Sorry about the long delay between
postings. Work has been busy.
A Really Bad Set of over 300 Cards
In previous posts, I have talked about the Junk Wax or Junk Era for sports cards that ran from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. During this era, the sports card companies went crazy producing virtually any kind of set that was eaten up by the customer, which had changed from kids to collectors. A lot of really bad sets were produced in this era, because mostly anything that was printed basically ended up selling OK with hoarding collectors.
4. A special subset had player’s wives showing
off the officially licensed NFL women’s wear.
Player’s wives?!?!?
And so this atrocious set was born.
There still is a very active secondary market
for these 1991 Pro Line autographs on eBay, and several collectors are
passionate about trying to put together autographed sets (footnote 4).
In conclusion, there is no market for non-autographed cards from
this set and such cards are truly junk. Please throw all cards from this set in the recycle bin, so as to save some trees from being cut down and to save the the world from the embarrassment of this set.
A Really Bad Set of over 300 Cards
In previous posts, I have talked about the Junk Wax or Junk Era for sports cards that ran from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. During this era, the sports card companies went crazy producing virtually any kind of set that was eaten up by the customer, which had changed from kids to collectors. A lot of really bad sets were produced in this era, because mostly anything that was printed basically ended up selling OK with hoarding collectors.
The 1991 Pro Line football set is the
worst-of-the-worst in my opinion because it took sports cards farthest away
from anything that a kid or even a sports fan would want to own. In the 1991 Pro Line football set of 300 cards plus some inserts, there are:
1. No action pictures. Most of the poses were sort of ridiculous
vanity shots that kids sometimes now get for their high school yearbooks. The pictures seem to have little connection
to the players, their personalities or their positions.
2. Almost no player information on the backs of cards. Instead, there are inane paragraph-long observations by the player profiled about what
it’s like to be a rookie or star or whatever.
The cards had no stats, no schools, no player measurements, and no
player trivia. They were worthless for
player information.
3. Most of the cards shamelessly display players wearing
official NFL-licensed merchandise. This
set was more of a catalog for officially licensed NFL merchandise than a
football card set.
Caption: On the left, Erik Howard of the Giants displays his officially
licensed NFL T-shirt and shorts while seemingly trying to hold in a massive
dump. On the right, Eric Allen shows off his flat-top haircut,
Why?
This set was the brainchild of a person at NFL Properties,
which was the producer of the Pro Line set and not a sports card company. Printing and distribution had to have been
outsourced to other parties.
I can just see the conversation at NFL properties that got
this set going:
Executive #1: We
should go directly into the sports card business. Those things are selling like hotcakes.
Executive #2:
Yeah. People will buy
anything. Donruss put out this crappy baseball
set called ‘Studio’ this summer with pictures of players that looked vanity
shots from a high school year book.
People bought’em. (footnote 1)
Executive #1: Really? No way.
Executive #2: Yep.
And the best part is you don’t have to spend money on game photographers
or even going to games. You just take artsy
looking still shots of players.
Executive #1: What if we put the players in NFL
merchandise? The commissioner says we
need to sell more of that stuff.
Executive 2: What about the women’s merchandise?
Executive 1: The players have wives don’t they?
Executive 2: Awesome.
You’re a genius.
Caption: On the right, Jennifer Montana’s rear end is used on this insert card to hawk the
NFL’s ‘Spirit Collectible’ line of women’s clothing. On the left, Babette Kosar models a ‘Spirit
Collectible’ team jacket while contemplating how she will have to divorce her
husband Bernie when he burns through all his money. I own and keep these cards only for their schlock value.
In Reality...
In terms of history, the 1991 Pro Line set did create some
friction between the NFL and the Player’s Association (i.e., the NFLPA or
player’s union). The sports card companies
had been getting legal permission to use the players’ images through the NFLPA
and were paying royalties to the union.
NFL Properties went directly to the individual players in the 1991 Pro
Line set and each was paid $5000 for participating and signing off on their
image rights for this set (footnote 2).
The relationship between the NFL and the NFLPA was already icy in 1991,
so NFL Properties probably saw no need give the union more money, because such money was
often used to file lawsuits against the NFL.
No independent card company would have likely risked the wrath of the
NFLPA in signing so many players directly and not going through the union. Such a company would have risked not getting
a license from the union in future years if the direct-to-players move did not
work out.
