An open letter to SCD

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Posted By: Jim VB

I admit it. I'm the fool who still has a subscription to your paper. I had one for years. Gave it up for a few years and then picked it back up last Spring, just to see how you were doing. It's not pretty.

On January 2, 2008, I received the issue dated 1/11/08. Then, apparently, you took three weeks off. Today, I received the 1/18 AND 1/25 issues. Of course, both are outdated already. Each is about 45 pages.

I understand circulation is down. Advertising pages are down even more. If you eliminate the shady advertisers, you'd be closed in a month. But who do you think you're fooling? Why try so hard to continue to publish weekly? Years ago, a fine publication called "Home Furnishings Daily" gave up trying. They switched their name officially, to "HFD" (nice initials, but no longer meaning "daily"), and began publishing every week. There just wasn't enough news (or ads) to justify a daily edition.

You don't have enough to publish every week. Not enough stories, not enough auctions, not enough ads, not enough show schedules, no more relevant price lists. Nada.

I don't want you to go away mad. I don't really even want you to go away. But I want you to be relevant. Your publishing a 1980's paper in the year 2008. The industry has changed. The world has changed. Teletrade doesn't buy 15-20 pages a week to run their auctions. Ebay works better..., without newspaper support. It's not your fault, but it is reality. The internet killed you guys and nobody told you.

You'd be far, far better as a bi-weekly or even a monthly. Not like Beckett's or Tuff Stuff, with 10 pages of content, 60 pages of ads, and 80 pages of meaningless price guides. Find a niche where you can mean something and dominate that niche. It will be a struggle, but it won't be an embarassment like you are right now.

I know some of you guys read this site. I don't think you did anything wrong. It just happened. Chris, T.S., Don, please, try something to fix this.

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Posted By: Dan Bretta

SCD is dead to me. I was at the local card shop yesterday picking up supplies...I used to pick up the SCD every time I stopped in. Now with their apparent collaboration with Coach's Corner I will never even give their magazine a second glance. If you can't make it without the riff raff then you don't belong in the hobby. They don't need to reorganize, they need to ride off in the sunset.

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Posted By: DJ

Word for word, I am with Dan.

DJ

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Posted By: Ben

I am relatively new to the card hobby and subscribed to SCD approximately 4 months ago. I have never felt my money was so wasted in all my life. SCD is probably the worst publication I have ever read.

As Jim pointed out you can go 3 weeks without receiving an issue and then all 3 show up in your mailbox at the same time. The magazine has very little content and is almost entirely made up of Mr Mint's face and laughable Coach's Corner auctions. Even though I am new to the hobby I immediately figured there was something wrong with an auction house that sold single signed Gehrig and Honus Wagner balls every week for several hundred dollars.

Every issue seems almost identical to the previous one. The little "1 Year Ago" "5 Years Ago" "10 Years Ago" piece they have is always the same, telling readers that the card hobby was collapsing and kids were not buying cards. After that they have a writer tell you how great the coach's corner auction was and then six pages of more bogus material from that auction house.

I really thought this publication would have something to offer a new collector but it certainly doesn't. It also seems to me that the publication could be made much better with minimal effort.

Sorry for the rant but each time I receive an issue in the mail I get angry. I'm glad someone started this thread!

Ben

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Posted By: Frank Wakefield

I have bought a very few of these, that were quite old, just to get an old article that was in one.

I've seen new ones for sale the last dozen years, but refrained from buying one. Someone must be buying 'em....

Seems that the universe is in balance. David Bryan has DavidBVintage going well on eBay, and then there is SCD.


I think these guys are right, changes as they suggest would have a 21st century competitive product.

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Posted By: Fred C

SC-what? A long time ago before the internet, before home computers that was like the hobby mag that provided the most hobby commerce. I subscribed back in the 70s and 80s. I'd pick up a copy here and there in the 90s but I can't remember the last time I bothered picking up a copy of what used to be a great hobby publication.

I'm not sure that SCD can do much to bring interest back to the magazine.

