Really?

We all know Obama is still the man, but his own Beckett? Actually, I'm not really all that surprised. I do find it interesting that the cover makes "the U.S. Presidents" seem like a bit of an afterthought.

He does have his own set, cards in several sports sets, a $100 eTopps card and some Spider-man comic that kicked butt in sales over the "death" of Batman (sorry, comic fans, but someone dying in a comic has lost 99% of its impact seeing as how 99.9% of deaths are negated by aliens, clones and really bad writing).


Here's the link if you're an Obamaniac.

Old Cards Rule: Is That a Pot Leaf on His Shirt?

I love old cards. I received the following today:

I did a double-take the first time I saw it. Did burnouts really exist in 1910? Maybe, but I'm not sure Percy Sellen here would have made nice with Jay and Silent Boy. It's my country's national symbol (the official one), the maple leaf.

Sellen was a runner who, according to the back of the card, came to Canada as a 27-year-old and was a fast runner, "defeat[ing] such good men as St. Yves, John D. March, Crowley , and many others of the professional crowd." Apparently runners at the tun of the 20th century were one-name wonders like Madonna, Prince, Shakira and Twiggy.

The bio on the back continues, "He has run fast races with Alfred Shrubb but has always been beaten by the latter." Uh oh. Percy no win all his races. Schooled by the Shrubb-master.

I do believe that this is now officially the oldest card I have in my collection. I received another really old card, but I'll hold that one aside for another day. There's some creases, rounded corners and a little bit of writing on the back, but for about the price of a pack of 2009 Upper Deck Spectrum, I was able to grab a little piece of century-old hobby history.

The card comes from Mecca Cigarettes Champion Athletes series (T218). Released in 1910, the complete set encompasses athletes from several sports. There's 153 cards in the set, including many boxers, which seem to get the most attention. The design, like most sets from this era, carry a certain beauty even if the image of Sellen on the front doesn't show a lot of action to it. Although looking at some images doing a little background research I came across two cards that have an uncanny resemblance to two of my favorite characters from the last decade.

Example 1

Example 2

If you've seen There Will Be Blood, you'll probably remember the last scene, which makes the resemblance even funnier.

So there you have it. Old cards rule!

Coming Soon: 17,940 Inkworks Autographs

Beckett is reporting today that Razor bought Inkworks' autograph remaining overstock and is releasing them as a repackaged set entitled Ink Archives. There'll be five packs per box with one autograph in every pack. Cases consist of 12 boxes and 299 cases will make up the print run. The sell sheet says there'll be more than 400 different cards.

So let's do a little math, shall we.

5 packs x 12 boxes x 299 cases = 17,940 autographs hitting the market all at the same time. Eek. And when I say all at the same time, I mean it. A dealer on Non-Sport Update's Card Talk says that Razor is already sold out.

It's definitely looking like it's going to be a buyer's market. From the sounds of things, expect packs to run $20. In all honesty, you're still going to be better off getting singles off of eBay. While there's going to be some of the nice cards that are shown on the sell sheet, which is very Three's Company in that it has John Ritter surrounded by beautiful ladies (and Ozzy Osbourne), there's also going to be a lot of supporting actors in these packs. Plus, with the quick influx of autographs hitting the market all at the same time, their prices should also soften, thus making some deals to be had. It won't take many $20 packs to make up the cost of simply going out and getting that $200 Jennifer Garner or $120 Ozzy.

To further add to the market glut, the Razor aquisition appears to only be the remaining Inkworks stock. Other dealers have also acquired stock from Inkworks as well.

From a hobby standpoint, there's some possible implications that could impact things beyond a flooded autograph market. Razor competes at the much larger sports crowd as compared to the more niche-oriented non-sport market. By putting these cards in the hands of sports collectors it could show a small sample of what it's like on the other end of the hobby where things are still relatively low-key and simple. That, in turn, could end up bringing an influx of new collectors over and helping the hurting market out. So that could be a small piece of good news to come from one business closing their doors and their extra stock flooding a potentially fragile market.

Monsters vs. Aliens Card Giveaway at IMAX Theatres

An exclusive eight-card promo set for the new animated film Monsters vs. Aliens will be available at IMAX theatres this weekend.

