badpete69 wrote:You see this is where I disagree.. No one has to be 100% to the letter transparent... No one owes anyone anything here. I am not saying state that 1000 decks were made when 5000 were printed but if 1000 were made and a seller sells 946, then who gives a phoque It is totally irrelevant. As long as you have 1 of the 1000 who cares how many were made available. And the only reason we are having this discussion is because a few frustrated members wanted to express their displeausre.. Sounds to me that its more about missing out on the deck than anything else... Anyway again everyone is entitled to their opinion.
I think I'm going to side with alric on this one. Of course no one has to be 100% transparent, but it would be really nice if they did, especially with their "limited" or "rare" decks. Of course no one owes us anything, but I think designers want our business. Maybe some people are bitter because they missed out on a deck they wanted and they're venting on our forum (which they can do without having to delete their profiles here), but the principle still remains true: More transparency is always a good thing.
As decks get more "limited" and as prices continue to skyrocket, designers know that there is the greatest profit margins at the ultra limited high end of the spectrum. So if we're going to shell out money at multiples of what the market standard rate is, I don't think it's unreasonable for us to ask for some absolute transparency about these allegedly "limited" numbers. Seriously, where is the big burden in this? I''m assuming deck designers don't have anything to hide, so why not give up the real numbers? Its not a difficult thing for them to do and it would put everyone's minds (even the most paranoid collectors) at ease.
vasta41 wrote:Our opinions of what transparency is must differ. IMO we shouldn't even be having discussions like this (unless of course it's obvious and egregious which I think we can all agree this case is not) and Paul is not hiding anything; nor are some of the other designers you speak of. Every single deck creator here will tell you that all printing companies print extra decks (as much as 10%?) and the actual number down to the very last deck is different with each deck. If at the start of a project the creator says, "I'm going to print 1,000 decks" and USPCC send the creator 1,078 decks, some extra run offs, some dinged, some with glue exposed on the tuck, etc. I don't expect the creator to have to release a statement after the project is over stating that there are actually 1,078 decks. To me the 1,000 is as forthright as possible. So if you find it relevant for creators to disclose every last deck, even the screwed up ones that couldn't even function as a dogs chew toy, then I completely disagree with you and think that's a very demanding and high-strung way to be in this hobby.
I'm not talking about transparency for regular print run decks, only "limited" runs. I don't consider a 1000 print run limited, most common KS decks from foreign printers (EPCC/LPCC/NPCC, etc..) are 1000 deck print runs, and they don't have USPCC +/- 10% factorial. In my mind (and no one has to agree with this) if you claim less than 250 decks printed or in existence, or if they're priced more than 3x the standard market rate of a standard custom deck, then that should trigger a higher level of transparency. Do they HAVE TO? No. Would it be nice? Yes. Again, at these numbers it shouldn't be such an onerous pain for a designer to just provide these low numbers. In fact, I would argue it would even boost future sales of their ultra limited high end decks when collectors know one designer is far more transparent than another. And if the source of your ultra limited high end deck is from an over-run of a previous standard deck run and you're putting those extras into a blinged out ultra rare tuck, just say so. It's already been proven collectors will snatch up even mere tuck swaps. So yes, even accounting for screwed up ones that can't function as a dog toy is doable for low print runs, designers are big boys and girls and they know how to count up to 1100 and it shouldn't take them too long to get there.
But hell, maybe I'm just demanding and high-strung.
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