09.28
The season started with a high-profile SuperFractor sale from 2010 Bowman and it’s winding down with one as well.
The Bryce Harper USA Baseball 1/1 from the overwhelmingly popular prospecting line has sold and was confirmed as a $12,500 purchase on eBay, emulating the other high-profile Washington Nationals sale of earlier this year — the $21,403 Stephen Strasburg.
This time, though, the card took a little more time on the auction block before actually selling — it was listed five times, according to original owner Earnest Clinton — before it was purchased by Aaron Marcus of Long Island, N.Y.
“I am not going to sell the card, as I want it for my personal collection,” Marcus said on Tuesday. “I might consider selling some of the other Bryces that I own someday, though.”
Among the other cards of the 17-year-old Nationals prospect in his collection are Refractors of a couple different rare shades.
“I also own Bryce’s Bowman Chrome USA Red Refractor (numbered out of five) as a BGS 9.5,” he said, “as well an Orange Refractor (numbered out of 25).”
So what was it that attracted him to the Harper?
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09.27
Every Monday morning throughout the NFL season, we’ll pick a rookie, veteran and breakout player of the week. Here are our selections for NFL Week 3.
Veteran of the Week
Anquan Boldin, WR, Baltimore Ravens
(142 receiving yards, three touchdowns)
Boldin bolted Arizona in the offseason, telling anyone who’d listen that he still was a No. 1 receiver. So far in 2010, he’s played like it – and then some. On Sunday, Boldin double-handedly pushed the Ravens past Cleveland, snaring three touchdown passes in the 24-17 victory. It marked just the second three-touchdown game of his career and his 142 receiving yards were his most since Week 11 of the 2008 season.
Through the first three weeks of 2010, Boldin has 20 catches for 287 yards and three TDs. For perspective, consider that Larry Fitzgerald, Boldin’s former running mate in Arizona, has caught just 12 passes for 152 yards and two touchdowns.
Cards to Grab:
2003 SPx #191 JSY AU RC ($50)
2003 Bowman’s Best #104 JSY RC ($15)
2003 Leaf Limited #147 AU RC ($80)
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09.26
By most accounts, Topps‘ Million Card Giveaway has been a resoundingly popular promotion this year with countless baseball fans and collectors from the past and present redeeming their codes for their MCG account, trading (electronically) their cardboard like the days of old.
However, I noticed something in the official rules that I wonder if many a collector noticed. (I hadn’t even after redeeming more than 30 codes.) Once a promotion’s deadline hits in March 2011, undelivered cards in your account vanish.
As in your mom threw them out electronically.
Here’s what the rules say:
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09.26
Join Beckett Media’s Chris Olds and Brian Fleischer as they rip into a box of 2010 Topps Pro Debut Series 2 cards in this latest episode of Box Busters.
What will they find inside? Watch and find out …
09.24
After a week of speculation and questions after it teased the masses with preview images, Topps finally pulled back the curtain on its plans for its 2011 baseball set Friday evening.
Among the surprises? Actual diamonds embedded into a set of baseball cards found only via an online code redemption.
The diamond anniversary of the longest-running manufacturer of cards includes looks at countless cards from its 60-year history as well as some new insert lines that will be found in its packs when it arrives in mid February. The base set will consist of 330 cards — 264 veterans, 30 rookies and several subset cards — with Platinum 1/1 parallels, Black parallels limited to 60 copies each, Golds limited to 2,011, printing plates and silks.
There are a pair of other diamond-themed parallels, including Canary Diamond cards — 1/1s — along with Platinum Diamond cards, which will be found in every four packs.
As with past Topps sets, there also will be autograph and Relics for the World Series winner. New Relic cards will include manufactured Glove Leather cards, which will fall one per hobby case and one per jumbo box. Also to be found is a Mickey Mantle 1964 Reprint Relic along with 2010 All-Star Game In The Name Relics. These game-used cards feature a letter from a player’s All-Star Game warmup uniform.
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09.23
The second installment of Topps‘ foray into cards for Minor League Baseball arrives soon as Pro Debut Series 2 will hit hobby shops packing two autographs and one memorabilia card per box.
