This kills me...

[frikativ54]

Jose Altuve Futures Patch Card.

I would have loved to own Altuve's Futures Game jersey; I have his Futures hat in my Astros hat collection upstairs. This is just disgraceful. Who needs these patch cards in the long run? Yeah, it may be cool in the short term, but the design on these cards isn't really aesthetically pleasing in the first place. So what's the point? Card company profits?!?!

[trsent]

Card company profits?!?!

You answered your own question.

[trsent]

By the way, I spent the weekend at The Chicago Sun-Times Sports Memorabilia Trade Show and I saw the card dealers doing business as usual with the jersey/patch cards. No one seems to care about the controversy in the industry.

[frikativ54]

By the way, I spent the weekend at The Chicago Sun-Times Sports Memorabilia Trade Show and I saw the card dealers doing business as usual with the jersey/patch cards. No one seems to care about the controversy in the industry.

Interesting. Were the jersey and patch cards selling? IDK, but they got old for me after about the first year of collecting them.

[trsent]

Interesting. Were the jersey and patch cards selling? IDK, but they got old for me after about the first year of collecting them.

The market did switch to preferring autographs (or autographed jersey/patch cards) many years ago.

I saw a few deals for high end jersey cards. Most dealers don't care if a card is an authentic swatch or not, just if they can buy or sell it.

[Skizzick]

I got out of the card collecting game a while ago. It just doesn't seem logical to me how a large piece of game used memorabilia, perhaps even signed, could be worth just as much as a full game used piece signed as well. I'd rather have a whole game used jersey I can display and be proud of than a card that will sit in a box. I really wanted the Alonso jersey from the Futures game. It sucks that they didn't even give people the chance to bid on them. If the card companies really wanted to make cards of it, they should have outbid other people.

[frikativ54]

The market did switch to preferring autographs (or autographed jersey/patch cards) many years ago.

Even if they were sticker autos? I tell you, it was sticker autographs that led to my selling a lot of my card collection. I might still have a few somewhere, but it is a disgrace when players can't even sign their name to an actual card.

I saw a few deals for high end jersey cards. Most dealers don't care if a card is an authentic swatch or not, just if they can buy or sell it.

What about the buyers? Did they just believe the swatches to be authentic?

[MarinersFan34]

I agree with you Les, I have a card that has the actual MLB hologram
on it from Felix, it was from his All Star workout jersey in St. Louis. I would have loved to have had that jersey but it's now gone forever to raise the bottom line at Topps a few bucks.

The bigger question is how many dealers and collectors even know about this? You know there will never be a big story on it by any of the major hobby outlets like Beckett.

I know that there are some folks that have already come to the conclusion over the years that the swatches are questionable, especially after the wording has become so vague now it's left to the collect to assume or guess what it is from.

Might be something to ask your local card shop owner or customers next time you stop by. Ask around at the card shows, I'd be curious as to what the responses might be. I'd tend to guess that dealers will turn a blind eye and keep selling until the collector stops buying them, then it'll matter to them.

I wish the fad would be over now, that they could find some new gimmick to sell cards.

[ahuff]

Jeremy,

funny you mention talking to local card shops. My son loves collecting cards and he recently was at our local shop and found a Dirk (mavs) jersey card. When we were discussing that the jersey swatch might not be authentic...he said "I just like the card". I thought that was a very good answer - afterall I believe you should collect what you love. The price wasn't bad either - $2. But you should have seen the shocked face on the card shop owner's face when I began to inform my son of the "Infamous Six" and how they had supplied jerseys to card manufacturers. I think a great deal of the dealers don't know about the incident.