Hey Zistlers. Andrew from “Packs to the People” emailed us and asked for our help promoting his video “Manhunt Break”. They entered a creative contest a while back and it turned in to a sponsored gig from Upper Deck and they are trying to get the word out. We are always willing to help collectors who are doing new things in the hobby. This is definitely not your typical box break video. This is an 08-09 O-Pee-Chee Premiere Hockey Break but they have others from other sports on the way. Check it out and if you have a youtube account, let them know what you think.

by ashley Box Breaks, Hockey, Zistle Updates 08-09 O-Pee-Chee Premiere, Manhunt Break

We just rolled out a new feature to the Zistle main site! Many of you have asked for a way to annotate cards in your collections, so we added a new view type.  If you are viewing or editing your collection you will now notice a “details” view option is available.  If you select that it will show you your results that look like this:

In addition to being able to edit your collection like the other views, in details view you can add and view notes that you have put on your cards.  If you click “edit note” you will get an input box that you can enter your notes into

If you click save then your note will be attached to that card

So notes will allow you to store information specific to your cards for you to see.  A few things to note about notes:

1. Right now you can only use this view on your own collections
2. If you search while viewing your collection you will search over your notes
3. If you move the quantity of cards to 0 you will lose any notes attached to those cards

Enjoy and if you have any suggestions for improvements we would love to hear them!

by josh Features, Zistle Updates

This is the first in a series of posts that will begin addressing issues in creating a Zistle Style Guide. The Zistle Style Guide will be a collaborative project in Zistle members will reach consenus regarding naming conventions and categorizing that will be used for the Zistle Library. Before I delve into this post, I want to make the point that there are many different naming practices that exist–thereby creating the confusion in the first place. This discussion is not to decide what is the “right” way but what is the best way for Zistle and its members. I am aware that some of you are quite passionate about your views and I ask you to think about what is the best for everyone–not your personal preferences.Thanks in advance for your participation and enthusiasm.

Brands vs. Sets

While it may seem obvious, I think it is important to distinguish the difference between a brand and a set and the implications for Zistle. A brand is the name of the Card Manufacturer: Topps, Upper Deck, Razor, Donruss, etc. On Zistle, sets are the actual sets released by a manufacturer. So Topps is a set in addition to Topps Heritage. Topps Heritage is not a subset of Topps. There are a few reasons for this but the most important reason is parallel sets and categorization. Most sets include multiple subsets (parallels, inserts, autos, relics) often with the same numbers (parallels). If we do not have subsets, it becomes impossible to sort these cards correctly. A good rule of thumb is that if you can buy a pack of it, it is a set. If you can’t buy a pack of it, it is a subset of another set. There are exceptions and often there are inserts from other sets in many sets. These are admittedly more difficult to classify and requires a second post. I think most people agree on this topic, however, if anyone has any ideas for how to deal with sets that fall outside of the conditions listed above or if anyone has any additional comments, please share them.

Main Set vs. Subsets

In my personal opinion, this is one of the most difficult issues to resolve and I am extremely interested in what people think about this topic. The main set is another way of saying “base set” or “base cards”. Normally these cards are numbered numerically and have no particular distinguishing attributes (i.e. 1-400). Parallel cards should be categorized as a subset. Insert cards should also be categorized as a subset unless they belong to a different set.

Again, outside of a few exceptions, there seems to be general consensus on this topic. The one problem we need to resolve is when a card is in the normal numbering system but it is distinct from the base card design. For example, Season Highlights in Upper Deck occur in the normal numbering system, but they are obviously different in design from the regular base card. On one hand, if you take them out of the main set, there appears to be a hole in the numbering and can often lead to duplicates. However, if you don’t make them a subset, there is a loss of some detail. Some members have kept them in the main set, but added the title of the card, so that they can be searched. While this keeps the detail, some card names are often too long.Your thoughts on this are most appreciated.

Specific Sets: Bowman, Upper Deck, Topps

There are a few sets that I would like to address specifically and ask for help from the Zistle community on how to deal with these sets.

