Nostalgia is a helluva drug
Nostalgia makes it easier for companies to make products collectors will buy. It's also safe.
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Do you remember when you first started collecting?
Of course, you do!
Those first sets that caught your attention will always have a place in your collecting heart regardless of the era.
It could have been 1973 Topps or 1991 Fleer (that’s mine!) or 1999 Upper Deck Ovation or 2011 Topps Baseball Update. No matter the card set, it’s what brought you into the hobby and keeps you coming back year after year.
Nostalgia is such an important marketing tool when it comes to selling products. It brings you back to a sentimental time, typically something that makes you happy.
It’s also safe.
Products that rely on nostalgia as the main marketing tool are not just safe for collectors but also companies. It’s easier for collectors to trust in a product they know than taking a risk on the unknown. As much as collectors would like innovation, it’s still the pull of the familiar that draws us in.
This year, card collecting has been so wild and different due to the global pandemic. Nostalgia has taken a more prominent role as a tool to sell cards. Some sets are back for the first time in 2020 while others have been holding steady for longer by using names that have cache.
Last week, Topps released Baseball’s Finest, which was a re-creation of the 1993 Finest Baseball set. It also brought back T206, which the company has sprinkled into products and released as a standalone product in 2002. Topps Attax Baseball just made a comeback this week after not being on the market since 2011.
And Heritage is built purely on nostalgia.
Panini America has had its own set of nostalgic products, using names collectors have grown to love such as Donruss, Diamond Kings, Absolute and Dominion.
When it comes to Football, Panini has successfully resurrected a number of former Donruss/Playoff brands over the years, including Score, National Treasures and Contenders. In Basketball, it uses the old Pacific lines of Crown Royale and Revolution and also revived NBA Hoops, a popular 1990s brand.
It’s easier to bring back an old product than come up with something new. From a logistical standpoint, there are designs and inserts that companies can work with. There’s already a template in place. A little fine tuning, a modern checklist and a new product — built on the foundation of an old one — is born.
When starting from scratch, companies have to figure out every little nuance of a set, including price point, demographic, numbers of inserts and parallels, set size, etc. It has to be different enough than other products on the market to make it appealing.
When creating a new product, they’re starting from zero.
When bringing back an older product, companies have half the job complete.
Just this week, Topps Sterling made a comeback as a standalone product after being last released in 2010. It’s high-end product with just two autographed game-used cards per box, and no base set.
We saw it when Topps Baseball’s Finest was released last week too. The product sold for $55 a box from Topps.com with 582 Montgomery Club members buying it during a pre-sale with the rest of collectors having to enter a lottery.
Why did this product do so well? Was it the re-sell value? That’s a big part as boxes were selling for $300+ on the secondary market.
But also, so many collectors saw that shiny 1993 Finest design with the gold block letters and subtle sunburst and were immediately transported to their younger days.
1993 Topps Finest was such an important set. It marked one of Topps’ first attempts into the premium card world and became a standard for modern cards.
In 1993, Topps released the production run for Finest, something card companies didn’t normally do. Collectors knew just how many cards existed and tried to gobble up the refractors due to their scarcity – just 241 copies each, and usually one per box. Back then, this was considered short-printed and a big deal. Collectors weren’t the only ones trying to collect them. Hall of Famer Andre Dawson famously tried to corner the market on his cards.
1993 Finest holds a special place for collectors, but so do many former sets. Sometimes just a name is needed or utilizing an old design as a special insert.
Either way – nostalgia is a hell of a drug.
Key cards from 2020 Topps Baseball's Finest
Luis Robert: A Black Refractor (/25) of the White Sox prospect is on sale for $7,500
You can check all of Luis Robert's Baseball Finest’s cards here.
Mike Trout: The Angels superstar's cards are always popular, especially on iconic card designs like 1993 Finest.
Bo Bichette: Dante's son is a promising player himself, and a big reason why the Blue Jays are optimistic about the years ahead. Check out his auctions here.
Superfractors: So shiny, and so pretty.
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