We got our hands on a pair of these boxes well before the Sept. 29 street date and ripped one of the hobby-exclusives in preparation for a Box Busters video to come here on Friday.
The set picks up where Series 1 left off with 220 more base cards, a few parallels, a small lineup of autographs and a healthy batch of Futures Game Relics.
Here’s a sampling of what we found inside … after the jump.
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09.23
This in from Topps this morning…
Due to a printing error, Ultimate Gear and Autographed Ultimate Gear redemption cards in 2010 Topps UFC for UFC Heavyweight Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira cards were produced and inserted into packs. These should have been for his twin brother, UFC Light Heavyweight Antonio Rogerio Nogueira. All redemption cards for these two cards and their parallels will be honored for Ultimate Gear and Autographed Ultimate Gear cards of Antonio Rogerio Nogueira.
Should collectors have questions regarding this issue please feel free to contact Topps customer service at l 1-800-489-9149 between the hours of 8:30am-4:30pm (ET), Monday through Friday or via email at support@topps.com.
09.22
As a former card company marketing guy, I’m a sucker for the ingenious piece of product-specific propaganda. You know, sales material.
For reasons we can all appreciate, high-quality, hand-crafted sales material is a lost art in the sports card universe these days. Every penny is more precious than ever before — and much better spent on improving the product itself than on the colorful literature produced to promote it. But every once in a while, a product comes along that requires something a little more extravagant than an attachment-filled email or a four-color one-sheet.
2010 Press Pass Five Star is one of those products.
In case you missed it, Press Pass Five Star is the envelope-pushing evolution of the high-end NASCAR card set; the bar-raising sequel to Press Pass‘ two-year-old Showcase product that’s so upscale it doesn’t have a suggested retail price. What it does have, in every five-card wooden box, is a base card numbered to 35 or less, a dual, triple quad or oversized memorabilia card numbered to 25 or less, a certified autograph card numbered to 35 or less, an autographed memorabilia card serial numbered to 50 or less and a Classic Compilations book card featuring either an autograph, a piece of memorabilia or both.
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09.22
By Chris Olds | Beckett Baseball Editor
These days, you probably know him as a rookie outfielder for the Florida Marlins.
You might have Logan Morrison’s card, too – one with the Bowman name, or maybe one from Donruss Elite Extra Edition. If not, no worries — you’ll soon have his Rookie Card in a 2010 set or two as he joined the big-league club in late-July. But just a few months ago, if you were a customer of Bonanza Sports in Jupiter, Fla., you might have known him as the salesman who helped you pick out an autographed item or two and he might have handed you his card.
You know, one without a book value – his business card.
You see, before Morrison was busy lighting things up for the Triple-A New Orleans Zephyrs – where he hit .307 with six homers and 45 RBI this season — and before playing in the All-Star Futures Game and then getting promoted to the big leagues, he was an employee at a sports card and memorabilia shop. And while his world has changed quite dramatically playing in the majors, he’s still not too far removed from the card shop experience even though he’s a player already getting national attention and a player appearing on regional TV segments like FSN’s “Lunch with LoMo.” (See Part 2 of that segment here.)
“It doesn’t feel like a long ways away from the card shop,” said Morrison Wednesday morning. “I mean, that’s all different, but I still talk to [Bonanza owner] Jim [Sage] and have great conversations. And he’ll come to games, too.”
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09.21
Panini unveiled one of its first sets for the forthcoming basketball season on Tuesday with 2010-11 Threads set to arrive on Nov. 24 packing more than 20,000 on-card autographs in the product.
Each 24-pack hobby box will include two autographs and two memorabilia cards with one of those being a Threads Rookie signature limited to just 399 copies.
The five-card packs will cost $4 apiece and there will be 12 boxes per case.
Each box also will include 13 insert cards, among them a pair of new sets — All-time Big Men and the Rookie Team Threads Home and Away inserts. Last year, the diecut jersey cards brought some distinctly different looks to the basketball card arena and this year it’s all about the rookies. The signed versions of these cards will be limited to just 99 copies for each version.
Also new this year will be Threads Rookies, which carry a hardwood aesthetic, while there are also hobby-exclusive Platinum Century Proof parallels that will be limited to just 25.
See more images from the set after the jump.
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