On the heels of announcing that it is now the official baseball card of USA Baseball, Topps is pleased to share the details of the program’s first appearance…

The much anticipated and completely revamped 2010 Bowman will include both the 2009 National Team and 2009 18 & Under National Team.

The insert set, which will be branded Bowman Chrome, will be seeded 1:4 packs and will also include the following parallels:

Refractor Parallel Sequentially numbered to 750.

Blue Refractor Parallel Sequentially numbered to 250.

Gold Refractor Parallel Sequentially numbered to 50.

Orange Refractor Parallel Sequentially numbered to 25.

Red Refractor Parallel Sequentially numbered to 5. Hobby Only

Super-Fractor Parallel Sequentially numbered 1/1. Hobby Only

Printing Plates Sequentially numbered 1/1. Jumbo Box Only

This will be the first and last time collectors will have a shot at the 2009 teams in Topps products.

The subjects are as follows:

2009 National Team

USA-BC1
Trevor Bauer
P

USA-BC2
Chad Bettis
P

USA-BC3
Bryce Brentz
P/OF

USA-BC4
Michael Choice
OF

USA-BC5
Gerrit Cole
P

USA-BC6
Christian Colon
IF

USA-BC7
Blake Forsythe
C

USA-BC8
Yasmani Grandal
C

USA-BC9
Sonny Gray
P

USA-BC10
Rick Hague
IF

USA-BC11
Tyler Holt
OF

USA-BC12
Casey McGrew
P

USA-BC13
Brad Miller
IF

USA-BC14
Matt Newman
OF/P

USA-BC15
Nick Pepitone
P

USA-BC16
Drew Pomeranz
P

USA-BC17
T.J. Walz
P

USA-BC18
Cody Wheeler
P

USA-BC19
Andy Wilkins
IF

USA-BC20
Asher Wojciechowski
P

USA-BC21
Kolten Wong
OF/C

USA-BC22
Tony Zych
P

2009 U18 Team

USA18-BC1
Cody Buckel
RHP

USA18-BC2
Nick Castellanos
IF

USA18-BC3
Garin Cecchini
IF

USA18-BC4
Sean Coyle
IF/OF

USA18-BC5
Nicholas Delmonico
IF

USA18-BC6
Kevin Gausman
RHP

USA18-BC7
Cory Hahn
OF/LHP

USA18-BC8
Bryce Harper
C/OF

USA18-BC9
Kavin Keyes
IF

USA18-BC10
Manny Machado
IF

USA18-BC11
Connor Mason
RHP

USA18-BC12
Ladson Montgomery
C/IF

USA18-BC13
Phillip Pfeifer
LHP

USA18-BC14
Brian Ragira
OF

USA18-BC15
Robbie Ray
LHP

USA18-BC16
Kyle Ryan
LHP

USA18-BC17
Jameson Taillon
RHP

USA18-BC18
AJ Vanegas
RHP

USA18-BC19
Karsten Whitson
RHP

USA18-BC20
Tony Wolters
IF

Upper Deck Settles Lawsuit with Major League Baseball

Sports card leader can continue selling recently released baseball products as part of the mutually agreed-upon settlement

Carlsbad, CA (March 3, 2010) – Today, the Upper Deck Company is pleased to announce that Upper Deck and Major League Baseball have mutually agreed to settle the lawsuit brought by Major League Baseball against Upper Deck. Per the terms of the settlement agreement, Upper Deck has agreed not to use MLB trademarks including team names and/or logos on its trading cards going forward. However, as part of the settlement, Upper Deck can and will continue to sell three recently released baseball products currently on store shelves: 2009 Signature Stars, 2009 Ultimate Collection and 2010 Upper Deck Series One.

“Upper Deck is pleased with the settlement including the amount the company paid as it relates to the trading cards released in 2010,” said Jason Masherah, Upper Deck’s director of Sports Brands. “As a company, we are changing the direction of Upper Deck’s baseball products going forward. We are looking forward to creating fresh and innovative set content that will continue to get collectors excited.”

Since its inception in 1989, Upper Deck has been the market leader for both its ability to create top-quality, super-premium products and for developing innovative programs that promoted baseball cards to kids.

“Great cards of great players have always been the cornerstone of Upper Deck products,” added Upper Deck Founder and CEO Richard McWilliam. “We’ll just have to see how innovative and creative we can become now.”

DURHAM, N.C. — USA Baseball and the Topps Company, the leading creator and marketer of sports cards, today announced an exclusive multi-year licensing deal to make Topps the Official Baseball Card of USA Baseball. Topps will have exclusivity on USA Baseball trademarks, logos and other intellectual property, for use on cards featuring USA Baseball players.
From 1984-93 Topps was the exclusive card manufacturer for USA Baseball, producing cards for the U.S. Olympic Baseball Team. The new agreement calls for cards, autographs and game-used equipment of USA Baseball’s Collegiate, 18U and 16U National Team players to be featured in a variety of Topps products each year.

