Current state of AFL Card market....

put it this way, i didnt even know series one was even released until i filled my car up at coles today..... completely lost interest.
didnt even bother finishing last years sets, looks like everyone is falling the same way. we need some new blood n ideas to bring back whats missing

This is how i see the market.

Cards are a hobby and like all hobbies it will fluctuate. For an example look at Yo-Yo's, comics...etc

I've seen a decline a few times before, so has Select since they've been a manufacturer since 93.

So let's go back to the start.

The market here in Australia not only in AFL but NBA, NFL etc etc started to see a sharp decline in sales and collectors around 95-96.

Card shops that had opened during the boom of 92, 93 and 94 started closing.

By 1999- 2000 most of the stores that we had grown up in were closed from Card heavens, Card Zones, Cards n Stuff, Rookie and Legends etc etc not to mention all the shops that had sprung up in video stores, Guess whats and numerous other enterprises.

Selects early products were excellent for their time and offered far more value than a NBA box. Signatures were prevalent and some of the cutting edge technology used to make cards such as Footy legends and Head to head were terrific. The decline in the market was in no way due to them. It was simply that the bubble had burst.

By 1998 Select had followed the NBA in adopting a one per box signature and thus draft pick signatures were born. It helped keep the market afloat for those still involved.

Around 2001 the market picked up again, in my opinion due largely due to a wonderful concept by Select. Captain Signatures.

They followed it up with a brilliant 2002, adding the exclusive spx set along with series one. SPX was on thick cardboard stock, shined like gold bullion in the light and was l-i-m-i-t-e-d. I still wish i could buy boxes.

In 2003 they sucked me back in. XL and Ultra is still my favourite two card set ever made by Select. Guernsey cards were awesome. They even had the exact game on the back. Perfect.

Some great concepts since then have been the platinum draft pick in 05 , 06 which had Brownlow predictors, 2008 had platinum signatures, 2009 which had captain signatures again and 2012 which had prime draft.

Each series had one thing in particular, a low numbered card to chase. It also allowed for all collectors of all teams something to chase. It also meant those with deep pockets trying to complete a set would still have to chase like the rest of us. It helped fuel the market and keep everyone on the hunt. I suppose it's no surprise that these products have been some of our favourites, yes?

Variety is a serious issue with Select. Particularly with series one.

They have the wrong perception at the moment of what the kids/collectors want. I will try not to be mean here but i call it as i see it.

Select spend too much time worrying what Teamcoach are doing and why Teamcoach are kicking their arse. They have for years now.

First i must point out that there is a clear definition of the boundaries of each card company. Select can't make gaming cards and Teamcoach can't make anything that isn't a gaming card.

Which is why even the prize cards from teamcoach have stats on them.

There is a reason why Teamcoach is repetitive, they don't have much room to move. They would love to have signatures and have tried but they are a gaming card so they must stick to that concept.

Select can go in so many different directions.

Jumper cards, retro jumper cards, footy patch cards, low numbered parallels, Coach signatures, father and son signatures........etc etc

However year after year we get the same inserts.

Lets look at some trends that have appeared over the last ten years.

2005 Select drop Series one to 2.95 to come in line with teamcoach which has become extremely popular.

It also is the last year apart from 2011 to have signatures in series one.

Teamcoach is averaging roughly one insert a pack. In 2005 Select offer a die cut set, a one per pack parallel and have done so nearly every year since for series one.

2006 teamcoach introduce acetate wildcards, 2007 Select introduce Superstar gems, revelations, double troubles and firepower mirrors follow.

2005 teamcoach implemented caricatures, by 2008 Select were copying that too by modifying the superstar gems to be half cartoon. We see caricatures carry on with Firepowers.

Rounded corners and graphic stats all over the back were the most obvious replications and the last two to transpire.

I expect a bit of similarity between products but this has become embarrassing.

TeamCoach have copied from Select as well with stickers and lenticular cards and the like but nowhere near as much and to be honest considering how limited they are you would expect them too.

