I am an avid football card collector, have been for quite some time, and I have a very nice collection, stacked with high end autograph cards, 1/1's, nice swatches/jersey cards, the works.  It's just something I do, and I enjoy it, and yes I've spent far too much money on it, but I don't smoke crack, and I'm not a drunk, so football cards are my vice.

I watch a lot of videos on youtube that show box/case breaks of the higher end products that I purchase, and yesterday I came across a brand new product, and I'm very uneasy about it.

The company putting out said product is Leaf, and the product is Army All-American football.  The specs on each box are 12 cards, sent in a top loader case, all 12 cards are autographed.  A case will run you about $100.

When I first saw this product I was excited about it because I though, "cool, they're taking D-1/NFL players that were a part of one of the better (the better IMO of the two major) high school all-star games, and are selling them with autographs, it would be a cool piece of memorabilia...  Then I saw a video of the product being opened.

I was shocked to see autographed Porter Gustin, Xavier Lewis, Tavarus McFadden, Isaiah Prince, Ricky Town, and Trent Thompson trading cards... Then even more shocked when I saw the guy on the video pull a Mike Weber autographed card...

That's right, Leaf has commissioned to these high school kids to have them autograph trading cards of themselves, and they haven't even played a down in D-1...  The exploitation of these players has long been on display, and here is yet another case where a company is profiting off of kids who can't, legally, see a dime of any of the money made off of these boxes of cards.  I for one and incredibly disappointed to see this type of product hit the market, knowing how hard some of these kids are fighting to get a chunk of the pie, and it seems now they're getting to these high schoolers before they even get to their first fall camp.

I mean this product is for sale, legally, and Leaf is a reputable and respected company in the hobby world...  So obviously anything they're doing that would be construed as illegal must not be that big of a deal...  But where does it end, aside from these kids making money for companies who don't need help in that department, it's also just another thing to help swell the ego of a 17 year old kid... 

MOD EDIT - Moved to Anything Else forum