“Twenty-five years after collectors were first introduced to USA Baseball, our organization is pleased to have Topps, the industry leader, return as the exclusive home for USA Baseball trading cards,” said Paul Seiler, USA Baseball Executive Director/CEO. “We look forward to working closely with Topps as together we provide collectors with a look at the future of America’s game on trading cards.”

“Now we’re the only trading card licensed by Major League Baseball, Minor League Baseball and USA Baseball,” said Warren Friss, Vice President – General Manager of Topps Sports and Entertainment. “We are covering the game of baseball at every level.”

Each year USA Baseball selects close to 60 of the best young baseball players in the country to its National Teams, giving collectors the first opportunity to see the future stars of baseball on cards. The first product release with USA Baseball content will be 2010 Bowman Baseball which will be released in May and feature cards of the 2009 Collegiate National Team and 2009 18U National Team.

In addition to the Topps sets featuring USA Baseball inserts, the annual USA Baseball National Teams Box Set will also be manufactured by Topps and will continue to be the exclusive place to get all members of the USA Baseball National Team in one set. The box set is scheduled for a December release in 2010 and in each of the remaining years of the agreement.

THE QUIRKS OF 2010 TOPPS HERITAGE BASEBALL

Collectors of 2010 Topps Heritage Baseball are noticing some interesting short printed variations throughout the product. Topps is confirming the following:

1961 HR Chase Insert
2010 Topps Heritage commemorates the 1961 Topps design, so Topps saw it fitting to celebrate the famous 1961 HR chase with a special 45-card insert…

Babe Ruth (15 cards) Hobby Exclusive
Roger Maris (15 cards) Wal-Mart Exclusive
Mickey Mantle (15 cards) Target Exclusive

Each of these inserts also has a Relic Parallel that’s sequentially numbered to the player’s jersey number …Ruth (#’d to 3), Maris (#’d to 9) and Mantle (#’d to 7). In addition, there are short printed variations in the base set featuring Ruth (#60), Maris (#61) and Mantle (#56).

Dice Game Variations
In 1961, Topps issued an obscure 18-card dice game as a test. The following players in 2010 Heritage have short printed variations with dice game backs:

Joe Mauer, Victor Martinez, Albert Pujols, Mark Teixeira, Grady Sizemore, Justin Upton, Adam Jones, Vladimir Guerrero, Matt Kemp, Ichiro, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Tim Lincecum, Chase Utley, Ian Kinsler, Derek Jeter, Hanley Ramirez, Alex Rodriguez and Chipper Jones.

Color Variations
There are 10 extremely short printed color variations. The color changes appear on the player and team name plates at the bottom of the card.

Albert Pujols Black-Black
Joe Mauer Black-Black
CC Sabathia Green-Yellow
Derek Jeter Red-Yellow
Grady Sizemore Green-Red
J.A. Happ Orange-Blue
Zack Greinke Yellow-Blue
Ryan Braun Blue-Orange
David Wright Green-Yellow
Pablo Sandoval Yellow-Green

Juan Marichal Autographs
All of Juan Marichal’s Real One autographs were signed in red ink and none are sequentially numbered unlike the other Red Ink autographs in the product.

Short Printed Base Cards
Base cards 426-500 are short printed and can be found 1:3 packs.

ARLINGTON, TX – FEB. 3, 2010 – In celebration of Super Bowl 44 in Miami, Panini, a leading manufacturer of licensed collectibles, NFL and NBA trading cards, put out a bounty valued at more than $1,500, for the collector who pulls the NFL Limited 2009 Pro Bowl Combo Materials card featuring Super Bowl quarterbacks Peyton Manning and Drew Brees (sequentially numbered #44 of 100). With a week left before the offer expired, collector Dawn McNew of Lehigh Acres, Fla., contacted the Panini offices to let them know the card all of America was searching for was part of her 1,000+ card Peyton Manning card collection.

“I am a huge, huge Peyton Manning fan and I only collect Peyton Manning cards, which is how I ended up with the card. I simply collect as many Peyton Manning cards as possible,” admitted McNew. “I saw the offer advertised on the Panini website and since I knew I had two versions of that card, I thought it would be worth checking my collection to see if I had #44. It was surely a great feeling to see one of my cards with the sequential numbering #44/100.”

In all, the physical education teacher at Lehigh Senior High School, estimates her Manning card collection to exceed 1,000 different cards, including two of the Manning-Brees Pro Bowl Material cards. An Indiana native, who moved to Florida seven years ago, she purchased the #44/100 Manning-Brees card for $11 on Nov. 12 on eBay where she does most of her collecting. She also shops at NASCAR Sports & Collectibles in Bonita Springs, Fla.