The set will cover each of the lead characters. To receive a set you should go to the movie's official website and print a "Top Secret ID Card," then present it at the theatre box office. Then the cashier will either stare at you blankly or hand over the cards. Hopefully it'll be the latter.

If the cards weren't incentive enough, the movie is going to be shown in 3-D as well. Often 3-D is lame, but in IMAX it's different. You get full color, not just the blue and the red. Plus, it's IMAX, so it's huge.

More American Heritage and UFC Coming from Topps in June

According to Previews Magazine, Topps has follow-up sets scheduled for June for both their American Heritage and UFC brands.

American Heritage: Heroes Edition appears to be following a similar path to the original set: old school Topps designs for old school folks that helped shape American history. The basic breakdown is two autographs or relics per box, six inserts and eight parallels. There will be eight cards per pack and 24 packs in a box. No details were given as to the subjects, signers or memorabilia that will be used, although my guess is that those who liked American Heritage are going to think the same about this set.

Topps UFC 2009 also seems to be much the same. Small boxes (16 packs), emphasis on autographs and memorabilia. Maybe this time Brock's autograph will show up.

I'll keep my eyes peeled for more info as it is released.

Expos-ed by Tribe Cards

Last week I received a box overflowing with Expos cards courtesy of Tribe Cards. These were a surprise and a testament to his continued gerosity. Stacked, the cards were more than a foot tall and gave an excellent representation of the entire Expos history.

Here's just a small taste of some highlights. Really, it's just a mouse-like nibble with all the great stuff inside the box:

1996 Ultra Gold Medallion 232. Mike Lansing

This is my favourite use of gold foil ever. A lot of Ultra cards over the years were wrecked by their overuse of the shiny, making it hard to read names and teams. However, the one-per-pack 1996 parallels went to the extreme in a good way rendering the entire background in gold. This really makes the photo standout. The embossed Ultra logo in the background is like a cherry on top.

 

2003 Fleer EX 41. Jose Vidro

The scan doesn't do this card justice. Made of vinyl, this is one of the toughest cards I've seen. The hard, sharp corners could poke out an eye for sure if projected across a room ninja-star style. The white that you see is actually the top of my scanner bed as the backgrounds are clear. My one gripe - the jersey number in the top corner makes the card resemble a playing card.

 

1971 Topps 536. Claude Raymond

A trifecta hit of card-y goodness: Expo, Canadian-born player, vintage.

 

1986 Topps Tattoos Hubie Brooks and Andre Dawson

Yeah! Tattoos! Topps gets some major retroactive street cred here for including Hubie. Back in 1986 Dawson was a no-brainer but Hubie was simply a better-than-average outfielder who'd muscled in 100 runs the year prior. Topps is still doing tattoos in lots of their non-sport sets, so why not bring them back to baseball. You say you want more kids collecting and there's no greater pledge of allegiance than a sharp temporary tattoo.

Thanks again!

Updates and Such

A couple of quick notes and tidbits:

• I created a new banner yesterday. I was kind of tired of the old one and started playing with Photoshop. It's not perfect but I like the concept. My take is that traditional card collecting is changing. I now totally rely on the Internet to not only get my cards, locate the things I'm looking for but to also connect with others. You can also look at how quickly information is passed down now through blogs and other sites. Just today I saw several "news-y" stories posted on multiple sites, yet it'll probably be a month or two before they're in print. It's no slight against the presses but it's all about perspective and change. For anyone with the know-how and ability, here's another innovation I'd love to have access to: an online database connected to my iPod. Basically you'd search a card or set, get the pricing, images and whatnot while in a shop or at a show. Or maybe I'd want to browse through the cards I'm missing. Be the evolution.
• Goose Joak Originals. I've got a bunch of Mariners I'll be unveiling in the coming days. I have to say I'm having tons of fun putting the M's together. All of my contributions will be added to the Slideshow on the sidebar.
  
• Spring Break. I've got a week off of school and I'm taking it as a break. I'll probably head in one day this week to get my office organized and do a little planning to get my classes in order for the final push of the year, but it's relaxation time - I hope. It should also give me a chance to post more frequently.
  
