The number of modern card products that really make a lasting impact dwindles each year, but Topps' Allen & Ginter continues to ride a nice wave.
The cards are unique, a little quirky and just sort of fun. They've clicked with collectors who buy them by the box and case. The 2009 Allen & Ginter sell sheet is out and if you'd like a sneak peek, here's a look.
Just a tip...that link can be found in our Collecting Resources section, which contains another link directly to the product sell sheets issued by the sports card manufacturers. You can see the products as soon as the companies release the information, often months before they hit the shelves. A&G won't be out in force until this summer.
New York dealer Brian Cataquet has opened his own online auction company. If you're in New York, you've probably seen his TV ads to buy cards that are..well...a little over the top. He's toned it down a bit and has been appearing on local cable TV outlets doing some more traditional appearances.
Cataquet is offering some items from David Festberg's collection in his first-ever auction. Festberg was a very active national dealer in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. He was among the first to hold regular auctions and is still somewhat active in the hobby, we understand, if on a smaller scale. About 25 years ago, I recall purchasing some programs from Festberg and getting them in the mail before I had a chance to send him a check. Pretty nice. Does anyone do that anymore?
I'm glad to see Upper Deck bringing back the Philadelphia Gum football name to the hobby. It disappeared after the 1967 season but that was my first ever football card buying experience. I loved the look of all four of those sets ('64-67) and they were among the first sets I put together once I grew old enough to buy cards in quantity as an adult. If you're a football card collector I'd still highly recommend them today. The sets are only 198 cards and even with some of the pricey stars and rookies like Butkus and Sayers in '66, they're very attainable.
But....I just looked over some of the promotional material on the 2009 version and instead of just paying homage to a great issue, Upper Deck has jumbled a 300-card base set with 25 Barack Obama cards, five Woodstock 40th anniversary cards, 10 Vietnam War cards, 11 Election cards and a bunch of misplaced 1935 National Chicle-themed cards. You can check out the info here.
I can't quite figure out the connection of 40th anniversary subsets in the proverbial shout-out to an issue that ran from '64-67, but I guess the card companies feel they have to do something to jazz up any issue that's produced.
I would have liked to have seen a simple set, with maybe some super high quality card stock and maybe some of those cheesy backgrounds like the car that was behind Jim Brown's pose on one of his cards (it was his car). Throw in some autographs and the obligatory buyback cards (no creased crap, please) and you would have a winner.
A group of collectors on the PSA message boards have gotten together to buy an unopened box of 1986-87 Fleer basketball (Jordan rookie year) from Baseball Card Exchange. The cost was.about $277 per pack. It was a great deal if you managed to land one of the Jordan rookie cards or stickers, which a couple of guys did. At least with the old Fleer products, there were no worries about distribution. You pretty much knew what each box would yield, so the odds were about 1 in 8 for landing an MJ.
Several weeks ago, Upper Deck told the story of Tommy Baxter, a 36-year-old trading card collector from Little Rock, Arkansas who pieced together the 6,661-card Yankee Stadium Legacy (YSL) Collection. Baxter seized the opportunity to become the first collector to complete Upper Deck's enormous insert set, which pays tribute to every Yankees home game ever played at the historic venue since its doors opened April 18, 1923.
He also did an on-camera interview with Upper Deck. Nice to see a father/daughter connection through cards. Young Madeline is about the most well-spoken 11 year-old I’ve ever seen. Here's the video:
The sports card industry is still facing an image problem. Virtually every story that appeared in mainstream media outlets and tech blogs made reference to the “struggling” or “flailing” baseball card business. Nearly all refer to the boom of the late 80s and early 90s and corresponding sales figures compared to the current marks. While many consider some of what’s happened a market correction, like the drop in shops across the country, it’s still a negative impression. Hopefully for the industry, kids don’t care about what things were like 20 years ago. I’m still convinced the major problem is the high price of packs—even base products and the perception that base cards aren’t worth collecting. I’m frankly not sure how you get around that. The super premium genie has been out of the bottle for years and there may be no going back.
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Several of the Upper deck SP Legendary Cuts “Mystery Cuts” have been creating a lot of interest in online auctions. One that has been drawing significant attentions is a “Mystery Cuts” card of Napoleon Bonaparte. This rare card is limited to only two copies and it includes a signature of the famous French military leader. Bidding had approached $2000 as of late Wednesday night.
