Perfectly timed mail-day… Florian Wirtz Red Renaissance /5

Went into Sapphire realistically chasing only one thing, and as a great man once said; ‘I love cards’. Massive thanks to Anthony Marrone for this absolute beauty.

I’ll wait to see if anyone publicly declares they bought it before passing judgement. I will say that Lamine Yamal may have singlehandedly saved the fate of the ‘National Debut’ tag, because I never thought these would get the consideration a card stamped with ‘RC’ would.

This is the kind of stuff that really bothers me. I understand damage can happen and it sucks when it does. The replacement process needs to be clear, customer-focused and offer you relevant item(s) if a remake is not possible.

Cole Campbell Padparadscha 1/1 Rookie from Topps UCC Sapphire 24/25 🦅🇺🇸

Perfect words from Dan. I’m finding it incredibly hard to process all of this, a tragic loss of life of two young men who so many people loved.

With so many different dual and triple autographs coming out over the last 12-18 months, I am confused how we are yet to see a Messi/Yamal dual make its way into any product. It seems like it immediately becomes a grail-level soccer card, unless it is being saved for something…

I will keep saying it again and again, the biggest disparity between a current player’s talent level and their rookie card prices is Cole Palmer. He will be key for England for the next 3 major tournaments and already one of the best players in Europe.

Presented by Panini America who will not release a product for this tournament until a month after it is over and won’t do an Instant/on-demand set for it. Nailed it.

Been working really hard the last couple of months to make the best collector’s experience at our table at SoCo - this will be where myself and the boys will be situated. I’ll try and tease more over the next 2 weeks but please come by and grab a beer with us!

Here’s something odd. If you go the Grail page on Topps Ripped and click to see what products the Grail will feature in, it shows these in the terms and conditions. However, when you click the map for each individual grail piece, none of them have Stadium Club listed…

Just to tag off this and give my thoughts - an absolutely inexplicable decision to remove a fan favourite annual release from the calendar, especially after how good 23/24 was. I hate this and it goes contrary to everything we were told at the Industry Conference.

I will be claiming royalties for this one!

The collecting space on X has some gems and great people but the longer you are here you become more aware it represents a microcosm of the overall community and their sentiment. It isn’t surprising given that the platform pushes content that feeds off negativity and outrage.

For those that find this really difficult the card on the left IS a rookie. Released in August 2020, has RC. The card on the right is NOT a rookie; released in September 2022, does not have RC. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Nothing quite like buying a PSA 10 of a card for 10% more then you paid for a raw copy less than a month ago 💀

Pretty wild news IF this turns out to be true. Panini Adrenalyn checklist shows an image of the first ever (non-cut) Mohamed Salah autograph card, though he doesn’t appear on the checklist. It does appear to be very similar to his auto. Huge get for Panini if he is signing now.

Kylian Mbappe with 2 goals and a great performance. No doubt the haters are preparing every argument about why he isn’t that good.