• Trades. If you've shot me an email about a trade I'll be getting back to you tomorrow afternoon after some Lego building with my daughter.
• Sidebar. I've gone and updated a few things on the sidebar. The MLB Trade Rumors widget is for me to check. The ladies have the gossip columns, I've got my trade rumors. I also added a bunch of blogs to the news feed. If I'm missing yours, please let me know and I'll add it ASAP. Between my RSS reader and the various sources I read, I know I'm missing some. 

That's all for now. If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you.

Slow Sales Lead In the Game to Cut Production

I just received an email blast from In the Game that openly speaks of poor sales for their upcoming goalie-centric 2008-09 Between the Pipes Hockey set. Rather than cancelling the set entirely or delaying it, production was cut resulting in better insertion rates for autograph, memorabilia and Masked Men inserts. So if you are busting boxes, you're going to get better value than what the packaging tells you. Exactly how much more wasn't announced, though.

This announcement says a couple of things about the current state of the hobby. The first is that these are tough times for the manufacturers. In the last two weeks we've had Inkworks go under and Donruss sold to Panini. Coming out and publicly saying sales stink shows that others are hurting too.

That leads into my second point. By letting the cat out of the bag about better than originally stated insertion rates, In the Game is giving collectors a sales pitch. That's when it was said in advance. Now those that might have been on the fence before might be swayed by something a little extra. That's what happened with me a few months back with Topps' Indiana Jones Masterpieces. At first it was one sketch card per box. When the product hit everyone was getting two. Yet Topps didn't advertise the obvious slash in production. However, it was enough to sway me into getting a box.

The production slash will also give the appearance of a short run. But isn't it more with supply meeting demand? I'm sure there will be a bit of a sales blip for In the Game. Maybe it'll be big. But in the bigger scheme of things, if these are the new sales tactics, I can't help but wonder if there's bigger issues on the horizon for another manufacturer.

A "What the...?" to Go Alongside the 2009 Topps Heritage Variation Confirmation

Yesterday I got word from Topps on the variations in 2009 Topps Heritage Baseball. It was a standard announcement that made the list of speculated variants finite. Attached was an image of one of the cards on the list:

Here we have a Fred Lewis card that has the image of Randy Winn. While it's a pretty bland way of drumming up interest among the four Winn collectors out there, my eyes actually zoomed right to the bottom corner. Apparently Topps is using eBay to get their press images now. One would think that they'd have a graphic record of the card somewhere in their vast data banks.

In case you haven't heard, here's the official list of variations:

58 Conor Jackson
Variation: Rays logo on card
Mimics: Original # 58 Gino Cimoli

70 Tom Glavine
Variation: Spelled “Thom”
Mimics: Original # 70 Lew Burdette

102 Adrian Gonzalez
Variation: Rangers logo on card
Mimics: Original # 102 Kent Hedley

346 Fred Lewis (image attached)
Variation: Randy Winn’s image
Mimics: Original # 346 J.C. Martin

407 Randy Winn
Variation: Fred Lewis’s image
Mimics: Original # 407 Gary Peters

445 John Smoltz
New Variation: Featured in Red Sox Uniform

488 Hanley Ramirez / All Star
Variation: Featured in Red Sox Uniform
Mimics: Original # 488 Norm Cash

In the Game Loves the Devil

In the Game hasn't wasted any time celebrating New Jersey Devils goaltender Martin Brodeur's fete of becoming the winningest goalie in NHL history. Moments after his historic victory over the Chicago Blackhawks, ITG announced an online offering for the 2008-09 Martin Brodeur Record Breaking Super Box. 

Each Super Box will have ten packs of each of the following sets: 2006-07 Between the Pipes, 2007-08 Between the Pipes and 2008-09 Between the Pipes. Each will also have a specially stamped 1-of-1 autograph or memorabilia card.

Just 80 BrodeurSuper Boxes will be made. Forty will contain stamped versions of previously released ITG Brodeur chase cards, while the other half of the run will have one of 40 new memorabilia cards celebrating various Brodeur milestones. This will be the only place to find these milestone cards.

