know if that is possible, but whatever.
Player Progression
I know in one of the Panini sets, there is a player timeline set, but that is only two pictures and they never really get the effect I want to see. It would be great if we could use photoshop to get a college pic, a rookie pic, and another pic, then superimpose them all on a field background. Make it look like there is almost a age progression posted on the card. Dont separate the pics with lines, get them all on one card with seamless transition. It would be even cooler to get a player that had a black and white college pic and moved into color later in the career. To take it to another level, it would be awesome if there could be pics of the player in multiple team jerseys.
Same Team Same Card
It would be really cool to have a picture done in a set that has two players in it, and rather than having two autographs in two separated spaces, they could both sign the card with one picture. Then, if you have a card like some of the ones from Masterpieces, where a WR is being covered by a CB, you could have two players from different teams sign the card. Make it as seamless as possible, almost like having a multi-signed 8×10, because autograph collectors love this. Im kind of confused why the pics always have to be separated, especially when you could have Favre handing off to AD, and have them both sign it. What about Ed Reed and Hines Ward signing the same card with one pic?
This is all just brainstorming, and I know that putting it into practice will be a million times harder than just writing about it. I just hope that card companies are really putting more thought into revitalization rather than just churning out poop year after year. I love the shadow boxes, and I really like the film strips in Black, but those are only 2 new ideas to function on. I think we need new blood, and hopefully stuff like this is possible.

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.