Weekly Market Report - March 22, 2006

A Fresh Look at Sports Collectibles News

To commemorate Barry Bonds' chase towards home-run history, Topps will create new cards that will appear within 24 hours after each home run Bonds hits. The cards will be available for purchase on topps.com and barrybonds.com. Each card will remain available until Bonds hits his next home run.

Up until I read the "Book of Shadows" excerpt in Sports Illustrated a few weeks back I tried to remain objective towards Bonds. I would always say that he was without a doubt the most dominant athlete that I have ever seen and that it is entirely possible to put on ten or even twenty pounds of muscle in an offseason (which is very much possible). Well, I'm done defending Barry. He still is one of the greats of all time when you look at his pre-steroid career and the fact that his best assets may be his patience at the plate and his eye, neither of which were "enhanced" from steroids. At this point, any logical person has concluded that he has taken illegal performance enhancing drugs. So why do companies continue to support this guy? You would hope that Topps would take a moral stand and pull the plug on the promotion, regardless of the expenses incurred. [read article]

This April, the Spawn.com Collector's Club will offer debut figures for young stars Sebastian Telfair, Andrei Kirilenko, and J.R. Smith. Each of the figures will be a limited run, sold individually through the Club at the same time.

This is a nice release. Telfair and Smith have yet to reach their immense potential, while Kirilenko has been an unrecognized All-Star in Utah. As I mentioned way back in November, enjoy any time McFarlane releases an NBA set that doesn't include Nash, McGrady, Ginobili, James, Carter, Yao Ming, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, Dwayne Wade, Kobe, or Shaq because it is a rarity. [read release]

Beckett ran an article this week about Washington Capitals Rookie superstar Alexander Ovechkin's recent signing appearance in the midst of his busy Olympic and NHL schedule.

"So it turns out that Alexander Ovechkin is not only the best rookie on the ice, but the best rookie off it as well.

While Sidney Crosby draws mixed reviews (at best) from autograph collectors, the Washington winger won over a new legion of fans after a recent signing appearance at Frozen Pond in Toronto."

The article continues to praise Ovechkin as if he's the second coming of Mother Teresa. Now lets hold on a second - Ovechkin IS a great rookie and deserves more hype than he is getting, HOWEVER, lets not annoint the guy for making an autograph appearance (that he's getting paid for of course). He sat down at a table and made more money in a few hours than a lot of people make in a month. So lets not get too carried away with how great of a guy Alex is.
[read article]