Topps Brings Five Star to Baseball: Will it Transfer?

In just about every single case of transferring a successful product from one sport to another, it usually is a bigger sport to a smaller sport. Its rare that a product goes the other way, especially when the confines of what defines the demographic are so different. Topps has re-committed their team to designing beautiful [...]

Continue reading about Topps Brings Five Star to Baseball: Will it Transfer? »

For 2012 Bowman, the focus was put on two players to carry the value of the set. The first is Yu Darvish, who’s autographs have been creeping above the 500 dollar mark since release, and the second is Bryce Harper. Although he doesnt have any regularly inserted autographs in hobby, he does have chrome parallels [...]

Continue reading about 2012 Bowman Bryce Harper 1/1s Hit eBay at Same Time »

The NBA has Michael Jordan, golf has Tiger Woods, football has Jim Thorpe, hockey has Wayne Gretzky, and baseball has the best of them all – Babe Ruth. He has so much influence in the sport, that he even inspired his own adjective. The recent sale of his 1920 game used jersey for over four [...]

Continue reading about Record Sale of Babe Ruth Jersey Continues the Bambino’s Legacy of Dominance »

With this week being one of the biggest weeks of the year for the card companies, there was a lot going down over the last few days. The most important part of the weekend was today at the Rose Bowl, where all the rookies put on the new Nike uniforms for the first time. Both [...]

Continue reading about 2012 NFL Rookie Premiere: Wrap Up Pictorial »

Ever since the rookie premiere became just as focused on autographs as it did wearing the NFL uniforms for the first time, the card companies have done everything in their power to think of new ways to get the rookies to hard sign the content for the first few sets of the year. Because the [...]

Continue reading about Chronicling Three Years of On Card Rookie Content At The Premiere »

Both Topps and Panini are tweeting like crazy from the first night of the 2012 NFL rookie premiere, and from what we have seen so far, there are a lot of awesome looking things to look forward to this year. Although there are some obvious duds mixed in, I am ridiculously impressed with the ability [...]

Continue reading about 2012 Rookie Premiere: Rookies Get Down to Business »

Every year in Los Angeles, the NFL rookies gather to take their first pictures in their new jerseys. Starting over 15 years ago, this has been the case at this time of the pre-season. Its a ridiculously exciting time for fans of the game, and I am ridiculously excited to see what the card companies [...]

Continue reading about 2012 NFL Rookie Premiere: What To Look For This Week »

Every year in Los Angeles, the NFL rookies gather to take their first pictures in their new jerseys. Starting over 15 years ago, this has been the case at this time of the pre-season. Its a ridiculously exciting time for fans of the game, and I am ridiculously excited to see what the card companies [...]

Continue reading about NFL Rookie Premiere: What to Look For »

Let me start by saying that last year’s elite was a complete train wreck, in terms of pricing and content, as well as design. In fact, I would even go so far as saying it was one of the most poorly designed sets of the year, outside of maybe Timeless Treasures. The rookie cards looked [...]

Continue reading about 2012 Panini Elite Preview Shows Some Improvement, But Not Enough »

Since the beginning of the 2012 card season, Panini and Topps have been doing everything in their power to futher build out their followings in the baseball card markets, both in successful ways and other less successful ventures. Oddly enough, they are trying to do it by capitalizing on a part of the baseball market [...]

Continue reading about Topps and Panini Try To Give the HOF Treatment to Their Products »

Whenever I see a collector pull something huge out of a brand new product, Im of the ilk that thinks they should capitalize on the perfect storm of the new release and the big hit. When Topps said they were putting golden tickets into Bowman to possibly win the opportunity to be on a Bowman [...]

Continue reading about 2012 Bowman: First of the Golden Ticket Contracts is Up! »

So far, the buzz this week has been dominated by 2012 Bowman and its release to much fan fare among baseball collectors. Each year, Bowman signals the start of prospecting for the people who live and die by the rookie, and this year’s set lives up to the billing, even though the stage isnt as [...]

Continue reading about 2012 Bowman Black Proves Mastery of This Design »

Every year in Los Angeles, the NFL rookies gather to take the first pictures in their new team uniforms. In addtion to the pictures, the rookies sign autographs for the card companies, attend events for the fans, and wear materials to be used in cards through the whole year. The reveal of the attendees is [...]

Continue reading about 2012 NFL Rookie Premiere Attendees List! »

One of the main guys people will be chasing for 2012 Bowman is the recent Japanese import and Rangers Pitcher, Yu Darvish. Because of the wide range of international collectors and a solid start to the year, Darvish should start high. Here are some of the first to be posted: 2012 Bowman Yu Darvish Blue [...]

Continue reading about First 2012 Bowman Yu Darvish Autos Hit eBay! »

With the dawn of the new NFL season, card companies are making their final preparations for their product calendar to be released during 2012. This year is a bit different, as there has been no licensed NFL products that have come out after the draft, with both of the first products hitting a few weeks [...]

Continue reading about Collectors Chase New Types of Cards from 2012 Upper Deck »

UPDATE: The first Superfractor has been posted, and it is one for a top prospect. Wow. UPDATE 2: The first Harper auto is up and its a sticker, there should be others on card. Each year, there are usually two sets that end up driving enormous amounts of collectability for the entire baseball hobby. The [...]

Continue reading about 2012 Bowman is Live and Boasting a VERY Nice Look »

Bryce Harper has been dominating the news cycle so far this week, and now that he has started to settle in, there might be many more news stories about his production, and less about his hobby presence. Since his call up, many of his rare rookie cards have been posted to capitalize on his recent [...]

