Weekly Market Report - March 15, 2006

A Fresh Look at Sports Collectibles News

Teenager J.J. McCormick pulled a one of a kind Babe Ruth baseball card from a pack and sold it for more than $10,000. The 2004 Playoff Prime Cuts card featured a piece of a 1925-era pinstripe home jersey worn by the Babe himself, and the swatch was from the "G.H.Ruth" nametag stitched into the jersey. According to Leland's Auction House, this particular Babe Ruth jersey, with "G.H.Ruth" embroidered into the fabric, is the earliest of only three known to exist.

Talk about every collectors dream! The best part is that he's only 17. It seems like whenever we hear about these amazing pulls it comes from some 45 year old guy...probably because they are the only ones who can afford the kind of packs that have cards like this. Regardless, young J.J. now has some $ to for college, a car, or whatever else he needs/wants. Who knows, maybe he'll buy $10,000 in baseball cards and pull something even better. Congrats J.J.
[read article]

Topps is set to enter the high-end baseball card market with its 2006 Topps Triple Threads Baseball. Not only will this product feature some of the greatest players to ever step on the diamond, it will feature some of the coolest cards this hobby has ever seen with its array of star power, unique die-cuts, combinations and creativity. You can see some of the cards at http://www.topps.com/sports/Triple_Threads/TripleThreads.htm.

Although I'm not really into the high-end cards, these look pretty cool. The only thing I don't get is why it's called Triple Threads. The article says "It’s called Triple Threads for a reason – every memorabilia card is a Triple Relic. In addition, every Triple Relic is sequentially numbered to just 3, 9 or 18." Now, I get the Triple Relic (very nice), but what does the 3, 9, 18 thing have to do with it? I get the 3. 3 squared is 9, so I get the 9. But 3 cubed is 27...not 18. I suppose 3*6=18, or 9*2=18, but there's no pattern there, at least none that I'm seeing. [read article]

Topps will be sponsoring the 2006 McDonald's All American High School Basketball Games, which will take place on Wednesday, March 29, 2006 at Cox Arena in San Diego. In addition to its official sponsorship, Topps is creating several trading card sets commemorating past and present McDonald's All Americans. Topps will:

• Offer 20 different McDonald's All American Alumni cards exclusively on-line at www.eTopps.com
• Create personal trading cards on site for each of the All Americans and present them to the players at the awards banquet
• Create an additional trading card set featuring each of the All Americans in game action. Each player will receive copies of the set
• Host the 2006 McDonald's All American Charity Auction on www.TheToppsVault.com. Proceeds will benefit The Ronald McDonald House
  

I'm all for the proceeds going to the Ronald McDonald House - they do great things - but now that high-school bball is basically a national sport (arenas filled w/15,000 people, games on ESPN, cards from Topps, etc) when will we start exploiting middle schoolers? You might laugh, but 10 years ago no one would think we'd be watching high-school kids on TV. [read article]