Bowman- Bowman released two products pre-2008– Bowman and Bowman Chrome. Within those sets, there are the draft cards as well- Bowman Draft and Bowman Chrome Draft. Both of the sets have multiple subsets. Because of this, Zistle lists them as four separate sets: Bowman, Bowman Draft, Bowman Chrome and Bowman Chrome Draft. Are there any thoughts on this? Is this a good solution or do you find it confusing?  In 2008, Bowman started releasing a Draft Pick and Prospects set which may have solved this problem going forward but I would love to hear your thoughts pre-2008.

Topps/Upper Deck–Series 1 and Series 2- Both Topps and Upper Deck release their main product in two distinct releases, Series 1 and Series 2. Currently, Zistle lists both Topps and Upper Deck as one product and puts those two sets together. While it diminishes some confusion, the carda are technically labeled distinctly by their respective series and often contain different subsets. Is it better to have one big Upper Deck/Topps set or better to distinguish them as separate sets?

I am going to start some discussions in the Zistle Forum about the above mentioned topics so you can join the discussion there or leave a comment on this post. Of course, feel free to start your own discussion thread about any issues that you feel need to be resolved. Thanks everyone for contributing to this!

by ashley Zistle Style Guide, Zistle Updates bowman, bowman chrome, set, subset, topps, upper deck

After we launched live chat, there were quite a few requests to add a forum. And well, we just can’t say no. There is now a Zistle Forum that you should definitely go and check out. As you might have guessed, this will help facilitate the writing of the style guide as well as give you an opportunity to have longer threads between members. If you want a category added, just let me know. The forum is housed at forum.zistle.com and if you are logged into Zistle, you will be automatically logged into the forum as well.

Private messaging is built into the platform and it is called ‘whispering’. If you want to whisper, simply start a new discussion and type in the user’s name in the appropriate field and only they will be able to see your message.Similarly, when you respond to a thread, you can simply enter in the name (the field will auto-complete so you don’t need to type the whole username) and you are all set.

Chat is still available for you to use. For now, they are different experiences but we will most likely integrate them down the road. As always, we love to hear your feedback on what you like, don’t like, think could be better, etc so don’t be shy!

by ashley Features, New on Zistle, Zistle Updates Forum

The time has come for a style guide. We cannot wait any longer. While approving the flagged cards this evening, I noticed that there are some flagging wars over how to label a card. We need come to a consensus on a few things so that we don’t have people wasting their time flagging endlessly. As we continue to grow, it is important that we have guidelines to help our database to be as accurate as possible.

Since I anticipate this will be a little messy, I am going to be writing a series of  posts about issues that I am seeing over and over again. Please, Please, PLEASE help us by giving feedback in our comments so that we can come to some consensus over these issues. As we reach decisions, I will be adding them to the Zistle Style Guide which will be housed on the Zistle site.

Here is the first list of topics: determining what is a set and what is a subset, the number of a card, multiplayer cards, short prints, team checklists, and named cards (different from payer name), and unnumbered cards.

Please let me know in the comments if you have other suggestions for additional topics. I know there are others out there so just let me know. I am working on the set/subset post now and it should be ready soon. Thanks for participating and I am looking forward to seeing how this works.

by ashley Building Zistle, Zistle Updates Add new tag, FAQ, flagging

Hey everyone. Our apologies for not being very responsive the last week or so. We just moved from Seattle to Minneapolis and we are just now getting settled in. Thanks so much for your patience and understanding.

We have had problems getting our internet up and running consistently so it will take us some time before we can get any updates out. We have been reading your feedback and trying to approve cards as fast as we can–you guys have been busy. We would love to hear from you about what you think should be included in the next release either on our feedback page or by email (ashley@zistle.com). We have a lot of projects coming up but if you think we need something right away, please let us know.

by ashley Meet Us, Zistle Updates Feedback, Minneapolis

UPDATE 4/24: Thanks for your patience while we finalized wrestling. It is now up and available for you to enjoy.

UPDATE 4/23 : This has been disabled for the moment as we are working out some details regarding the content.  We’ll update again when we know what the final verdict is here.

