Upper Deck has announced another Mystery Rookie Redemption card from 2007 SPX Baseball. Card #118 is Kevin Slowey of the Minnesota Twins

There are a total of 8 rookie redemption in SPX Baseball and to this point the following have been revealed:

• #106  Tim Linecum, San Francisco Giants
• #107  Philip Hughes, New York Yankees
• #110  Mark Reynolds, Arizona Diamondbacks
• #113  Homer Bailey, Cincinnati Reds
• #118  Kevin Slowey, Minnesota Twins 
• #120  ??
• #128  ??
• #137  ??

[tags]Upper Deck, SPX, Redemption[/tags]

As announced earlier, autograph cards of the 4 Topps Exclusive rookies from the NBA draft went up for sale today on Topps.com.

The Greg Oden card which was limited to 50 and sold for $500, sold out almost immediately.  As of the time of this writing the other 3 are still available.  They are:

• Yi JianLian (#’d to 100) - $200
• Brandan Wright (#’d to 100) - $150
• Nick Young (#’d to 100) - $100

A way for Topps to make a quick buck or $70,000 and recover part of their investment in these exclusive rookies.

[tags]Topps, Autograph, Greg Oden, Exclusive[/tags]

The Upper Deck Premier Babe Ruth Autograph we profiled earlier has sold for $40,100 on eBay.

The card was pulled earlier this year by a New Jersey collector and the sale was handled through Beckett Select Media Auctions.

[tags]Autograph, Babe Ruth, BGS, Upper Deck Premier[/tags]

The recent trend has been for the card companies to sign players to exclusive autograph and memorabilia card contracts.  Besides allowing the company to use the player’s image on marketing and promotional material, it prevents other card companies from including autographed and memorabilia cards in their product.

This year, Topps and Upper Deck have signed five of the likely top picks in the NBA draft.  These players are:

1. Kevin Durant (Texas)
2. Yi JianLian (China)
3. Greg Oden (Ohio State)
4. Brandan Wright (North Carolina)
5. Nick Young (USC)

Now comes word that Press Pass has canceled 2007/08 Press Pass Basketball because of the shortage of top picks that would be available to include in their product.

Hopefully this trend does not continue in the future, or at least, players can still appear in draft pick sets in their pre-professional uniforms.

[tags]Press Pass, NBA Draft, Exclusive[/tags]

Upper Deck has announced another Mystery Rookie Redemption card from 2007 SPX Baseball. Card #113 is Homer Bailey of the Cincinnati Reds.

There are a total of 8 rookie redemption in SPX Baseball and to this point the following have been revealed:

• #106  Tim Linecum, San Francisco Giants
• #107  Philip Hughes, New York Yankees
• #110  Mark Reynolds, Arizona Diamondbacks
• #113  Homer Bailey, Cincinnati Reds
• #118  ??
• #120  ??
• #128  ??
• #137  ??

[tags]Upper Deck, SPX, Redemption[/tags]

Topps has announced that they will be offering limited edition autographed rookie cards of 4 future NBA stars.  These card which only will be available through Topps.com will feature Greg Oden, Brandan Wright, Yi JianLian and Nick Young.

The cards will be available on Topps.com on Friday, June 29th from 3PM EST through Friday, July 6th 3PM or until the cards sell-out, whichever comes first.  Each customer is limited to 1 card of each player.

[tags]Topps, NBA Draft, Greg Oden[/tags]

Topps will celebrate Mickey Mantle Day on 7/7/07 during this year’s MLB All-Star FanFest (July 6-10th in San Francisco).  They will have a wrapper redemption program where fans and collectors can receive one of seven cards.  These cards are:

1. Tim Lincecum, San Francisco Giants
2. Barry Bonds, San Francisco Giants
3. Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees
4. David Wright, New York Mets
5. Ryan Howard, Philadelphia Phillies
6. Daisuke Matsuzaka, Boston Red Sox
7. Mickey Mantle, New York Yankees (only on 7/7/07)

There will also be two relic cards: Barry Bonds Uniform Relic (#’d to 250) and Mickey Mantle Bat Relic Card (#’d to 77).  Topps will announce how these cards can be obtained during FanFest.

Topps will also have available a 2007 Topps Baseball Complete Set with special All-Star packaging.  The set contains five exclusive All-Star cards.  Collectors will also receive a 5-card Home Run Derby Champions set with the purchase of the complete set.  This set includes:

1. Ryan Howard (2006)
2. Bobby Abreu (2005)
3. Miguel Tejada (2004)
4. Garret Anderson (2003)
5. Jason Giambi (2002)

[tags]Topps, MLB All-Star FanFest, Mickey Mantle[/tags]

The New Jersey collector who pulled the 2007 Upper Deck Premier Autographed World Series Ticket card has decided to auction off the card.  The auction is being handled by Beckett Select Media Auctions and is listed on eBay.

The card was graded a BGS 9.5 by Beckett Grading and the autograph was authenticated by James Spence Authenticators.

The auction can be found here.

[tags]Upper Deck Premier, Babe Ruth, Autograph, BGS[/tags]

Upper Deck Series 2 Baseball, which is releasing today (June 20th), will contain the first game-used jersey cards of Daisuke Matsuzaka.

Besides the Dice-K jersey cards, Series 2 will contain other highlights such as 1989 rookie reprints, Star Signings and Rookie of the Year Predictor cards.

Upper Deck has announced that the first card and certified autograph of future First or Second NBA pick Kevin Durant will appear in Upper Deck Goudey Baseball which will be released in August.

Durant signed an exclusive deal with Upper Deck earlier this year for autographs and memorabilia.

[tags]Upper Deck, Kevin Durant, Goudey[/tags]

According to Beckett, Upper Deck is teaming up with Major League Baseball to launch a new wrapper redemption program called “Rookie Card of the Month”.

Collectors will be able to redeem Upper Deck and Fleer wrappers for one of six cards throughout the season.  The cards will be available at your local hobby shop.

The first card (May) is outfielder Fred Lewis of the San Francisco Giants.  Lewis hit for the cycle in his major league debut.

[tags]Redemption, Upper Deck, Fred Lewis[/tags]

Topps announced that rookie redemption card #5of 10 from 2007 Topps Finest Baseball is Pitcher Daisuke “Dice-K” Matsuzaka of the Boston Red Sox.

So far the five announced redemptions are:

1) Hideki Okajima, Boston Red Sox
2) Elijah Dukes, Tampa Bay Devil Rays
3) Akinori Iwamura, Tampa Bay Devil Rays
4) Tim Lincecum, San Francisco Giants
5) Daisuke Matsuzaka, Boston Red Sox

[tags]Topps, Finest, Redemption, Rookie, Daisuke Matsuzaka, Dice-K[/tags]