Is Leaf Good or Bad for Collecting?

 Every card company attempts to fill a need in the card world and provide value to collectors in their own way.  It's kind like the streaming services of the world, in fact I bet they match up pretty well.

Topps  = Netflix.  Biggest name, longest history, and most likely to be here in 5 years

Panini = Hulu.  Provides a bunch of programs, but in all likely hood will be bought by someone soon

Upper Deck = Apple TV.  High quality programming, but other than Ted Lasso do you know any shows  they have?

Parkside = Shutter.  Covers the niche programming

Sage = Freevee.  Sure I can get the stuff cheap, but do I even want it?

Leaf = ?

My confusion with Leaf is that I don't know what to think of it, but I do think about them.  Today's entry point to my Leaf conundrum is the actor Tom Arnold.  You may remember him from a bunch of 90's movies, most famously True Lies, directed by James Cameron.  Most importantly, he is from Iowa and the reason this is here.

Tom Arnold has 113 cards listed in TCDB. All but 12 of the cards are from Leaf Metal Pop Century sets.  I currently have 0 Tom Arnold cards, and went to see which card would be the easiest for me to acquire.  Ease, in this case, is a function of if the card is serial numbered, auto'd, memorabilia or is base.   The card I determined to be the easiest would be the 2011 Topps American Pie Memorabilia Tom Arnold.

But wait! That image is the auto, not the memorabilia card!  That's right!  I wasn't able to find an image of the card.  So maybe that's not the easiest card to find?  But here's the thing.   That card is the only card not autographed by Tom Arnold!

So let's break it down further.  How many cards of his are either not serial numbered, or have serial numbers greater than 25 (a low number for sure, but a starting point).  That brings us down to 33 cards.  

Ok, lets remove all serial numbered cards (the highest being /99).  That brings us down to 24.

In 2020 Leaf Metal he has a dual auto with Laura Dern.  I have found exactly one listed on eBay, so I'm going out a ledge to say that no versions of it have a high count.  So lets remove them and now we are down to 10.

They are:

• 2010 Razor Cut Signature Edition #NNO Tom Arnold AU
• 2011 Topps American Pie - Autograph Relics #APAR12 Tom Arnold AU, MEM, EXCH
• 2011 Topps American Pie - Autographs #APA-12 Tom Arnold AU
• 2011 Topps American Pie - Relics #APR-12 Tom Arnold MEM, EXCH
• 2015 Cryptozoic Sons of Anarchy Seasons 4-5 - Autograph #TA Tom Arnold AU
• 2017 Topps Allen & Ginter - Mini Framed Non-Baseball Autographs #MA-TAR Tom Arnold AU
• 2017 Topps Allen & Ginter X - Framed Mini Non-baseball Autographs #MA-TAR Tom Arnold
• 2019 Leaf Metal Pop Century #BA-TA1 Tom Arnold AU
• 2019 Leaf Metal Pop Century - Silver Wave #BA-TA1 Tom Arnold AU
• 2022 Leaf Metal Pop Century #BA-TA1 Tom Arnold AU

Let's look at 2022 Leaf Metal Tom Arnold.  He has 55 cards in the set, and besides the base auto, everything else is numbered so I can tell you exactly how many parallels there are.  764.  

Look, I get it.  There are a lot of numbers, but who cares?  What does it mean anyway?  How is this different from Panini Prizm?  George Kittle has 40 versions of the same Prizm card, with a different color, affect and serial number on it.

Well, for a person like myself who tries to collect all of a person's cards, though however unrealistic that is, I look at Leaf and sees a company that doesn't give a crap about my collecting style and actively makes my spreadsheets look like awful and glories in it.  You want that person no one else is putting in their sets?  Great, give us $80 a card for a chance at them.  You want all their cards?  We are going to straight up invent colors and make a version of the card in it that is numbered to pi.  You think collecting cards numbered under a 100 is too unrealistic?  All of our cards are going to be that way.

Good for them.

Look, it hurts when I look at players from the 80s whom I have 50% of their cards and think I'm doing well, then look at a player from 2017 and think "Hey, it's great that I have 2.2% of their cards!"  I'm never going to own 10% of Joe Burrow's cards, and probably never going to have 10% of Tom Arnolds as well, but I do at least thank Leaf for providing the possibility for it.  

Perhaps someday I'll get his 2023 Leaf Metal Pop Century Moon Burst Aqurple Crystal version numbered to 9 3/4!