The Death of Topps Heritage?
joestalin
Posts: 12,473 ✭✭
Im not sure if you have heard, but UD is trying to buy out topps. They pushed their offer today to 425 million cash. I don't need to tell anyone
who buys todays modern cards that UD has been terrible in baseball. Offering redemption nightmares, poor ideas and poor products. They have
also offered them at higher prices and have the worst customer service ever. Most of the time they will have a high dollar card as a redemption,
then make the person wait 2 years, then replace it with several cards that may total around the price of the one card. Whats worse is that the
replacments come from older sets that no one cares about.
For the vintage guys here this means very little, but there have been plenty of guys here who have invested quite a bit into heritage and other
modern topps releases. I have the confidence and knowledge to say that if UD took over they would kill heritage. Real one autos with silver
stickers. Auto chromes and 8 bucks a pack!
If this happens Im out of the hobby. UD is that bad. Just a warning to all.
Thanks
Kevin
who buys todays modern cards that UD has been terrible in baseball. Offering redemption nightmares, poor ideas and poor products. They have
also offered them at higher prices and have the worst customer service ever. Most of the time they will have a high dollar card as a redemption,
then make the person wait 2 years, then replace it with several cards that may total around the price of the one card. Whats worse is that the
replacments come from older sets that no one cares about.
For the vintage guys here this means very little, but there have been plenty of guys here who have invested quite a bit into heritage and other
modern topps releases. I have the confidence and knowledge to say that if UD took over they would kill heritage. Real one autos with silver
stickers. Auto chromes and 8 bucks a pack!
If this happens Im out of the hobby. UD is that bad. Just a warning to all.
Thanks
Kevin
0
Comments
Yes UD will eventually own Topps.
But I would not sweat that Topps will be gone. I'm sure they will continue to generate Topps products, especially the successful runs such as Heritage. Heritage is a reason to overtake Topps. Its one of their most successful sets. It's all about profit! Why get rid of something that makes money???
On a side note..Do you know the history behind fleer?
JW
Ron
Buying Vintage, all sports.
Buying Woody Hayes, Les Horvath, Vic Janowicz, and Jesse Owens autographed items
<< <i>I'm not sure that federal regulators would approve a purchase of Topps by UD and essentially create a monopoly all over again in the card industry. As a vintage collector, however, I don't care a lot. Topps jumped the shark about 20 years ago.
Ron >>
I'm trying to count on my fingers...and toes...20 years ago makes it 1987. Yep, right on the money.
I don't know about all this stuff but it all seems to work it's self out .
Cards change from time to time , I think we'll collect them no matter what they look like to be honest .
On the personal side though , I hope they don't sell .
This hobby is synonomous with Topps .
I/M/O
# of products out of 6 that UD has made this year that has a price under 30 dollars a pack: 1
Is it worth tracking down Stan Musial and Ernie Banks to have them sign 300 cards for a product which you can only sell for 2.99/pack....
UD won't think so. MLB forced them to make less products....they said ok and tripled the prices on what products they could make. None of this
fits into the heritage mold. The last thing I need is some UD rep trying to figure out the subtle aspects of heritage sets every year.
Kevin
<< <i>Kevin, sometimes in takeovers/buyouts the company taking over leaves certain areas of the business as is, staff included, just so they don't screw up that area of the business. If I was buying a successful Pizzeria, and didn't have my own recipes or know how to make my own Pizza, I wouldn't fire the Pizza man on my first day. >>
I agree. I think UD will just own the Topps company. Sure, they may make a few personnel changes, but Topps will probably continue on as is, with maybe a little oversight from UD. Just my take.
Shane
<< <i>So wait, you broke up with your significant other and a Nelly redemption card was an issue? Wow, makes me forget my VHS collection was destroyed...... No it doesn't........ I hate you Monica..... Ho., >>
LOL!
No need to go into a further business 101 scenario, but suffice to say that while your "fears" are understood, I don't think you've got anything to worry about as far as the "Death of Topps Heritage."
Not true. SP Authentic football were all on card autographs. I know most of the other products were stickers or stickers passed as cut signatures. I agree with the redemption issue in the past. UD was terrible and after waiting 2 years I received absolute crap. They have revamped their redemption program and I haven't waited past 6 weeks for a card. Matter of fact customer sevice said that if you don't receive a redemption within 6 weeks, to call and they will expedite or offer a substitute.
I know how much you guys love Heritage. I hope UD doesn't change a thing
This just doesn't sound like a huge money maker to me.
Deck's game plan doesn't include products like heritage. We all know that heritage isn't a product that just pops out of a box. It must have good ideas
and a bit of effort. I can only imagine the time and money that is spent on just the on card autos. I don't UD will do that, they have proved that!
oh and yes SP was one card, but for the most part they prefer stickers and they don't care if it looks good or not.
