First Buzz: 2018 Topps Heritage baseball cards

[auctionjmm]

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

would be shocked if pre-order is under 900

Looks like $780 on the competitor site. $750 if you have an account. Are you shocked yet?

[auctionjmm]

Originally Posted by PDCCollectibles

Agreed

Originally Posted by Tim

Ditto. Best year ever with sets and that was before Judge exploded.

Originally Posted by DJP73

Agree 100%, This years sets sold well and don't forget the purple refractor sets sold around 200-300.

And yet two of the loudest members here are consistently telling us all how bad Heritage is each year.

[PDCCollectibles]

Originally Posted by kyle1707

i was selling master sets for 350 1 week prior to release...

Opened 5 cases i came close to 4-5 masters with help from buddy

Half my cases were paid for right there...

I kept a bunch of stuff and made a little money

And that was before the judge thing happened...

Its the best break.. No question 1969 will be just as good...

Not to mention, once all the low balling cleared out, 'actions' of stars and rookies climbed back up.....and SP's held nice value for months.....

[phil]

Originally Posted by Dbacksbaseball

This has me wary about all 2018 products.

Heritage is the one product where it won't matter if it's overproduced. Demand is going to be huge no matter what.

[auctionjmm]

Originally Posted by phil

Heritage is the one product where it won't matter if it's overproduced. Demand is going to be huge no matter what.

Same with Series 1. The silver packs make it so you are paying $430 or less per case on that. The set sales and guaranteed content are more than worth it.

Heritage has a lot of guaranteed content as well. I always factor the guaranteed content at $700+ on Heritage. Basically you can get your value from a Heritage case before factoring in a single auto, relic, chrome, parallel, or SSP.

[TarjetasBéisbol]

This thread will take off way before release! Get those listed BO so I can put in my order!

[Triplelutz42]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

Heritage has a lot of guaranteed content as well. I always factor the guaranteed content at $700+ on Heritage. Basically you can get your value from a Heritage case before factoring in a single auto, relic, chrome, parallel, or SSP.

How do you define guarenteed content?

[auctionjmm]

Originally Posted by Triplelutz42

How do you define guarenteed content?

The stuff that every single case will have no matter what.

Base Cards
Base Short Prints
Action Variants
Inserts
Box Toppers

Those things will never be affected by production. If Topps produces more cases, they will make enough of the above to cover. If Topps produces less cases, they simply make less.

I prefer to open products where I can achieve a high return on the guaranteed stuff so that I am not gambling on a big hit.

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

This year's master sets sold the highest they have in years. I had my best year of Heritage sales overall. As a guy who sells to set-builders just like you, I had absolutely no decline in sales this year with the 100 card SPs.

That's kinda my point.....my argument is that set-builders are now buying complete sets from breakers like yourself because it has become too expensive to build the sets themselves.

Thus they are not building sets anymore...

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by mfw13

Is your thinking that because it now takes more boxes to complete the SP set people will be forced to up their orders?

That's a logical argument, but I would argue that by making the set harder/more expensive for set-builders to complete, you would also decrease sales to people like me, who used to buy 3-4 boxes to set-build from.

On the other hand, though, it does seem like SP prices are coming down significantly....on COMC, most are $1-2, whereas in the past they've been $2-3. So maybe the extra 25 SP isn't adding that much cost any more....

i think its a few things.

overall "up" in the card business at the moment.

dealers not wanting to miss out on sales (which they believe will be "up" in 2018)

we are really starting to hit the sweetspot for Heritage. The 70's are gonna be really popular as well (i know most hate the 1970 Flagship set, but it wont matter)

as for 2017 SPs, $1 is still too much for me to bother with. This was the first year i do not own the set, i *think* im about 35% done, and it doesnt bother me as much as i thought it would.

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

Looks like $780 on the competitor site. $750 if you have an account. Are you shocked yet?

a little, yea

[Dbacksbaseball]

Originally Posted by phil

Heritage is the one product where it won't matter if it's overproduced. Demand is going to be huge no matter what.

I agree with you to an extent--Demand will be huge. Especially with what Hoskins is doing, you could potentially be getting Judge-ian hype to start the year.

However, just like every product you can certainly overproduce heritage. They did this with 'Traded' SP's last year. Everyone assumed 25-50...More like 300 when all was said and done.

If they pump production up-like I would expect-You could see gum stains (or whatever variant of it they will use) go up to 100-150, Back colors go up to 50, Throwbacks to 25. That will destroy value in heritage.

Chromes every other box, Black every other case.... it can be done.

Its all speculation, but they will certainly print enough to reasonably meet the demand. Love heritage, but its the 'trendy' product now and most trendy products suffer a brutally long death. Ginter is a recent example.

All that said...I love heritage....I'm leary of 2018 in general, especially with how 2017 is ending.

[BlowoutBuzz]

Originally Posted by ryanvas

Does anyone think we will see any single RC cards in the base/SP set or just as Actions? Reggie Jackson 1969 Topps RC card is a single, non-dual RC.

Of course. They know those are popular.

[PDCCollectibles]

I had a hunch so I went back and looked.....this thread is starting off just like the "Burlap is Back" thread did back in 8/2016....similar comments and all, love it! I have little doubt that it will be just as hot come next February.....glad a Philly guy may be driving the product.....it's a rarity

[Technochocolate]

I've been crying for non-dual RCs in Heritage for awhile....I've accepted we'll never get them (outside of action variations for a few). I suppose it isn't the worst thing since those players will get RCs in virtually every other product throughout the year. But the inconsistency between Heritage and HHN is one of those little things that exist.

