The first images of the parallels of the on card autos in the Leaf “Ali” set are hitting the internet, and there will be more autographs in the set such as Donald Trump.

Century Collection carries a $200 SRP for each five-card pack/box, but each five-card pack/box consists of two autograph cards, two memorabilia cards and an additional autograph or memorabilia card. So every card you pull will be a hit.

The autograph checklist includes George Brett, Pete Rose, Stan Musial, Charles Duke, Nolan Ryan, Cal Ripken, Ryne Sandberg, Ron Turcotte and Scott Carpenter. There also will be cut autographs from such legendary figures as Ben Hogan, Gerald Ford, Honus Wagner, Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig and Walter Johnson.

There will be also some rare historic relics in the product featuring such legends as Paul “Bear” Bryant, Jim Thorpe, Joe Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, Duke Ellington and James Dean.

Carmelo Anthony Panini Gold Bars Auto SP 2/5 US $67.00 (1 Bid) Auction Ends: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 2:40:31 PST   | Watch this Item

Amare Stoudemire Panini Rookies And Stars Auto Card SP 8/15 US $25.00 Auction Ends: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 2:48:48 PST   | Watch this Item

2010/11 PANINI COURT KINGS JONNY FLYNN AUTO 587/649 US $17.99 Auction Ends: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 3:42:47 PST   | Watch this Item

2011 PANINI LIMITED PATRICK PETERSON AUTO ROOKIE AUTOGRAPH SP #045/199 MINT RC US $36.97 (9 Bids) Auction Ends: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 4:08:51 PST   | Watch this Item

#4 10-11 PANINI LIMITED MATERIALS SIGNATURES JERSEY AUTO JAROME IGINLA 34/49 US $20.09 Auction Ends: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 4:12:15 PST   | Watch this Item

2010-11 Panini Threads Evan Turner RC ON CARD Auto Autograph #/399 SIXERS US $26.29 Auction Ends: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 4:35:58 PST   | Watch this Item

GREG JONES 2011 PANINI SPECTRUM ROOKIE AUTO #201/299~GIANTS US $2.25 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 5:04:23 PST   | Watch this Item

2010-11 Panini Classics Elliot Williams Auto RC 321/699 Portland Trailblazers US $4.99 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 5:07:44 PST   | Watch this Item

2010 Panini Epix #213 Jimmy Clausen Autograph RC #158/210 US $22.78 Auction Ends: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 5:19:06 PST   | Watch this Item

2010-11 PANINI THREADS BASKETBALL BOX-GUARANTEED AUTOGRAPH OR MEMORABILIA CARD US $14.95 (0 Bid) Auction Ends: Wednesday Feb-08-2012 5:25:13 PST   | Watch this Item

The hits from this set have been huge on the secondary market, and if they follow the trends of the first release they should have room for growth. Brock Lesnar autographs have sold between 150 and 350 so far since release.

Kimbo Slice is the other huge name in the set and his have sold between 175 and 225. The big bonus to Kimbo is a) they are on card autographs and b) he signed some with his real name as well.

So this set already has trended upward on the secondary market for singles. The hits I got were nothing huge, although I can’t complain since I hit a GSP autograph in UFC Round 1. We will have more on this set on our next episode of The Card Podcast.

THE HOBBY BRACES ITSELF FOR THE NEXT INSTALLMENT OF UFC TRADING CARDS FROM TOPPS

Little did people know that Topps first ever UFC release would become one of the most successful brand debuts in trading card history. And since that debut UFC fans and collectors alike have been clawing down the door for more.

On July 6th, the wait will be over !

Topps introduces its UFC Flagship product…2009 Topps UFC. And the content will continue with 2 Autographs and 2 Relics in every hobby box!

THE MEAT OF THE PRODUCT!

The 150 Base card-set features 100 stars, 40 fighters seen for the first time on a Topps card and 10 personalities. There are four full parallels of the base set (16 per box): Gold (1 per pack), Onyx (#’d to 188 ), Ruby (#’d to and Diamond ( 1 of 1)

Inserts (16 per box) include (25) Photo Finish, (10) Octagon of Honor, (15) Greats of the Game and (25) Bloodlines…paralleled by Onyx, Ruby and Diamond.

And find the first 25 of 100 UFC Fight Poster cards !

For Autographs & Relics:

16 Ultimate Foto: On-card autographs from the contestants of Ultimate Fighter # 9.

10 Dual Autographed Fight Mats (#’d to 25)

20 Autographed Ultimate Gear (#’d to 25)

50 Fighters and Personalities Autographs…Red ink versions #’d to 25..including Brock Lesnar.

15 Bloodlines Signatures (#’d to 25)…Image attached

5 Octagon of Honor Autographs (#’d to 25)

32 Fight Mat Relics..with Gold, Onyx, Ruby and Diamond Parallels.

20 Ultimate Gear Relics: Pieces of gloves, shorts, etc. (#’d to 199)

2009 Topps UFC ships July 6th and carries a $4.00 SRP for each 8-card pack.

Canine’s short-printed insert card will appear in Upper Deck Series Two Baseball in May

North Las Vegas, NV (April 28, 2009) – Staying on top of current events and adding more variety to its baseball card lines, the Upper Deck Company is proud to unveil another new insert card that’s sure to ignite a fevered frenzy amongst collectors. Is it a newly designed David Price rookie card? Is it a special card devoted to Jacoby Ellsbury’s recent theft of home plate against the New York Yankees in this past weekend’s Red Sox/Yankee showdown at Fenway? Nope. But it is a first of its kind. In fact, it’s a short-printed “Historic Firsts 2009” insert card introducing the newest member of the nation’s First Family: Bo, the Portuguese Water Dog.