In defense of the 1991 Pro Line set, it did have one
innovation, which was putting autographed versions of the cards (about one-per-wax
box) in the product. Also, the autograph
cards contained stickers or stamps to verify that they were genuine, which was
ahead of its time in 1991. That being
said, NFL properties sort of blew the autograph inserts by having players sign
the cards on the back. (footnote 3) This
makes the cards less presentable for the collector.
Caption: Nick Lowery, in a very flattering pose, shows off
his officially licensed NFL shorts and shirt.
For some reason, three pairs of shoes and a Chiefs helmet are placed
randomly around Nick for ambiance. I am throwing this card out after this post.
Market reception of the set seemed to be poor by
1991 standards (footnote 2). My guess is
that the autographs became a part of the set after focus groups “threw up” on
the cards for being so bad. Despite the
modest reception, the NFL continued to produce two more Pro Line sets in 1992
and 1993. NFL Properties seemed to have
learned a little bit of a lesson by 1992, as the 1992 set had more action shots
of players in real games interspersed with vanity photos. Also, the hawking of NFL clothes was more
subtle. By 1995, NFL Properties had sold
the ‘Pro Line' name to Classic Games and was out of the card business.
There are still plenty of factory sealed Pro Line 1991 football
boxes around and they sell on eBay for around $12-15 when shipping is included
(footnote 5). This is less than they
cost collectors when they originally came out.
Without the possibility of an autograph in each box, I suspect they
would sell for much less.
In closing, what made the 1991 Pro Line set so truly awful is how far it strayed from what many sports card enthusiasts, myself included, feel is great about sports cards, kids and collecting. Putting aside the obvious and ridiculous amount of product placement for NFL licensed clothing, the set seemed to have everything a kid would not want from a set. Imagine that your parents gave you a box of this set by accident back in 1991. You and friends could trade a Phylicia Rashad for a Stacey O'Brien while developing a craving for Zuba Pants.
End Note
Like all other posts, please feel free to make comments. I review all comments before they are posted in order to reduce spam and keep things on topic. Also, it may take me a few days to review comments.
Footnotes
1. The whole vanity shot of players idea was first fully implemented in Donruss' Studio brand of cards starting in summer of 1991. While cards with vanity pictures (and players performing their hobbies and such) had appeared in cards sets before, the Studio brand centered an entire set around "studio" portraits of players. Donruss Studio sets rank high on my list of worthless junk sets.
2. http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19911020&slug=1312041
3. Another interesting post on this set can be found here: http://sanjosefuji.blogspot.com/2011/03/good-bad-ugly-3-1991-pro-line-portraits.html . That blog is where I became aware of the autograph location issue, which I have found mentioned in other descriptions of the set.
4. An interesting site that shows one person's passion for these autographs can be found here: http://bcn33rs.wordpress.com/about/ . My perception of the market for Pro Line autograph cards is from examining all finished auctions on eBay on 11-11-2012.
5. The prices for wax boxes of Pro Line cards is from examining all finished auctions on eBay on 11-11-2012.
I actually enjoyed this set. Why? Because it was different. Do you need stats and bio information on every card? No. Why? There are hundreds of other cards out there to get that same information. You may say, and probably will, "Well, the Proline brand vanished in a couple years, so I'm right." Yeah, so what. Find another set that did what Proline did. Find a Jersey card set. There are hundreds. Find a gameball set. There are hundreds. But find a set that did what Proline did. You won't. Whether it was a good idea or bad one, it's unique to the hobby. And there isn't another one like it. It's just too bad that they didn't keep the production levels down. The high production levels killed the value of this set, along with many sets from this era.
ReplyDeleteHi Jayson. I think your comment makes sense, and one can at least thank NFL Properties for giving something different a shot.
ReplyDeleteMy personal distaste for this set mainly centers around two factors. First, the blatant "Disney-esque" effort to cross promote NFL licensed merchandise seems a little far-fetched. I doubt that merchandise sales were bumped up because of this set.
