This recent sale of a ridiculous short print out of 2009 Contenders is making waves across the net. The Aaron Kelly card is limited to just 21 copies, so that means that there are only 21 truly complete sets of the product this year. This card should be worth about as much as the cardboard it is printed on, but because so many people are collecting this brutally ugly set, its worth a ton.
There has been a lot of speculation that this sale was actually done to bolster a market for a card that would normally sell for a few hundred, which is the reason I havent posted on it yet. Sell the card to a friend for a ridiculous amount, file an NPB to avoid the fees, and then re-sell the card for much more than it normally would have. Good plan right? Well, I dont think its going to get to a thousand a second time, but one has to ask, why would anyone care THAT much about a set like this?
Listen, I get that set collectors can be crazy people, but this card at a thousand dollars is going for the same amount as a Peterson Exquisite Rookie Patch Auto. Fuck, at least Peterson has played more than one snap in his career so far. That, and the set looks like more poop this year than it did last year, and that is hard to do. Its confusing to me why anyone would legitimately pay that much for a card like this. I would understand if it were Mark Sanchez, but this is fucking nuts.
Its painfully obvious that the person who spends their money like this probably has tons to spare, but I think it says a lot more about what level we have reached in this hobby. Aaron Kelly has been in a ton of products this year already, and from what I can tell, there is no shortage of his stickers lying around at DLP HQ. So, why create a card like this? Publicity and starting a crazed pack busting mob trying to get this card. In all seriousness, I doubt sales will be any higher, so why torture the fans of this set? That is just a horrible thing to do, in my opinion.
Then again, Panini did design the set to look like it does, so the short print to 21 may not be the biggest crime of the product.