I will also note that Future Force only came around due to Select wanting to close a competitor from making cards. Sadly it was a pale comparison to that product and hasn't been even remotely innovative since it's introduction. It could have been but they did the bare minimum and have done so ever since.


Select have become reactive instead of proactive.





Whilst i agree it's important to keep series one at a low price as to attract customers (mums, kids and dads) they can still add value without a major increase in price if any at all.

Add a numbered parallel, if you did the whole base set with a parallel for each player say numbered to 100 or so i would have 13 odd cards i would be chasing right now and most likely for months.

Add a signature per box, rookies are fine and to lower the numbers to around 200 or so why not go to the end of the second round and include father and son recruits?. If they can do it with a 70.00 box of Future Force, they can with a 100.00 box of Series one.

There are so many of us that would flood back to series one if there was a reason to buy and trade, the excitement that surrounds rookies is a wonderful selling tool if only Select would use it correctly.

Bring back draft pick cards, number them as well. Do the whole draft if possible. Every player who gets drafted should get to say they had at least one card made of them.

People after this year are wary of buying a product full of players that are not drafted. It would help Select to keep a price point low by only having signatures of rookies but interest high because they are part of the team and AFL.

Try some different concepts. I like the look of the inserts of the honours series and the nostalgia does have some interest for sure but it's too specific as a overall release . It would have been better as a hall of fame type concept as too many team collectors were left with nothing to collect from their main release.

Mix it up with concepts such as father and son. All time record holders (marks in a game etc) , grounds of the game, even vague concepts thunder and lightning young guns, future of the game, mirror image..etc etc...

Without some level of rarity a product dies quickly, without innovation a hobby loses it interest and without interest it eventually dies.

If i can collect everything i want within the first day what's the point in collecting?

I strongly believe though that our market can not sustain one of one and other low numbered parallels. I feel 50 is as low for certain signatures/inserts as we should go and 300 to 400 being the maximum however even those numbers feel too high for the current climate.

Select would be better suited making larger insert sets with smaller production runs. More variety with a longer duration to collect.

These are a few of my observations and suggestions.

Great post @ShueyGaffDarlingNat nailed it, it would be great if teamcoach had more room to move on what they could do I reakon they would blow select out of the water, all we want is something to chase and something that is fun to bust, I bought 2 cases of champions this year and by my second box I was bored and gave up, if they had a numbered insert every 2-3-4 boxes I would have opened the lot, now I will get rid of the boxes I have and wait for teamcoach, I'm a team collector and I would rather open boxes to get cards I need as I enjoy doing it but then I can buy every Melbourne card on eBay for $50 where is the fun in that, this will be the last time I buy champions unless they change something, let's hope series 2 is good as I'm not holding out much hope

Also I think what select needs is some competition, and I mean competition that can produce the same as them we seen it with future force, and 2012 future force was great but they haven't changed it apart from raising the numbers and changing the colour of the ink, select have become lazy with there releases and I am hoping they come up with something to surprise us with the replacement of the draft pick signature although knowing select they will probably not replace it and expect us to pay the same money

@ShueyGaffDarlingNat - your well-reasoned, articulate, thoughtful post is something which I think Select needs to read more of. To avoid condescending, abusive and dismissive comments is in my opinion the most significant pillar in achieving positive change in any walk of life. If I had written what you have above I would seriously consider sending it to Tony (is it still Tony?) at Select.

I certainly think it needs to be read elsewhere, as well as by the AFL collecting OZCTers.

I am currently writing a book and it would take me two bloody weeks to put together what you did!

Matty76 said:

@ShueyGaffDarlingNat - your well-reasoned, articulate, thoughtful post is something which I think Select needs to read more of. To avoid condescending, abusive and dismissive comments is in my opinion the most significant pillar in achieving positive change in any walk of life. If I had written what you have above I would seriously consider sending it to Tony (is it still Tony?) at Select.

I certainly think it needs to be read elsewhere, as well as by the AFL collecting OZCTers.

I am currently writing a book and it would take me two bloody weeks to put together what you did!

Click to expand...

