Topps announced that rookie redemption card #3 of 10 from 2007 Topps Finest Baseball is Third Baseman Akinori Iwamura from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

So far the three announced redemptions are:

1) Hideki Okajima, Boston Red Sox
2) Elijah Dukes, Tampa Bay Devil Rays
3) Akinori Iwamura, Tampa Bay Devil Rays

[tags]Topps, Finest, Redemption, Rookie, Akinori Iwamura[/tags]

 Topps has announed that it has made two additional to the 2007 Topps Triple Threads lineup.

• Daisuke (Dice-K) Matsuzaka will have three Triple Relic cards.   One card will feature a spring training used game ball piece.  It pays tribute to his “Gyro Ball” pitch.  There will be parallels of each card that will be numbered: Sepia (#’d 27), Emerald (#’d 18), Gold (#’d 9), Sapphire (#’d 3) and Platinum (1 of 1).
• Barry Bonds will also have three different Triple Relic cards.  He recently renewed his exclusive contract with Topps.

[tags]Topps, Triple Threads, Dice-K, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Barry Bonds[/tags]

Beckett has obtained from Upper Deck the print run, inscription and color varieties from some of the celebrities who autographed cards for the 2007 Spectrum Baseball set.

Collectors who pull a redemption card will not know who the card is until they receive the actual card back in the mail.

Catherine Bach - 205 Cards
Linda Blair - 200
Todd Bridges - 100
Tony Burton - 200
Jeff Conaway - 205
Josh Duhamel - 120
David Faustino - 208
Corey Feldman - 205
Leif Garrett - 100
Lou Gossett Jr. - 105
Anthony Michael Hall - 105
Ernie Hudson - 100
Brandy Ledford - 104
Michael Madsen - 105
Kristy McNichol - 205
Ed O’Neil - 100
Lori Petty - 200
Katey Sagal - 200
Mia St. John - 100
Tiffany - 210
Carrot Top - 200
Barry Williams - 205

For color varieties and inscriptions, visit Beckett.com
[tags]Upper Deck, Spectrum, Autographs, Celebrities, Redemption[/tags]

According to Beckett, Upper Deck President Richard McWilliam announced at the Mainland Trade Conference being held in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. that Upper Deck intends to move to a 45-day turnaround time for redemptions.  His goal is to ship 95% of the redemptions within 45 days.

He acknowledges that redemptions are very frustrating to the consumer and over the last few months operations have been reorganized in order to meet the objective.

[tags]Upper Deck, Redemption[/tags]

In 2003 Barry Bonds become the only player in history to not sign the standard Players Association licensing agreement that allows the trading card companies to use a player in their different sets.

Bonds later signed an exclusive 2-year contract to appear in Topps trading card products.  That contract expired at the end of last season and until now Bonds has been missing from all 2007 baseball trading card products.

Topps has announced that they have now signed Bonds to a new contract for 2007 and he will appear in future Topps releases such as Topps Baseball Series 2.

[tags]Topps, Barry Bonds[/tags]

Earlier this month, Upper Deck announced that 2007 Upper Deck Spectrum Baseball would contain a 40-card autographed subset of celebrities from the world of TV, Music, Movies, Comedy and more. 

Some of the notables inclue Artie Lange from the Howard Stern Show, Turtle (Jerry Ferrara) and Johnny Drama (Kevin Dillon) from the HBO Series Entourage, Captain William Shatner, Napolean Dynamite (Jon Heder) and many others as seen below:

