Friday, February 17th, 2012

Hi everyone! So Saturday was the big event. Thank you to everyone who came out to support us. I really love the camaraderie amongst my customers at events like this. It's heartwarming for me to see how people connect, both personally and over the hobby. One of my customers even introduced ME to a new customer who he was talking to. That was funny! And it's always fun for everyone to watch several people open their cards at once. Taki (the Triple Threads king) didn't disappoint when he pulled a 1/1 White Whale auto patch of none other than Albert Pujols (from ONE box of 08 Triple Threads Baseball, mind you). Taki has crazy luck with Triple Threads (see our HOT PULLS page on this website).

Besides the general frivolity, free give-aways (lots of nice card sets, grab bags, World Series Phillies Champions card sheets, Yu-Gi-Oh deck boxes and back packs, Magic play mats, 2011 Topps Attax Baseball packs, and lots and lots of singles left our doors for FREE with purchase), and refreshments, we also chose our NHL Player of the Day GRAND PRIZE winner on Saturday. So without further adieu, CONGRATULATIONS to JIM BOYNE!!! Troy Cohen was our last weekly winner, selected on Saturday at our event; and then Jim was our big winner. Jim enjoyed a prize package worth almost $200, which included a Marc-Andre' Fleury autograph, lots of packs, a bunch of Winter Classic merchandise, and other assorted sports novelties. A special thank you to Jim for donating a few of his prizes to my boy, Max, who was overjoyed.

So let's discuss raffle winners and name names. I realize this will be a more exciting paragraph to those who attended, and especially to those who won ... so if you were here or would like to see what we gave away (part of my reason for writing this), read on! We pulled more than one winner for some of our raffle prizes this time. Last year's Prime 9 baseball card sent went to Kevin Harder, Chris Giardetti, Lee Kumpka, and Dorothy Moritz. The Andre Iguodala autographed photo was won by Thomas Bartie. The 25 card Topps "Rookie of the Week" Baseball card set (my personal favorite) was won by both Janet Gallo and Dorothy Moritz. The 22 card Topps 50 Years Football set raffle drawing was odd! We predetermined that we were going to choose 3 winners, but after drawing SIX tickets, we still only had two winners ... 3 from the Lebofsky family and 3 from Mary Anne DeGrandis. So the fairest thing to do was allow each winner to choose two different prizes (or choose two of the same prize if that suited them ... it didn't). So that was win, win (literally). The next raffle prize was a Yu-Gi-Oh play mat and back pack, won by Rebecca Cohen. And last but not least ... the Winter Classic Hockey package, including a premium felt pennant, lanyard, bumper sticker, and key chain ... won by Ryan Borrmann. Choosing raffle winners is always my favorite part of the day, and it's been fun having people come in this week to pick up their winnings. So thank you to all who entered.

2012 TOPPS BASEBALL continues to be our big seller, and for those who don't know, the website to enter code cards IS up and running. Our store continues to have some crazy luck. After the 3 awesome cards I blogged about last time, we've had another two HOT PULLS. Remember that 1/1 solid gold Clemente card that David Zicherman pulled? Well the 1/1 Cal Ripken Jr. was pulled on Saturday by Drew Hogeland! It really is an embarrassment of riches for our store. Then on Monday, Brian Epstein pulled our first coin card (it looks like the rings and pin cards ... but the coin is huge and metal from front to back) ... a Joe DiMaggio #3/5 !!!! I looked it up (not even realizing these coin inserts existed), and the #2/5 sold for $375. So not a bad pull, Brian. Brian also pulled one of the mascot cards in the same box. On Saturday as well, the Irving family showed me their show and tell from a jumbo box they bought here ... both the infamous squirrel card (our store's first) AND a Pie in the Face card in the same box. Steve and I then proceeded to open 2 1/2 boxes, seeing all of this luck that our customers were having ... and we got ... NOTHING! Not even a short print. I would have really enjoyed pulling an Albert Pujols or Jose Reyes short print ... but alas, apparently we save all of the good stuff for others! But we have singles now if you're completing the set.

If you have any Home Run Legends redemptions (this year's Prime 9), you CAN redeem them here. As of next week, both #1 and #2 will be available. There is some confusion as to which players are available for which weeks. I'll tell you what we know for sure based on the six we've received so far. This is definite ... # 1 is Hank Aaron, #2 is Babe Ruth, #3 is Willie Mays, #4 is Reggie Jackson, and #6 is Mickey Mantle (note that Mantle is #6, not #5). I'm not sure why Topps sent those 5 or why they're not in order on the poster or why it's often written about on-line that Willie Mays is #1. But this information is definitely accurate. I'm looking at the cards as we speak.

