Heroes Season One set

[Guest]

[kbmum]

I'm really looking forward to this set, even though it's a Topps product.  It's supposed to be released in October.

- 90 base cards
- 10 foils
- sticker autos (entire main cast)
- memorabilia/relic cards (Claire Bennet’s cheerleader sweater, Matt Parkman’s police shirt, Hiro Nakamura’s jacket, and Isaac Mendez’s painting shirt)
- sketches (approximately 3000 by 30 artists)

[Bogleg]

I can't help feeling Topps are giving all of us that hate sticker autos "The Finger" on a massive scale seeing as they were raffling signed-directly-on-the-card cards at the San Diego con    Their reason for this was to stop fraud as the signature would be on holograms. I've ordered a case, but mainly for the sketches.

[kbmum]

Why would that stop fraud?

[Bogleg]

It wouldn't. My guess is that it's easier to park a sheet of 50 stickers or more in front of a person rather than a pile of cards. This way, the company can use them whenever they like and not be limited to one particular set. There would be no way they would have worked their socks off to get access to Harrison Ford and then just ask for 10 autos for the Star Wars 30th set IMO.

BTW, love the update sheet. Where did it come from?

[kbmum]

The sheet was sent by Topps to some dealers.  I grabbed it from a dealer website.

[cardz_house]

I do have high hopes for this set and I think Topps too as they have taken the unprecented step of releasing some details of the set more than 1 month before its release.

I already ordered 2 cases and hopefully, able to pull some nice autos!!! 

[Bryanjs14]

I'll chime in as I do not mind stickers. I don't love them, but I don't hate them either.

They do add a very large level of security. I could design an autograph card on my computer simply by scanning in a Topps on card autograph card and alter that card however I wanted. I could print it out on thick card stock, and sign it myself. I have seen this done before. I have seen NUMEROUS fakes hit Ebay especially from Star Wars Evolution (the original set) and from Lord of the Rings (I have seen Treebeard and Grima Wormtongue autos that were really signed by the actors at conventions and look absolutely perfect...I have seen a Grima up close and there is no way the average collector could tell the difference.) With the sticker, the entire sticker has a background hologram of the Topps logo, the ink is IMPOSSIBLE to erase off of it, and if you were to peel a sticker off a card, it no longer has any "stick" left to it...during an argument on another board I decided to peel off a sticker autograph from a very low end signer from the SW30th set and found that once it was peeled off, it would no longer stick to anything at all, I also tried erasing the signature to no avail, it is impossible to mess with these stickers and it is 100x harder to not only alter a card on a computer (which is moderatley easy) but you would also need to find some place to print up these topps logo hologram stickers for you as well.

Another reason they send out stickers: you can send an actor/sports figure a sticker months, heck, years before a set is produced. All of the actors who are signing for this more than likely received their stickers to sign before the first Promo was even printed up. Topps does this as a companywide policy. They aren't trying to pick on collectors. In the sports card industry, there has been a very big revolt against redemptions in the past year. Companies are loosing lots of business, and a couple class action law suits have popped up because they issue a redemption, you send it in/redeem online, and then that signer does not sign. This does not seem like a big idea to us Non Sports collectors, but being a sport card collector myself, it is a big deal. When we are talking sports sets compared to non sports...we might get 700 cases of Harry Potter, and a normal Topps sports set might be around 7,000 cases, heck, the normal Topps sports cards releases are prob closer to 50,000 cases...this stuff is super mass produced. That is a lot more collectors that get really angry when they do not get the card that they got a redemption for. So Upper Deck and Topps have BOTH gone to a sticker only policy with 95% of their products. If a company sends somebody stickers a couple months before productions begins and they can't get them back to them before the deadline, then they just do not include them. If they have to wait until the cards themselves are produced, and THEN send them to them to sign, most won't be back in time to include in the product, and then they might not be sent back at all and the only thing Topps can do is say sorry and offer up something of close value. We really take the redemptions for granted because we have never had a redemption not honored. How would you feel if Robbie Coltrain finally said ok, I will sign, you got a redemption for him, and then he said to heck with it, i'm not signing...I know a lot of people would be DEVASTATED. The only time I can EVER remember a redemption not being honored was with the Sleepy Hollow Inkworks set (Depp and Ricci both backed out). The reason Artbox products seem to have more and more and more redemptions is because they wait until the cards are printed up before sending out and the actors sometimes cannot get them back. One final, and very disputed reason would be that they held keep the cards undamaged. If Topps sent Heroes cards to all the actors to sign, that is two extra trips, and the handleing by the actors that a card could be damaged while in transit. Come on, we are all pretty anal about dinged corners and chipping, I know I hate it to death and I have most definetly upgraded a costume card or two because of a dinged corner. It is a small argument, but let me bring up the Coltrain cenario again (only because I know he is someone who a lot of people want to sign) say he signs 50 cards and then they get damged during transit and he says no I won't sign any more, I don't care if they got messed up, and now Artbox could not honor the redemption except with damaged cards. Again I think a lot of us would be pretty let down.


Sorry for the long read (im sure there are a ton of typos and sentences that do not make sense), I just don't think sticker autos are the end of the world. We are still getting the autograph, it just isn't as intimate as knowing the actor handled the card, and while that does stink, just remember that you could not have that actor signing anything at all...sticker or card.

