LOUSY WEEK FOR CARD COMPANIES MISTAKES ROLL
VOLUME 2, NUMBER 195
**HOT**BUTTON**STORY**
(WHEN A ONE-OF-ONE ISN'T! TOPPS MAKES A MILESTONE MISTAKE!!! FOR THE MOMENT)
TOPPS PULLS APRIL FOOL'S DAY HOAX WITH FAKE CARD IN SERIES ONE!!
** UPPER DECK/BECKETT FLAP HITS INTERNET
** TOPPS MAKES A YOUNG ERROR
** UPPER DECK PUMPS WE-PLAY
** COLORADO DEALER SCORES BIG ON NATIONAL DAY
** SPORTS ILLUSTRATED OPENS THE VAULT
These stories and more in today's edition of TBR: The Brill Report...
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(UPPER DECK CHANGES GAME OVER BECKETT BUST FLAP)
Several hobby heavyweights are entered into a fray over what some are accusing one card company of mis-leading the public. Falling short of calling it false advertising at least one collector and one dealer/Internet host are challenging Upper Deck and Beckett Media. They accuse the two companies of conspiring to make their products look much better than they are via Internet box breaks. Both UD and Beckett say this was never the intent and have come together with a plan to offer the rare cards to collectors through a drawing. One of the accusers says that's not good enough.
The whole thing came to a head when Beckett officials broke two boxes (packs which sell for $600 each) of 2007 UD Exquisite Football. The boxes were said to be random boxes coming off the UD line. The first angry collector posted the video on UTube with his comments about how this seemed to be rigged; a couple of loaded boxes Upper Deck supposedly was giving to Beckett to promote the product. You can see these videos at the following: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_5WR3wFTRA
and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRiGYIJ65tk
Dr. Wax Battle, whose Internet show is very popular, brought this to the attention of Upper Deck officials and was pretty upset since he felt what he called his original idea had been morphed into a tool to promote products unethically.
"When I invented the 'live' video box break we included a thumbs up or thumbs down verdict," said the Internet host. "For a company like Beckett to produce videos they should just be infomercials -- just display a range of what you can get."
He added what Beckett does is mis-leading since they have a publication. the relationship with the manufacturer/advertiser and the Beckett Media stores where dealers pay a tremendous amount of money to buy and sell. A sort of one hand washes the other relationship. UD is one of the two biggest advertisers in the hobby when it comes to Beckett Publications.
"Beckett has a responsibility to the hobby if you are going to be the entity you say you are, leave the box breaking to collectors," he added.
Dr. Wax Battle (real name Rick Dalesandro, owner of The Back Stop in Tom's River, NJ) says he's devoting his entire show this week to the situation. His show begins airing at 4pm EST Wednesday at www.thebackstop.net.
After he brought it to the attention of both Beckett and Upper Deck's Chris Carlin, both responded. Tracy Hackler of Beckett denied anything was misleading and the accusation of loaded boxes.
"Sometimes I wish these situations were as juicy and as elaborate as some conspiracy theorists envision them to be but the fact of the matter is they are not," he said in an email. "We simply don't have the time or manpower to devote to something so involved; nor do we have the desire to be sinister, contrary to what you may think."
He went on to say regarding the break in particular no one at Beckett had any idea the box was loaded nor do they deny the contents of the boxes were "quite spectacular." One of the pulls happened to be a dual cut legendary signature card featuring the Bears Walter Payton and Brian Piccolo. A fantastic pull certainly.
Hackler, associate publisher at Beckett, added as far as his personal reaction to the pulls, as the collector on UTube accused him of (being too subdued not to know what was coming) he said he gets ripped on the Beckett boards no matter which way he goes. If he yells excitedly or remains calm.
In response to the flap Upper Deck announced it was going to take the cards pulled from the Beckett boxes and use them in a promotion to get them back into the hands of the collectors. Upper Deck said like all manufacturers it makes a practice of sending boxes to reporters and publications for promotional purposes.
"Upper Deck DOES NOT make a practice of sending 'special boxes' and packs to these hobby partners," said Carlin. "As anyone can see from reviewing the history of Upper Deck product in these Beckett Box Buster episodes, the recent episode was an anomaly."
Carlin called them "collation inconsistencies" which could happen in any hobby shop in the world. Adding the company appreciates collector concerns he was announcing a program to get those cards into the hands of collectors.
Beckett Media will handle one promotion, UD the other. Collectors who fill out a form with BM will be eligible to win a card from the break, and also a pack of NFL Exquisite. UD's version of the program will feature collectors who bought the product sending in their empty box for a drawing. Two more sealed packs will also be given away. The deadline for submissions is May 30, 2008 and the address is:
The Upper Deck Company
NFL Exquisite Box Buster Promotion
5909 Sea Otter Place,
Carlsbad, CA 92010
As for his reaction Dr. Wax Battle believes it should never have happened in the first place and will continue monitoring the situation with his Internet TV show this Wednesday. As to the matter of whether boxes can be "loaded." The answer is of course yes.
