Information On Steiner Sports At The 2012 National In Baltimore

If you follow this blog carefully, you already know I’m headed to Baltimore for this year’s National.  Yes, I’m taking off work, oddly enough at a rather crucial time, because I want to be there all five days.  I’ll be posting and tweeting with updates to create a mini virtual experience for those of you that can’t get there.  More on that as we get closer.

You also may have figured out I’m a life long Yankee fan.  I accept your boos and your high fives. And to all of you Red Sox fans, I’m a decent person so, please, no hating.  I’ll extend the same courtesy to you.

There is so much to do and see at the National, so many things of interest to collectors.  Over the next two weeks I will try to highlight some of the things I’m looking to forward to and booths I will be visiting. 

I’ve chosen Steiner Sports to profile first, largely because of their close association with the Yankees.  They handle items from other teams too, even the Red Sox, so, again, please no hating.

Steiner Sports is one of the heavy hitters in sports memorabilia.  They carry autographed memorabilia by athletes like Hank Aaron, Joe Namath, Magic Johnson and Muhammad Ali and have exclusive deals with Derek Jeter, Tony Hawk, David Ortiz, Johnny Damon, Joe Torre, Eli Manning, Tiki Barber, Paul O’Neill and Curt Schilling among others. 

Through their Internet site, Steiner Sports handles sales and online auctions of rare one-of-a-kind collectibles.  I’m really excited that one of these auction items will be at the National because the achievement associated with it happened on my birthday.  Don Larsen’s perfect game uniform will be on display in the Steiner Sports booth in the corporate pavilion (A2D) Friday and Saturday. Don Larsen will be in the Steiner Sports booth from 12-2 on Saturday taking photos, meeting with fans and showing off the uniform. 

Right after Larsen’s appearance, Dwight “Doc” Gooden will signing autographs and be taking photos Saturday from 2-4pm, again at their booth.  Autographs are free with any purchase during that time.  There is a limit of 1 autograph per person.

All five days there will be huge deals on Steiner Sports products at their booth with exclusive pricing to Baltimore.  Some of the deals will at the lowest prices they’ve ever offered.

Saturday is a busy day for Steiner Sports.  Outside of their booth, at the Autograph Pavilion, two of their exclusive athletes will be signing.   Soon to be the newest member of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Barry Larkin and one of my favorite players, MLB All-Time Saves Leader, Mariano Rivera will both be appearing to sign autographs courtesy of Steiner Sports.  There is a fee for both of those signings.

Steiner Sports events are not just confined to the Convention floor.  On Friday night there will be an exclusive VIP party at Mosaic nightclub.  Special guests include Hall of Famers Rickey Henderson & Barry Larkin with more to come.  There will be a strict guest list only and because of the open bar from 7-9pm, this is an event for folks 21 & up.  RSVP to Brooks Cowan at bcowan@steinersports.com.

I’ll have more info on the National throughout the week.

Caveat Emptor, The Pitfalls Of Buying On The Secondary Market

I’m writing this to try to help spread the word and perhaps get a dialogue started.  Today on twitter I saw an retweet by Rob Bertrand, the Voice of the Collector and Co-Host of Cardboard Connection Radio that came from a collector with the twitter handle “@johnbbz” that warned of an eBay seller trying to sell off fake cards.  I was about to retweet the warning, but decided to confirm it for myself first.  So here is the listing in question, a Buy It now OBO of $175.00 which is set to end around August 17, 2012.

Seems fine, until I found this listing for an item that had already been sold by a different seller for $32.99 on June 5, 2012.

As a side note, the winner of this auction has their profile set to private.  Here are the cards from the listings side by side.

They look like two different cards.  But upon closer inspection you notice this.

Same card number, different swatches.  So one of these is real and one is a fake.  I'll let you decide which one is which.

I’ve covered this subject matter before, and I've seen others cover it too, before and after me.  But clearly, the problem persists.  I’m not going to call out the seller, because they will eventually get shut down and then they will find another way to continue, whether it be with another user name, or through another venue.  How do I know this?  Because you can pick up these Ichiro cards too from different sellers.

Do I know for sure they are fakes?  No, I’m not going to track down every card, but it sure doesn’t seem right for a 2011 Topps Marquee card numbered to #/199 to have such killer patches. But I will provide this link to the auction for card #063/199 that sold in June and a link to the current auction for card #063/199 with the patches if you want to see all the information for yourself.

I'm not posting this because I think everyone out there is dishonest, or that eBay is rife with fakes.  I'm sure the vast majority of cards that can be purchased are real and from good, honest people.  I also don't think Topps is at fault here or any other card company for that matter.  Some have suggested that companies should set up visual databases of all of their hit cards.  The problem I see with that is two fold.  One, that would require a huge investment which, as with the increase in the production costs of any goods or services, gets past along to us, the consumers.  Two, with a database industrious scammers would simply have a blueprint to knockoff fakes that are exact matches of the real cards. 

Bottom line here is caveat emptor.  Use the resources around you.  Learn about the products you are thinking about purchasing by checking past reviews from this site or others like Field Level View or the great visual checklists over at Sports Card Radio.  Knowledge is power and if you know your products it gets easier to spot when something is not right.

So what do YOU think we should do as collectors?  What can be done to stifle this practice of deception?   Use the comments section below to get the discussion started and, please, be careful out there.

2011 Panini Limited Baseball Box Break Recap And Review

Panini still does not have a MLB license, though I’m sure they will pick one up the second they have the opportunity, so it can be easy to overlook their baseball offerings at this moment in time.  But that would be a mistake because 2012 Panini Limited Baseball is a great offering.  The short checklist of premium players raises the odds that collectors will pull some really great cards.  As with other Panini Limited products, there is enough there for collectors looking for prospects too.

