I have said before that I feel like autographed reprint cards are an opportunity that are sorely overlooked in terms of product production. I also believe that with a lot of the companies, there is enough history to do an entire autograph checklist based on it. Topps has recently announced the release of some of the reprint autographs in the future for All Time Fan Favorites, which is pretty much the same concept on newer cardboard. Because there are so many iconic sets that we recognize in both baseball and football, I hope this trend will continue.
The difference between buyback autographs and reprint autographs isn’t really that big, unless the card is from before 1985. I think that there is a huge market, especially in football, for collectors who want to reclaim their favorites from past years. In 2010 Topps and Topps Chrome, there was a push for the reprint rookie cards of past years, but the autographs were stickers. That isn’t on the same level. I think the corner stone of this project centers around hard signed cards, like what will be coming up from Topps, and that is a deal breaker.
Many cards who meet these criteria have already been done, and been done VERY WELL, most by Topps and Upper Deck. Check out some of these beauties:
Johnny Unitas Topps Reprint RC Auto
Walter Payton Topps Reprint RC Auto
Joe Namath Topps Reprint RC Auto
Roger Staubach Topps Reprint RC Auto
YA Tittle Topps Reprint RC Auto
The problem is that many of these cards are more than 15-20 years old. Where are the 1998 Manning Chrome Autos, or the 2000 Brady Bowman Autos? Hell, I would LOVE a hard signed 2007 Chrome auto from Adrian Peterson instead of the sticker it normally had. I mean, as players become stars, they deserve this kind of treatment, even if they are rare and hard to find in packs. We loved these cards when they came out, and now I want the opportunity to own them as hard signed autographs.
I have commented frequently how much the base cards are always the bastard child that rarely gets the love of an on card autograph. Five Star last year was a breath of fresh air, as many of the base cards had a hard signed parallel. It was amazing, and should be back this year. I think its time to give the best designed cards in the hobby a chance to get some signature treatment.
We got into a good discussion about this on one of the other boards a while back. There are an insane amount of reprint autos that could be done from even the mid to late 80’s. They never did Jerry Rice! I’d love a legitimate shot at a Topps Joe Montana RC Reprint. The one from 2001 topps is so ridiculously impossible to locate, I haven’t seen one up for sale in probably 4 years. So, yeah, an on-card RC Reprint set is LONG overdue.
My pet peeve with reprints is when they put some gaudy foil stamp on the front of the card to indicate that it is a reprint of some sort, but which totally ruins its visual appeal.
That part of it doesnt bother me, especially because of scammers and fakes.
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