(In the offices at Topps, Duryea, PA.)
Frederick: Now...that setlist you gave me. The one for Topps Archives.
Igor: Yes, doctor?
Frederick: Did it...by any chance...have any short prints on it?
Igor (pausing for emphasis): ...yes.
Frederick: Ah, good. Now...would you mind telling me...what the odds are of someone *pulling* one of those short prints is?
Igor: And you won't be angry?
Frederick: I WILL NOT....BE ANGRY.
Igor (choosing his words carefully): one in...seven...
Frederick: One in *SEVEN*?
Igor: One in...seventy...
Frederick: One...in seventy.
Igor: I'm almost...certain, that was it, doctor.
Frederick: Are you telling me...that we put a product on the shelves...WITH short prints...after we specifically said there wouldn't be any...and there's less of a chance of pulling one...THAN BEING STRUCK BY LIGHTNING!
(Frederick starts strangling Igor)
Frederick: IS! THAT! WHAT! YOU'RE! TELLING! ME?!?
Igor (motioning to Inga, in the corner): QUICK! GIVE HIM THE-
Inga: Uhh...THREE SYLLABLES! FIRST SYLLABLE-
Fin
And now my thoughts on the move for Archives.
I...honestly...have no idea what Topps is trying to accomplish by adding thirty cards to a base set that they had said SEVERAL TIMES would be short-print-less...and then making them IMPOSSIBLE to pull. I do not see the point of this...mainly because there is none. It makes sense when they're 1:4, and you can sort of, eventually get them all. But now they're 1:70. And NOW there's a slim-to-nothing chance of getting ONE, let alone all 30. It's pointless.
I think the only thing set-collectors SHOULD do...is just ignore the short prints. To me, the set ends at card #300. If I pull one, I'll figure out some way to get rid of it. It won't count in my eyes. Because it's BS to me.
Hopefully there won't be any other random BS announcements for Archives. I so badly want to like this set. And Topps keeps giving me reasons not to.
Would love to see their sales data from sets that have short prints and those that don't and see if people really do buy more in order to chase SPs or not. Maybe this will be the product that pushes them past the threshold of attainability and collector's who might have tried for the 1:4s will bypass the set altogether.
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