04/19/24
June 16, 2006
Hang 'em up, hosers!: No need for any more Stanley Cup Finals, it's been decided already.
posted by The_Black_Hand to hockey at 09:13 PM - 9 comments
Is Beckett really an "influential magazine" in the modern era? I never bat an eye at it except to see the current market price for my four Jerry Rice rookie cards, and, frankly, e-bay's become a better radar for that.
posted by Ufez Jones at 09:48 PM on June 16, 2006
Hockey players and fans are known as a superstitious bunch... We sure are. I started to freak out when qbert72 and I were talking about how sad it was that the other nights game was going to be the last game of the season. Then the Oilers go and win (sorry NoMich). I think this could definitely get into the Carolina players heads. Some of them are really hurting already, and this was the last thing they needed.
posted by MrFrisby at 10:01 PM on June 16, 2006
I don't know which is worse, proclaiming a victor before a championship is decided or bemoaning a defeat.
posted by forrestv at 10:13 PM on June 16, 2006
"I think there's certainly an element of collectibility that will come along with this if Edmonton pulls it off," he says. Didn't see that one coming, eh? Back to the Finals. You have to love the head games going on. This deal and also the one about the "object" that Smythe dug out of the ice that the 'Canes put back in.
posted by wingnut4life at 08:04 AM on June 17, 2006
A little egg on their faces? This is an embarrassment for the best-respected name in sports collectibles. Are you kidding? This may turn out to be their best move yet. Imagine if the Oilers win the Stanley Cup. Now all of those magazine covers will be wrong and people will be buying them up quickly in hopes that they'll be "collector's items" in the future. Remember, their main market are people who collect rare items. They'll sell out that initial run in a heartbeat. They couldn't ask for a better marketing tool.
posted by grum@work at 09:41 AM on June 17, 2006
This is an embarrassment for the best-respected name in sports collectibles. /rant on Beckett's still the biggest name in the pricing business, but the respectable part is worth questioning. This is a company that used to be about just gathering information and putting out a price guide, but now Beckett buys and sells product and runs a grading company (and then values cards it grades higher than other grading companies). When I went to Beckett's site and saw they were selling pre-packaged and graded set of the football inserts from this motnh's Tuff Stuff as BGS 9.5s, I threw up in my mouth a little. Think they're grading those with the same standards they would if you sent them in? And those cards are inserted into the magazine as an enticement to buy ebcause you can only get them from Tuff Stuff! Well, there or from us at Beckett, where we have the uncut sheets and there are no limit to them! Horseshit. /rant off
posted by wfrazerjr at 10:44 AM on June 17, 2006
Righty on, Grum@work. Beckett has a logical explanation as to why they went to press proclaiming the Hurricanes as champs, but they win either way. Back in the late 1980's and early 1990's, when sports card collecting picked up in popularity again, the big thing was "error cards." Remember Fleer's Billy Ripkin card with about three or four variations because of what was written on the knob of the bat? Prices for error cards shot up into the hundreds of dollars in come cases and everyone was searching for them, until it was discovered that some companies were making error cards intentionally. That killed the market. Beckett knows what it's doing, and you can't tell me that the execs didn't have the discussion at the meeting table about "what if we're wrong?" Somewhere along the line, they realized it's a win-win situation and it's unlikely their credibility in the industry will suffer. If the Oilers win, they'll publish a "correct" version and folks who purchased the 'Canes on the cover will scramble to get the issue with the Oilers on the cover. Collectors are happy because they have something "unique" and the folks at Beckett look like geniouses regardless.
posted by gdvbranz at 05:47 AM on June 18, 2006
Hence the old phrase "it's never over until it's over".
posted by buffalo will never win at 11:17 PM on June 18, 2006
"People enjoy curiosities and this would certainly be something that they could remember years down the road, where we ended up with a little egg on our faces. It'll be a unique item." A little egg on their faces? This is an embarrassment for the best-respected name in sports collectibles.