Weekly Market Report - January 18, 2006

A Fresh Look at Sports Collectibles News

Upper Deck announced that they will expand their Exquisite Collection brand to include football. Each pack will have a suggested retail price of $500. For your $500 you will get "one regular card; a rookie autographed patch jersey card numbered to 199 or less; one additional signature (either a dual, triple or quad) numbered to 99 or less; one patch card numbered to 35 or less; one oversized jersey card numbered to 50; one and additional rookie signature numbered to 150."

I really don't know what to say. I certainly would never pay that much for a freaking pack of cards but I guess if people will buy it, who am I to say that UD shouldn't do it. Besides, they are the company that puts the most effort into marketing inexpensive cards to kids to grow the hobby, so I really shouldn't complain...[read release]

Our mystery company from last week has been revealed - NAXCOM.com was the one who purchased ThePit from Topps. They plan to keep it as a separate entity from their sports collectibles marketplace NAXCOM.com. Eric Beckerman, CEO of NAXCOM wants to increase the number of products available "Right now ThePit.com only offers a select few graded cards and uncirculated cards,we will look at putting up over 300 new players and over 500 different cards, which will be mainly ungraded cards. This will allow users to buy and sell in bulk quantities. Plus, we will be adding PayPal, a shopping cart feature and much, much more."

I am glad that a company dedicated to the hobby purchased ThePit and decided to improve on what they have rather than dissolve it. That is great news for loyal users. One odd thing I noticed - NAXCOM.com's homepage has no mention of their purchase of ThePit (as of the time of this writing). You would think that would be the kind of thing you'd want to hype up. [read article]

Believe it or not Pitchers and Catchers actually report next month, and with the beginning of Spring Training comes the announcement of another series of MLB McFarlane Sports Picks. Series 15 will include first pieces of Derrek Lee, Johan Santana, Chad Cordero, Miguel Cabrera, Carlos Delgado, and Richie Sexson. Also included is the second piece of Andruw Jones.

This appears to be a solid set, nothing spectacular though. It will likely go relatively unnoticed unless there is some extremely limited variant pieces. One thing I always wondered - why do baseball and basketball figures draw so much less attention than football and hockey? I have my theories but I still wonder. I smell an article coming soon about this...also, is anyone else sick of Andruw Jones spelling Andrew with a u? What were his parents thinking? [read official release]