Here's another reminder to make sure you send in your 2012 Topps Baseball pack wrappers for the wrapper redemption program give-away. 50 hobby wrappers or 14 jumbo ones will get you a special 5 card Limited Edition Gold Rush pack from Topps, but you have to send your wrappers in by February 29th.

On the NEW PRODUCT front, 2011-12 Crown Royale Hockey has arrived, as did Star Wars Galaxy 7. 2012 Contenders Football came in today, as did 2012 Leaf Legends of Sports. Big Bang Theory (which I'm excited about ... bazinga!) and 2012 Press Pass Total Memorabilia Racing were delayed a few weeks.

I'm definitely way behind in posting new HOT PULLS, so if you've graciously posed for a picture ... please continue to be patient!

I posted this on Facebook, but it's been crazy what has happened with Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks. He's been almost single-handedly responsible for this phenomenal Knicks game winning streak, and his rookie card prices are out of this world. One of our customers had his rookie card from the very expensive, very premium 10-11 Elite Black Basketball. It was worth $30 a few weeks ago, and he JUST sold it for $800! Yowza! So if you have any 10-11 basketball rookies laying around, you may want to look through them and potentially sell Lin now. LINsanity won't necessarily last long!

R.I.P. Gary Carter, who passed away yesterday from brain cancer. He'll be missed by many.

Thanks for reading!

Friday, February 10th , 2012

Hi everyone! Well tomorrow is a BIG DAY here at the Playground. As all of you know who are on Facebook (because I've been posting all week) or who get our E-newsletter (and thank you for those e-mail addresses, btw), tomorrow is our next big event. I've been working hard all week to get things ready for you, and I think you'll be happy with the result. I've put together an entire showcase of FREE gifts with purchase, and we have some really nice Limited Edition card sets to offer you (among other items). We have a slew of raffles wrapped and ready, and you will get a FREE raffle ticket just for showing up. We will also have lots of refreshments for you to enjoy while you're here. If you want more details about our goings-on tomorrow, please click on the "Recent Newsletters" Link at left to view the February 9th newsletter.

Tomorrow is also NATIONAL HOCKEY TRADING CARD DAY, and we ARE participating. We have 5 card hockey packs produced by Upper Deck to offer you. Tomorrow is also the last day of our Panini sponsored NHL Player of the Day Contest, and we will be selecting not only our fourth (and last) weekly winner, but also our GRAND PRIZE WINNER ... who will go home with almost $200 worth of hockey cards and novelties.

2012 TOPPS BASEBALL is selling very well, and our three latest HOT PULLS are all from that product. It's weird for me to say that we have hot pulls from basic Topps, but we've had some lucky customers. Our first pull was a Roger Maris gold-infused card #'ed to 5 (it's a redemption) worth roughly $500. That was pulled by Steve K. Then, just to top him, Dave Zicherman pulled a 1/1 Roberto Clemente SOLID GOLD "Golden Great" redemption. It's hard to tell what this card would fetch on E-bay, and Dave is going to keep it; but two other players are on E-bay with sellers asking $13,500 and $17,500. Yowza! THIS card could be our biggest hit ever in our store (the previous high card was an $8,000 cut signature of a not very well known baseball player Ed Plank).

THEN, just to be sure he had the BEST 3 jumbo boxes EVER, Dave also pulled that same gold infused card /5 that Steve K did, but of Derek Jeter! Yowza again! This is a lot of good fortune. For more information about this year's Topps Baseball, check out my last BLOG where I discussed the wrapper redemption program and see this comprehensive checklist on Sports Card Radio's website ... http://www.sportscardradio.com/index.php/product-previews-a-reviews/1044-2012-topps-series-1-baseball-checklist. Many of the variant cards (Albert Pujols and Jose Reyes in new uniforms, the now infamous squirrel card, Gatorade dumps, fights with mascots, etc.) are featured. It's definitely worth a look. We have every type of box in stock ... hobby, jumbo, retail, and blaster.

GOOD NEWS! The packaged Phillies team sets won't be available until the end of March, but to hold you over, we have the Phillies players from Topps Series 1 coming in next week. It's a good list with an especially nice Hunter Pence (a vertical card, as opposed to the horizontal one from Update) and Vance Worley. We have a bunch of the players here now if you want to take a look, and as an aside, Topps is the first product to have the new Miami Marlins logo ... which was cool. We have some other Phillies team sets coming in next week as well, including 2011 Heritage and Lineage; so if you missed either of those products ... check them out.

