Petition to Pokemon USA, Inc. - Promo Tins

SleepyScruffy

Aspiring Trainer
Member
Hello,

I've started a petition to Pokemon USA, Inc. about changing the way they package their promotional cards inside of tins. You see, not a single promo card out of the 7 tins I've purchased recently has come in mint condition. They all have small blemishes on the top and/or bottom of the cards.

I've asked around, and I'm not the only one who has this issue. So, I was hoping, the Pokemon TCG community could make it known to Nintendo that we'd like them to change their packaging methods so that we can buy tins without having to accept compromised promo cards.

The petition is here: http://www.change.org/petitions/pok%C3%A9mon-trading-card-game-pok%C3%A9mon-usa-inc-change-the-packaging-method-for-promotional-tins

I would greatly appreciate any signatures, and I encourage you to spread this petition around. Tell your friends, acquaintances, etc. This isn't an unreasonable demand, I believe. And I'm sure most if not all collectors would appreciate this change.

EDIT: Updated the link, sorry about that.
 
This seems like a good idea, but I don't think they will listen. Tpci has been sloppy in the past and present, and will forever be sloppy. They don't even care that much anymore about it. It's a wonder why korean and japan cards are more sought out by collecters.
 
This would be quite hard for them actually. You see, I believe they use factorys to package the cards and stuff, and to change how the machines put the cards in the tin, may cost lots of money.
 
Salamencetrainer34 said:
This would be quite hard for them actually. You see, I believe they use factorys to package the cards and stuff, and to change how the machines put the cards in the tin, may cost lots of money. (This is probably bad logic)

Ah, I wasn't aware of that.

However, even if it is difficult for them, I'd at least like them to be aware that collectors don't appreciate their current method of packaging. Hopefully that'd influence them down the line to change that or something.
 
Salamencetrainer34 said:
This would be quite hard for them actually. You see, I believe they use factorys to package the cards and stuff, and to change how the machines put the cards in the tin, may cost lots of money. (This is probably bad logic)

Thats not bad logic. Machines are a lot of money, and when your a HUGE company like TPCi they hire people to cut prices down by even an 1/8th of a cent, so to them thats a lot of money since they mass produce. hmmm.... if they're trying to cut cost by an 1/8th of a penny what makes you think they are going to want to throw out a perfectly usable machine just so they can buy another one

Considering they make millions of dollars off the fan base i seriously doubt that they are going to waste time and money on something that only collectors care about. I personally play the game so I'm going to be buying at least 2 Thundurus Ex and 4 Deoxys EX promo tins. Do I care about the condition? Absolutely not, so if its not that big of a deal to them and they aren't missing out on large portions of dough by not changing their packaging there is no reason for them to do so.

I do see your point though
(PS Sorry for the mini rant)
 
AlexanderTheAwesome said:
Salamencetrainer34 said:
This would be quite hard for them actually. You see, I believe they use factorys to package the cards and stuff, and to change how the machines put the cards in the tin, may cost lots of money. (This is probably bad logic)

Thats not bad logic. Machines are a lot of money, and when your a HUGE company like TPCi they hire people to cut prices down by even an 1/8th of a cent, so to them thats a lot of money since they mass produce. hmmm.... if they're trying to cut cost by an 1/8th of a penny what makes you think they are going to want to throw out a perfectly usable machine just so they can buy another one

Considering they make millions of dollars off the fan base i seriously doubt that they are going to waste time and money on something that only collectors care about. I personally play the game so I'm going to be buying at least 2 Thundurus Ex and 4 Deoxys EX promo tins. Do I care about the condition? Absolutely not, so if its not that big of a deal to them and they aren't missing out on large portions of dough by not changing their packaging there is no reason for them to do so.

I do see your point though
(PS Sorry for the mini rant)

Those are excellent points, and something to take into consideration when asking for such a thing.

I don't really know if they will listen, how hard it'd be to meet this demand, but I'm just hoping that if something can be done about it, that it will be. Who knows? Maybe, years down the line, when they have to do maintenance on the machines or replace them or whatever, they'll remember this and take it into consideration.
 
Say what you want, they don't care about you. It's the truth. They won't chage anything.
 
