For the first time in the history, Playoff Contenders Football is appearing on the shelves of your local Wal Mart or Target. Its easy to see why this is being done, as the retail element of a product gives a lot more opportunity for gain. However, for the collectors that have based SP autograph purchases on the assumption that what they have seen on eBay is it, their purchases may have been made under false pretenses.
From the initial reports of people who have broken the auto per box blasters, some are pulling autographs initially believed to be some of the shortest printed in the whole set. Players once thought to have a total print run of 50-100, may actually end up having a much higher print run due to the retail boxes that were seeded with the autographs. This means that perceived SSP auto that was purchased for 180 bucks last week, may actually not be THAT short of a print.
Its easy to see that Panini is having trouble with a number of issues lately. First, they held back the 1/1 Sam Bradford Logo autograph from Certified. BIIIIIIIIGGGGG mistake. This was already on top of horrible redemption service on stickers that are known to be in stock. ANOTHER big mistake, right Upper Deck? Now, for one of Panini’s biggest products of the year, you fail to mention there will be a retail element? There are going to be some mighty pissed set collectors who have now overpaid for the rarest tickets available.
The bottom line is that this type of situation could easily be avoided with serial numbers on the tickets themselves, but I dont think Panini wants to give that much information up front. One of the ways they keep people buying contenders boxes is through the anticipation of the ticket SP list, regardless of the problems it causes. Not only that, but they draw out the reveal as long as possible, from what we have seen.
Here are some recent sales that should start looking ridiculous:
Jeremy WIlliams SP Auto Ticket
Jeremy WIlliams SP Auto Ticket 2
Anytime you go from 1 year only having Hobby to the next having both Hobby and Retail, the buyer should beware and assume that the production runs have gone up considerably. Of course I didn’t realize Contenders had retail until this story. What I don’t get is why is this product so expensive this year? I can almost get 2 box of 2009 for the price of 1 2010 box. I get that 2010 is a year newer so it would be more expensive, but $55 to $60 more for a box? No thank you. I always disliked Contenders for the price point and the number of crappy rookie autos and that veteran and HOF’ers were so hard to pull.