2015-16 In The Game Final Vault Hockey Forum

This product gets a lot of hate and I do understand why in some regards. If you had a legitimate 1/1 card and all of a sudden you see another one for sale just with a red stamp on it, I could see how that would irk some people. However, as I understand it from Dr. Price's posts on the subject, these cards are leftover customer service copies and buybacks. If there were 20 of a particular card, there are still 20 of that card. The few from this set are technically different cards. I understand that some people aren't OK with the assertion made in that last sentence and I'll admit that I'm essentially one of them. I'll accept a Vault copy of a card as the actual card in my collection if I don't have the original card. I make a note in my checklist that it's a Vault card, but nothing else is different except seeing the V stamp on there when I look at that card with the rest of the set.

I treat the different colors like a serial number. From Dr. Price's post referenced earlier in this thread:

• Red 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there is at least one card in the product.
• Blue 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least two cards in the product.
• Green 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least three cards in the product.
• Silver 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least four cards in the product.
• Gold 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least five cards in the product.
• Black 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least six cards in the product.
• Pink 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least seven cards in the product.
• Purple 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least eight cards in the product.
• Copper 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least nine cards in the product.
• Teal 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are up to ten cards in the product.

So if I have a red card, it is basically serial number 1. The 1 of 1 is referencing that there is only one card stamped with that color. Blue is 2, Green is 3, Silver is 4, and so on all the way up to 10. Why 10? Because notice that the description for Teal is different than the others. As I read it, the Teal stamp is 10/10 because there are up to ten cards in the product. So why not just serial number the cards? Because not every card had 10 extra copies in the warehouse. Much easier to just stamp them as you go than to inventory everything, determine print runs, and change the serial numbering /XX as it varies wildly for each individual card. This is obviously just speculation as to the reason why they wouldn't go with traditional serial numbering, but it seems like the easiest process to just get a strong product out the door considering how everything went down with ITG.

I actually did buy a card like the one I referenced earlier. I have a Broad Street Boys Orange 1/1 card with a red stamp on it. This seems to be a potential replacement card for the actual 1/1 that was then stamped with a red V because it is the only one. There is at least one card in this product, but in this case we know that there aren't any more (or at least there shouldn't be, two replacement copies of a 1/1 seems a bit strange). Now, this could have been a buyback, as Dr. Price indicated that he did buy back original product (I think at the Expo?). I feel bad for the person that has the actual Orange card if this wasn't a buyback and was indeed a customer service replacement. But at the same time, this card has a huge red V stamped on it and isn't the same card no matter what. I'm still very torn about how to treat these cards so I've decided to just treat them however is the most convenient for me to treat them. If I want them to be the actual card, they're the actual card. If I have the actual card, they're an addition that gives my collection depth and breadth. Basically, I treat them however I'm going to have the most fun because why am I collecting anything at all if I'm not having fun doing it? It's worked for me so far.

I have several Hextall cards where I have multiple colors of the Vault cards in addition to the regular card itself and I do really enjoy collecting them. In fact, I actually like that a lot of collectors seem to have rejected this set, as prices are generally low (except when people see 1 of 1 and think they're worth crazy $$$) and I've picked up some really cool stuff from across the spectrum of ITG releases that I might not have otherwise had an opportunity to grab.

This is all true, of course, of the 1 of 1 cards. There are autos that are stamped with a black V that have an unknown print run. The only other cards from this set that have an unknown print run are the Masked Men cards stamped with a Green V. However, those are relatively common cards without memorabilia of any kind on them (Masked Men Memorabilia cards are, as far as I've seen, stamped with 1 of 1s) and are not, I'd think, the source of the complaints I've seen about this set. Those cards also have silver (/5) and gold (/1) print runs. I have a few Masked Men cards with Vault stamps, including a gold /1. I just look at them like any other stamp (like a show stamp, for example). Cool to collect when I come across them but I'm not going to feel like my collection is lacking if I don't have every one of them.

I do agree that checklisting this product is difficult. Actually, wait. Difficult doesn't even begin to describe the herculean effort it would take to accurately checklist this product, much less provide print runs for everything. They were likely inventoried at some point even if it didn't lead to actual serial numbering. So it seems like something could have been released saying "hey, there are only six of this card" or whatever. I do completely agree that that kinda sucks. As it is, it seems like the only way to know for sure is if you've seen that a Teal V stamp exists and thus you can definitively stay that 10 of those cards exist in the Final Vault set. Because there's no way to be a set builder with this release, I don't think anyone is going to put in the work to try to do the hundreds of hours of research it would take to just try to determine what cards are out there on the market at this moment in time, much less historically. Even collecting the way I do, completely focusing on one player, I'm pretty in the dark as I only own/have seen one Teal-stamped Hextall card. So every other Hextall card I own with a Vault stamp has a print run of <10 for my record-keeping purposes because that's all I or anyone else can reasonably say about the print run for these cards without further evidence.

In short:

There are 10 or less of each card, each stamped with its own individually-colored 1 OF 1 stamp. The stamp acts like a serial number if you consider the serial number as 01/<10, 02/<10, 03/<10, etc.

All in all, Final Vault is confusing but not that confusing. It's kind of a weird release but unique and fun in a lot of ways that I appreciate even if I'm seemingly one of the few.