Each Super Box carries a price tag of $159.95. For a complete checklist of the special inserts and ordering information, click here.

LIVE BREAK! Going for the Set: 1989 Panini - Three Packs Left, Three Stickers to Go

In the next couple of days I'll reflect on getting back to where it all started for me: 1989 Panini Baseball Stickers. But right now I'll set the stage: I found a lot of 80 packs for cheap. I needed nine stickers to complete the 20-year-old set. I've opened 77 packs and need three stickers including two foils (foils are one per pack).

Will I complete my two decade's quest? Will the album be complete? How many freaking Jose Canseco stickers are in the set? Why is it still snowing outside?

These questions will be answered at 4:30 PM Mountain Time.

Here we go. I'm looking for #37, 400 and 401 to finish the set. 37 and 401 are the foils.

Pack 1:

306. White Sox writing (Foil)
475. Frank Viola
199. Benito Santiago
61. Mitch Webster
124. Tracy Jones
173. Andy Van Slyke

Back in 1989 this pack would have ruled but for the purposes of finishing the set, no dice. The drama builds.


Pack 2

110. Expos logo (foil)
With one foil left and two needed for the set, the journey will indeed continue. Oh, well. Let's see if we get closer.

178. Joe Magrane
288. Brian Downing
87. Dave Smith
400. Dave Righetti
438. Rey Quinones

Weaker pack from a player selection, although the Expos logo will go nicely in my collection. But this is about the wantlist and #400 makes me two stickers shy with one pack to go. What do you think the odds are of finding two foils stuck together? I'm leaning toward slim to none myself.

Pack 3 - The Grand Finale

I'm looking at this one from the bottom and going to work my way to the foil as the regular stickers are now finished.

138. Lenny Dykstra
409. Dave Winfield
406. Mike Pagliarulo
246. Jose Canseco (All-Star, League Leader or something of the like)
180. Tony Pena
174. St. Louis Cardinals logo 

There you have it: the last three packs with three to go. I got one so the 20-year quest continues for #37. Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium and 401. Yankee Stadium. If you're a team/player collector and there's something you'd want from a 1989 sticker set drop me a comment or an email and I'll see what I've got after I've sorted through the nearly 500 stickers.

I've also got 160 packs of 1990 Panini Baseball Stickers that I'll be getting to eventually. Same deal applies if you're looking for anyone or anything. No promises I'll find it. I'll have more on my Panini journey soon, which seems pretty timely all of a sudden given the events of the past week.

Add Another Name to the List of Wrestlers Dying Way Too Young

Andrew "Test" Martin may never have been that big of a star in the WWE, but he was involved in a couple of big storylines. He was slated to be the original Mr. Stephanie McMahon before HHH took her to a drive-in in Vegas. He was with Trish Stratus at the start of her career as she managed Test and Prince Albert to form the tag team "T & A." Then there was the pairing with Stacy Keibler in which his fans were labelled "Test-icles." Classic stuff. Okay, maybe not.

Test was given his walking papers from the WWE a couple of years ago. He had a history of drug problems. Since then he bounced around different promotions but failed to make it back to the spotlight of the WWE.

It's been a while since the premature death of a wrestler. That's an especially sad statement when "a while" means about a year. With Test's passing, he joins the sad ranks that include Curt Hennig, Eddie Guerrero, "Ravishing" Rick Rude and many others.

Martin wasn't even 34 years of age.

2009 Topps Heritage Baseball Shortprints Announced

Straight from Topps is the list of shortprints for 2009 Topps Heritage Baseball (shortprints fall 1:3 packs):

