SMRis it ever going to get better?

boggs301012

I have'nt had an issue in my hands for more then 15 minutes in a year. And 5 minutes of that is surfing past the 50% advertisemnets. It is mostly fluff with 5 pages of worth while reading. The autograph section is usualy about some Player I personaly have not ever seen play or hardly heard of. The other content stays the same every month. What could PSA do to improve this magazine? Hire a competent writer? Or even hire a real witer or two. One that is paid to only write articles for the smr. Instead of an yearly subscription to the SMR I would gladly take one more free grade over 12 issues of the SMR as it stands now.


James

CandyFactory

Although I look forward to receiving my SMR (sporatic as of late), I hear you James.

Typically the middle article and sometimes the autograph page are all I usually read. I skip right by the (in my opinion) useless information of the Pop Report given of cards profiled. And all the ads. I've learned the format of an SMR and know exactly what pages to turn to. Oh, and I check my sets to see if any have increased (or decreased)..

Personally, I'd like to see more articles on prewar stuff (like Tom Papa's hockey article). Chris Shufflestreet also has a ton of information that would be a great read. SMR needs more content in general and I agree with getting some competent writers.

Ryan

CON40

James;

First thing they need is a seasoned art director who knows how to implement the content to create an engaging visual presentation. A good dynamic design can make even the most mundane content come to life. Right now, the best visuals are in the ads. And considering that the majority of these ads are designed by mom+pop outfits, that really isn't saying much about the impact of SMR's design.

For short money, lots of small sidebars, graphs, tidbits, and assorted visuals would add "layers" of information to the presentation of content. Example: every article on a player should include a graphic inset of his career statistics and achievements. Readers appreciate such small, power-packed tidbits. Also, a typographic overhaul would do wonders. Too much of the same typeface used to serve multiple purposes. The result is like listening to music performed with the same instrument for every chord. It starts out dull, gets monotonous, then dreadful. The power of good typography can never be underestimated. I guarantee if these dynamic visual and typographic changes were implemented (even if the content remained identical), it would take you more than one pleasurable BM to read the SMR.

1420sports

The SMR is the reason I have not renewed. I no longer buy raw, and I have nothing else to submit. I can find everything on eBay, at shows, and with Authorized dealers. If the SMR were interesting, I would renew.

GET RID OF THE BATS PRICE GUIDE AND WHO CARES ABOUT THE SIGNING HABITS OF FREDDIE PATEK!

boggs301012

If board members can come up with way to improve the SMR why can't the staff at PSA do the same? I will give a suggestion. I would like to see a section were readers can email and or write in with questions to the staff.


James

boggs301012

Speaking of now renewing I am not going to until I have a submission. I onyl submitt 4 times a year so I will wait. In regards to the member ship I think it was brought back and the SMR included only to increase membership. If not it would have died a long time ago. A long time ago I complained about a membership and I didnt want to pay the smr was the main reason I don't like it and I did'nt consider it a benefit in the membership.

yawie99

Not unless the forces behind it sink a little dough into its production. As others have said, hire some editors, writers, layout staff, eBay/market watchers, whatever. It's just too amateurish in it's current form and really has a negligible impact on the value of a PSA membership.

Buccaneer

Don't forget that with a nearly-worthless SMR magazine - you get a PSA Tote Bag!!!!

RepublicaninMass

Couldn't agree more with all of the comments. I get excited when I see the SMR....don't really know why. Look at the cover, usually nice, then flip through all the adds, check a couple of my sets for increases, or decreases????. Then the pop reports and flip through past the ads to the end?????? Just like Boggsy, lucky if I have it 15 minutes. Then I use it periodically, along with the bidding habits of lmayer, to bid 50-60%of "SMR" for a few cards I would like.

ranger63

i think it would be cool to announce notable cards graded in the past month. if there is a new key card graded i would like to hear about it.

rw2win

My God, Look at the article on the Super Bowl tickets. They have a picture of each graded ticket and then a short write-up. But is the write-up about the ticket, it's population, where it was attained...NO...it's a short worthless blurb about the game. If I wanted that I would go to Superbowl.com. Come on, is it really that hard to figure out???????????????????????

Buccaneer

<< <i>My God, Look at the article on the Super Bowl tickets. They have a picture of each graded ticket and then a short write-up. But is the write-up about the ticket, it's population, where it was attained...NO...it's a short worthless blurb about the game. If I wanted that I would go to Superbowl.com. Come on, is it really that hard to figure out??????????????????????? >>



You could say that about 90% of the magazine. One could come here to view a more complete Pop Report and see the same semi-static SMR Online prices.

aro13

I submit through an authorized dealer so I do not get the SMR but frankly, I wish I did, at least once every few months. They no longer sell the magazine at the Chapters in my area so I have to wait until the Canadian Expo to buy one. I also find the prices useful for many of the sets that I collect. The magazine does get a lot of flak but I still see people quoting SMR quite often and I have bought sets based strictly on the SMR.

jaybyrd

Please - Please - Please - Get rid of those articles about the signing habits of Joe Snauzer who played as a utility player for the St. Louis Browns from 1942 - 45. Surely PSA can find something more interesting to fill up the magazine that these yawn inducing monthly articles.