This product gets a lot of hate and I do understand why in some regards. If you had a legitimate 1/1 card and all of a sudden you see another one for sale just with a red stamp on it, I could see how that would irk some people. However, as I understand it from Dr. Price's posts on the subject, these cards are leftover customer service copies and buybacks. If there were 20 of a particular card, there are still 20 of that card. The few from this set are technically different cards. I understand that some people aren't OK with the assertion made in that last sentence and I'll admit that I'm essentially one of them. I'll accept a Vault copy of a card as the actual card in my collection if I don't have the original card. I make a note in my checklist that it's a Vault card, but nothing else is different except seeing the V stamp on there when I look at that card with the rest of the set.

I treat the different colors like a serial number. From Dr. Price's post referenced earlier in this thread:

• Red 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there is at least one card in the product.
• Blue 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least two cards in the product.
• Green 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least three cards in the product.
• Silver 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least four cards in the product.
• Gold 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least five cards in the product.
• Black 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least six cards in the product.
• Pink 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least seven cards in the product.
• Purple 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least eight cards in the product.
• Copper 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are at least nine cards in the product.
• Teal 1/1 Foil Stamp means that there are up to ten cards in the product.

So if I have a red card, it is basically serial number 1. The 1 of 1 is referencing that there is only one card stamped with that color. Blue is 2, Green is 3, Silver is 4, and so on all the way up to 10. Why 10? Because notice that the description for Teal is different than the others. As I read it, the Teal stamp is 10/10 because there are up to ten cards in the product. So why not just serial number the cards? Because not every card had 10 extra copies in the warehouse. Much easier to just stamp them as you go than to inventory everything, determine print runs, and change the serial numbering /XX as it varies wildly for each individual card. This is obviously just speculation as to the reason why they wouldn't go with traditional serial numbering, but it seems like the easiest process to just get a strong product out the door considering how everything went down with ITG.

I actually did buy a card like the one I referenced earlier. I have a Broad Street Boys Orange 1/1 card with a red stamp on it. This seems to be a potential replacement card for the actual 1/1 that was then stamped with a red V because it is the only one. There is at least one card in this product, but in this case we know that there aren't any more (or at least there shouldn't be, two replacement copies of a 1/1 seems a bit strange). Now, this could have been a buyback, as Dr. Price indicated that he did buy back original product (I think at the Expo?). I feel bad for the person that has the actual Orange card if this wasn't a buyback and was indeed a customer service replacement. But at the same time, this card has a huge red V stamped on it and isn't the same card no matter what. I'm still very torn about how to treat these cards so I've decided to just treat them however is the most convenient for me to treat them. If I want them to be the actual card, they're the actual card. If I have the actual card, they're an addition that gives my collection depth and breadth. Basically, I treat them however I'm going to have the most fun because why am I collecting anything at all if I'm not having fun doing it? It's worked for me so far.

I have several Hextall cards where I have multiple colors of the Vault cards in addition to the regular card itself and I do really enjoy collecting them. In fact, I actually like that a lot of collectors seem to have rejected this set, as prices are generally low (except when people see 1 of 1 and think they're worth crazy $$$) and I've picked up some really cool stuff from across the spectrum of ITG releases that I might not have otherwise had an opportunity to grab.

This is all true, of course, of the 1 of 1 cards. There are autos that are stamped with a black V that have an unknown print run. The only other cards from this set that have an unknown print run are the Masked Men cards stamped with a Green V. However, those are relatively common cards without memorabilia of any kind on them (Masked Men Memorabilia cards are, as far as I've seen, stamped with 1 of 1s) and are not, I'd think, the source of the complaints I've seen about this set. Those cards also have silver (/5) and gold (/1) print runs. I have a few Masked Men cards with Vault stamps, including a gold /1. I just look at them like any other stamp (like a show stamp, for example). Cool to collect when I come across them but I'm not going to feel like my collection is lacking if I don't have every one of them.

I do agree that checklisting this product is difficult. Actually, wait. Difficult doesn't even begin to describe the herculean effort it would take to accurately checklist this product, much less provide print runs for everything. They were likely inventoried at some point even if it didn't lead to actual serial numbering. So it seems like something could have been released saying "hey, there are only six of this card" or whatever. I do completely agree that that kinda sucks. As it is, it seems like the only way to know for sure is if you've seen that a Teal V stamp exists and thus you can definitively stay that 10 of those cards exist in the Final Vault set. Because there's no way to be a set builder with this release, I don't think anyone is going to put in the work to try to do the hundreds of hours of research it would take to just try to determine what cards are out there on the market at this moment in time, much less historically. Even collecting the way I do, completely focusing on one player, I'm pretty in the dark as I only own/have seen one Teal-stamped Hextall card. So every other Hextall card I own with a Vault stamp has a print run of <10 for my record-keeping purposes because that's all I or anyone else can reasonably say about the print run for these cards without further evidence.

In short:

There are 10 or less of each card, each stamped with its own individually-colored 1 OF 1 stamp. The stamp acts like a serial number if you consider the serial number as 01/<10, 02/<10, 03/<10, etc.

All in all, Final Vault is confusing but not that confusing. It's kind of a weird release but unique and fun in a lot of ways that I appreciate even if I'm seemingly one of the few.