426    Scott Rolen
427    Ben Francisco
428    Jermaine Dye
429    Dustin Pedroia/Ichiro
430    Kevin Slowey
431    Jason Bartlett  
432    Glen Perkins
433    Carlos Gomez
434    Jon Garland
435    Joe Crede
436    Billy Butler
437    Zach Duke
438    Chris Coste
439    Daisuke Matsuzaka
440    Elijah Dukes
441    Fausto Carmona
442    Joe Mauer
443    Marcus Thames
444    Mike Fontenot
445    John Smoltz
446    Pedro Martinez
447    Adrian Beltre
448    Kevin Millar
449    Nick Swisher
450    Justin Morneau
451    Shane Victorino
452    Placido Polanco
453    Ryan Dempster
454    Frank Thomas
455    Baltimore Orioles Coaches
456    Boston Red Sox Coaches
457    Chicago Cubs Coaches
458    Chicago White Sox Coaches
459    Cincinnati Reds Coaches
460    Cleveland Indians Coaches
461    Detroit Tigers Coaches
462    Tampa Bay Rays Coaches
463    Los Angeles Dodgers Coaches
464    Atlanta Braves Coaches
465    New York Yankees Coaches
466    Philadelphia Phillies Coaches
467    Pittsburgh Pirates Coaches
468    St. Louis Cardinals Coaches
469    New York Mets Coaches
470    Washington Nationals Coaches
471    Brad Ausmus
472    Melvin Mora
473    Austin Kearns
474    Josh Willingham
475    Derek Lowe
476    Nick Punto
477    A.J. Pierzynski
478    Troy Tulowitzki
479    CC Sabathia
480    Jorge Posada
481    Kevin Youkilis
482    Lance Berkman
483    Dustin Pedroia
484    Chase Utley
485    Alex Rodriguez
486    Chipper Jones
487    Derek Jeter
488    Hanley Ramirez
489    Josh Hamilton
490    Ryan Braun
491    Manny Ramirez
492    Kosuke Fukudome
493    Ichiro
494    Matt Holliday
495    Joe Mauer
496    Geovany Soto
497    Roy Halladay
498    Ben Sheets
499    Cliff Lee
500    Billy Wagner

UFC: Round 1 Autograph Gallery

MMA finally has its own mainstream release with Topps' UFC: Round 1. Although the originally advertised Brock Lesnar never materialized, there's still plenty of top fighters included in the set such as Georges St-Pierre, Randy Couture and last night's main event winner Quinton "Rampage" Jackson. Below is a selection of the set. Click here to see the complete gallery.

 

  

 

Razor's Cut Signature Mistakes Didn't Start With the Presidents

It's been a few days since word broke that there have been questionable signatures in Razor's Cut Signatures: Oval Office Edition set. Autograph Alert has also provided an update to the story where Razor owner Brian Gray states that he's willing to go to great measures to ensure that things are made good.

But this isn't the first time the authenticity of Razor's cut signatures have come into question. Back around the release of the company's first entertainment release 2008 Cut Signature Edition. A user on Non-Sport Update's Card Talk message board brought to light a potentially fake Carrie Fisher (aka Princess Leia from Star Wars) that was in fact signed by her mother, Debbie Reynolds. You can read the thread here and scroll to the bottom of the page.

Here's the image of the card with the questionable autograph:

And here's a signed photo that Carrie Fisher herself points out the fake signature, which the photo was originally signed with:

Wouldn't you know that the non-sport realm is a pretty tight-knit group and the owner of the Fisher card happened to be reading the thread. So was Razor's Gray. Gray promised to make good and the card's owner, Tom Wright of The Wright Stuff Collectibles took him up on the offer. I contacted Wright and he said that he and Gray agreed two packs of the more than $100-per-pack product was a reasonable replacement. Wright said that he pulled both a Richard Gere 1-of-1 and a President George Bush Sr. from his packs. So it's good to see that Razor does have a track record of following through on this questionable signatures.

That said, when you're charging as much as Razor is for these ultra high-end cards, extra steps for authentication need to be taken. Gray needs to increase the transparency of the sources of the autographs. I, for one, will not even consider buying any of these sets (either in pack form or on the secondary market) until the authenication process is noted on the card itself. A "Razor guarantee" has now been proven potentially wrong on more than one occasion.

So on the one hand, kudos to Brian Gray for making good. But really, should these mistakes have happened in the first place?

Babe Ruth Game-Used and Mickey Mantle Autographs Included in Upcoming Non-Sport Set

For the ast three years it's been celebrity figures, politicians and other subjects normally relegated to the non-sport end of the hobby that has been invading sports sets.With Breygent's upcoming Classic Vintage Movie Posters: Stars, Monsters, Comedy, it's the other way around. Amid all the costume cards will be game-used pieces from none other than Babe Ruth.

