I am generally a positive person. I love the hobby and how it makes my life feel complete. Sad I know but everyone has a vice. I could be pissing away money drinking beer or snorting coke and have nothing to show for it. I hate blowing my nose. Developing cocaine habit isn’t something that I would gravitate to easily.

I have come to the cross roads of my life where I must take a stand in my life. Everyone has to take a stand on a hot topic.

I hate MINI and OVERSIZED cards.  There are several reasons why I hate them, but I will give you my top reason for each. Minis remind me that I am in need of bifocals and oversized cards make me feel like a fawn holed up in a pen of hungry tigers.  Help!!

Apart from the nice vintage feel of a T-206, the idea is dead and should never appear again.

I can just imagine the thought process behind these cardboard atrocities and how each person viewed the concept.

Print producer: You guys are wasting all this material on the edge of the prints. We should be recycling more and not being so wasteful. Think of how much more you can get out of the print process.

Production house: We need to find efficiencies during the manufacturing process to make higher margins on our wax sales.

Marketing guy: People will think these are so cute and remind them of the olden days of collecting. I am willing to bet we can squeeze a few dollars out of this demographic of collectors. I will hatch a strategic communications plan right away! Where is my designer and copy guy?

Strategist: According to my numbers, people are buying retro themed parallels at an astonishing rate! The conversion would be phenomenal! Imagine 0.00002% conversion rate of attracting new customers to our product lines. Leading edge innovation all the way! We will be the leaders in this new trend!

Copywriter:  What? You want me to reduce the copy? What do you want me to say exactly?

Designer:  Ok let me get this straight. You want me to take an already difficult traditional card canvas and shrink it to a mini? The images will be blurry. I am not satisfied with this look. It doesn’t scream “buy me” or look beautiful.

Legal review:  Sorry but the NHL mandates all Logo must follow the brand guidelines. Cannot be modified in any shape or manner. Also we need to add the copyright. Tell the designer to shrink the font to 2pt to make it fit. That will be $500 for 10 minutes I spent reviewing this idiocy.

Ultra Pro Sales Rep: Muhahhahaahah! Boys, lets crank out even more wasteful plastic and get these suckers to buy more products from us! Innovation!

Hobby Shop: Hey there kiddo. Want some free cards. Take all 30,000 of them that my customer base left behind.

Random Collector: Damn it, I just dropped my mini? Is there anyone around here who hasn’t chewed up their fingernails that can pick ‘em up for me?

Random-parent-talking-to-their-child: What do you mean you dropped them in the floor vent?

Random-eBay-scammer: How do I make this an eBay 1/1? Oh that card is the same height and weight of Martin St.Louis!  (I love MSL, but please just run with the idea)

Random family dog: Well that was an easy snack!

The moral of the story. Don’t offer me any of these cards unless you wish to hear vernacular that would make a nun blush and leap into mad prayer.