It was time to add another sport to Zistle. While racing may seem like the obvious next addition, there were a stack of WCW cards in our collection that forced us to add wrestling. Wrestling cards are purely amazing if you love bad wax. I mean I am not sure you could find a better example of the most absurd cards ever manufactured. Plus, pro-wrestling from the early 90’s brings back some great memories–so I guess we are being a little selfish. I mean I will just let some of these speak for themselves. There is infinite material but here are some of my favorites.

The honorable former governor of Minnesota aka “The Body”

This guy gives me nightmares. I mean look at that claw manoeuvre

The good old Bushwackers. If there was super glue in your shampoo wouldn’t your hands be stuck to your head rather than some else’s head?

I could do this all day. Oh Andre!

We have to give a big thank you to WrestlingTradingCards.com for supplying the photos. They have been compiling this online collection since 2002 and they are extremely dedicated to the great circus known as professional wrestling. Every card provided by Wrestling Trading Cards has a link to their site so if you are interested in learning more, please check them out.

by ashley New on Zistle, Wrestling, Zistle Updates Andre the Giant, Captain Lou Albano, Jesse Ventura, The Bushwackers

Live chat, our most requested feature, just came to Zistle and we are very, very excited to offer this feature to our members. Any member logged into Zistle will be able to access Zistle Live Chat to instantly connect with other Zistle members. There will be one main chat room where all members logged in will appear. You can participate in the main conversation or have a private conversation with any individual member in a separate tab. So you can discuss the topic du jour or work out trade details with other members simultaneously. To initiate a private conversation with a member, just click their username and click ‘ private message’.

You will be able to access Zistle Live Chat from your dashboard and the trading homepage. Members who do not log into Zistle chat will not appear in the chat room so you don’t need to opt out if you are not interested in chatting with other members online.

While we have tested the new chat feature, we anticipate that bugs will arise over the next few days. As always, we rely on you to let us know about any issues you encounter. We work hard to get new features to you as quickly as possible and we appreciate your help when we launch a new feature.

See you soon on Zistle Chat!

by ashley Features, New on Zistle, Zistle Updates Live chat

Zistle’s football library just grew substantially thanks to Mike from Nearmint’s Vintage Football Cards. Mike graciously shared the beautiful scans featured on his reference site the Vintage Football Card Gallery with Zistle and we are extremely excited. I mean you can just see from the image of his site above that these scans are beautiful. If you haven’t checked out the gallery, it is a well-designed site that contains various football sets from 1948-1975 with great images and more information than most sites.

Mike got back into the hobby after a friend got him hooked on 1989 ProSet. After a short time, he started collecting cards from his childhood and in 1999 started selling cards on Ebay.  When Ebay raised thier prices in 2001, Mike launched his own sales site Nearmint Vintage Football Cards and never looked back. TheVintage Football Card Gallery grew from the sales site and 98-99% of the cards in the gallery were at one time in Mike’s own personal collection or sold through his site–meaning that he has spent quite a bit of time with his scanner.

Mike is a true Zistle hero. Not only does he run a fabulous site selling vintage football cards but he has created an amazing resource for vintage football card collectors. We are truly honored that his gallery is now a part of the Zistle library.

by ashley Football, Meet Us, New on Zistle, Trading, Uncategorized, Zistle Updates Nearmint's Vintage Football Cards, Vintage Football Card Gallery

Many of you noticed that we quietly added Soccer over the weekend. We have been working on launching this for a while and we have been honored to work with some amazing soccer collectors on getting this launched. I want to give a big thank-you to Chuck from Chuck’s Used Cards and collector Gary Battaglia for their generosity with their collections and knowledge. Gary is trying to amass a collection of all Upper Deck MLS cards ever made (quite a goal) and shared his detailed spreadsheets with us to seed our database. Chuck connected us with Gary and is committed to sharing his Soccer collection with the Zistle community. I can’t wait to see Soccer grow on Zistle.

by ashley New on Zistle, Soccer, Zistle Updates Chuck's Used Cards