Weekly Market Report - May 10, 2006

A Fresh Look at Sports Collectibles News

Every morning when I'm eating breakfast I turn on Cold Pizza on ESPN 2 for a few minutes. I pretty much already know who won the games last night, so rather than watching Sports Center I enjoy their quirky sports-related segments. The minute I turned it on today they mentioned a new segment called 'cash or trash' where they have someone from Lelands auctions come in and tell people how much their sports collectibles are worth. If you live in the NYC area and you have a unique collectible that you want to get appraised, this would be a pretty cool (and free) way to do it. It should be worth watching just to see some of the crazy junk that people think is worth money...and who knows, maybe we'll see some extremely valuable collectible that we've never seen before. [read release]

McFarlane Toys and the New York Mets are teaming up to bring fans the action-figure debut for one of Major League Baseball's brightest young stars. David Wright is entering his third season with the Mets, where he's quickly established himself as a brilliant fielder, a dangerous hitter, and one of the fans' favorite players. This will be the first Wright figure and will be sold exclusively to the stores at Shea Stadium and online through their minor-league affiliate the Brooklyn Cyclones. The production run of these figures will be limited to 10,000 pieces. The figure will retail for $8 and is scheduled to be released near the All-Star Break.

Being a Mets fan, I'm pumped for this. Wright has clearly established himself as the face of the franchise for the future and it's good to see McFarlane recognizing him. I'm sure this won't be the last figure they make of him. [read release]

Sports Collectors Digest writer/Tuff Stuff Editor Rocky Landsverk recently interviewed MLBPA category director for trading cards and collectibles Evan Kaplan. Kaplan discusses his thoughts on the reduction of card brands, the new rookie card policy, and his personal collection. The piece is pretty interesting, but the gem is the last paragraph where Kaplan praises Todd McFarlane:

"I still love the quality of McFarlane’s figures, the way they capture the poses. I asked Todd once why he doesn't use the MotionCap (a camera technology) to capture player images. He said, “When the guy’s getting his picture taken, he just smiles. But when he’s throwing a 90 mph fastball there’s strength and tenacity that the photo cannot capture. I need to capture the energy and intensity in his face.” You can see that in his figures."

You know, I never thought about it, but he's right. One of the coolest things about McFarlane figures are the way that they capture the emotion of the moment. Not only do you see the "intensity" in a players face, but you can see their muscles contracting and tendons tightening up on their arms and legs. It adds a realism to the figures that other figures just don't have. [read article]