“When Dawn admitted that she was unsure if she wanted to part with the #44/100 version because it was part of her Manning collection, we knew she was a true collector and exemplified everything great about collecting,” admits Scott Prusha, Marketing Manager for Panini. “As a result, we decided to amend the bounty and return card #44/100 to her along with the year supply of Panini NFL cards and an exclusive Manning-Brees #1 of 1.”

The Manning-Brees card, a part of the Pro Bowl Combo Materials insert set in Panini’s 2009 Limited NFL brand, was released in October. It has a limited print run of just 100 sequentially numbered cards, and according to Beckett, is valued at $20. The offer, made by Panini on January 27, remained open to collectors until the opening kick-off of Super Bowl 44, on Sunday, February 7 @ 6:28 pm ET.

“From the hundreds of emails we received about this offer and the response on chat boards, blogs and websites, it is apparent that collectors had fun with this bounty,” said Prusha. “We’re so pleased that we will be able to reward a collector for their support of Panini NFL cards.”

The Panini Group, established almost 50 years ago in Modena, Italy, has subsidiaries throughout Europe, Latin America and the United States. Panini is the world leader in officially licensed collectables and is the leading multi-national publisher of comics, children’s magazines and Manga in Europe and Latin America. Panini has distribution channels in more than 100 countries and employs a staff of over 800. For more information visit us at www.paniniamerica.net or www.paninigroup.com.

This year we had a few players who had previously had either AFLAC cards (Hunter Morris, Evan Danielli) or cards in the Upper Deck releases of Team USA sets (Hunter Morris, Cecil Tanner), but for many of them this was an opportunity to have their very first baseball card.

The first thing I wanted to make sure we did, and did well was pick out the best photographs of the players possible. Once those were picked out after a day or so Mike got back to me with the proof sheet that will be at the bottom of the various possible designs. You can see the mock ups and the raw image we used.  We are going to end this post here, but this will be a continuing series about the production of my first card set.

Babe Ruth Dual Relic — Bat/Old Yankee Stadium Seat

Babe Ruth Triple Relic — Old Yankee Stadium Seat/Uniform/Old Yankee Stadium Seat

Ty Cobb Dual Relic — Bat/Tiger Stadium Seat

Jackie Robinson Triple Relic — Ebbets Field Seat/Bat/Ebbets Field Seat

Mickey Mantle Triple Relic — Old Yankee Stadium Seat/Uniform/Old Yankee Stadium Seat

Topps will replace any of the above cards with a pack of 2009 Topps Tribute Baseball or comparable product for collectors that are not satisfied with their card(s).

In addition, every card in 2009 Topps Sterling Baseball features game-used bat and game-used uniform except for one subject — Carl Erskine, which features Erskine’s autograph with stadium seat.  Topps will replace this card with a pack of 2009 Topps Sterling Baseball for collectors not satisfied with their card.

Moving forward, to ensure no confusion, stadium seat pieces will not be used as memorabilia pieces unless it’s part of a special stadium seat-specific insert.

Please send all items intended for replacement to the address listed below.  Please allow 2-4 weeks for delivery.

The Topps Company

ATTN: Seat Relic Replacement

401 York Avenue

Duryea, PA 18642

The first two are my first pick ups from the 2009 Team USA Box set from Upper Deck. Chad Bettis played for the Falmouth Commodores in 2008 and was slated to play for our team last year but made the Team USA Roster for last year.

One thing UD changed from the year before that I liked on these on card signatures was the fact that the parallels actually feature different inks as opposed to last year where they just had a different foil stamp and nothing else was different what so ever. So that’s a plus to the cards, although this year potentially is my least favorite on card design for Team USA sets released from Upper Deck.

The next card I got in was the 09 BCDP A.J. Pollock Gold refractor. AJ was 2008 Cape Cod League MVP and one of the first players I worked with in my relationship with the Falmouth Commodores. We got to make his first ever card in our team set this past season. The only issue with the card was the fact that a lot of the refractors this year can have a sort of printer roll mark, and it looks like this AJ did when I compared it to his Blue Refractor and Superfractor I had.

The final two cards are the refractors of Luis Exposito. I have now completed the full rainbow of colors in Sterling of him with the Gold (Which I had him signed IP), and the black and the 1/1 Red. This years Sterling Refractors have a great deal of etching, which we asked for  many many times again. They pop a lot more than even the Bowman Chrome cards this year. If Topps had gone with the autographs being on card this set would have lived up to it’s price tag as opposed to being fairly panned by most critics. Owning both the Red Refractor and the Superfractor, I definitely think the better looking of the two by a landslide is the Red Refractor.

Hope you enjoyed my thoughts on my pick ups and me sharing my collection. Stop back over the next few days and I will be posting more pick ups.

We are excited to add a player of CJ’s caliber with Chris Johnson speed and Percy Harvin pass cathcing ability. We will begin having college merchandise signed by CJ Spiller in the coming weeks and look forward to announcing more exciting names in the coming weeks as well.