Kevin
<< <i>So you think Topps would sell knowing that a bloodbath of their employees would ensue? >>
I have seen many TV stations sell knowing that the hatchet man was waiting at the gate. The upper levels have no care for the working man. See EnRon, WorldCom, Ford, at&t, cingular, etc.....
mmMMM....several million dollars vs the loss of jobs of nameless faces, check please....
______
Collecting all Yankees especially:
Thurman Munson, Yogi Berra, Melky Cabrera!
For my son:
Derek Jeter and Jorge Posada
MY Baseball Card Page
My Player Collection Needs
Also lets remember, Topps has the last 10 years, made more money selling candy then cards.
"I think we need a link to the article, in it UD said that they would fire any topps employees, in that it was redundant to have both."
I would expect such things to happen. Would you keep two employees to do the job of one person, in which pretty much will be all upper management?
Also, I think reguardless what Topps or Upper Deck does, half of the hobby with complain. In fact, maybe we should (as a whole) say we like to complain about cards...rather then we like to collect cards.
Mark
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
<< <i>Would you keep two employees to do the job of one person >>
That would not be the case. If you're John Q. at Upper Deck, and you handle the UD version of Heritage, they would be doubling your work load if they gave you Topps' Heritage to run too. Think of it this way, if UD has 1,000 employees (these are made up numbers) and takes over Topps which has 1,000 employees, isn't UD going to be 1,000 employees short if they fire all Topps' workforce? Why fire 1,000 people that already know the job only to have to hire 1,000 people and train them, and then hope they get it right? That's just bad business, and makes no sense whatsoever.
When to similar (in this case virtually identical businesses) merge, there are many redundancies that can be eliminated. Secretarial, receptionists, accounts payable, receivables, facilities management, production, middle management, back office operations plus many others. All these jobs can be eliminated and the extra work handled by the remaining employees and technology.
The creative side can be managed by eliminating weak product lines (from both companies) and concentrating resources on only the best selling products. Not all Topps employess would be eliminated (most would be let go), but whomever remained would have to be indispensable to the business.
I have had two jobs where the company was bought out and while it did not effect most jobs or pay, in both cases 75% plus of the management lost their jobs. In one case, I was part of the managment let go.
But in both cases some lower level people lost their jobs as well, such as in human resorces and promotion. Now production line people, on the press or in the backroom helping design the cards, such as the example you gave, do not typically lose their jobs. (Unless the two operations are combined into one, which is unlikely to happen here.)
You are correct that it makes no sense to fire someone, making say $12 an hour, and then spend $700-$1000 training a new person for the same or slightly less pay.
Mark
Raw: Tony Gonzalez (low #'d cards, and especially 1/1's) and Steve Young.
hype a product. Anyone have any unopened rare french 1990-91 high # hockey. 2,000 a case at one time.
<< <i>So wait, you broke up with your significant other and a Nelly redemption card was an issue? Wow, makes me forget my VHS collection was destroyed...... No it doesn't........ I hate you Monica..... Ho., >>
"Upper Deck is finally getting a chance to swing away.
The trading card specialist, which has been trying to disrupt a private equity buyout of rival Topps (Nasdaq: TOPP), is back in the game. Topps management will now consider Upper Deck's hostile tender offer for $10.75 a share, with a decision expected in two weeks. (It's not every day that you see the words "hostile" and "tender" in the same sentence.)
Financing is no longer a roadblock, according to Upper Deck. That was one reason why Topps management originally favored a lower $9.75-per-share offer from a private investment consortium led by Madison Dearborn Partners and Michael Eisner's Tornante.
Topps' allure for the former Disney (NYSE: DIS) CEO is easy to understand, once you look into Tornante's acquisition last year of Team Baby Entertainment, a company that makes sports-related DVDs for children. Focusing on college teams, the videos help get kids excited about sports (and mom or dad's alma mater). Entering the baseball-card business is a logical evolutionary step to reach out to older kids beyond the Team Baby market.
The deal makes sense, but the original buyout group won't get Topps unless it matches -- or tops -- the Upper Deck offer. Topps originally expressed regulatory and financing concerns about Upper Deck's bid, but now that Upper Deck has come through with the funds for the tender offer, Topps is left clinging to the silly notion that the government won't let two tiny players in a stagnant niche get together.
If anything, the real surprise here is that an Internet company with a strong sports presence -- like Disney's ESPN, Sportsline parent CBS (NYSE: CBS), or Yahoo! (Nasdaq: YHOO) -- isn't awake in this bidding contest. Hooking sports fans while they're young? The prospects of digitized trading cards? Topps is too colorful to go out this quietly. "
Bottom line, in my opinion, is that things for Topps will change regardless of who buys them. I'm not sure I'm ready to invest in digitized cards . . . unless PSA decides they want to install USB ports on their slabs.