Weekly Market Report - March 29, 2006

A Fresh Look at Sports Collectibles News

This Monday I got a surprise in my Inbox - the first issue of the Beckett Digital Buyers Guide. The new "newsletter" is superior to email and eBooks for several reasons: it is longer (the first issue is 20 pages) and is viewed in Beckett's own special online viewer that enables you to search the text of all articles, ask advertisers questions with a simple click, and download the publication for view off-line, among other things.

I'm always quick to be critical of the collectibles industry because I feel it is still in the stone-age. I always hype up SportsLizard.com when we launch innovative things such as the enhanced browsing, mobile site, and RSS feed. So it would be hypocritical of me to ignore this or to bash it. It is a great thing for the hobby. It is simple to use and offers a variety of unique tools, not to mention gives Beckett.com another option to suck money from it's advertisers. Anyway, I'm glad to see it and I'm looking forward to getting it every week. Good job Beckett. [read release]

The U.S Postal Service announced that Baseball Hall of Famers Mickey Mantle, Roy Campanella, Hank Greenberg and Mel Ott will be on the 39-cent "Baseball Sluggers" postage stamps. I never quite understood why the USPS feels the need to turn stamps into collectibles, but that's neither here nor there. What attracted me to this article was a quote from John E. Potter, Postmaster General and Chief Executive Officer for the U.S. Postal Service, who unveiled the stamp. "Sometimes something very special happens, the crack is louder, the crowd roars harder and the ball defies gravity, these stamps will do this on letters."

Huh? Does that make any sense to anyone? I think he's trying to say that those stamps are as special as the athletes that are on them. At least that's what I'm guessing he wishes he'd said. I certainly hope he'd say that a little better if given a second chance, he is the CEO of the freaking U.S. Postal Service! [read release]

McFarlane is releasing three hockey 3-packs that will be available exclusively in Canada and online. The packs are:

TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS: Mats Sundin 2, Tie Domi & Tomas Kaberle

EDMONTON OILERS: Jason Smith, Ales Hemsky & Chris Pronger

MONTREAL CANADIENS: Saku Koivu, Michael Ryder & David Aebischer

I like the diversity here, it's not just household names. Also, the addition of the recently-acquired Aebischer is a nice touch. Canadian hockey fans finally have something to be excited about. Considering how poor their performances on the ice are this year, they should thank McFarlane for the extra attention. [read release]