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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.

Well, 2009 Contenders has hit eBay, and that means that we finally get to see how bad this could possibly be. For those of you who have not followed along, Panini has touted through the whole thing that this set will feature on card autos, but then we find out that only a portion of the tickets are on card. The rest of the cards are stickers, and from what I have seen on facebook from the on card stuff, I think I actually prefer the sticker s. The rest of the autos are bubbly and barely seen on the over crowded card, and I cannot believe that people are trying to get in on this product right at the beginning.

These new tickets feature a design that is worse than 2008’s visual abortion, something I didn’t think was possible, and the autographs are mildly visible to hardly visible. I have no idea why you would even try on card autos on a foilboard surface, as the reflective coating will highlight every miserable defect of the bubbly signature. They also switched to a horizontal orientation that did nothing but give them a huge space to write 2009 ROOKIE in humoungous letters. I always like when a painted player is featured on a card, but why would you cover up part of the artwork with a font that takes away from the general design? That doesn’t make sense. Plus, if you really want to do well, how about just ditching the foilboard all together and giving us a card that doesn’t blind us in the sunlight.

Contenders has always been the Bowman prospect set of football due to the fact that there are so many rookie autos, and this year is no different. The problem is that with 200 products that all have the same number of rookies on the checklist, the novelty isnt there anymore. The good thing is, they have made an effort to adding value to each case by promising a few top rookie autos per case and one on card auto per box, but when the cards look the way they do, the value just doesn’t matter as much. Contenders has gone from one of the top rookie autos of the year to another mid end whatever, and I can pretty much say that it is a direct result of the design of the cards and the refusal to adapt to the needs of the colletors.

I will give Panini their due for not rehashing the design, and for trying to up the on card content, but when your cards go from nice in 1998-2007 to awful, those smiles turn to scowls. Ive put together a retrospective here, and you can see what I mean when I say the design has tanked.

Take a look (CLICK TO ENLARGE):