“Once Barack Obama won the presidential election and voters got tired of hearing about the weak economy, the next biggest story seemed to be focused on when the Obamas were going to get the dog that was promised to their two daughters,” said Terry Melia, Upper Deck’s public relations manager. “Believe it or not, Bo’s White House arrival the day after Easter quickly became front-page news.”

The card, entitled “Introducing the First Puppy,” shows Bo – on leash – prancing in the grass. The card will be sprinkled into random packs of Upper Deck’s 2009 Series Two Baseball product, which hits store shelves on May 19. The cardback copy reads, in part: “Throughout the presidential campaign in 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama made countless campaign promises…But perhaps no assurance held as much weight as the one he made to his two young daughters…After months of speculation, Bo, a Portuguese Water Dog, arrived to the White House with less pomp and circumstance than his owners but with just as much anticipation and plenty of media coverage.”

You can see the images above of what we pulled. I hit one of the big autographs in Georges St. Pierre. I also beat the odds and hit a 1 of 1 of the Top Fights of 2008 Subset. This has been a pretty popular set so far with boxes on Blowoutcards.com going for 129.99. The sales of the St Pierre or Gracie autographs has been close to $100.00 each.

The Look – Topps had some obstacles with this being the first set and having to rely on some photography from UFC’s early events that may not have been up to todays card standards. The Gracie card from UFC 1 is a perfect example of the lackluster older pictures. The Georges St. Pierre autograph however is a fantastic photograph, and the pictures from recent events are fantastic. The full bleed design slightly reminds me of the older non-sports images from Topps, but work in the context of the UFC. I give the look a solid B.

The Value – If you are buying this you are a UFC fan, with only a 100 card base set, you do well with that. You also get six nice hits per box, and with the clear stickers even the autographs do not look bad. The relics are pretty nice looking, and I know my UFC fan friends were pretty impressed seeing pieces of the Octagon on cards. If you are dropping the 130 on this box you love UFC, and you can not do much better value wise than in this set. I give it a solid A.

The Total Package – This is a set that a lot of hardcore sports collectors may scoff at, but think back to when people first heard that Basketball cards were coming out from Fleer and laughed at that value. This is a set that as UFC’s popularity builds could be an enormous success. You get a design that is what UFC fans want, you get a good deal of hits from a box, and the sale values on the cards are doing well. I give this set a solid B+ overall. There is room for growth with the product, but for a first release from Topps this is a very nice looking set that should hold, if not increase in value over the years.

I will be adding to this review later with the ammount I got for the base set and the number of hits for the parallels.

Barron Vangor Toth designed and lived for the WWF Raw Deal Collectible Card game. I met him right before the Backlash expansion launched for Raw Deal. This set had a new character that I was looking forward to use and learn playing the game. ou see Barron was a huge fan of the character my friend Michael Manna played in the WWE in the Right to Censor. He had followed Michael since his days in ECW and was one of his biggest fans. I met Barron at Knights Quest in Gardner, MA. I had know idea really who I was looking for, but when I went in to the store to look for him and asked where he was people just told me “You’ll know who it is when you see him!”

Well I went to the back of the store and met Barron for the first time. He was quite the person to be around. He stood around 6’8″ I believe, but he was as kind a person that I have ever met. After this day he became one of my closest friends, we would talk wrestling, designing the game, and just about our everyday lives.

I would travel to card tournaments with Barron, and even roomed with him at two Wrestlemania’s. I was one of the few who could easily sleep through his snoring! He was always there for me to talk to, and I spent hours on the phone with him commuting back and forth to broadcast school.

But I will never forget the opportunity I was able to present him with one summer afternoon. I was going to visit Michael aka Stevie, and told him about how Barron had made him really over powered in the game, and how he would do everything he could to get Stevie on cards. So Barron, Stevie and I spent a day hanging out at the StevieCorp compound in Wallingford, CT. I was able to help Barron hang out with one of his all time favorite wrestlers, and if you knew how much Barron loved wrestling, that was a huge deal.