Your line "it's unique to the hobby" actually reflects the second and one of my main problems with the card industry itself. As you will see from other posts in this Blog, I think that card collecting has been largely ruined for younger generations because it is a "hobby" with the card producing firms focusing their production toward hobbyists as opposed to young kids interested in baseball, football, hockey or basketball. As a matter of fact, one of my favorite modern brands is Score, which is despised by many "hobbyists", because that brand is both inexpensive and widely distributed at Wal-Mart, Target and like stores. That's what I used to give my kids in their Christmas stockings (e.g., Score football), so they could read about Tom Brady or Peyton Manning and tape their cards to their bedroom doors. Kids shouldn't have to store cards in top-loaders like they are precious commodities.
I generally do not collect modern cards, because I'm not big on the "hobby" aspect of the business. Game used jerseys, refractors, parallel cards, etc. are all just fake scarcity created by a company. Some scarcity doesn't increase my enjoyment of the underlying sport. Most of my modern sets are actually junk wax sets that I put together with my now high-school-age son when we buy thousands of junk wax cards for under $5 at a garage sales. In these sets, the nine pocket pages are worth more than the cards. However, the time spent talking with my son about the 1987 Detroit Tigers and how they traded John Smoltz to get Doyle Alexander is fairly priceless.
If collecting cards for a person is not about the enjoyment of the underlying sport of the card (or history, movies, TV, in the case of non-sports cards) but just making money on holding something scarce, that person is in the wrong business. Sportscards have truly awful investment value, especially given the price of packs or hobby boxes of the high-end brands. Coins are a much better investment if one wants the challenge of collecting and making money too. If you don't feel the need to collect, use your money to buy mutual funds or stocks.
Vince, although we'll have to agree to disagree with the Proline brand, I do agree with your overall view of the hobby. Yes, it is now more set up for the collectors and less for kids. I discuss in detail on my own website. I've heard stories from dealers where buyers would bust open a pack and if they didn't get that "high-end" rookie card they were seeking, they'd leave the remainder of the cards on the counter. Basically the common cards were junk to them. Not the way the hobby of collecting should be.
ReplyDeleteThere was more than ample "junk wax" produced during this time period by all the manufacturers. However the certified autographs are really fun to collect because the set is almost impossible to complete. I am now 5 cards away. The 1991 autographs were actually about one in every three boxes, 6 or 7 to the case. The 1992 was guaranteed one to the box. If you are concerned about the blatant merchandising effort then you’ll have to quit watching movies or TV since product placement has become a Madison Avenue staple. Their biggest mistake was in the packaging. The inserts were an extra card so you could pick out packs with autographs or subset cards by weighing the packs or measuring the thickness. If you are interested in the autographs don’t buy any box that doesn’t have the original shrink wrap, it has probably been searched.
ReplyDeleteJohn W.
John. Thank for you information on the "hit rate" per box/case, and pointing out the danger of buying open boxes. On the packaging, they probably were not sophisticated or experienced enough to figure out the 'extra card' aspect of the packaging in 1991. Even when game used jerseys were first introduced in later years, you had the problem of everybody manhandling the packages feeling for that thicker package. Eventually, the card companies figured out how to put those white dummy cards into packs to try to solve the problem. However, I do give NFL Properties credit for certifying the autographs, which was not the norm at the time.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of blatant merchandising, it is still a large weakness of the set. That cannot be denied. While commercialism is all around us in a free market economy, it only exists in places where we let it as consumers. Therefore, product placement in exists in movies because we don't care enough to either (1) not watch those movies because of product placement or (2) purposefully avoid the products exhibited in movies. The fact that no other card companies have blatantly cross-marketed their branded clothing in a football card set since 1993 shows that as a free market of collectors that we have rejected that level of commercialism as consumers. As evidence, can you tell me that you would be interested in collecting this set without the autographs? Absolutely not. It's not a nice set without the autographs.
Thanks for the reply. I agree with you to some extent on the product placement and merchandising, it was a substantial deviation from the norm. I wish more people would "vote with their feet" but product placement has become so commonplace that most people probably just ignore it in movies and on TV. American Idol is a good example. It's very popular but at times it is nearly impossible to distinguish the programing from the Ford advertisements.
ReplyDeleteHowever I like the card backs as they give you more of a personal view of the player versus the standard dry stats that can be found repeatedly set after set.
JW
Lets buy all remaining stock, and reissue it as a serial numbered insert cards.
ReplyDelete