I congratulated Mark Stemphoski in my last BLOG for being the Runner-up winner of our YOU PICK THE WINNERS FOOTBALL CONTEST. Mark won a $40 gift certificate. Well, now I'm happy to congratulate the GRAND PRIZE WINNER Nate Borrmann. Nate scored a $100 gift certificate, and I couldn't be happier. He's a great kid.

Recent NEW PRODUCTS include 2011 NCAA SP Football (it arrived today!), 2011 Topps Precision Football, 2011 Plates & Patches Football, 2012 Historic Autographs Legends of the Hall, 2011 Leaf Ink Baseball, Muhammad Ali Metal, 2012 Leaf Metal Poker, Press Pass Essential Elvis, TNA Impact Reflexxions, Ace Match Point 2 Tennis, Cryptozoic Walking Dead, Pokemon Black & White Next Destinies, and Magic: The Gathering Dark Ascension. I personally am anxiously awaiting Cryptozoic's Big Bang Theory release next week! A few products that were expected were pushed back a bit; like 2011-12 Crown Royale Hockey, 2011-12 SPx Hockey, and 2012 Press Pass Total Memorabilia Racing.

I promised in my e-newsletter that I might make a special offer to my blog readers for tomorrow's event. And here it is ... if you mention the code word "reader", you will get an extra raffle ticket just for reading my blog! Spoiler alert ... if you Like us on Facebook, you'll see a different code on there too. That's TWO free raffle tickets available to you (plus the one you get just for walking through the door)! (Maximum of two free BLOG tickets per family, please).

That's it for now. I hope to see everyone tomorrow.

Tuesday, January 24th, 2012

Hi everyone. LOTS of news. First, I've mentioned this website before, but now I have another reason to mention it ... www.sportscardradio.com. It's a great resource for your collecting/checklist needs, and when I recently posed a question on Facebook as to whether Vance Worley will be in 2012 Topps Baseball; my very resourceful buddy Nate Borrmann informed me that he IS ... as well as in 2012 Opening Day, Heritage, Bowman, and Gypsy Queen. He found out all of this on www.sportscardradio.com. I knew it was a great site for products once they're released because it's like a Wikipedia site where collectors can compile information and then add to it as more info surfaces. I did not know that it had so much information (like checklists for many upcoming card sets) before the sets' release date. This is really a great site that is worth checking out.

Our next BIG EVENT will be on Saturday, February 11th; so mark your calendars now! It's National Hockey Trading Card Day, so there will be some special cards from Upper Deck available on that day ... but no matter if you're a hockey fan or not, WE are making it an event for our store. It's really just a good excuse for us to choose a day when we know there might already be some fanfare. That day is special for us as well, though, because not only is it National Hockey Trading Card Day; but ironically, it is the final week of our NHL Player of the Day Contest (sponsored by Panini); so we'll be picking the Grand Prize Winner for that contest that day too.

But as with any event we have, there will be a lot of draws to make the trip worth your while. We'll have FREE stuff, raffles, food, and general merriment. More details to come.

2012 Topps Baseball is coming, and so is the Gold Rush! That's Topps' new theme for this year's baseball product (like the Diamond Anniversary theme last year). There is a pack wrapper redemption program, so save your wrappers. 50 hobby wrappers or 14 jumbo ones will get you a special 5 card "Gold Rush" pack (with random autographs) from Topps. There are 50 cards in the set, and autographs include Sandy Koufax, Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, and Albert Pujols. You can absolutely send multiple wrapper bundles in the same package (in fact, Topps encourages you to), but note that the wrapper redemption program expiration date is February 29th (postmark date); so you've got to act fast. I'll list the address here, in case you want to refer back to it (or make a quick note). Send wrappers to ... Gold Rush P.O. Box 2008 Duryea, PA 18642.

On a somewhat related subject, VERY important note for Topps Baseball collectors. For those of you who are still redeeming your Diamond Giveaway code cards from 2011 Topps Baseball, please note the expiration date for these redemptions is at the end of THIS month ... January 31st! There is a note on the site that redemptions from 2011 Topps Series 2 will be extended to June, but Series 1 and Update redemptions expire as printed 1-31-2012 on card. I know from talking to some collectors that they thought the Update redemptions were the ones extended (which seems logical, given that it is the most recent set) ... but that is not the case. The same is true for the 2011 Topps Football Super Bowl Legends Giveaway code cards. They also expire at the end of January.

