Weekly Market Report - February 8, 2006

A Fresh Look at Sports Collectibles News

Two LeBron James signed patch cards from 2003-04 Upper Deck Exquisite Basketball recently generated large sales in separate auctions on eBay. Card No. 93 of 99 sold for $9,999, while card No. 23 of 99 sold for $20,000. The auctions can be seen here and here.

First off, this is obviously ridiculous but I'm going to try to ignore my bias against $500 packs of cards and ask the important question - how does the freaking value double in one day? On 1/28 the thing goes for 10k and a day later one sells for 20k? There are some stupid people out there willing to spend insane amounts of money on things that they could have had for HALF PRICE ONE DAY EARLIER. [read story ]

Topps gave four lucky winners a chance to meet NFL legend Barry Sanders in the Topps Card Show green room as part of the NFL Experience at Super Bowl XL. Clay Luraschi from Topps said that "he took a lot of time to talk with all the winners and ask them how they liked the Topps card show and how they liked being at the Super Bowl. I am sure it will be a meeting they will never forget."

It was a great idea that Topps made this a kids-only Pack War event, and I don't doubt for a second that it's something that those kids will never forget, but Barry didn't look too happy in those photos. When I looked at the first one, I though to myself "maybe they just caught him just before/after his smile" - but then I looked at the second picture. Barry, do you think you could at least pretend to be happy for the cameras? After all, I'm guessing that Topps paid you quite a bit of $ to just show up, shake some hands, take some photo's, and sign some autographs. If we could all be so lucky. Stop looking so miserable Barry. [read article]

The redemption card lineup has been announced for the 2006 NBA Jam Session that will be held Feb. 15-20 in Houston. Topps and Upper Deck will each offer a variety of redemption cards each day of the show for consumers who buy three and five packs respectively.

The article also mentions the players that Topps/Upper Deck will give in the packs. I'm going to be honest with you - this really didn't interest me very much and I normally wouldn't include this in the Weekly Report, but it's been a slow collectibles week. I promise to come back strong next week (that's assuming some interesting stuff happens). [read article]