[Jon]

You bring up some serious points there, Bryan. I didnt really think of that before, like you said, not getting a redemption fulfilled isnt something that most of us non-sport collectors (perhaps all of us) have ever experienced. I agree with pretty much everything you said; you even mentioned the downside of recieving signed stickers, not cards, and the lessened sense of intamacy that accompanies them. Its really nice to have the cards signed, it looks better and it feels more personal, not just some cardboard photo with a stuck on signature. Im not planning on collecting the Heroes set, but the Topps sticker policy will probably leak into the Pirates set that I am anxiously awaiting, and because of that policy, Im probably going to recieve the dreaded stickered autos, but, again, like you said, I should be happy that Im getting the autograoh at all, in good condition, with an almost absolute guarentee, and no redemptions or potentially damaged cards. Thanks for taking the time to write how you feel, serisouly, it brought up some good points.

[beckham1]

Along the same lines as Bryan was mentioning I can give you 3 examples of signed cards never making it back to the company to be included in sets.

1.  A baseball card that Alex Rodriguez had signed ended up in a dealers hands (I know the dealer) and never made it back to the manufacturer for insert into the product.  I think this was before redemption cards so the auto card was just never included or they printed up another batch and had him sign them.  Either way there were about 500 auto'd cards in someones hands that were supposed to be in a release.

2.  A hockey card set had some pretty cool dual auto cards of one old timer and a new star player.  Well they were all to be hard signed and the player had brought them on a plane to finish signing and left the box with the auto'd cards on the plane.  Oops.

3.  A representative of Upper Deck had taken cards for an upcoming release to get signed by players personally.  Somewhere along the way there was a falling out (with UD) and the rep basically said "screw you" to Upper Deck and sold 50 triple auto'd cards of 3 very popular basketball players to a friend of mine who is very connected in the sport card hobby.  He was putting one up for auction at a time then waiting a couple of weeks before listing the next to avoid obvious detection by the manufacturer.  I know for a fact there was a redemption card inserted in packs for this triple auto.  I don't think they ever were able to fill any of them.

I also personally had a sports card redemption that when I pulled it was a Gold version #75 worth about $300-$450.  By the time Upper Deck returned the card to me it wasn't the Gold version it was # of 500 instead of # 75.  Not to mention it was over 1 year later and the players popularity went down the tubes (making it about a $10-$20 card).  And to "compensate" me for not getting the gold version they sent me another card worth about $1.  UD's "policy" is to provide you with a card or cards of equal value if they can't provide you with the card you redeemed.  Needless to say I got a huge screw job.  Also had a double auto redemption that they never filled they sent me a single auto and a jersey card.  Not really equal value on that one either.

So I guess stickers are another alternative that might not be so bad.

Also another thing sticker auto's allow is if someone dies they can still have autos for future sets.

[Jason]

I think this is something that should really be considered for inclusion in the online price guide. We are going to be buying into this a lot more than I first expected, and at the prices the boxes will work out at in the UK it's going to be a great seller here and across the pond. One tip for anyone wanting these cards: Don't buy from cards ink! I just got there pricing information and they are WAY over priced. Another UK supplyer has just popped up with these for pre-order at a very reasonable price and you will probably find boxes selling for the £30-£35 mark as apposed to the £40-£45 price they would have been otherwise. We are going to start taking orders next week at the lower prices and we will be splitting cases as well. (I want some of these sketch cards!)

because of the prices being offered I would expect these to sell out fast. If you guys decide to put it in the price guide I will haply submit a ton of ebay results! The cards look great.

[gimli]

I have to say that the price is much better for these cards if you buy them in the right places here in the UK. I will be having some of them and am hoping for some nice cards. I am not sure I will be selling boxes or cases as I will be wanting to open them myself but it would be nice to know more about signers and sketches

[Jon]

So I broke down and bought a case. Are Topps costume cards numbered? ]
Number ones, number ones.

[cardz_house]

Nope, Topps doesn't number their costume cards.

[Jon]

Thats a shame. How do you know how many of a certain card is produced? Do you just have to trust the number they give you?

[Rich With Cards]

Hi Jon

Topps will produce a odds guide so we can gauge the rarity of these cards unfortunately topps dont reveal the exact box count or case count so all in all we will only be able to estimate the quantities. Still fun though.

Rich

[Jon]

Ouch, Im liking Topps less and less.

[sketchqueen]

There's a banner for the Heroes trading cards on ICV2's website that has me wondering .... is it a typo, or are they already taking re-orders?

The ad says "Advance Re-order now before it's too late!"

[Scifi Cards]

There's a banner for the Heroes trading cards on ICV2's website that has me wondering .... is it a typo, or are they already taking re-orders?

The ad says "Advance Re-order now before it's too late!"

My guess would be that pre-orders were behind what they had hoped, probably because the lack of information at the time of the deadline.

So, they are hoping that people add to their pre-order now that we have seen some sketches, know the 4 costumes, and they've told us about 2 of the signers.

Could also mean they are behind on production, which would be a good guess since they aren't announcing all the signers yet.  And that could mean additional time for pre-orders.

Best guess is they are fishing for more pre-orders, I don't think it was a typo.

Ed

[cardz_house]

Hmm, in other words, if anticipated level of new orders cannot be reached, Topps could potentially stuff all the premiums into this set and this should make all those who ordered very very happy!!

[Bryanjs14]

While that would be cool cardz_house...that would more than likely mean no more Heroes sets.