I'm disappointed in the larger SP set and tough to hit inserts, but as long as idiots like me assemble the set, they'll keep doing it. It's clear people didn't mind the extra work set-building this year. But as it turns out, it may have been a Judge-infused effort. Will the same SPs and inserts be available at affordable prices when the product is not getting ripped en-masse?

Also, group breakers: just stay away. Please? Let the rest of us have this one product. Man it was painful to watch breakers open en masse and completely miss all the biggest hits in one box while paying attention to the buh relic and buh chrome /999 parallel because those were the easy ones to recognize.

[auctionjmm]

Originally Posted by mfw13

That's kinda my point.....my argument is that set-builders are now buying complete sets from breakers like yourself because it has become too expensive to build the sets themselves.

Thus they are not building sets anymore...

Yes but in the absence of perfect collation I do end up selling alot of singles and those were strong too. And many build the Action set, and many build the Color Swap set and so on which isn't really affected by a larger master set.

So even if your point is valid and a few true set builders have backed away, the income from those who build the rarer sets is definitely off-setting the lost set builders and increasing profits. More money for Topps, more money for wholesalers, more money for breakers. As long as sales are strong, you may never see simplified sets again.

[Technochocolate]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

Yes but in the absence of perfect collation I do end up selling alot of singles and those were strong too. And many build the Action set, and many build the Color Swap set and so on which isn't really affected by a larger master set.

So even if your point is valid and a few true set builders have backed away, the income from those who build the rarer sets is definitely off-setting the lost set builders and increasing profits. More money for Topps, more money for wholesalers, more money for breakers. As long as sales are strong, you may never see simplified sets again.

That last sentence scares me. It's clear the set builder is gone in today's collecting. The collectors that remain are going to have to accept it.

My hope is Topps leaves enough basic sets behind. Almost all the sets across all products are ruined by some combination of base SSP (Archives, Finest), being far too shallow (100 card sets, too many to count), or some weird combination of rookies, retired players and stars that results in many big names not having a card in a set (see some products where a few teams only get one or two active players in a 300-card set).

The good news is there's no way they can screw Heritage up (or the flagship line, obviously). And Stadium Club is turning into a nice year-in year-out set. If they could figure out maybe one other product to turn into solid 500 or 600 card sets with active-only players, that would give most set collectors enough to do every year.

[ninjacookies]

Originally Posted by ThoseBackPages

a little, yea

Those kind of prices probably won't last long. Though I'm hoping they will for a little bit longer.

I'd like to purchase a case...or 10....myself. First time ripping product in over 4 years since Panini pummeled me hard with no lube...and I think Heritage may be the cure.

[PoPCulture]

Speaking of set builders...after skipping out on last year, I wonder if KO will be back for 2018? Definitely helps when all of the big fish are biting!

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by Technochocolate

I've been crying for non-dual RCs in Heritage for awhile....I've accepted we'll never get them (outside of action variations for a few).

They had non-duals in 2011 (1962) Heritage. See, the thing is, they mirror the original release, so 1963 - 1968 only had duel RCs

1969 is interesting, as Reggie (and Bobby Cox) had his own RC but Fingers and Nettles had duals

[phil]

Originally Posted by ninjacookies

Those kind of prices probably won't last long.

They didn't

[mfw13]

Originally Posted by Technochocolate

That last sentence scares me. It's clear the set builder is gone in today's collecting. The collectors that remain are going to have to accept it.

My hope is Topps leaves enough basic sets behind. Almost all the sets across all products are ruined by some combination of base SSP (Archives, Finest), being far too shallow (100 card sets, too many to count), or some weird combination of rookies, retired players and stars that results in many big names not having a card in a set (see some products where a few teams only get one or two active players in a 300-card set).

The good news is there's no way they can screw Heritage up (or the flagship line, obviously). And Stadium Club is turning into a nice year-in year-out set. If they could figure out maybe one other product to turn into solid 500 or 600 card sets with active-only players, that would give most set collectors enough to do every year.

Great post!

That said, they can (and are) screwing Heritage up by including more and more rookie autos, thus causing box prices to rise and more and more of the product gets bought by gamblers.

As I have noted in other threads, up until last year, Heritage had virtually no rookie autos. Only Posey in 2010 and Kershaw in 2008 if my memory is correct.

Go back and look at the 2015 Heritage auto checklist, for example...

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by mfw13

Great post!

That said, they can (and are) screwing Heritage up by including more and more rookie autos, thus causing box prices to rise and more and more of the product gets bought by gamblers.

As I have noted in other threads, up until last year, Heritage had virtually no rookie autos. Only Posey in 2010 and Kershaw in 2008 if my memory is correct.

Go back and look at the 2015 Heritage auto checklist, for example...

The RC is here, and it is proud!

Never going back to the old days.

[phil]

Originally Posted by auctionjmm

Looks like $780 on the competitor site. $750 if you have an account. Are you shocked yet?

They sold 24+ cases in 2 hours yesterday and relisted today up $100/case. Popular product lol.

[ThoseBackPages]

Originally Posted by phil

They sold 24+ cases in 2 hours yesterday and relisted today up $100/case. Popular product lol.