Continue reading about Bryce Harper Superfractor 10 Day Auction Frenzy Reminds of 2010 Strasburg Super »

Bryce Harper has been the darling of the minors for close to a year, and now that he has been called up, many of the people who have waiting to cash in on the values are doing so en force. Cards that were once selling for below 100 bucks are breaking 200 on a regular [...]

Continue reading about Bryce Harper’s Big Game Fuels HUGE Price Bumps »

Yesterday, the NFL lost one of its greatest players in Junior Seau, and the circumstances of his death may be just as sad as the passing itself. Seau was easily one of the top all time players at his position, and he died much too early for a man of his accomplishments. Collectors have just [...]

Continue reading about UPDATE: Junior Seau’s Death Brings About a Familiar Trend »

For someone like me, it is essential that new high end and good looking cards continue to be made, or I will not be as interested in buying new products. With the recent explosion of logo patches used in product after product, it is becoming more and more difficult to create unique content that isn’t [...]

Continue reading about Diluting the Pool of Special Cards Comes With Severe Consequences »

Over the last few months we have seen the biggest player in baseball sign with a different team, in a similar sized market. Albert Pujols had been a St. Louis Cardinal his entire career, but took his talents to Los Angeles over the offseason. Since the start of the season so far, to say he [...]

Continue reading about Will Albert Pujols Rough Start Affect Long Term Value? »

Yesterday, I mentioned that Luck and RGIII were the two prospects that will dominate hobby headlines as long as performance continues to match potential. Outside of that there are a few players that have some very good potential to make a splash this year, and I wanted to give my predictions on a few of [...]

Continue reading about NFL Draft: Who Comes Next After Luck and RGIII? »

Three months ago, if I said that RGIII and Andrew Luck both would have around equal value going into the rookie premiere, I would have been met with laughter. Funny thing is, its not like Luck has dropped or anything, its just that Griffin has turned it on like I have never seen before. I [...]

Continue reading about NFL Draft: Two Quarterbacks to Rule Them All »

Since the draft last year there have been two groups of people eagerly awaiting Bryce Harper’s exodus from the Minor Leagues up to the big league club. The first are the thousands of collectors who have been paying through the nose to pick up his cards, and the second is the the baseball product team [...]

Continue reading about Bryce Harper Gets the Call – Professionally and in the Hobby »

Last night was truly a ridiculous cavalcade of trades and intrigue unlike we have seen in a long time. With the new wage scale in place, there are going to continue to be huge opportunities for teams to move up and down in the draft, as long as they have some sort of bait that [...]

Continue reading about NFL Draft: Will New Team Affiliation Affect Values Long Term? »

I love the NFL draft, so much so that I spend most of the months leading up to it going through mock after mock to determine my potential targets for the upcoming season. This year, with the Vikings having such a high pick, it was going to be interesting to see if I was going [...]

Continue reading about 2012 NFL Draft Night One: Topps and Panini Dress to Impress »

Now that 2012 Upper Deck is occupying a space usually populated by a bunch of pre-draft products with airbrushed uniforms, it has some definite legs that it didn’t used to have. I talked about yesterday that 2012 Prestige and 2012 Bowman Sig, the first two NFL licensed products are backing off of a release in [...]

Continue reading about 2012 Upper Deck Tugs At Nostalgia With Trade Card »

The NFL draft is upon us, and I am beyond excited to see how everything shakes out. With the Vikings at the top of the first round after the worst season in franchise history, there has been a lot of speculation over their pick. Aside from my own personal homerism, I think that this could [...]

Continue reading about NFL Draft Brings a Big Lift to 2012 Products »

We have the first licensed product of 2012, and though it isn’t NFL licensed, I think its worthy of mention here. 2012 Upper Deck base football is live, and I have a lot of commentary on a few aspects of the set I really like, and others I just don’t understand. As with 2011 SP [...]

Continue reading about 2012 Upper Deck Hits Ebay Before 2011 Exquisite Football »

Derrick Thomas was one of the best players in the history of the Chiefs. He was a dominant player and a HOF inductee that changed the face of the position. He also died very early on in his life, and has a lot of die hard fans. As a result of his shortened longevity, he [...]

Continue reading about Could These Be the Most Expensive Football Patch Cards of Their Kind? »

Over the last few years, the hobby has increased its digital presence exponentially as the mediums became more accessible. Whether its the market place moving to eBay, the redemption systems moving online to company websites, or even checklists via smartphone, its getting more and more focused on creating online consumers as much as direct consumers. [...]

Continue reading about Topps Apps for Baseball are Gateways to the Future of the Hobby »

Sometimes, unique autograph content can be a better idea on paper than it is when has to be executed. Most of the time, the idea works well, but once time and sitting on collector shelves take over, these notions of new methods of getting autographs into packs can turn into disasters. Autographs on materials other [...]

Continue reading about Can Autographs on Materials Pass the Test of Time? »

To say I have mixed feelings about Prime Cuts is putting it lightly. The set that was once Panini baseball’s best, has become a punch line of design and content, especially after some of the breaks collectors have been reporting. Aside from the massive amount of stickers that are again adorning a product considered to [...]

Continue reading about Inscription Cards in Prime Cuts Whet the Appetite for True High End »

When Prime Cuts was released in 2008, there were a lot of people that jumped all over it because of the plethora of nice hits that came out of each case. In fact, we did a group break here on SCU and pulled a Ripken Auto patch AND a Gherig/Thorpe dual swatch card. I still [...]

Continue reading about 2011 Prime Cuts is a Prime Flop »

Gypsy Queen is now live for Hobby, the bigger hits in the product are starting to surface. I want to focus on the autographs, because they are some really nice examples of what happens when you design a card correctly. Baseball cards are much different than any other sport, if not only because the demographic [...]

Continue reading about HOFers and Star Autos in Gypsy Queen Are Fit For a King »