Limited Baseball falls into our premium cards category.  Each hobby box contains 7 cards with one memorabilia and 2 autograph cards per box.  Some boxes offer an additional bonus hit.

Here are the cards we pulled from our box

 Ian Kennedy Commons #/199, Brandon Phillips Leather #/199

 David Justice Greats #/299, Mike Walken Prospects #/249

The Hits

 Todd Helton Materials Game Used Swatch #/499, Kylin Turnbull Prospects Auto #/399

 Reggie Sanders Greats Auto #/499, Ian Kennedy Commons Signature #/199

Overall Look

Panini is getting better and better with their shot selection to compensate for the lack of an MLB license. Seeing numbers and back nameplates makes it easy to forgive the lack of a logo.  The abundance of black and white photography helps that cause too.  The faux leather cards work very well.  Cards that we didn’t pull, like Monikers and Hall of Fame Gear are sharp looking.

Quality and Variety of Players

Normally a base checklist of 30 players would be way too tight to be considered of interest.  But when those names include Albert Pujols, Matt Kemp, Miguel Cabrera, Josh Hamilton, Prince Fielder, Jose Bautista, and Ryan Braun it becomes clear the shortened checklist is a bonus.  There are 30 prospects who should have an impact on the game.  Then we have the relic and auto cards that start to include names like Ty Cobb, Lou Gehrig, Nolan Ryan, Reggie Jackson, Pete Rose, Ken Griffey Jr., Jim Palmer, Derek Jeter and Tony Gwynn, just to name a few, and you’ve got the makings of an incredible collection of players.

Do the Hits satisfy?

Our box was not on par with some we've seen as far as pulls goes. Odds are your box will be better.  Hats, Gloves, Batting Helmets, Bats and Jersey relics of some of the biggest names of all-time can be found in Limited.  It is also one of only two releases this year that feature autographs from Mariano Rivera.  The other autographs come from some of the names listed about making this a box of great potential with hits that could become cornerstones of any collection.

Will you keep coming back for more?

This is definitely a product you will want to revisit.  The wide variety of big times hits is enticing.

Rating

4 1/2 out of 5

2012 Panini Limited Baseball is a product that is probably undervalued at this moment which leaves the window open for smart collectors to snap it up.


Review box provided by Panini

2012 Rittenhouse Archives James Bond 50th Anniversary Trading Cards Box Break Recap And Review

The task of turning a beloved series of films, 22 movies over a 50 year period with box office receipts of over five billion dollars, into a single set of trading cards is daunting.  Leave it to Rittenhouse Archives to take this challenge head on and produce a fantastic set of cards that are so entertaining, you will want to collect every single one, base set to inserts to special hits.  If you are a card collector that likes their martinis shaken, not stirred, 2012 Rittenhouse Archives James Bond 50th Anniversary Trading Cards will satisfy your every Bond desire.  And no, you won’t find David Niven anywhere near this set, a smart omission.

This set falls under our classification of trading cards.  Hobby Boxes contain 24 – 5 card packs and feature three autograph cards per box.

As you can see from some of the cards we pulled from our box, this set has it all.

Base Set - Actors that have played Bond

Sean Connery, front and back

George Lazenby, Roger Moore

Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Daniel Craig

Base Set - All 22 movies

Dr. No, From Russia With Love

Goldfinger, Thunderball

You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamond Are Forever

Live And Let Die, The Man With The Golden Gun, The Spy Who Loved Me

Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy

A View To A Kill, The Living Daylights, Licence To Kill

GoldenEye. Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough

Die Another Day, Casino Royale, Quantum Of Solice

Base Parallel

Sean Connery, Roger Moore

Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, Charles Gray - Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Daniela Bianchi - Tatiana Romanova, Sophie Marceau - Elektra King, Olga Kurylenko - Camile

Dr. No Throwback Movie Cards

Bomd with M, front and back

James Bond, Sylvia Trench, Dr. No

Bond and Honey Ryder on the beach, A Spider in Bond's bed

Gold Plaque - Movie Tribute, Poster & Credits

You Only Live Twice, front and back

Live And Let Die, front and back

Bond... James Bond

Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan

007 Gold Gallery

Kristina Wayborn as Magda, Carey Lowell as Pam Bouvier 

The Hits - Autographs

Cristina Contes - Die Another Day, Vijay Amritraj - Octopussy

Peter Fontaine - For Your Eyes Only

Overall Look

As you can see from the base set, Rittenhouse Archives has taken the “golden anniversary” and produced a fabulous result.  The design of these cards is superior with fantastic embossed gold foil, strong card stock and excellent write-ups on the back.  Photo selection is really good too.  The Dr. No throwback cards are another stellar design that feels retro with a smart choice of cardboard stock, period font selection and great black & white photography.  Something I would have loved to pull but didn’t is one of the three James Bond Shadowbox cards which look wonderful.

Quality and Variety of the Checklist

It is all here.  All 22 Movies, all 6 Bond actors.  The Bond... James Bond and Gold Gallery inserts work really well to highlight favorite characters and actors from the series of films.

Do the hits hold up?

Short of Pierce Brosnan, the autograph checklist is confined to the kitschier bond characters, which is fine.  A lot of these autographs you won’t find anywhere else and getting bigger names to sign probably who have taken this out of the trading card category and into premium cards, which would be a mistake because these cards work much better as trading cards.

Will you want to collect them all? 

You will want every single one of them.  Each box should yield a base set but you will need several boxes to put together a complete Dr. No set, as well as the inset sets.  

Rating

5 out of 5

2012 Rittenhouse Archives James Bond 50th Anniversary is a fantastic and worthy tribute.