I would like to see a monthly column that talks about baseball - basketball - football vintage sets. Interesting facts about particular cards and which cards may be harder to obtain in a high grade that everyone may not be aware of. That would be good for a couple of years worth of interesting reading.

jimtb

The funny thing is that it's printed on glossy paper. It can't be cheap to print that thing. Con40 is right, the PSA folks need to look at how other magazines do it; sidebars, tidbits, and above all - interesting articles!!

shagrotn77

It would also be really nice if the SMR values were somewhat in line with actual market values. I'd say they're not accurate for more than half. The overwhelming majority of PSA trading occurs on eBay. Whoever is in charge of increasing/decreasing values should visit the site, at least from time to time. The url is www.ebay.com.

Golfcollector

The best articles are the ones written by collectors or the collector spotlights.

Dave

AISAVDBBALLINPHILLY

The trees! Save the trees! Pages 44 through 141 of the February 2005 DO NOT NEED TO EXIST IN PAPER FORM. Any information you can retrieve online such as Pop Report, SMR, etc. should not be duplicated every month in glossy paper or even toilet paper. These can be checked online by anyone with a computer who subscribes to an Internet service. If you can't afford a computer and pay for Internet access chances are that you are not going to have the disposable cash to purchase a PSA membership. So, those who are PSA members do not need pages 44 through 141. Stop the madness! What a waste of natural resources and money. Cut the magazine down to about half the pages currently printed and add more articles and graphics like was mentioned before. Just a suggestion!

John

Griffins

<< <i>The best articles are the ones written by collectors or the collector spotlights.
>>



Agreed. But why would any collector write an article when they arbitrarily cut the article in half, then let months go by without running the second half, forcing said author to cut and paste it in chunks on this board? It's just not worth the aggravation.

Bring in an experienced, full time editor. Hire a graphic designer. Dump the signing habits garbage. Track ebay activity, have an auction house recap, and most importantly have some objective, uncensored dialog with the readership (who should be respected as clients) via a letters section.
Doing this would serve to increase readership, up circulation, perking up ad revenues, and furthering interest in the hobby. Leading, I"m sure, to an increase in card submissions to the grading company that published this magazine.

Nah, never happen. Too logical.

onlychild

Agreed. The signing habits should go. Yes, it's impressive that one guy knows the signature of a 1000 different 100 year old players we have never heard about. I think wow, it took me years to learn all about my few sets, how can this guy know so much about so many dead people and become an expert on all their signatures? Must be the Rainman of penmanship. Thankfully they give us a picture of the gravesite so we can get a true visual and keep our own mortality in check.

I quickly flip past the endless auction ads that display one of a kind items I will never be able to afford, even if I hit the lottery. Note: I was glad that I had 6 months to read about and prepare for the Babe Ruth bat auction. I tried to save but was just a little short of whatever millions it sold for. Sweep past the pop report because who really cares or can see the 2 font size print spread over 8000 lines, take a quick look at the price guide that has no clue what the term true market value is. Sigh and take a Prozac when I realize the values have stayed the same for the past 28 months. Get angry and take a second Prozac, when I discover the $700 card with 826 bids I was lucky enough to buy is really valued at $8, obviously and according to SMR it's not popular. Then I read the articles, Joe's, one usually about a player and then on to the set registry article, all are usually interesting but only cover about 5 total pages, any more than that will require the articles be split....we need not go there.

Never even bother to check out what a signed 3" X 5" card of Cap Anson, a Joe Jackson bat or a James Corbett boxing glove is valued at....it's not like I have 6 of each. At the end I glance at the signing habits shaking my head. In all, the entire process takes about 18.6 minutes but that's only if the SMR arrives at all. When I was fortunate enough to get an article published (thanks Joe!) the SMR never arrived....what a bummer.

For hours of good reading I like the format of Maxim magazine. It's loaded with little but interesting tid-bits of information, Q & A and reader comments in a well designed format. Plus it has the larger articles contained in a single copy.

Granted SMR makes an effort but should listen to the readers, adjust and always strive for improvements. Just a thought and giving my 2 cents.

Kevin

ranger63

<< <i>I submit through an authorized dealer so I do not get the SMR but frankly, I wish I did, at least once every few months. They no longer sell the magazine at the Chapters in my area so I have to wait until the Canadian Expo to buy one. I also find the prices useful for many of the sets that I collect. The magazine does get a lot of flak but I still see people quoting SMR quite often and I have bought sets based strictly on the SMR. >>



if you pm me your address i will send you mine.

boggs301012

Lots of great ideas. I would like to see PSA use a few and improve the Magazine.


James

NickM

AISAVD - the SMR price guide information is very useful at card shows. I am not going to lug a laptop around and have to open it up and check out Excel files on any set I might want to doublecheck a card price or variation/SP issue on (and even that would require that I had gone through the effort of downloading all that info beforehand for every set).

As far as the signing habits articles go, I don't think the detailed personal biography is a good use of space, as the advanced collectors actually looking for signatures of HOFers dead for 75 years probably know about their background. If they made 2 shorter signing habits of vintage players articles, and focused one on a long-vintage HOFer and another on a more recent HOFer or retired superstar (example - pair Miller Huggins and Mike Schmidt), the usufulness of the autograph section would increase markedly. The vast majority of forgeries (with Babe Ruth being the exception) of baseball autographs are of living or recently deceased HOFers.

I think a classified ad (and/or mini ad) section at the back of the issue would provide sufficient advertising revenue to enable many other changes that have been suggested.

Nick