Our You-Pick-the-Winners Football contest is quickly coming to a close. MARK STEMPHOSKI is the official winner of the $40 RUNNERS-UP pool. Congrats Mark! THREE people are vying for the $100 WINNERS GRAND PRIZE. Nate Borrmann, Brian Ruegner, and Runners-up pool winner Mark Stemphoski are the three remaining contenders for the $100 ... to be determined by the Super Bowl tie breaker. Good luck boys!

HOT PULLS have been a'plenty of late. Just last Saturday, we had TWO Cam Newton autographs, a $400 Tyler Seguin Dominion autograph rookie patch, AND an Albert Pujols Triple Threads autographed patch card pulled by different customers ... and all were opened here! That was a tremendously fun day.

NEW PRODUCTS that have arrived lately include 2011-12 Panini Limited Hockey and 2011 Panini Limited Football. Each one pack box has 3 hits. 2011 Supreme Football is another one pack box that just arrived. That rounds out the new Football releases. Other new Hockey products include 2011-12 Pinnacle, Parkhurst Champions, Black Diamond, and the brand new In the Game Enforcers (a one pack box with 5 autos and 2 game used). There is no new Basketball for 11-12 yet (besides the 11-12 SP NCAA), but Panini will be releasing Panini Preferred at the end of February. 2011 Panini Elite Extra Edition Baseball (6 autos per box) is here, and the new Yu-Gi-Oh Order of Chaos came in today. That wraps up the new stuff.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and as always, if you're on Facebook, please Like us on there!

Monday, January 9th, 2012

Hi everyone! So the holidays and New Year's have come and gone; the Winter Classic has ended; basketball has started; the Football play-offs are going on; our You-Pick-the-Winners Football Contest is in its final stages; and we're about to start our first NHL Player of the Day Contest. There's a little wrap up for you!!!

It's been BUSY, BUSY, BUSY both here and in the hobby; and we're excited to start getting new basketball releases with this year's rookies. The only item released so far is Upper Deck's SP NCAA product (all players in college uniforms), and Panini should be announcing its first releases for the year soon.

It was an exciting weekend in football, with an awesome performance by Tim Tebow and the Broncos. Quickest OT ever. This was the first week of the play-off round for our You-Pick-the-Winners Football Contest as well, and THREE out of four correct guesses was the highest score. In our Winners pool, with a GRAND PRIZE of $100, the leaders (with 3 right) are NATE BORRMANN, AMANDA McCLAIN, KEVIN O'DONNELL, STEVE BABB, JANET GALLO, and MARK STEMPHOSKI. With 3 correct guesses in the Runners-up pool (a $40 GRAND PRIZE), the leaders are STEVE BABB and MARK STEMPHOSKI, so good job both of you! Now it's still anyone's game since the total play-off game guesses are cumulative, so no worries if you got TWO right. That's still excellent. Just remember to come in and make your picks this week!

The Winter Classic was an exciting event for Philly. Steve went to the game and loved every minute of it (well, maybe except for the loss). The alumni game was my favorite. We had that on tv here and found it very enjoyable ... especially Parent's performance. There will be photos released this week from the event, and we plan to carry them. Back when Lindros and LeClair were both active Flyers, there was a photo of them we carried with the two of them sitting next to each other on the bench, and I loved it. I'm hoping there's a similar pose taken at the alumni game. By the way, am I the only one who thinks it's funny that both Jagr and Lindros have the same rookie year; yet one is on our current team and one is on our alumni team? We still have a few Winter Classic items if you didn't nab any in time ... such as key chains, lanyards, car decals, plaques, and masks; and we'll have some photos soon.

Speaking of the Flyers, we have Score team sets in stock; and a new batch of rookies including Matt Read and Couturier. We're trying to re-stock Claude Giroux's rookie. He's been our best seller and most asked about Flyer.

If you're a hockey fan, you will love our new contest, starting next Monday, the 16th (Martin Luther King Day). It's the first ever NHL Player of the Day Contest, and it works the same way as the football contest did. We'll have the GRAND PRIZE on display this week, and I'll add some cool Winter Classic merchandise to the prize. We have a really cool banner I like, so that's a given. It's a FOUR week contest, so the GRAND PRIZE winner will be chosen on February 11th. Any person who pulls the Player of the Day (POD ... designated in-store) will receive a free sealed POD pack containing a random limited edition card made for this contest with autograph cards possible. Couturier is featured, as is hot rookie Ryan Nugent-Hopkins. I'm happy with how Panini designed these packs ... similar to the Black Friday packs. I think it'll be more fun to get one of these packs than just a random Score Hockey pack. I hope Panini does this for the football contest next year too. Some come on in and check out what you could win!

