Danielle Edlund
Doug Kale
Keith Hower
The Hammer
dinkfod
Brian Fleischer
danhitt
Andy Broome
dsliepka
escaladefan
Tim TroutFiled under: BSCM, Beckett Baseball, Beckett Basketball, Beckett Blog, Beckett Football, Beckett Hockey, Beckett Media, Beckett.com, MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, Opinions | Tags: MLB Properties, NBA, NFL Properties, NFL Trading Cards, NHL, Panini America, Players Inc, sports card licensing, Topps, Upper Deck
Topps is out of football!
Topps is out of football?
Topps is out of football.
Wow! I didn’t see that coming. Topps without a football license? That just seems . . . odd. After all, the New York-based trading card giant has produced at least one football product a year since 1955. For those counting at home, that’s 55 consecutive seasons.
Look, it’s all the rage these days for licensing entities to trim manufacturers from the mix in the name of bettering a battered business (see the NHL and Upper Deck, MLB Properties and Topps, the NBA and Panini, the CLC and UD, etc.); and the fact that Players Inc was planning to reduce the number of football players had been rumored for months. So the finality of that Monday-afternoon announcement surprised no one.
It was the cut player’s identity that seemed so shocking.
Filed under: BSCM, Beckett Baseball, Beckett Football, Fleer, Hall of Fame, MLB, NFL, Topps, Upper Deck | Tags: baseball cards, Derrick Thomas, Fleer, football cards, military memorabilia, Pat Tillman, Pro Line, Pro Set, Super Bowl, Ted Williams, Topps, Upper Deck, Veterans Day, Whitney Houston
With Wednesday being Veterans Day, we figured it to be no better time than now to revisit some sports cards from the past that have obvious military ties.
While there have been countless examples in recent years with the influx of non-sports additions to sports card sets, perhaps no cards drew more support than those of former Arizona Cardinals and Arizona State football player Pat Tillman, who volunteered for military duty and died in Afghanistan in 2003.
His story sparked massive interest in what little football memorabilia he had — he appeared on just five football cards in 2001 — but there are countless other cards noting other veterans’ service.
All of them have a story. Here are a few …
Filed under: Autographs, BSCM, Beckett Basketball, Beckett Blog, Beckett Media, Beckett.com, Box break, Box busters, Card gallery, First look, Memorabilia, NBA, Panini | Tags: 2009-10 Panini Rookies & Stars Basketball, Autographs, Kobe Bryant, Memorabilia, NBA trading cards, Taylor Griffin
The good news: The Beckett Basketball team busted one of the first boxes of 2009-10 Panini Rookies & Stars Basketball on the market Tuesday afternoon.
The bad news: The Box Busters episode won’t be posted until Wednesday morning.
Since we don’t want to ruin your video-watching experience by showing you everything we pulled now, we’ve selected 10 cards at random from our box as something of an appetite-whetting exercise.
Filed under: Autographs, BSCM, Beckett Baseball, Hall of Fame, MLB, NBA, Upper Deck | Tags: 2009 Sweet Spot, Autographs, Baseball autographs, baseball cards, Hall of Fame, LeBron James, MLB, Sweet Spot Signatures, Upper Deck
Upper Deck released the production numbers on Tuesday for its 2009 Sweet Spot Signatures autographs that were signed in green ink.
The greens are a new addition to the popular line — and they’re pretty rare on top of including basketball star LeBron James and several members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Get the rundown after the jump …
Filed under: BSCM, Beckett Baseball, Beckett Basketball, Beckett Blog, Beckett Football, Beckett Hockey, MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, Opinions, Panini, Press Pass, Pro wrestling, Topps, UFC, Upper Deck, WWE, non-sports sets | Tags: football cards, NFL, non-sports, Sports, sports business, Sports Cards, Topps, trading cards
By CHRIS OLDS | Beckett Baseball Editor
If you thought 2009 has been a wild ride, just wait for 2010.
There have been countless changes in the hobby in the last 11 months just with licensing — the rights to create, market and sell official sports cards.
In January, the NBA chose an exclusive licensee in Panini, dropping Topps and Upper Deck. In August, MLB Properties opted for just Topps to create its fully licensed baseball cards, while a new licensee for Minor League Baseball has yet to be announced after TRISTAR’s deal expired. And Upper Deck’s exclusive with the Collegiate Licensing Company? It affects every sport and will dramatically curb companies’ options starting next spring. The latest news on Monday is no different – Players Inc, the licensing group of the NFL Players Association, dropped Topps as one of its football card makers.
All of these things can impact our hobby — your collection — even if you don’t buy one of the sports that is affected. Why? It affects the industry’s players, the companies that bring the cards to you.
Just like the baseball announcement, there are a lot of disappointed collectors with the Topps football news. And yet at the same time, there also are a lot of questions about whether the longest-running manufacturer of trading cards in the United States will create any type of football products in 2010 and beyond. (It doesn’t appear likely — unless you count its Premier League soccer cards.)
Some collectors took that a step further asking whether Topps can make it on just baseball and MMA alone — but that’s where we need to take a step back. There’s no question that baseball, despite its issues in recent years, remains the top dog of collecting. And MMA is the new kid on the block with Topps’ UFC lines among the most popular releases ever considering original costs vs. current values.
