New Podres: A sign sticker autos can be good?
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By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor | Commentary
This year’s edition of Topps Supreme baseball cards arrived in hobby shops on Wednesday with the newest lineup of autographs from today’s players, future stars and past greats.
One of them? Former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Johnny Podres — a lefty who won 148 games in 15 seasons as well as three World Series rings.
What makes this unusual? He died at age 75 on Jan. 13, 2008 — more than six years ago.
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It’s actually not the first time this has happened, but it’s something we have seen more of in recent years with players such as Hall of Famer Gary Carter. He’s not in this one, but two legends also on this year’s Supreme checklist? How about St. Louis Cardinals great, Stan Musial, who died in January of last year, and another Hall of Famer, Duke Snider, who died in 2011. Another posthumous autograph in this one — albeit from very different circumstances — are a few cards signed by Cardinals rookie Oscar Taveras, who died in an automobile accident on Sunday. (This one had already been packed out and was in transit before that news.)
We all know that many collectors don’t like stickers for their autographs but without them cards such as this one and the Musial in this product would not be possible — at least without a cut autograph.
Is this a scenario where sticker autographs might be more acceptable for collectors who don’t like them? Is it a sign of good inventory management from card companies?
Maybe, maybe not. For me, I see it as a plus — though I’d probably also wonder why they hadn’t been used before.
Let us know what you think in the comments below.
Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball and Beckett Sports Card Monthly magazines. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an email to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.
It’s not like any more cards are being created- He still had to sign something. Why not have given him actual cards to sign instead of a sheet of stickers? True, you won’t be able to have any more autos in future sets, but what does it matter? The same amount of autos of the certain player are still put out there. All putting them in a different set does is give Topps something to try to fool collectors into thinking there is a deep autograph checklist
The card is new and made this year as part of this year’s set. The sticker was signed long ago.
No, because they’re still ugly and cheap looking. Also, Podres autographs are very affordable and it’s still possible to find his on card autos at a much much cheaper price than you’re paying on this product.
Once a player dies who had signed stickers for Topps that weren’t already used, there are 2 choices: use the stickers to make posthumous auto cards, or throw the stickers away.
I’d rather see them used.
Hi Chris
That might be a clever idea for some clever company. Give players cards and have then sign them and then have the graphic design fronts that would incorporate the auto in to the design. Or, since we’re talking retired players, have them sign cards with their pictures on them and all the company would have to is stamp the different brands on them and enter their inane comments on the back.
Bob
I think once a player is gone they should be gone on a autographed card. I do however (I do realize I will get verbally slaughtered for saying this) that it would be cool for like a booklet to come out that is to commemorate deceased players with left over sticker autos. Like a tribute where they take however many people passed and do a booklet with multiple autos. Please don’t kill me to bad over the morbid idea.
I personally HATE these things.
It’s not a signed card, its a signed sticker slapped on a card.
At least with a cut autograph card there is zero pretense that the cards were ever in the presence
of the signer or even reviewed for design/photo selection by them.
I only like them as “Tribute” autographs. I think doing it that way is a great way to honor the player and be respectful at the same time.
I personally don’t like sticker autos. How nice would it be to actually pull an on card auto of one of these great players… regardless of when they signed it? Just my 2 cents
I personally don’t mind sticker autographs, as long as it’s not that ugly a$$ silver sticker. Those take away from the design of the card. The clear sticker graphs are ok because you can still see the design. I personally don’t care if the player touch the card. If you want something actually touched the card then go to a card show.
If the card companies paid these players to sit down and do a signing the box price will cost more then what we are paying already. Or the autographs will nor be one or two per box, it will be like one or two per case. Remember that’s how it use to be and we collectors cried that we want more, we want more. Enter stickergrsphs, a cheaper way to give use what we wanted.