Dear Topps...or Upper Deck...or Panini...or...

It's past time for card manufacturers to start paying attention to collectors. Putting together panels is nice, soliciting opinions is swell, but if they don't DO something with the information they get, it's all for naught.

This is not where I start spouting off all the things that need to be done to fix what I perceive to be wrong with the hobby. If I had some cure-all, I'd be trying to get a job at one of the companies and more importantly, that's a whole other post. I'm actually just taking a look at the comments from my "What will you collect in 2011?" post.

Eighteen people commented on the post, which is pretty good for a non-contest post. There were 68 page views according to Blogger Stats. Here is a break-down of the comments. Keep in mind that some people have several goals in mind for 2011, so there are more than eighteen items of interest. I'll include my own plans as well.

2011 Products
A&G--7 people are interested, including one who "may drop serious coin". NachosGrande bought a case last year and I'll bet he does again this year. That's a break worth watching.
Topps Flagship--5 people are interested. That's not many and one of the main complaints is the high number of inserts Topps uses now.
Heritage--only one for certain. Bad news for Topps.
Football and Hockey were also mentioned by one waxy Canuck.

Vintage
Six people said they want to either go or continue in the vintage direction in 2011.

Team Stuff
Seven people said they would be concentrating on team collections, many buying only team sets of new products. That's an after market purchase and puts little or no money in the manufacturer's coffers.

Older Boxes
A surprising six people said they wanted to start or continue purchasing older boxes. This also puts no money in the company pockets and just proves that people know if you can get past the new card hype, you can get some really good prices.

Singles/PC stuff
Four people said this was one of their goals for 2011.

Undecided
A couple of people said they weren't sure how their purchases would go for 2011. I think that's appropriate. Take 2010 Bowman for instance. Once Strasmania hit, there were probably many people who bought Bowman that normally would not spend a penny on prospecting.

As for me, I like to buy at least a few packs of everything that's new, just to see it for myself. However, if the comments on the above post are any indication, this may be a seriously down year for big card companies.

They can all take steps to change that. Better designs, better photgraphs, better designs...did I say better designs yet? They can also...oh wait, I said that was for a different post.