1988 Topps Stickers Baseball Forum

The creation ofVAR for every possible sticker / back combination has now created a mess in my Trade list and I am sure others are also unaware theirs is also a mess. 

I had the stickers that I had available for trade listed but without regard to the sticker back of them. The one thingI did know is that any player sticker back I collect, e.g. Mike Schmidt, would not be listed in my traders.  So now when I amfilling out a trade proposal of an obvious Phillies fan, lo and behold, he requests the stickers 38/139.  When I pull the sticker, I notice neither player is a Phillies which I find odd.  So I come back tomy computer and look at the card he is asking for and sure enough,it is the VAR with Mike Schmidt.  I NEVER HAD THAT VAR LISTED AS A TRADER! I ONLY HAD THE STICKER WITH WHATEVER STICKER BACK THERE WAS ON THE STICKERSI HAD.  BUT NOW THAT WE HAVE ADDED ALL THE VAR AT OTHERS INSISTANCE, THERE ARE SOME LISTED IN MY TRADERS THAT ARE NOT FOR TRADE.  I DON'T EVEN HAVE THIS PARTICULAR COMBINATION IN MY PC!

A mess it is and I am sure I also have to check the other years. When the VAR were added, the site simply assumed the first combo listed was the one every unaware member had checked off. Great. Just great.  Happy those who need every possible VAR of these are happy they can check them off individually instead of doing what most of us do when we have a VAR not listed (that should not be listed such as personally acquired autographs) which is to use the Edit Details feature that can be found for every single card in the database.  

Of course, I could make one of these VAR simply by peeling the stickers I have and putting them on the card back of Schmidt.

And yes, I am pissed!!!

1 - It's still in progress, but yes, it's a mess. We aren't done, so we hadn't "announced" anything yet.

2 - The biggest problem was the way these were originally listed. 38 / 139 was probably listed as 38 and 139 - two listings. In the effort to clean these up, we needed to make these one listing. 38 & 139 were always together, so the presumption was "If a user has 139, they have 38 as well" and we consolidated the collection info into the one card.

3 - This method was completely sanctioned by Admin.

4 - Sorry you're so uset by this. Members may be better off deleting all of their collection info for the 1988, 1989, and 1990 Topps (and eventually OPC) Sticker sets.

5 - We did a similar thing (minus the crazy back info) for the previous years' stickers. I thought e-mails ere auto-generated when collection info was transferred. If it isn't, I'm sorry.

Dan,

It is not in the reorganizing of the #method. I am all for that.  It is the insistence of those who want every possible front back combination that I am pissed at.  There is a method for one to catalogue all of his possible VAR but it is not good enough for them so now we have this mess. It will still be a mess once you clean it all up because there will eventually be 60+ VAR for each sticker combo. Trust me, if a combination doesn't exist someone will make it exist if there is a demand for it.

Probably the WORST thing Admin has ever accepted in allowing, the adding of every VAR for the sticker / back combiination.

I have only 2 stickers For Trade from this set. Winfield #159 and Ripken #160. In both cases the card on the back DOES NOT MATCH the variation listed in the Data Base. The Winfield is not listed as a varation. The Ripken is but neither one matches with what I have.  I could edit the details and hope someone reads it. Or I could remove the stickers and not trade them to anyone. Or I could hope someone reads this thread and offers to take them off my hands. 

I'm with sandyrusty on this issue.

<----------- Sits in the corner and keeps his mouth shut.

Ha....One listing I haven't gotten around to. All my stickers are just residing in a huge box. Maybe I should leave them there for now. But what happens to ALL the ones I'm getting in a trade? Will they be messed up?

<----------- Sits in the corner and doesn't catalogue his stickers.

I'll stay pseudo-neutral, but not keep my mouth shut.  As usual, I suppose.

I'm a variant fan, so I'm inclined to say that we should be pursuing a thorough situation in our database.  If there are really potentially 60 variants of each, that really, REALLY stinks.  I'd be frustrated with Topps for this situation.  A few different printings to correct errors?--sure.  A few variants of front/back combinations like Fleer ended up with in their Team Logo Sticker inserts of the 80's?--I'll live.  But to intentionally either a)build 60 choices of each or b)make everything random, so we don't actually know if some combinations even exist?  Not cool.  I don't know which is the case in this situation, but either way it's bad in my opinion.

I get burned by this sometimes with aforementioned Fleer example, as people will occasionally find more variants (sometimes it's me).  It's a real pain in the neck.  The suggestion to delete the whole collection and start entering anew is, unfortunately, one I've had to pursue once.  It is a solution, but not elegant and more than a little frustrating.

OK, so that's not so neutral overall, I guess.  I guess it's just sympathetically understanding of both sides, but a bit more in favor of the ADMIN direction this time.  One request I would have to ADMIN would be to see if such updates could trigger an automatic e-mail to anyone who has potentially affected cards in the set in their collection.   Some people will never see this forum thread and not know it's going on.

Hang in there, y'all.  It's not a perfect system/site, but we all know it's pretty darn close and likely the best thing out there for our community's needs.  Thanks to the folks who have to make these tough calls, and to all of us who have to live with the ones we disagree with.

Always felt Topps should have left the stickers to Panini, and Panini should leave the cards to Topps. 

I've been cleaning up the consolidation of the OPC stickers, and have 86 and 87 done, currently consolidating 85...but I don't know if I'm going to go after 88, 89, or 90 yet for this very reason. I appreciate the collector's who want "every" variation, but the whole sticker and different "card back" checklists to me is just ludicrous! 

Now the directive from ADMIN with the "Backs" set is to have the back image blank with no variation, and the back of the sticker the front. Here I have done 88 OPC already.

https://www.tradingcarddb.com/Checklist.cfm/sid/10049/1988-O-Pee-Chee-Sticker-Backs

. I offer this solution....if there are the possibilities of each back card being paired with each front card can't we create a base set checklist with the...well...checklist card back as the base and then 59 parallels with each player card back? This does not solve Bruno and other's (including mine) frustrations with the countless variations, but may be an easier solution than searching everywhere for a variation in a checklist.

Or as Chuck mentioned...don't catalouge them here :)

EDIT: Much like these are set up

https://www.tradingcarddb.com/Checklist.cfm/sid/117310