Until the companies really understand what collecting is all about (and not by listening to distributors/re-sellers solely), there wont be any changes.

Frustrates the hell out of me knowing what could potentially be done with a licence, as opposed to what is actually released.

I mean I know of one senior person within a local company who has said that they don't bother with spending as much as they used to on design costs as no matter what they put out, it still sells the same....well designed or not.

True story.

Does select come on here I remember they did when wangy went on his rant last year, I think that would help is if someone from select posted on here and just opened up a line of communication

Well written @ShueyGaffDarlingNat !

@Festa1234 They definitely monitor it, the same with AFLTCC. Given all the constructive criticism posted on both forums, it is even more disappointing they don't acknowledge it.

loved the read @ShueyGaffDarlingNat, it gave me a bit more hope that things can turn around. Ive heard that select series 1 will never be numbered again as a certain someone gets thousands of extra's printed to sell on the side so obviously once their numbered they will unable to flood the market and decrease the value of them. Greed will eventually catch up with this man as the product will continue to fall. Im a loyal man, i dislike players changing clubs. I would like every player to stay at their drafted club so show loyalty and be part of history at one club. I think my loyalty has gone from select and would be glad changing suppliers after my 20 year loyalty. Bring on the new phase of AFL cards.

Thanks for the kind words guys.

I tried to leave my flair for sarcasm out of the post, it was truly a challenge.

So many of us feel the same way and the predicament for the hobby is only getting worse.

Even though i am currently not collecting for reasons i have previously ranted about, i can't help myself from popping onto OZcard every few days for box breaks and to read general discussions.

I still love the hobby and like many others i'm just waiting for a product i can desire and collect again.

I respect Select, they have given our hobby so much over the years and should be commended for it but they stopped trying awhile ago and it's not acceptable anymore.

They are aware of the discontent within the hobby, they are aware of rapidly declining sales and yet they still choose not to participate.

Whoever is giving feedback to Select on behalf of the hobby should be fired immediately.

Apps are great and all but i would much prefer a presence from Select on forums, card shows...etc etc





I am going to set up a poll over the next few weeks, a survey is you will.

(good thing i'm injured and off work for awhile)

The questions will be structured around topics such as

Pricing
Quality of cardboard/ technology
Inserts and signatures set ideas
parallel ideas and concepts
favourite products
ratios and numbering
Availability
What we spend/ what we would spend.
What we collect.
Where we buy our product.

Anyone who can provide me with ideas/help/time and or points of contention would be most welcome. The aim is to try and collect info for Select that one of the mods, (perhaps Matt26?) can pass on at a future date.

It needs to be as broad as possible and cover as many demographics as possible to be relevant.

I would even love someone (if the mods don't have a problem working with other sites) setting the same poll up with them just to collect as much feedback as we can.

I also have a few sellers/ dealers that have given feedback which should help as well.

Considering this is about all we can do i hope we can do it right and i hope you will overwhelm me with your help, ideas and support.












I don't normally use quotes to make a point but i keeping thinking back to this one and how relevant it is.

Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient for tomorrow.
William Pollard

Matt26 said:

Until the companies really understand what collecting is all about (and not by listening to distributors/re-sellers solely), there wont be any changes.

Frustrates the hell out of me knowing what could potentially be done with a licence, as opposed to what is actually released.

I mean I know of one senior person within a local company who has said that they don't bother with spending as much as they used to on design costs as no matter what they put out, it still sells the same....well designed or not.

True story.

Click to expand...

What more can be done with a licence? Jersey cards? Access to more player signature cards? I am genuinely curious.

ESP have had their licence for a few years now with NRL and still they haven't delivered a game used jersey card (this year they finally will?). Are they that hard to get a hold of? Or did they not bother with what the collectors were screaming for and kept releasing what they felt was best for the market?

As for Select, correct me if I have it all wrong, as long as Wang keeps buying the remainder of their stock every year nothing will really change as they will always make their $$$?

Once again Brad you are so close to the actual reality of this hobby.

My main interest is 'disposable income' spent on hobbies/entertainment/interests.
That is where it really is at for now and many years to come.

