This forum is for broad discussions of collecting. Threads relating to a specific set, person or team should be created on that set, person, or team's page.
Putting in an IR to get a Hot Wheels Diecast card set properly ordered today, and was brought to my attention that only Admin can do it because it is listed as a major release. As the card is not usually the reason people bought the product, and many card collectors do not collect cards from diecasts, I question if these should be classified as major releases, or if they should go in oddball.
Closest parallel I see in other sports is the Kenner Starting Lineup cards. I know many people collect the figures, but not many just collect the cards. Those Starting Lineups are listed in the oddball section for those sports.
I can understand these may have been put there in the early days of the site to lock them down and make them difficult to edit, which I can understand. However, most of these sets have images for most cards now (at least on the NASCAR side which are the most common and complex) so I don't think there is any more danger of them being messed with than any other set (or the Starting Lineup sets in other sports).
If we want to be consistent across sports on this site, these diecast cards seem like they belong in the oddball category, but interested to hear what others think.
The football and baseball ones have been under Oddball for a while and have "Die Cast Cards" in the set name to identify them as the card inserts and not the vehicles themselves.
Edited on: Jan 25, 2023 - 12:33PM
-------------------------------
* Ed * L8 * Cards in my personal Collection are unavailable *
These are definitely major release. In fact, they saw wider distribution than packed out cards did.
There is no need to change the titles or let locations of the sets, those that Ed are referring to are a different concept all together and are not relevant to auto racing issues.
-------------------------------
Will resume trading in June, 2023. Saving money spent on postage for a trip.
VERY slow trading due to health problems. Not transferrable so safe to trade with, just moving is painful and can't always access the cards.
I understand that these would be major releases for a die cast collector. I don't understand how they would fall under a major release for a card collector. Just like with Starting Lineups, they were very widely distributed and they would be a major release for figure collectors, but are not considered a major release for card collectors. There are lots of card sets that are not listed as major releases that were widely distributed, I was under the impression a set needed more than just wide distribution to be a major release. Per the site definitions-
National, pack-based or factory set release by a major card manufacturer.
While National, Racing Champions, Action, Hot Wheels, etc. are not pack based (granted Racing Champions did briefly include "packs" of cards in die cast 3-packs in the early 90's) and I would not consider any of them "major card manufacturers," however they are major die cast manufacturers. While many of the Racing Champions and Action sets are quite large, some of these diecasts in the Major Release section have less than 20 cards. Is a set that small, especially for modern cards, really a major release? I think it would be difficult to justify.
Actually Starting Lineup cards should be moved to major release, not the other way around.
Please note that the definition of major set is OR, not AND.
Set size is irrelevant. Press Pass released a 12 card set that is considered a major release and also came one per pack. No argument could possibly be made to move that to a different section.
Changing reality to push a set reordering IR through is simply not something we should ever do.
-------------------------------
Will resume trading in June, 2023. Saving money spent on postage for a trip.
VERY slow trading due to health problems. Not transferrable so safe to trade with, just moving is painful and can't always access the cards.
Major Release
National, pack-based or factory set release by a major card manufacturer.
Oddball
Regional or local releases or releases by smaller and/or unlicensed manufacturers. Can also include non-pack-based or collaborative releases by major card manufacturers.
-------------------------------
Someday my cards may double in value and then be worth half of what I paid for them.
Which Press Pass set is that? Closest I can think of like that is the Five Star, but they were at least 25 cards (at least in racing). I agree, card number alone isn't the only reason, but I struggle to see what makes them a major card issue when all things are considered.
I don't care about pushing through an IR, I am just questioning what seems to be an inconsistency to me on the site and am trying to find an explanation, and if there is none, correct it. If the explanation is because we have always done it that way and don't want to change, then that is fine (that is what I am hearing from the points you have made). Just want to be sure that is the consensus and having the discussions on this board is one way to find that consensus. The other two people who posted seemed to think Oddball would be the place to go, but I don't think either of them collect much racing (which may be good or bad, they may not know as much, but they may be able to look at the situation more objectively). Would be interested to hear some thoughts from some of the other racing collectors out there on this one.
1997 ActionVision. 12 plastic lenticular cards, sold one per box. They didn't even come in a traditional pack, but a small box. Same as Upper Deck's Diamond Vision line actually. And early Flair releases. The way they were packaged is less important than what they actually are.
Racing Champions owned Press Pass. It would be wrong, don't you think, to put the parent company in the oddballs?
If we do that, it would also make early Topps baseball sets oddballs because they were packins with gum. Actually MOST Topps sports releases and many of their non-sports sets too up to around 1990. You are probably thinking that would be wrong to class them as oddballs, because it is...and that's my point.
"We've always done it that way" is because that is the correct way, which is why it was done that way in the first place. That's also where Admin put them himself...this isn't just me saying it.
-------------------------------
Will resume trading in June, 2023. Saving money spent on postage for a trip.
VERY slow trading due to health problems. Not transferrable so safe to trade with, just moving is painful and can't always access the cards.
