Sunday, February 9, 2014

2013 Leaf Memories Buyback Red 1/1

Card Review: 9.5  I gave 1991 Leaf a score of 9.7, I dinged this one .2 pts for the red stamping at the bottom.  After all, this is nothing more than a '91 Leaf that the company bought back and threw some post production art on to.  If I did this with a sharpie, no one would care, but Leaf does it with foil and suddenly they get to charge $109.75 for one pack of 13 cards.   Leaf can justify this anyway they want to, but this is absolutely the worst kind of gimmick, and the kind shameless money grab that ruined the hobby.  But given that Leaf debuted in 1990, perhaps they consider the destruction of baseball card collecting the "good old days."  They give a very vomit inducing, self-lauding description of this pathetic set on their website if your curious.

My hypocrisy is not lost on me.  I can trash this set above, but yet here I am showcasing yet another Leaf Memories card after bashing the set last year as well, with links to where to buy the stupid thing (spend away suckers). I guess my OCD trumps my ethics.  At least to a degree.  I picked this card up on ebay.  But not the first time it listed.  Here's a screen shot of the original listing:


 A $49.99 buy it now price for a '91 Leaf?  No thank you.  I'll "Collect Them All except 2013 Leaf Memories" and change the banner above to reflect that.  It really didn't even hurt at all to watch this listing come an go.  I actually passed the 1/1 2012 Leaf Memories for a much lower price than that and I survived.  As I suspected though, the seller immediately relisted it with an opening bid price of $0.99, and I was all set to have it for that price until some suspicious bidding popped up in the final minute.  I still took card for under $6, with is to say, I spent way too much for '91 Leaf that are readily available for pennies (I'm a sucker).

I guess technically this marks the first card I have now "collected them all" of.  Though technically the original print run for 1991 Leaf was probably in the 250,000 copies range.  But if they're going to charge over $100 a pack and people (suckers) are going to pay it, I'll count it.

Number of this card in my collection: 1 (I have collected them all)




3 comments:

  1. Congratulations on collecting them all! :)

    May all the rest be as easy.

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  2. I just bought a Topps 75th Buyback Virdon manager card with 4 bad corners for $5 and it isn't even numbered. For $6 you did good. (at least Leaf used mint cards. I have seen buyback Topps with creases in them)

    I'm a sucker for Virdon Cut Autos. TriStar made 8 different ones in 2012 that are all the same except for the color of the foil printing. I have 5 of them so far. Then in 2013 they put out a set with 4 different colors. The only difference between 2012 and 2013 is the Year printed on the front, same design and everything.

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  3. I have mixed feelings about these. On the one hand, I feel much as you do; what's so special about a defaced copy of a common 1990s card. On the other hand, this is about the only way I see any "new" cards of some of the players I collect.

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