TF4 Topps Trading cards now out in Australia (free at some Hoyts)

[griffin]

Did anyone ever find the Collector Cards (not the card game) in Australia?

Banter wouldn't say when they were supposed to be out, and their website once said July.... but at $15 per pack of 10 cards, I can understand if newsagents and retailers didn't want the expensive risk of sitting on them.

[Sharky]

Did anyone ever find the Collector Cards (not the card game) in Australia?

Banter wouldn't say when they were supposed to be out, and their website once said July.... but at $15 per pack of 10 cards, I can understand if newsagents and retailers didn't want the expensive risk of sitting on them.

they were avaliable for stocking but newsagents wouldnt order them in, even with the Gaurentee sale of a full box, and banter themselves wouldnt sell them directly either, they tried to find some stockist..

i would imaging the costume card would be easy to cherry pick from the box leaving newsagents with almost full boxes of worthless base.


for me the value for money was not there at all..especially when compared to something like Guardians of the Galaxy from Upper Deck.

Topps Transformers 10 packs 1 memorbilia hit per box @ $150 per box.

Upper Deck GoTG 10 Packs, 2 memoriblila hits + 1 Sketch or Autograph, + 1 Jumbo Card with a 1:12 chance of a Jumbo Sketch, 1 bronze foil parallel per pack @ $87 a box

so you see the Upperdeck stuff was far superior to that of TF and i am Highly disapointed at the lack of oportunity for purchasing this product so much so that i dont even want it anymore

i would not be suprised to see these rock up in places like Uncle petes or toyworld in 12 months or so on clearence

[griffin]

None of that surprises me if true.
I wonder if Banter was then burnt with stock that they bought off Topps, or if they could reject being the Australian distributor, for someone else to do it (if there was anyone crazy enough).

Topps must have spent a lot of money on those movie props (truck panels and two outfits) to be charging that much money on regular cards just to pay for it all... and it sounds like they might be taking a big hit from it (globally).

(I wonder if it was already known to them, or if they saw it in my review, that it was easy to pick out the movie-prop packets, potentially leaving stores with unwanted, "worthless" cards. They would have to instruct stores to keep them out of reach of customers, to prevent feeling for the preferred packs.)

[Sharky]

(I wonder if it was already known to them, or if they saw it in my review, that it was easy to pick out the movie-prop packets, potentially leaving stores with unwanted, "worthless" cards. They would have to instruct stores to keep them out of reach of customers, to prevent feeling for the preferred packs.)

there are alot of companies out there that when dealing with mem/swatch/patch cards will insert "Dummys" or "Blanks" into the packs these are the same stock card but just blank as a deterant to the cherry picking.

i do think they priced themselves out - or priced it for the mid to high end card collectors, but if they were aiming for a higher end product they fell far from the bullseye, for that price there was still no pay off with a very ordinary base, base inserts and 1 guarenteed mem hit.

optimal collection was a far superior product on comparrison but then even alot of the other non sport products on the market deliver a much better product. it disapoints me as a card collector that Transformers was poor quality.

i would be interested to hear banters thoughts on this if you still have contact with them Griff, did they think it would sell better did they sell it and we just havent seen it. etc etc

[griffin]

They didn't reply when I last asked about them... so maybe don't want anything made public about it in case it leads Topps to revoke their license.

When you factor in buying of multiples, the cost of a complete set would cost at least $300-400... which is way too much for a set of photo movie cards that don't do much, or appreciate much, if at all.