However, Topps has never survived on cards alone.
Filed under: Autographs, Beckett Blog, Beckett Media, Beckett.com, Card gallery, First look, Memorabilia, NFL, Topps | Tags: 2009 Topps Platinum Football, Mark Sanchez, NFL Trading Cards, Topps
Topps on Tuesday afternoon released preliminary images and product information on what very well could be the company’s last football product in some time. If , indeed, that is the case, the company appears to be going out with something of a bang.
The product, 2009 Topps Platinum, is due out in early February (the company’s Players Inc license expires at the end of February) and promises one autographed Refractor patch card and two autographed Refractor Rookie Cards per 24-pack box.
Stay tuned to Beckett.com for additional details. For now, enjoy the first images of the product.
Filed under: Autographs, BSCM, Beckett Blog, Beckett Hockey, Beckett Media, Beckett.com, Box break, Box busters, Memorabilia, NHL, Upper Deck | Tags: 2009-10 UD Black Hockey, Box busters, NHL trading cards
What’s better than one 12-piece memorabilia card? Two 12-piece memorabilia cards, of course. And that’s not all that Beckett’s played-out Box Busters pulled from two boxes of 2009-10 UD Black Hockey.
See what else they yanked here.
Filed under: Autographs, BSCM, Beckett Blog, Beckett Football, Beckett.com, Box break, Box busters, Memorabilia, NHL, Upper Deck | Tags: 2009-10 Upper Deck Artifacts Hockey, Autographs, Memorabilia, NHL trading cards
Check out Beckett Hockey’s two-man power play as they rip through two boxes of 2009-10 Upper Deck Artifacts Hockey? What will they pull? How many names will they mispronounce? What can you win? Watch and find out.
Filed under: BSCM, Beckett Baseball, Beckett Blog, Beckett Football, Beckett Media, Beckett.com, NFL, Opinions, Panini, Sports Cards, Topps, Upper Deck | Tags: licensing, MLB, NBA, NFL, NFL Players Inc, Panini, Topps, Upper Deck
In a year absolutely crammed with jaw-dropping, stagger-inducing hobby headlines, yesterday’s announcement that Topps would not be granted a 2010 trading card license from Players Inc, the marketing and licensing arm of the NFL Players Association, was one of the biggest.
Reaction to the news from the collecting community has been fast, furious and full of passion in the 19 hours since Beckett Media first broke the story. Clearly, the news seemed to hit most collectors like a blindside blast from Ray Lewis.
Even in such a tumultuous time, the move still caught most collectors off guard if for no other reason than “Topps” is the most recognized brand name in sports collectibles history and has produced football trading cards for 54 consecutive years.
That seems destined to change in a big way.
Here’s a sampling of the spirited reaction we’ve received from collectors on Beckett.com and the Beckett Blog:
Filed under: BSCM, Beckett Baseball, Hall of Fame, MLB, Memorabilia, sports books | Tags: baseball, baseball books, Joe Torre, minor league baseball, MLB, Moonlight Graham, new york yankees, Satchel Paige, Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine, Tom Verducci, World Series
Read any good baseball books lately?
If not, Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine has a few you might need to check out as its editors have released their list of finalists for the 2009 CASEY Award, which goes to the best baseball book of the year.
Here’s the list:
Filed under: Autographs, BSCM, Beckett Basketball, Beckett Blog, Beckett Media, Beckett.com, Card gallery, Man Crush, Memorabilia, NBA, Opinions, Panini, Topps, Upper Deck, just for fun | Tags: Carmelo Anthony, Dallas Mavericks, Dirk Nowitzki, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, NBA trading cards
It occurred to me during a recent “Box Busters” episode – as I stared longingly into the vibrant fibers of the sweetest Technicolor patch card I’d ever seen – that I’ve wasted almost 12 years not collecting Dirk Nowitzki.
I’m a darn fool.
How else to explain collectibly ignoring one of the most athletic big men in NBA history? He’s been plying his extraordinary wares right here in my backyard since the Dallas Mavericks landed the little-known German with high upside in 1998; yet it took a mesmerizing, majestic piece of memorabilia from 2009-10 Exquisite Collection for my new mission to materialize.
I must start collecting Dirk.
Filed under: BSCM, Beckett Baseball, Beckett Basketball, Beckett Blog, Beckett Football, Beckett Media, Beckett.com, Donruss, MLB, NBA, NFL, Panini, Pro Sports, Sports Cards, Topps, TriStar, Upper Deck | Tags: CLC, MLB, MLB Properties, NBA, NFL, Panini America, Players Inc, Sports licensing, Topps, Upper Deck
The trading card landscape has changed dramatically in 2009 as business decisions, legal challenges and the struggling economy have altered what collectors will find on store shelves.
Here’s a look at some of the notable events of the year so far …
January 27: The NBA selects Panini as its sole licensee of basketball cards beginning this fall.
January 27: MLB sues Donruss over unauthorized trademark use in its 2008 baseball sets.
March 13: Panini buys Donruss and forms Panini America.