"You can load any box to have anything you want it to have," said one card company spokesman speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's actually pretty easy."
You can also load them to have less than the desired options. At The Score Board in 1995 a series of "salesman" boxes were produced for a phone card series. Almost all types of inserts were available in these boxes except the most sought after and most valuable. The idea was to give these boxes to reporters and reviewers; not a regular random box off the line.
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(OFFICIALS AT TOPPS DECIDED APRIL FOOLS DAY 2008 IS A GOOD DAY)
Topps officials felt there needed to be a little levity in the hobby for a change amidst all the recent goings on and lack of sales with the slow economy. So the company decided to insert a fake phenom Japanese player and unveil "His Fakeness" on April Fool's Day.
Chat boards have been talking up Kazuo Uzuki for weeks. A 104 MPH fastball throwing high schooler going right to the major leagues! But who was this kid? The fact is he is NOBODY. Turns out in Japanese "Kazuo Uzuki" means "First Son of April" or April Fool's!
The card is inserted 1:72 hobby packs.
With all the new Japanese imports in the big leagues Topps thought it would be fun to add this twist and evidently it worked. We're still trying to find out who the pictured kid really is, because he's going down in the history of baseball card lore.
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(TOPPS MISTAKES LEAVE COLLECTORS BEWILDERED)
Two mistakes by Topps are leaving a strange taste in the mouth of collectors who wonder how such major errors could take place. Topps, Upper Deck and Donruss make their share of mistakes as millions of trading cards are produced each. Errors, planned or not, are bound to take place. The two mistakes from Topps are not of the planned variety.
First the company released the fact that previous to 2008 it had put the wrong facsimile autographed on Chris Young's cards. There are certainly two different Chris Young's in the major. One is a pitcher for the Padres while the other is an Arizona Diamondbacks outfielder.
"Topps confirms that Padres pitcher Chris Young's 2008 Topps Baseball Card features a facsimile of his actual autograph. Prior to 2008 the Padre's Chris Young's trading cards included the signature of Chris Young of the Diamondbacks (outfielder)," came the statement from Topps.
Confusing? Well hopefully these photos will help clear things up.
The card on the left is a 2007 Topps Chris Young pitcher card while on the right is the Chris Young outfielder card. Both have the same signature and it belongs to the guy on the right.
The card to the left is the actual facsimile autograph of pitcher Chris Young of the Padres and not Chris Young of the Diamondbacks. They are substantially different.
By the way above left on the card to the left is the actual signature of the outfielder from the D-Backs, Chris Young on another company card. Obviously he abbreviated his first name so he could get the entire signature onto a sticker. This has become a problem for card companies in dealing with stickers.
Collectors want full signatures, players sign so many they end up abbreviating the names. Oh by the way there are no variations to the wrong pre-2008 signatures and Topps says its a dead issue if collectors want the real thing. The cards are history and it's not feasible to go back into print for this kind of thing a year later.
SECOND TOPPS ERROR; 
(This Troy Patton 1/1 Red Parallel sold for $47 on eBay.)
Wow this one is a doozy certainly. It's one thing to make an error regarding a facsimile autograph but quite another to make a mess of a series of 1-of-1 cards. Pulling a 1-of-1 Red Parallel in 2008 Moments and Milestones isn't such a hot pull after all. Turns out the rookie cards no. 145-189 were supposed to have one red parallel each, or, a 1-of-1. Uh-uh.
"Topps is confirming that because of a manufacturing error in the recently released 2008 Topps Moment's & Milestones Baseball Card numbers 145-189 feature more than one Red Parallel," said a release from Topps. "By design each of the rookie cards 145-189 should have only ONE red Parallel but because of the error the subjects have an additional 20 Red Parallels."
Basically there are 20 cards labeled 1-of-1 for each of the cards. Ouch!
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(UPPER DECK BACKS WE PLAY SITE, NEW KIDS SITE)
A new interactive site for kids could become all the rage and at least one card company is jumping on the WePlay.com bandwagon. Upper Deck is throwing advertising dollars behind the venture and why not as the site is utilizing a number of players UDA has in it's stock. The new site, www.weplay.com is an interactive site featuring among others LeBron James, Derek Jeter and Peyton Manning.
"Two hundred-forty million people in America are one degree of separation from youth sports," said Steve Hansen, CEO of WePlay. "Youth sports is held together by emails, phone calls and clip boards and we want to change that."
(Jeter more than involved in new WePlay kids social site.)
The site is a social networking site jammed with videos. Mainly advertiser supported you will see a video of a camera crew which followed James to his local high school gym. And with 52 million kids playing organized sports according to the National Council of Youth Sports, there are endless possibilities.
The site is being run by CAA, the Creative Artists Agency, Pequot Capital -- a hedge fund and it's Internet arm of MLB. Even some of the players are getting financially involved. Jeter is investing some of his own money in the project and in return gets equity in WePlay.