I feel like you should have made a more general petition asking for much better quality control for English cards overall, and then listed this as an example.
 
I applaud the effort, but like other posters, don't think anything will come of it. If you're looking for great quality cards, both in print and condition, I suggest you look into collecting Japanese cards instead. Cheaper, better pulls rates, better printing quality and I've never pulled a card from a pack or a promo set with a single ding, splotch or scratch.
 
Great idea! But like Daelum I think it's better to make it about the quality of the cards in general.
I really hate it when a cards has damage on it even before I open the tin/blister/box/booster.
And since Dragons Exalted almost every Booster has 1 card that's scratched and the corners are cut awffuly.

Pokémoncards are for playing and collecting. Smart because they aim at two different targets so they sell more cards then when they only aim at the players. But every collector (no matter what he/she is collection) goes for the best.
If they have to make them cheap so then can make more profit, that doesn't mean the cards have to be damaged. Just look at the Korean cards from the latest BW sets. They are really cheap and the quallity is better than the English cards. If the most collectors are kids like back in 2000, quality is not that important. Kids will buy it no matter what just because it's a hype.
Now, most collectors are not kids (except when they open a Booster ;) ). And older collectors find quality important.

Long story short. They will have to improve the quality to hold on to the collectors market. Otherwise they will only collect Japanese (like some of you already did) ore they will stop collecting Pokémoncards (like some people I know).
 
Oh! I wasn't aware English cards had a quality problem besides this one thing. I'm sorry for not looking further into the issue. ^_^;

I wonder if I can adjust the petition to accommodate this...

Thanks for all the replies, by the way. I understand what you're all saying, and I appreciate that you've validated my dissatisfaction with the tin issue. I also appreciate you bringing to light the issue of quality in English cards.
 
Some other common English card quality issues:

- miscuts, which are more and more common recently
- holos/RHs scratching in the pack (was worse with the old HGSS-BW RHs, but now that sort of style is coming back with the Plasma cards, so...)
- poor quality control with packs, having cards missing or extra cards inserted
- poor packaging with other promo and gift sets, not just the tins
 
To add what artemis said, some booster boxes contain 37/38 packs sometimes (I can live with that though)

And, Artemis is right with all. I got a keldeo jumbo box a long time ago. The keldeo promo was all creased, bent, it was horrible. And the third issue he/she listed is somewhat rare.
 
I think it would be fairly easy to have a piece of card stock underneath the promo. That, or they could shrink wrap the promo and glue a piece of card stock on to keep it from bending. Doing so would also prevent scratching.
 
As stated before, TPCi does not care. The cards they put in tins are not even taken into consideration for quality control - they just give a cheaper alternative for meta cards. It's been really sad to see the BW English Era have so many errors and card faults, it's almost making WOtC look good at this point. But I digress...if you want success with your petition you should expand the topic to overall quality of english cards and list it as one of the MANY points.

Then again you could always just do as many have recommended and switch to collecting Japanese cards for various reasons.
 
Salamencetrainer34 said:
To add what artemis said, some booster boxes contain 37/38 packs sometimes (I can live with that though)

Boxes have 36 packs... so 37 would be you getting an extra.
 
grantm1999 said:
Salamencetrainer34 said:
To add what artemis said, some booster boxes contain 37/38 packs sometimes (I can live with that though)

Boxes have 36 packs... so 37 would be you getting an extra.
Exactly. Sometimes they add packs to boxes. Not like it's an issue though.
 
Salamencetrainer34 said:
To add what artemis said, some booster boxes contain 37/38 packs sometimes (I can live with that though)

And, Artemis is right with all. I got a keldeo jumbo box a long time ago. The keldeo promo was all creased, bent, it was horrible. And the third issue he/she listed is somewhat rare.

I got a pack with 11 cards in it plus the code card, no wonder why it felt so heavy.

Pokemon does really need to step up there quality control, but they are to lazy to do that.
 
Oh, just FYI, they are TPCi now. They stopped being PUSA when D&P came out.
 
I think they should take out the bulky plastic trays out of the tins, and instead just put the packs and then the promo in a sealed wrapper with supporter cards (like holo movie entei, ancient mew, promo pichu etc). They could even do away with the tins all together and just pack in 1 big wrapper or blister.
 
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