As the title suggests, the set will offer two costume or memorabilia cards in every box. Set against a backdrop to the poster for 1927's little known Babe Comes Home is a piece of a Yankee Stadium brick. Cool, but not entirely exciting as it's somewhat generic. Better known in Hollywood baseball lore is the classic The Pride of the Yankees. The card features something a lot more enticing: a piece of Ruth's bat. There's a second card for Pride of the Yankees that has both a bat piece and a brick. If the cards are anything like the mock ups from the sell sheet shown below, they're definitely not the size sports collectors are used to. In fact, the memorabilia pieces are pretty ugly against the painted poster backdrop.

 

 

That's not the only baseball content in Classic Vintage Movie Posters. There'll also be a Mickey Mantle Cut Signature card. Breygent does things a little differently with their Cut Signatures - they keep the entire signature intact. To do so they mount the autograph on one side of the card and provide a grphic on the card front. Here's it's the poster for Safe at Home! 

 So while you might not get the picture and the signature all at once, the beauty of the autograph is presevered. Breygent also releases some of their cuts on oversized cards as box and case bonuses to further ensure the signature is maintained.

Classic Vintage Movie Posters has already been delayed a couple of times but is currently on track for an April release.

Gallery: 2009 Topps Baseball Legends Commemorative Patch Cards

I was lucky enough to escape the cold Canadian winter last week and head down to Phoenix. While a trip to Spring Training wasn't meant to be, I did make it to Target and sampled every type of pack offering they had for 2009 Topps Baseball (rack pack, cereal box and blaster). While this may not seem like much to most, any baseball cards to this Canadian from a store is always fun.

From my blaster I got this:

Although it was no Babe Ruth (that was the Gold Refractor card from the cereal box), I thought these looked pretty neat - much better than most of the Upper Deck manufactured patch cards that often have a tiny head shot photo at best. They seem to be solid sellers too, with most going for over $10 on eBay right now, which isn't bad considering a blaster is $19.99 and you get 10 packs with it was well. Had the checklist been smaller, I may have gone after the set, but 50 cards at $10-15 per seems a little steep, especially when the checklist has lots of repeat subjects.

I wanted to see more of the set so I've put together a gallery of the 50-card set. Click here to see the entire set or look below for a small sample.

2009 Spectrum of Stars Autographs - Bait and Switch?

I think I'm one of the few people who actually get a kick out of seeing B-list celebrity autographs in sports products. Most I don't give a second glance to but when there's 80s TV and movie stars involved, I'm often all over it. So when Upper Deck released their preliminary checklist for 2009 UD Spectrum Baseball, I went directly to the autograph list as there's no other reason for me to be interested in the product. The original checklist included a whopping 81 names, most of which had signed in various non-sport products and are frequent visitors and conventions and the like. If last year had a hair rock feel, then 2009 was all about the science fiction.

I've been checking out the auctions now that the set is live and of the 81 original names announced, I've seen all of six of them. Six out of 81. If it were a test, Upper Deck scored 7%. Sure there's other names that weren't on the original checklist like Cheech and Chong and Leapin' Lanny Poffo (yes, even wrestling jobbers are getting in on the action now), and there's probably some more cards that I haven't seen but this is a significantly different checklist from the one dealers were to pre-ordered from.

These autographs are the only thing that makes Spectrum different from the rest of the baseball pack. While others include celebrity autographs as well, it's not on the same scale. So then if this is one of the set's big selling points, why bother giving specifics if they're going to totally change. Some of the ommissions are understandable. Ricardo Montalbon recently passed away. That might make it tough for him to fulfill his commitments. I figure it would take a commitment from the celebrity's part to get Upper Deck to include them on sales material. So then what's the problem? Seven percent success rate? My guess is people could do better than that doing through-the-mail requests.

Cheech and Chong may be cool additions. But 7%? I guess I'm just ticked about not having seen the Corey Haim that was originally announced. I was really hoping to pair it with my 2007 UD Spectrum Corey Feldman autograph and make a License to Drive set.