Weekly Market Report - May 3, 2006

A Fresh Look at Sports Collectibles News

Last week McFarlane unveiled the much anticipated NFL Legends Series 2. The release definitely lives up to the hype - it includes figures of Walter Payton, Joe Montana, Ray Nitschke, Jim Brown, "Mean" Joe Green, and Ronnie Lott.

At first glance I was pretty impressed with this series, it's hard to argue with those great figures. But then it hit me - they are making a Ronnie Lott figure. The same Ronnie Lott that had his left pinky finger amputated above the third knuckle so he wouldn't miss a playoff game.

I could barely contain myself as I stared at the pictures looking for evidence of the missing piece of the finger. My initial looks were inconclusive, so I decided to download the pictures and zoom in. Once I got a closer look, I concluded that RONNIE LOTT'S PINKY FINGER IS MISSING on the McFarlane figure (see photo below).

Needless to say I love McFarlane. This figure is a must buy for obvious reasons. [read release]

Upper Deck announced the final lineup for the industry’s first ever fan-voted trading card set. The collection will feature 37 cards in all and hit retail stores this fall. The 1963 Maple Leafs (voted the greatest team of all-time), six all-time rookies and one player per team will be included in the collection. You can find out more details on Upper Deck.com.

Hopefully UD and other companies will do more of this in the future. Letting the collectors chose the set not only ensures that collectors will get the cards they want, it also encourages consumer participation which will likely result in more sales for UD. It's a win-win situation. [read release]

One of the things I like about Beckett.com is that they are always correlating current sports news to it's effects on the hobby. On Monday, they released an interesting piece about the players who were winners and losers in the NFL Draft. They rated Vince Young, DeAngelo Williams, AJ Hawk, Kellen Clemens, Jay Cutler, Laurence Maroney, and Joseph Addai as winners. Mario Williams, Reggie Bush, and Matt Leinart were rated as losers.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with a few of those. I agree completely with their take on Williams, Hawk, Clemens, Maroney, and Addai as winners, and also that Williams, Bush and Leinart are losers. However, I think Young and Cutler will have a tough time generating buzz in the hobby. Do you know why? Because they probably won't play for a few years. How hot has Phillip Rivers stuff been the past few years when he's been sitting behind Drew Brees. If Young happens to play, he's probably going to look more like Alex Smith and less like Ben Roethlisberger. Smith isn't exactly the most popular thing going right now, mostly because he threw one touchdown pass as a rookie.
[read article]