Alos, I never understood collectoirs arguing for less choice in the hobby.

do you mean if card companies would not have become greedy and start producing 20 different products every year? this hobby is in a downward spiral and if card companies continue to produce the crap that they’re putting out today, the hobby will be in the toilets very soon. what would collectors rather have; 100 different tim tebow rc’s or 10 different? (enough with the 1/1′s and the event used memorabilia cards)

but the answer is yes

Do you think the hobby would have evolved the direction it has if the formula of 1988 still worked?

It certainly didn’t cost the card manufacturers as much then as it does now to make cards … perhaps the majority of collectors’ interests — via their buying habits — have changed.

Oh, and, according to this site, Montana appeared on nearly 900 cards made *during* his playing career. In fact, the timeframes for the players you mentioned (Montana, Sanders) largely came during the time when mass-production was at its worst in the hobby.

As for issue selection and cover choices, a player being “deserving” according to one collector really isn’t one of the criteria for selecting a player. However, we are intending to have some vintage- and retro-focused covers for BSCM in 2012 — just as we had this year.

and beckett putting him on the cover? there are many others more deserving to be on there. how about a legends issue? put payton, montana, or unitas on there and discuss the popularity of their autos

Tebow presently appears on 450 different certified autograph cards.. and this is just horrible. this is why i don’t collect modern cards. he has been in the nfl for less than 2 seasons and he has that many auto’d cards, and probably 1000 different rookie/base/insert cards. barry sanders has a total of what, 3 or 4 rookie cards? joe montana had less than 100 different cards made during his playing days. i’d like to see the hobby get back to that and stop mass producing and watering down the market