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eTopps is offering cards featuring players taking part in this year’s WBC tournament. eTopps is the exclusive online trading card of the World Baseball Classic, and starting today, will be issuing a special limited 12-card collection of cards featuring the biggest stars from some of the participating countries.
The first eTopps World Baseball Classic cards have been produced. Each card will be available for seven days, and will be sequentially numbered to limited quantities. The first card was released last Monday.
Next Monday (March 16), additional eTopps World Baseball Classic® cards will be offered as the tournament kicks into high gear. Like the first one, this IPO will begin at 1:00 PM (EDT) on Monday, and will remain o
pen for one week, closing at 3:00 AM (EDT) on the following Monday.
On the day of the World Baseball Classic® Finals (Monday, March 23), eTopps will be offering a final group of WBC cards, through a limited 4-hour offering. These cards will go on sale as usual at 1:00 PM (EDT), but this offering will close at 5:00 PM (EDT) that evening. Cards from this offering will then be allocated immediately following the close, and will arrive in a collector’s portfolio prior to the start of that night’s Championship Game.
I've never been a huge fan of cutting up signed documents or vintage game-worn jerseys to make baseball cards. That's never been a secret.
You like 'em? I've got nothing against you. To each his own, I suppose. I'll even admit a few of them are really little mini works of art. If you can force yourself to believe that the cut-up jersey was falling apart anyway.
I also respect the card companies' rights to do what they feel is necessary to sell products, but if you had told me 15 years ago that the concept would become the backbone of the modern card market, I would have laughed.
Then cried.
Surely true baseball fans and collectors would never support destroying historic sports memorabilia so 'everyone' could own a sliver of it, would they?
Yes they would.
They'd buy cases, hoping for a 'hit'. They'd pay hundreds of dollars for a cut signature card on eBay, when the original document --still intact--wasn't worth that much. In some ways, it's kept the modern card industry alive. Just plain cards weren't enough anymore.
Or so we were told.
The swatches of the 90s gave way to more sophisticated, more vintage pieces as time went on. Anything was--and is-- fair game. Babe Ruth bats. Mickey Mantle uniforms. Jackie Robinson jersey buttons.
Abe Lincoln's hair.
But I digress.
The 'cut autograph' craze has resulted in numerous signed documents being purchased and the autographed portion shaped to fit inside the frame of a card. Sometimes, a large flowing signature gets clipped.
The grading companies would call it 'trimmed'.
But it had to fit on the card. The autographs had been purchased for packaging. The checklist had been announced.
Several days ago, this post on another site brought up some potentially embarrassing flaws in the cuts being advertised as authentic Presidential signatures on a couple of hobby products, one of which is trying to make its mark in a crowded field.
We'll let you decide the merits of what's offered and whether you care, but it's quite plausible to say that acquiring real autographs of US Presidents might just be a little harder--and expensive--to do than some in the industry once thought.
Who really is walking around with a showcase full of Marty Van Buren letters in 2009 anyway?
Fake autographs on cards isn't a new phenomenon either.
Autograph buying should always come with a healthy dose of skepticism anyway, whether slabbed or not. Clubhouse boys and professional forgers have been fooling fans for years. Unless you saw it signed, there's a chance it's not real (and if you did, that still doesn't mean it's going to get the authenticator's blessing--but that's another story)
There's something about cutting up a Dick Nixon letter that has an autopen signature and sticking it in a pack of baseball cards that just feels right on so many levels. Call it poetic justice. Call it a sign from above that baseball cards should be about...well...baseball.
I do feel for the kid who pulls one and later finds out it's not real because at that point, we've lost a collector--probably for good. And the hobby can't afford that right now. But then, when some of those packs are $1,000 and up, kids aren't the ones buying them.
It caused a bit of a stir in the hobby when it was released nearly 14 years ago. "Card Sharks" by former USA Today writer Pete Williams, attempted to chronicle the rise of Upper Deck from hobby newcomer in the late 1980s to a serious rival to Topps--a process that took just a year thanks to Ken Griffey Jr. and its mission to take baseball cards a little upscale.
It seems quaint now, but Upper Deck's early innovations worked--even if some of the premiums that sold for big money in the early days had a habit of sneaking out the back door.
It wasn't a movie so there won't be a "Card Sharks II" according to Williams, who has moved on to other things. But he did take time to do some Q&A with Mario of Wax Heaven.
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