As adults that money goes into a 25 year mortgage(and some), as a kid that goes to gaming/computers.

For example - you tell the wife you just spent $20 on 5 packs of cards - she nearly kills you - that money could have gone to the mortgage or food.
Your child says he/she just spent $20 on 5 packets of cards - you or the wife say - what a waste of money.
etc,etc,etc

The thing that annoys me the most is the champions release is aimed at kids, now that's fine I don't care but I still have to buy that from my supplier so I'm guaranteed series 2 and future force, so I bought 2 cases of champions this year opened 2 boxes and was so bored it wasn't funny, if your gonna make us buy series 1 at least make it good

BoondasH1 said:

What more can be done with a licence? Jersey cards? Access to more player signature cards? I am genuinely curious.

Click to expand...

There are probably 20 ideas we collective could come up with here. The thing is that effectively Select has 3 releases per year over a season which runs from March to September. Thats a long time for 3 releases.

They could always look at a really limited edition high end release? What about a chrome type product? What about a chronology type product with canvas looking cards?

Jersey cards......I think people would love these and are long overdue.........more signature content in AFL......im sure people would love signature of more current day players..... when was the last time each club had a signature card altogether (like ESP NRL they have 2 per team per year).

Give me the license for a year!!!!

Would it be possible for the AFL to give two companies the license for 1 year and then the company that does the best gets the full license for three or so years and the losing company gets that time to think of something better. Although 3 years might not be enough time for select to come up with something new.

If people want to affect change then DON'T BUY simple as that, if enough people vote with their feet Select may finally listen.

right on the money sheuy, great post, couldnt agree more.

This is a great thread and it is fantastic that people are freely expressing their views. Wonderful post by Sheuy.

The card market in Australia overall is going nowhere. There is no innovation and possibly the profit margins have a large bearing on this. You would hope that the license holders themselves care about the products being released- maybe they do, maybe they don't, but as long as they get their fee they are probably ok.

Whether we buy or don't buy the product - will it make any difference? They have a license and will produce cards regardless.

But maybe we consider why we collect a trading cards because all it is an image on a peice of cardboard. With technology the way these days we could all do that ourselves. But is it more about the sense of 'tribe' and that we are all collecting the same peice of cardboard?

My son collects the cards so he can use it as a pseudo autograph book. He's not interested in Jersey cards because he already wears the shirt/Jersey of this favourite teams and get the players to sign that.

Why do younger kids collect the cards? Maybe it's about the trading with friends, and completing a set, but my sense it all about one-ups-manship....E.g. I've got this gold card and you don't. This drives a feeling of inadequacy and more pressure on parents to get more cards to keep up.

Of course teamcoach has the added competitive edge of the ability to win a prize card.

More serious collectors want cards to be collectable, with limited numbered cards being important. Plus there have also been various views expressed already as to what would make for a more appealing collection.

But an interesting interview with Adam Gilchrist on Nova recently when his son was seen getting signatures of players at the Allan Border medal awards night. They asked him if people were still asking him for a signature or were people wanting more selfie photos. He said definitely more requests for selfies with him.

So is the future realistically just more about TTM moments and 'selfies' so that people can load those into social media and gloat in different ways? Or more feeling of pressures and/or inadequacy in terms of FOMO (fear of missing out) moments.

So we live in interesting times, the card manufacturers are not doing anyway innovative to drive increased sales. Do they want to change? Maybe, but current form would suggest not. But maybe they also see the future as being more digital, with digital cards inside an app and linked content, and are happy to see (and contributing to) the slow death of the traditional card market.

Some interesting views about the future of trading cards expressed at
http://www.quora.com/What-is-the-future-of-trading-card-games

Particularly the first comment made:

"With respect to sports player cards, I think that traditional "Topps"-style baseball and football card collections will become artifacts (like vinyl records, sheet music or CDs). Their value will be in their scarcity and obsolescence, rather than something that kids or fans will actively want to purchase and trade.
Cards may still be used as a marketing tool, but they will be tied into driving sales of sports events or attracting traffic to websites."