But overtime I slowed on playing Raw Deal and didn’t talk to Barron as much as I had before. But everytime we talked it was like no time had passed and we were right back like we had been hanging out and talking the day before. Last January, I told him that he was one of my friends that I was disappointed that we didn’t talk as much, but said to him “You are one of those friends that I will always be able to let time pass and pick right up like we had talked the day before no matter what.”. That was the last thing I ever said to him

But on February 28th last year I got the news that Barron had been battling cancer for the last year plus. We didn’t talk a lot in that time period not just due to me, but he had been undergoing cancer treatments the whole time. He passed away one year ago today, and I wanted to put something up to remember him through the channel that I have to communicate with people. Too often someone who is well known passes away and people make a huge deal of it right away, but it fades over time. Barron was a huge deal to the CCG world and the poker world. But he was a bigger deal to me, he was my friend, one of my closest friends and not a day goes by that I do not miss him.

God bless you Barron. I miss you man.

Topps released a set that sprinkles a little bit of everything in for a basic collector. If you are a die hard sports fan, this probably isn’t the set for you. But for a historical buff, or an enormous gambler, this is the set for you.

The Look – Topps included the designs from 1953 Topps for writers, 1955 Topps for Explorers, Military Heroes were represented by 1956 Topps. The Revolutionary War cards looked fantastic with the 1962 Topps design. 63, 68, 73, 74, 75, 83, 61, 71 and the classic 1952 Topps designs were also used for the set.

There are little things that I really liked with these designs. Having the facsimile autograph much like the original cards was a very nice touch on a lot of the cards. It’s hard to mess up looks wise when you are using classic designs. I did find it funny that the parallels are numbered to 76 or 1776 and the 1976 set was not represented. “Why are these cards etched and Bowman Chrome is not???!??” Was a question I heard on UStream when we broke these boxes. I have no answer for this. Bring Back Etching!!! The cards look great, but since they are all older designs I can’t do any higher than a very solid B.

The Value – You have the potential with this set to get some insane hits. One of the biggest, if not the biggest, was already pulled but there are still some insane cards in this product including a Ted Williams / Theodore Roosevelt Dual cut, Michael Phelps second autographed card, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Cy Young, and from my own town of Falmouth MA, Susan B. Anthony.  My personal box did pretty poor on autographs or relics. I hit no autographs, and a relic of Rip Torn and a Rudy Gulliani Yankee Stadium seat piece. I did beat the odds and hit a refractor though. But I like to rank the total potential of a set and for the hits you can get, this set definitely ranks an A.

The Total Package – This is not the set for a typical sports card collector. However, it does include some of the best cut signatures of any product in recent memory at this price point. If you look at this set from a different point of view of a sports card collector it is a very cool set. If I had children, or was a teacher this set could be used as a good learning tool. Taking all these things in to consideration this set is an A+ in it’s niche market, but overall with collectors I would give it a B.

AMERICAN HERIATGE INCLUDES SHORT PRINTED RELICS

Topps announces that the all-new unique and popular 2009 Topps American Heritage features several short printed relic cards.

From hanging chads and pieces of The White House to pillows and clothing, Topps American Heritage is filled with an assortment of American historical items. (image attached) Each 24-count hobby box guarantees 2 relics or 2 autographs and carries a $3.00 SRP per pack.

The short printed relic subjects and quantities are as follows:

AHR-GWB4 George W. Bush 2000 Presidential Election Florida Ballot Chad 10

AHR-AG Al Gore 2000 Presidential Election Florida Ballot Chad 10

AHR-JQA John Quincy Adams Desk 30

AHR-JM James Monroe White House Roof 30

AHR-MVB Martin Van Buren White House Roof 30

AHR-JP James K. Polk White House Roof 30

AHR-ZT Zachary Taylor White House Roof 30

AHR-JT John Tyler White House Roof 30

AHR-WHH William Henry Harrison White House Roof 30

AHR-AJ Andrew Johnson White House Roof 30

AHR-BH Benjamin Harrison White House Roof 30

AHR-JAG James A. Garfield White House Roof 30

AHR-WM William McKinley White House Roof 30

AHR-TR Theodore Roosevelt White House Roof 30

AHR-WHT William Howard Taft White House Roof 30

AHR-WW Woodrow Wilson White House Roof 30

AHR-WGH Warren G. Harding White House Roof 30

AHR-CC Calvin Coolidge White House Roof 30

AHR-JB James Buchanan White House Roof 30

AHR-LBJ Lyndon B. Johnson Sofa Fabric 50

AHR-GC Grover Cleveland Handkerchief 75

AHR-HH Herbert Hoover White House Floor 100

AHR-HST1 Harry S Truman White House Floor 100

AHR-FDR1 Franklin D. Roosevelt White House Floor 100

AHR-GWB1 George W. Bush Tie 100

AHR-JPII2 Pope John Paul II Shea Stadium Wall Padding 175

AHR-MB Michael Bloomberg Shea Stadium Wall Padding 175

AHR-BC3 Bill Clinton Shea Stadium Wall Padding 175

AHR-JN Joe Namath Shea Stadium Wall Padding 175

AHR-FDR3 Franklin D. Roosevelt Pillow 200

AHR-ER Eleanor Roosevelt Pillow 200

AHR-JFK John F. Kennedy Sweater 200