SOS-AH Alan Hunter

SOS-AL Artie Lange

SOS-AS Adam Sandler

SOS-BR Burt Reynolds

SOS-BT Billy Bob Thornton

SOS-BW Barry Williams

SOS-CC Cameron Crowe

SOS-CN Chuck Norris

SOS-DA Dan Aykroyd

SOS-DJ Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

SOS-DS David Spade

SOS-EL Eugene Levy

SOS-ER Efren Ramirez

SOS-FA Jimmy Fallon

SOS-FW Fred Willard

SOS-GB Gary Busey

SOS-GC Gary Coleman

SOS-HE Jon Heder

SOS-HW Henry Winkler

SOS-JB Jack Black

SOS-JF Jerry Ferrara

SOS-JH Jackie Earle Haley

SOS-JL Jason Lee

SOS-JM Jerry Mathers

SOS-JP Joe Pesci

SOS-JR John C. Reilly

SOS-JW Jimmy Walker

SOS-KD Kevin Dillon

SOS-KK Karch Kiraly

SOS-LH Laird Hamilton

SOS-LM Lorne Michaels

SOS-MC John McEnroe

SOS-MF Michael J. Fox

SOS-MG Mark Goodman

SOS-MM Martin Mull

SOS-MQ Martha Quinn

SOS-MT Mr. T

SOS-NB Nina Blackwood

SOS-NM Norm MacDonald

SOS-PG Paul Giamatti

SOS-PS Pete Sampras

SOS-QT Quentin Tarantino

SOS-RM Ralph Macchio

SOS-SB Scott Baio

SOS-SJ Samuel L. Jackson

SOS-SK Stephen King

SOS-SR Stephen Root

SOS-SS Steven Seagal

SOS-TO Tatum O’Neal

SOS-WS William Shatner

[tags]Spectrum, Celebrities[/tags]

Topps announced that rookie redemption card #2 of 10 from 2007 Topps Finest Baseball is Outfielder Elijah Dukes from the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

So far the two announced redemptions are:

1) Hideki Okajima, Boston Red Sox
2) Elijah Dukes, Tampa Bay Devil Rays

[tags]Topps, Finest, Redemption, Rookie[/tags]

A 2005/06 Upper Deck The Cup rookie autographed patch card of Pittsburgh Penguin phenom Sidney Crosby recently sold on eBay for $10,000.  The auction ended on April 5th at the Buy-It-Now price of $10,000.  The card was numbered 59 out 99 and included an impressive 3 color patch.

Sidney Crosby was the first pick of the 2005 NFL Draft and finished his rookie season with 102 points.  During the 2006-07 season, Crosby scored 120 points and won the Art Ross Trophy which goes to the NHL’s high scorer.  He became the youngest player and only teenager ever to win the scoring title of any major league sports league.

The actual card sold is pictured to the left.

[tags]Sidney Crosby, Upper Deck, The Cup, eBay[/tags]

According to Beckett, Upper Deck Chronology basketball will contain dual autographed cards of players and their college coaches.  Two of these are a Michael Jordan / Dean Smith and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and John Wooden. 

The set will also have James Naismith cut signature cards.  There will be 100 rookies in the base set #’d to 199 via Redemption.

[tags]Upper Deck, Chronology, Michael Jordan, Dean Smith[/tags]

The just released Topps Moments & Milestones Baseball contains the first Major League Rookie Card of Boston Red Sox pitcher Daisuke Matsuzaka. 

Dice-K, as he known to fans, was signed by the Red Sox in the offseason after paying over $50 million justfor the rights to negotiate with the Seibu Lions of the Japanse professional baseball league.  After a difficult negotiation, Matsuzaka signed a six year, $52 million contract.

In his regular season debut today, Dice-K led the BoSox to a 4-1 victory by pitched 7 Innings and giving up only 1 run.  Dice-K lived up to his nickname by striking out 10.

Matsuzaka has three different cards in the Topps Moments & Milestones Baseball and each is numbered to 150.  Each card also has a black parallel (#’d to 29) and red parallel (1 of 1).

[tags]Daisuka Matsuzaka, Dice-K, Topps Moments and Milestones, Topps[/tags]

This years Topps Finest baseball had redemption cards for the first 10 cards of the set.  The only difference with everyday run-of-the-mill redemptions in other sets is that collectors do not know what player the card will show.  Collectors can turn in redemptions until August 15, 2007.

Topps has revealed that card #1 of the redemptions is pitcher Hideki Okajima of the Boston Red Sox.  The other 9 cards will be announced by Topps throughout the major league baseball season.

[tags]Topps, Finest, Rookie, Redemption[/tags]

Federal antiturst regulators approved the sale of Topps to the private equity firms Madison Dearborn partners and the Tornante Company.  The Tornante Company is led by former Disney executive Michael Eisner.

The transaction still requires shareholder approval and several of the large shareholders announced they were opposed to the deal when it was announced.  The price that was reported was $385.4 million.

[tags]Topps[/tags]