Hi guys
So the other day I realized something that shocked me! I realized that I’ve lost my passion for the hobby. The excitement of collecting trading cards is more or less gone and this is mainly thanks to Topps. What made me come to this realization was actually the acquisition of a non-Topps card, a long sought after Futera card, the 1999 Futera Liverpool FC Greatest Promotional XL Centrepiece Card. I have been looking for this card for a long time and have only seen it once before, so imagine my excitement when I finally managed to add it to my collection. And it was then I realized that for the first time in months I actually felt excited about getting a card. Over the past months my friend and fellow LFC card collector who also happens to be one of my main suppliers of LFC cards, has kept contacting me about new releases to see if I want him to hook me up. It has come to the point where my response has been literally “F#ck me! No more!! as to how it used to be when I got excited every time he contacted me over the possibility to add more cards to my collection.
For those of you who follow my collection you know that I was not pleased nor impressed with Topps last season. The company flooded the market with LFC cards on a scale never seen before, as a result of losing their Premier League license. Let me sum up all the various releases from last season that included LFC.
- Topps Finest
- Topps Chrome CL
- Topps Chrome EPL
- Topps Museum Collection
- Topps Crystal
- Topps Crystal (UCL Winners)
- Topps Match Attax EPL
- Topps Match Attax EPL Update
- Topps Match Attax UCL
- Topps Match Attax UCL Update (Road To Madrid)
- Topps Match Attax On Demand EPL
- Topps Match Attax On Demand UCL
- Topps Match Attax Ultimate
- Topps Now EPL
- Topps Now UCL
- Topps Living
- Topps On Demand
- Topps Merlin’s Premier League Sticker Collection
- Topps UEFA Champions League Sticker Collection
Then there is;
20. Topps Match Attax SPFL (as a Gerrard collector of all his cards I also need the Rangers card from this set)
21. Top Trumps Liverpool FC
22. Futera Presentation Set Liverpool FC Current Players
23. Futera Presentation Set Liverpool FC Legends
24. Futera Unique World Football (also in this set there are Gerrard cards)
25. Panini Immaculate (England Gerrard cards)
26. Panini Tabloid Sticker set
The 2018/19 season produced 26 cards and stickers sets (not including some minor less well-known Asian releases and other local releases around the world)!!! Compare this to a few seasons back when there would be about 6-8 releases all issuers combined. To be honest I’m not even sure I have got all the major ones listed. I might have forgotten one or two.
Of course Topps is not entirely to blame as there are other issuers on this list as well but Topps released 20 sets from which I needed cards last season! 77% of all releases from last season were issued by Topps.
Another villain on this flooded market is Futera! Although “only” releasing 3 sets, the 2 Presentation Sets were released at the same time at cost of $500 per box. So if you wanted both of these very limited edition boxes ( /29) you would have to splash $1000 at one go. Let me just put it like this, ONE set would have been enough!
Another aspect to take into account is the fact that 4 (Panini Immaculate, Topps Museum Collection, Topps Crystal and Topps Now UCL) of these 26 sets were released after the season ended! You could even say 5 sets as the Topps Chrome UCL set was released on the 29th of May. Topps Now released a 10 card celebration set after the final which is fair enough but then during the weeks after the final they kept releasing more cards one at a time.
The reason why I mention this is because in previous seasons the summer has been a time when you in peace and quiet have been able to acquire the missing cards without worrying about new releases. Also it’s been a time for you to save up for the up-coming season’s releases.
Speaking of Topps Now I have to mention the fact that Topps really f#cked this set up this season. Releasing two different sets (EPL & UCL) flooding the market with approx. 60 cards as to previous seasons’ approx. 10 card sets. They also couldn’t bother following their own concept of the Now set by just releasing cards when a team won but actually also released after a draw. On top of that they released signed cards that are limited in numbers on beforehand rather than letting the amount of orders decide the number of cards produced.
Some of you might think ” So what’s the problem just don’t buy the damn cards if you don’t want them”. But you see it’s not really that I don’t want them it’s the cost of it all. A ordinary collector can’t afford all this. I know plenty of hardcore collectors who have either had to re-prioritize what cards they should collect and even some who have given up on the hobby and quit collecting.
So did my supplier hook me up although my f#ck me-response? Of course he did I still needed those cards to complete the sets, I want every LFC card there is! I’m what you call a completionist but Topps (and other issuers) have made it close to impossible to be that nowadays with all the releases and on top of that all the various parallels within each set (don’t get me going about parallels).
So will I quit collecting? No not very likely! Will I have to re-prioritize how I’m collecting? Yes most likely. I just can’t afford collecting everything like I used to. I used to complain about too few LFC card releases a few years back but now I have got myself more than I can chew. Too much of the good stuff basically.
The only thing I know for sure is that we are once again in a trading card boom just like the one in the 90’s but I find it hard to enjoy the ride.
