APBA Single Season Set Review

Many of us have waited for the ability to buy single teams from APBA for a long time.  The usual outlet for single season teams has been Ebay or the wiki's and this causes the dilemma of buying APBA products from the secondary market and weakening direct sales from APBA.  But, many of us want a certain team and do not want to buy the whole year.  I believe this desire has been growing with the incredible popularity of tournaments in the last few years. 

The company used back stock of XC's to sell single season teams to the lucky few that jumped on the order a few weeks ago.  Not everything went according to plan.  The company indicated it would launch the sale on Monday and when I checked into their APBA Store page at 8pm central on the Sunday night before, it was already live. I wonder if anyone didn't get a chance to get single season team because they were late and waited for Monday?  I received my cards about 10 days after ordering. 

I bought 8 teams including the 1990 Reds and I will take a quick look at the cards and comment on the quality.

The team sets come in sheets that are perforated. The cuts on my sheets were straight and the blades were sharp as the teams easily pull apart.  The perforations have rounded corners so I had to be careful at the edges so the little diamond shaped perforations came off easily.  

Overall the quality is good. As you can expect there are some small perforation ridges that show up on some cards, especially on the rounded corners.  The print stock is slightly thinner that I like and the occasional card is a bit off center. As you can see, both cards I happened to pick are off-center.  The print is in that small font that shows up on some XC sets and I really don't like it as it can be hard to read, especially the stat line in light green. The card stock is also less slick that the normal cards so they do have a tendency to stick together just a bit more than other cards. 


For those in the hobby that collect sets of cards like baseball cards, the negatives above may be a big deal, for gamers it is not a big deal.  I use my cards to play the game so I really don't care much for their quality in the collectible area of the hobby.  

The company includes printed envelopes for each team and that was something I didn't expect and I am quite pleased with their choice to do this. 

The back stock of baseball is gone As of July 28, 2018 and the offer is over for true baseball APBA teams, I think. The link to buy single teams is still up, however you are directed to this message:

You are ordering single APBA baseball teams. Each team is $8. In the comments section of the order form list the team and season year you are ordering. This only applies to teams offered in a regular season set. Only the latest version of that season is available. A team set will include all the cards for that team that are included in the season base set for that year. XCs are not part of this sale. We will adjust the shipping charge manually as we process the order. The ONLY way to order this product is via the store. No phone orders.

WE ARE NOW OUT OF BASEBALL CARD BACK STOCK. YOUR CARDS WILL BE PRINTED ON EITHER HOCKEY OR SOCCER CARD BACK STOCK. WE WILL NOT BE GETTING ANY MORE BASEBALL CARD BACK STOCK.

LIMIT TEN TEAMS PER ORDER



Obviously nobody knows how long the Hocky or Soccer back stock will last, but jump on it now if you want more sets from APBA directly.  But, be aware they are not on Baseball backs. 

I applaud the company on this move to at least test the market for single team sets, we will see if this becomes a standard feature of APBA.