We can lament the current state of the AFL card market as much as we like. Would a new player make any difference? Maybe in the short term if they were allowed in, but are we simply just witnessing, and living through, the decline of another iconic peice of our lives.

We like in a capitalist society, if people don't buy a product it will send a very clear message, but does that also just hasten the move to an alternative, or lead to the ultimate death of a product.

Time will tell.

And just to confirm that we are going to hell in a hand basket....the Woolworths Disney Dominos are doing a cracking trade on eBay.

OK. I was no part of This thread of course, but I was just looking for a thread in here and I found this thread, so I read all the way through it, and I think this thread deserves a bump.
What do you guys feel that the state of the AFL Card Market is now?
My thoughts:

* Select tangled themselves into a controversial moment last year after not mentioning that the Sigs on their Future Force Draft Redemptions were foil. That controversy IMO summed up that release - A mistake. It was only brought in to drive footycards.com.au out anyways, and as the years went on, Future Force just became more and more pointless.

* Teamcoach pretty much stayed the same as last year, with a few changes that affected value.
Putting Golds and Silvers together was a great idea IMO, only 234 less cards to chase, and the Superpowers innovation is cool, but they haven't wasn't many new fans other than 6-year old Auskickers who are trading with their friends. But then, you have to believe that with the reasons stated in here, they are the biggest victim from what Select's done to the hobby. That bit about copied sets just made me shiver.

* Champions is a tad better than last year, with the new Brownlow Predictors helping to bring the market back up again. But Select made some very stupid player choices (Billy Longer Brownlow FTW???) and they can't do this idea forever. If the medal in-card idea is true, that'll be a huge want for all AFL collectors, maybe even a few from other sports, but you have to just stop and wonder at how boring the other sets are. Milestones have been going on forever, Thunder & Lightning cards have nearly no value and look a bit tacky, and I hate the common design. But Select need credit where credit is due.

* Card values have gone down due to the loss of money from CardZone, easily the largest dealer in all of Australia. For some reason it seems as if they have made hardly any AFL sales in the last few months thanks to some underwhelming releases. Which is why more AFL eBay auctions are going for cheaper and cards are going for less.

So based on this thread, Select will need a big Series 2 and Future Force release to have our (well, at least my) complete respect again. I'm just praying that it's a HoF release, those releases always go well.
And about the no DPSs in last year's Honours, maybe they're doing a double rookie class this year with Double the autos, as Panini did in the NBA a couple of years ago (products contained rookie autos from 11-12 & 12-13 releases through one season), which would mean more releases which would mean more hobby involvement maybe? just a thought, more likely than not it won't happen...

And I noticed some talk in here about more releases being done.
Being an NBA & NFL card collector, I just thought of some fun, enjoyable and profitable release in the NBA & NFL Market that would fit into the AFL market very well.
For you guys to look, I am providing some info on the releases before they were released to give your feedback on if they would fit into AFL or not...

13-14 Panini Innovation Basketball - Lots of 90's style inserts, including some hard to hit unnumbered ones, some nice auto designs and a low price point (boxes are about $90 AUD)
http://www.cardboardconnection.com/2013-14-panini-innovation-basketball-cards

14-15 Panini Select Basketball - At a lower price point would easily be one of the most collected AFL Card sets of all time. You have to love the auto designs.
http://www.cardboardconnection.com/2014-panini-select-basketball-cards

14-15 Panini Excalibur Basketball - Would be an awesome retail product with amazing Crusade parallels, some sick jersey patches and a nice theme around it. Would be good to be stocked at Target, K-Mart,
Big W, etc.
http://www.cardboardconnection.com/2014-panini-excalibur-basketball-cards

2015 Topps Chrome Football - Simple product at a cheap price point with lots of rookie cards from the commons, which look amazing in hand, to the superfractor 1/1s. Is $3 US a pack so affordable for anyone, can be packed in retail versions, and the one-per-box rookie autos are clean and unique.
http://www.cardboardconnection.com/2015-topps-chrome-football-cards

Thoughts?