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Posted By: Jim Clarke

Very well said... I agree almost 100%. I never renewed my subsription after they would NOT let me run a "I Hate Al Rosen Fan Club" ad in the back of the book. I think the only purpose they still have is to send out auction company's catalogs to their mailing list.

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Posted By: barrysloate

Jim VB- good letter, well thought out. SCD used to be the top of the world, but it is now irrelevant. I think in time it will fold.

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Posted By: Tom Boblitt

Coachs' Corner Auctions........
Enough for NO ONE to buy SCD..........

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Posted By: Rich Klein

This post below was made on the daily SABR newsgroups today. I believe the Neft-Cohen encylopedias have been issued every year for the past 20; I know I would pick one up every year. One less book for me to buy this year! SCD has very similar problems.

Regards
Ricn



According to Pete Wolverton, the sports editor at St. Martin's Press, there
is no new edition planned of the Neft & Cohen encyclopedia. Pete cites
declining sales due to the internet as the reason.
Jim Charlton

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Posted By: Mark Steinberg

Tom nailed it...

Any periodical providing a venue for operations such as Coach's Corner should not be supported. Even if SCD's remaining content was somehow made more relevant, the ongoing support/promotion of such a blatantly fraudulent operation is detestable.

A lot of potential "fixes" have been suggested, but all of these matters pale in comparison to SCD's blind support of CC. There is a big difference between ineptitude and supporting a cause which you know to be wrong.

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Posted By: dan mckee

For the past 15 years SCD means "shiny stuff" to me. I stopped getting it years ago.

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Posted By: Paul

I used to be angry when issues arrived late because it meant that I missed out on all the good advertised cards. Now I don't care because nobody advertises there anymore. I still subscribe because I figure 40 bucks a year is worth it for the occasional good article. But I am reconsidering because of the Coach's Corner issue. I've been a subscriber since the early 1980s, but I don't like the idea of subsidizing and legitimizing that outfit.

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Posted By: RayB

Its too bad really. There was a time when there were actually good articles in it as well. Interviews with current and ex ballplayers were my favorite pieces especially those players that shared their collecting habits. They really need to get back to doing more of that.
Its really not that hard to get guys to agree to interviews.
Many retired players from the 50's,60's, and 70's would love to be looked up and chatted around.
Just one example of missing content that I always liked.
Too little of this today.

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Posted By: Ken McMillan

rank it there with Beckett. Two thumbs down.........

Ken

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Posted By: Alan

I've been reading SCD on & off since the late 1970's. It used to be a great publication. It is now absolutely worthless.

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Posted By: Rick McQuillan

I hate to bash the Post Office since I am a Postmaster, but don't blame SCD for the sporadic arrival of their magazines. Ever since the Postal Service "streamlined" the periodical mailstream a couple of years ago the number of customer complaints in regard to late magazines and newspapers has skyrocketed. Our consumer affairs department has been working on the problem and they tell us that the problem is solved, but judging from the arrival times of my own SCD's, I know for sure that the problem still exists.

Rick

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Posted By: Jim VB

True. Any periodical that is mailed from a central location, instead of a local printer suffers some of these problems. Magazines printed regionally (We get Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, People and Entertainment Weekly in our house.) seem to avoid the problem. Small circulation mags (SCD, and Track & Field News for example) suffer.

However, since I paid SCD, it should be their problem to figure out. They have been non-responsive to me on this issue. They will tell you that every issue should arrive at least 8 days before the cover date. In the last year, I could count those that have, on one hand.

I know for a fact that the local PO delivers them to me on the day they get their hands on them. (They have to. They don't have room to store anything.) Our city has grown from 6500 people in 1990 to over 100,000 today. The Postal workers are the busiest guys in town. Finally, in the last year, they opened remote drop off points at two storage facilities and one remote postal center. Before that everything, in and out, went through the one building.


The problem is on the other end... printing, distribution to the PO, or start-up handling. Frankly, I don't care which it is.

