Quality of the Select Cards Lately.....

[OZDemon]

Hi All,

I am just wanting to put this concern out there following what I would consider a reasonable release this year from Select for the AFL for Series 2, the "Classic" series.

I have collected AFL Trading Cards for almost as long as I can remember starting back in 1992, and have enjoyed the experience like many others here on this forum as well as the wider audience. Now, while I can appreciate that compiling the sets of cards that Select do each year is a reasonable undertaking, why is it that their quality control of some fairly simple things seems to be so bad?

I raise this not to have a dig at Select for what they are doing, but more to express an opinion given that they have marketed Series 2 this year, as they have for the past few years, as a premium product charging a somewhat premium price for the local market.

The two examples I have come across include the James Hird Redemption card and the Ben McEvoy Platinum Rookie Auto.

Firstly, the McEvoy Platinum card which has what I would consider a rather large hick-up. On the front and back of the Platinum auto card, the card is clearly for Ben McEvoy, however the Certification on the back of the card clearly states "Select Australia P/L certifies that this card is a genuine Select Classic signature card that has been hand signed by RHYS PALMER and verified by Mr Grant Copley, Select Australia P/L".....

Given that Rhys Palmer has just picked up the NAB Rising Star award, and I would love to have his card over Ben's, no offence to Ben...., I am tempted to chase Select over this just to see what their response would be as those that have this card are "possibly legally" entitled to a card with Rhys Palmers signature on it (on a side note, has anyone tried to chase Select about this yet?)

Secondly, and I know this might seem like I am nit picking, but there is a space missing in the text, between two words, on the back of the Hird Redemption card. Of all cards for this to happen on!

Getting back to my original point though, surely quality control is not that difficult for what is a relatively small set of cards and would at the least require a keen set of eyes or two to run over the prints before the cards are printed, and subsequently afterwards, to ensure the cards are correct and fit for release.

Just putting this issue out there to see what other thoughts are on the matter, and I look forward to next year already for the '09 sets as well towards the hope that my team might make it off the bottom of the ladder....

Cheers!

 

[cricket_cox]

select have had so many errors on there cards!

 

[tomanycards96]

Seen a few on the bay with mistakes and thats a platnium too so that would have been better if it was Rhys' Sig Select can just make careless mistakes Like on this years gem cards the bloody gem on the bottom right was near the player and anothor one with the GC number on the top is out of the circle. Makes me Mad

 

[wall4ace]

well if you wanna flip the hirdy my way i wont mind!


cheers

 

[suihon]

You raised good points... There were also problems with ink blotches on the draft pick cards. I reckon if there was more competition, then Select would get their act together. At the moment, they are manopolising AFL footy cards, so they can do what they want and get away with it.. Well at least thats how I see it.

 

[stormernumber1]

You raised good points... There were also problems with ink blotches on the draft pick cards. I reckon if there was more competition, then Select would get their act together. At the moment, they are manopolising AFL footy cards, so they can do what they want and get away with it.. Well at least thats how I see it.

Completely agree with that there needs to be another Australian Card producer to create some competition, Select have all of the major Australian Sports, AFL, NRL, A-League, Cricket if another company comes in or someone like UD or something expanded to the Australian market, which would be huge, as we would save a fortune on NBA cards as well due to reduced postage but meh, it must be difficult for another company to make $$ over here i mean dynamic, futera and the other few that I can think of off the top of my head all went under as soon as the card boom started to die off a little around the mid-late 90s

 

[hobo]

Competition would certainly improve the quality.

You can perhaps accept some print run errors like marks or a blotch here or there on their mass produced base cards, but getting it so wrong on what is the jewel in the crown, a limited print run is simply very poor management.

I got some base NRL St george cards that had Cronulla logo's on the back of them.

 

[Gameday Online]

Hi All,

Competition woud be great but.... Unfortunately I do not think the market can support 2 players. There probably only two solutions. The first being grow the market , which I do not think select does enough of. Unfortunately the support base for the NRL at the momment is not large enough in general as can be scene by crowd figures and the financial state of some clubs. Afl though should be strong enough as the support for it is massive and very passionate supporters as well. I think select needs to do more research and understand it's market a little better and what it can do to get those collectors that have stoped back to the market.

The second solution is via the consumers. The consumers need to voice there opinion to select and let them know what they wish to see in a collection.

I am in the process of putting together some research via my website gamedaytradingcards.com and if anyone is interested in participating in some surveys and dscussions with regards to the state of the Australian Trading card market they can PM me or just post your interest in this thread.

Thanks in Advance

Peter Thompson