Upper Deck is promoting it's digital trading card library and on-line gaming for it's advertising dollars.
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(NATIONAL TRADING CARD DAY BIG HIT FOR COLORADO DEALER)
Mike Fruitman of Mike's Stadium Sports in Aurora, Colorado, knows how to have a good time. When he's not in his store, or playing with his toddler, he's leading the security charge at big time concerts in the region. He's the one with the "Security" written on his back, taking drunks to the tank and turning rowdy's over to the local cops. A good time for Mike? How about taking in nearly $10,000 on National Trading Card Day at his store.
"In addition to a massive day at the register we added 50 new emails, gave out information about Topps Topps of the Class Program to a hundred kids, started loads of customers on the new UD 20th Anniversary Sets, went through 100 hot dogs, and got hundreds of people to visit my store," said Fruitman. "We got that many people to check us out because of simple BASE cards."
(Fruitman and customer stretch sales roll of register tape across showroom floor.)
Fruitman said he placed a few well timed calls to a local sports radio talk show and convinced his son's elementary school to allow him to send home flyer's about the event. Both helped tremendously and he gave away some Topps and Upper Deck Sets. The numbers of dollars sold paved the way to continue doing this.
Fruitman urged everyone in the business to focus on the positives.
"I would urge you all not to focus on the dead beats who abuse this program and to email the shops you communicate with to get their thoughts as well," he added. "I looked at eBay the day before the promotion and was only able to find six low life pond scum selling their sets."
The reason baseball and the manufacturers scrapped the program after year one was because dealers were selling the sets instead of using them for the promotional giveaway. It took a couple years to bring the program back.
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(KEVIN NASH NAMED TNA SPOKESMAN FOR TRI-STAR CARDS)
Wrestler and avid sports card collector Kevin Nash is the new spokesman for the trading card series soon to be released by Tri-Star. Tri-Star inked a deal with TNA to produce wrestling cards and Nash will be featured in all three. He will even help pick some of the cards.
(Kevin Nash is among the more popular of the TNA stable mates and will headline Tri-Star products for wrestling cards.)
"Kevin Nash is one of the top wrestling stars in history and is knowledgeable about the business of trading cards and as a collector of cards and memorabilia as well," said Jeff Rosenburg, president of Tri-Star. "He is widely known and recognized outside of wrestling circles based on his appearances in movies and TV shows."
Nash called the move a perfect fit for him.
"One of my fondest memories was my brother Mark and I trying to complete our 1968 Topps Baseball Set and that was before you realized you shouldn't be marking on the checklist," said Nash. "I had the privilege back in the NWO days of working with Tri-Star and always found them a first class company."
Nash signed autographs back then and will also do so for the upcoming products. He'll also provide event worn materials.
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(HIGHLAND MINT CRACKS THE GOLD BARRIER AS PRICES FOR BULLION SOAR)
With gold hitting record amounts anyone and everyone with access to it, is making moves. Including The Highland Mint. The Mint is now offering a limited edition (85 only) Pure Gold Yankee Stadium Final Season Gold Coin.
The coin, is .9999 Fine 24KT Gold and comes with the Yankee logo and in an acrylic capsule and a wooden display case. Dealer cost is a cool $2300. Gold hit over $1000 an ounce last week and while it has since dipped below the $1K mark, it remains an excellent investment.
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(NBA GOES AFTER STARTING FIVE PROMOTION)
(UPDATED INFORMATION)
Participating hobby shops still have a couple weeks left in the NBA's Starting Five Promotion. Those who signed up received merchandise to give away to collectors. Those who made a purchase get a special holder. Those who collect and complete the five card set will be entered into a drawing for a trip to the NBA photo shoot.
Some of the cards were even autographed. The five players were LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwight Howard, Dywane Wade and Steve Nash. The NBA also provided a number of $20 Gift Certificates the dealers could give away to lucky customers as well. The promotion ends April 13.
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(SPORTS ILLUSTRATED OPENS THE VAULTS, WHAT NEXT?)
Sports Illustrated is by far the most widely heralded Sports publication in American History, yes an icon. The company has now opened the SI Vault where you can order any past SI cover framed or unframed; for a price. For a mere $19.95 the collector can have the cover of any of those great SI's from the past. For $69.95 they can have their Mickey Mantle/Roger Maris cover (a look back in May, 1991 at the Yankees past) framed. The metal frames are pretty standard. Add an extra $16 for Canada.
We can certainly see any number of possibilities in the future as SI expands it's already widely viewed vault. In the first nine days it produce 2.5 million page views.
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(LONG-TIME & KEY EBAY BACKER STEPS DOWN FROM BOARD)
Investment entrepreneur Robert Kagle is stepping down from the eBay board of directors. He'd been one of the original backers as an investment banker. He put in around $6 million from his Benchmark Capital. During the dot-com peak his investment was worth an estimated $5 billion. Both he and the company said it was for personal reasons and there are no disputes between Kagle and the company. He'll stay on until elections are held at the stock holders meeting later this year.
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