I go through a pretty extensive mental checklist before I buy into a card. It has to meet all my standards, or at least most, if I am going to spend ANY money what-so-ever. I just cannot understand buying any type of investment unless one is completely satisfied with every element. I know that a lot of collectors have been forced to settle as of late, but I refuse. Its one of the main reasons that I am so critical of a lot of what hits shelves. I am adamantly opposed to mediocrity in every way, shape and form.

The first thing I look at is design. Is it appealing? Does it highlight the right parts of the card rather than inconsequential parts of it? It better, or it wont end up in my collection Some people out there baffle me when they consider the actual swatch itself as a validation for a shitty design. If you need unwavering proof of this completely ridiculous practice, look at the inexplicable comments on Panini’s blog. Almost every person comments on the content of patch swatches themselves rather than the elements of the card design. It makes zero freaking sense, and I cant tell you how much it annoys me. Good design takes a lot of work, and it all has to do with the skill of knowing what needs to go where in the overall composition. I have never feigned any type of skill in this arena, but like a food critic, I dont need to know how to cook to understand what tastes good. It has to do with the size and placement of any swatches on the front, the borders and of course size and placement of player photos. I do value horizontal orientation over vertical orientation, especially for cards that have autographs and a swatch on them. Otherwise you end up with something like this.

Second is photograph and player display. As I have said numerous times, football has some of the most dynamic action photography in the world. Based on this fact, I rarely buy any cards that dont have the players in some sort of action situation. Cards like this not only look creepy and lame, but they also look like advertisements for clothes rather than football cards. I am so OCD with pictures on cards, that I sometimes force myself out of cards that I would purchase had the shot been different. Most importantly, if the player is not a feature on the card, like in this case, I wont even put a thought into buying it no matter how “OMG SIZCKS!!!1!” the patch is.

In terms of the jersey swatch, it has to be game used or I wont buy it. Unless there is an autograph involved, I dont purchase event used swatches. Moving to the autograph, there are specific criteria that I fall into when deciding to buy. If its a sticker, it has to be from a mid to low end product and cost less than I would normally pay for on card. If the auto runs off the sticker, I pass, as I want a perfect auto above a weird one. I am an autograph collector rather than a card collector, so this is vitally important. In fact, unless the card is from Chrome, I cant think of the last time I even paid for a non-autographed card. Now that Panini has taken to using a big white box on every sticker card they make, and leaving no room for the player to sign their on card autographs, I dont think I will be buying many cards from Panini now all together.

Outside of these criteria, I find it very hard to appreciate a card that has a big miss on these elements. If you cant display a card proudly, what is the point of spending hard earned money to get it? Card manufacturers have expected us to lower our standards, especially since Upper Deck stopped producing licensed football cards, and that makes me so pissed off I cant even put it into words. We should never be forced to endure the constant flow of diarrhea that seems to be churned out with reckless abandon these days, and I hope more people will start to speak with their wallets. That is the only way any of this will change.