Put a fork in SCD. It's done.

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Posted By: Ed Ivey

I have never subscribed to SCD. Old Cardboard magazine, to which I recently subscribed, makes my day when I see it in the mail - great articles.

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Posted By: Andrew S.

Jim, that must be the fastest growing community in the US where you live? What has been the main reason?

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Posted By: Jim VB

http://www.forbes.com/forbeslife/2007/07/16/suburbs-growth-housing-forbeslife-cx_mw_0716realestate_2.html


According to Forbes, we're only #7. But, 15-18% annual growth makes us double in size every 4-5 years. We build a lot of schools. Scary part is the land area is only 35-40% built out. Even as it slows a little, in 8-10 it'll be close to 300,000.

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Posted By: leon

Not to take this too far off topic, I think we all agree SCD could use some management rethinking, I didn't realize you live in Frisco? I assure you as fast as ya'll are growing, relatively speaking, Lucas is growing faster. We moved here 7 years ago with 1800 folks...now there are probably 7000....and I think we will make the chart within a year or two at over 10000....I think we might need to be over 10000 to make the chart in the first place. We need to get together sometime. Jeff P lives in Plano and he and I get together every so often. My good friend Rich K lives close to us as well as Scott B......take care (I wish we wouldn't grow anymore but it's inevitable)....

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Posted By: James Feagin

I'm one of those millions looking to relocate to either the DFW Metroplex or NW Arkansas in the not so distant future.

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Posted By: Jim VB

James,

If you have a choice between Bentonville and Plano, I'd vote for the latter. But that's just me.

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Posted By: James Feagin

Jim,

It's a toss-up really. I was born in Arkansas, have strong roots in NW Arkansas and love my Razorbacks. I love the Granbury/Stephenville area of Texas and am excited by how much of a country feel it has with the big cities only a stone's throw away. Either way, I will take those housing prices in Texas over that of Maryland. As for SCD, my have the mighty fallen.

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Posted By: CN

If anyone from SCD reads this board please stop sending me your publication. Some time ago I recieved an issue stating this was my next to last issue after being bombarded with renewal notices. I still recieve the paper and don't want it. I just got my mail and SCD was there. I don't need to see a picture of Sammy Davis JR,s wedding register on the front cover. What an embarrassment you have become! CN

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Posted By: Wil Jordan

Jim:

I have been a subscriber to SCD for at least 25 years. Your comments are right on the money. I really don't know why I re-newed the subsciption. I guess out of habit. It would seem that SCD no longer has a valuable place in the hobby. Unless they start doing a better job it will fold.

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Posted By: Lance

Starts a great fire! Other than that, well, uh, I wish I had money back!

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Posted By: Alan

Maybe there should be a poll on WHEN will it go out of business.

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Posted By: T206Collector

<<If anyone from SCD reads this board please stop sending me your publication. Some time ago I recieved an issue stating this was my next to last issue after being bombarded with renewal notices. I still recieve the paper and don't want it. I just got my mail and SCD was there.>>

This happened to me, too. For a while I was concerned that I had accidentally sent them more money. But I hadn't. I think they just keep sending it out for another year or two because I haven't gotten one in awhile. But I did get them for a year or more after I did not renew. I even got a free autographed photo of Bob Lemon (WOOOO HOOOO!) for not renewing!

Fortunately, I haven't gotten one in a few months. Fingers crossed I don't get one ever again.


_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Visit http://www.t206collector.com for my blog, interviews, articles, card galleries and more!

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Posted By: DJ

Any truth to the rumor that it can now be made into a paper airplane? When will it go out of business? It's now officially a brochure at 40 pages, most of it is Coach's, a bald orange man and nonsensical, biased reporting. It has to be soon, right? What's the magic number...30 pages?

DJ

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Posted By: Steve Murray

It'll be gone in two years and I'll take the under.

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Posted By: DD

My black lab loved the Addie Joss single signed baseball I picked up last year for $4.30. He loves anything tea-flavored.