As for recent NEW PRODUCTS, the only new item we received last week was 2011-12 Black Diamond Hockey. The one per box bonus Ice pack is back, and DON RIMMER was lucky enough to pull an Ice rookie of Gabriel Landeskog numbered to 99, which should fetch at least $400. The highly anticipated and always popular 2012 Topps Baseball will be in in February, and 2011 Panini Elite Extra Edition Baseball is due in this week. Recent arrivals include 2011 Bowman Sterling Baseball and Football, Historic Autographs Decades 1950's and 1960's, 2011 WWE Classic (sharp cards!), and Ace Match Point Series 2 Tennis. 2011 Football releases continue to sell very well, with customers looking for Cam Newton rookies; but now 2010 boxes are back in demand because of Tebow! We have both.

I hope you all enjoyed a fun, safe holiday season. Thank you for your business and friendship last year!

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

I'm so long overdue for a BLACK FRIDAY wrap up BLOG, but I also have so many other things to discuss ... namely HOLIDAY GIFT BUYING, OUR FOOTBALL CONTESTS UPDATE, and NEW PRODUCTS (both card-wise and otherwise). So I will have to make my Black Friday comments somewhat brief (which is challenging for me!). First, THANK YOU to everyone who made it out that Friday. It was a like a mini Grand Re-opening! We were happy that so many people turned out to take advantage of our specials and FREE give-aways and RAFFLES. We gave away another Vance Worley autograph photo, a Chase Utley jersey, and TONS of cards. A lot of people enjoyed Panini's Black Friday pack promotion. The best pull was by Erik and Bobby Goodwin ... a Cam Newton autograph card! Other great pulls included an A.J. Green Letterman autograph, TWO Christian Ponder autographs (numbered to 4), a Ryan Nugent-Hopkins jersey card, a Von Miller auto jersey, and several Marshall Faulk autos. We continued to give away our left over Black Friday packs the following week (with required Panini purchases), and an auto printing plate of Dub Jones (a retired football player) was pulled. I didn't even know these printing plates existed! For those of you who like to see your names up in lights, I will list all of our raffle winners in a subsequent BLOG. You're already famous on Facebook!

CONGRATULATIONS to Jesse Almanza ... the GRAND PRIZE winner of our 2011 PLAYER OF THE DAY FOOTBALL CONTEST! Jesse enjoyed over $250 worth of football packs and swag, and I have a feeling many of his relatives will be receiving Eagles novelties for Christmas (since he himself is a die hard Cowboys fan).

Our YOU-PICK-THE-WINNERS FOOTBALL CONTEST has had several new winners since I last reported. To re-cap, WINNERS have been ... BRIAN RUEGNER (twice), MIKE DOLAN (twice), DARLEEN MILLIGAN, NATE BORRMANN (twice), KEVIN O'DONNELL, JAMES GALLO, JOSH GEBLER, AMANDA McCLAIN, STEVE BABB (twice), and MARK STEMPHOSKI (twice). There are still a few more chances for you to add your name to this list. FREE entry sheets are available every Wednesday and due back Saturday at 5:00. We never count games prior to Sunday ... so no worries when there are Thursday or Saturday games. Each weekly winner (the person who has the most correct guesses) gets a $15 GIFT CERTIFICATE and then goes for the $100 GRAND PRIZE during the Play-offs. GOOD LUCK to all!

Okay, some NEW PRODUCTS are also GREAT GIFT IDEAS because they fall into the category of novelties. We are fully stocked on PLAQUES ... both small (about 4 x 6) and large (about 14 x 12). We have a lot of Phillies ... our best seller, but also some Flyers and legendary retired players. Speaking of Flyers, we have stocked up on WINTER CLASSIC items ... from pucks to sticks to pennants to decals to lanyards. They've been a popular item for people who are hockey fans, but not necessarily card collectors. In fact, we have a lot of novelties with that customer in mind. We brought in colorful Flyers pucks ... from basic black to orange to green to pink! I LOVE the pink ones! And we are fully stocked on bobble heads ... including the newly released Hunter Pence and Nnamdi Asomugha! We've gotten a lot of interest in those two.

If you're shopping for a PHILLIES fan ... you'll definitely find something here. We have games like Yahtzee, Connect 4, Rubik's Cube, and Jenga emblazoned with the Phillies logo. We have more Phillies photos (including a bunch of 2008 WSC poses) than ever. We have autographed balls and/or photos of a ton of players including Hunter Pence, Chase Utley, Cliff Lee, Roy Oswalt, Vance Worley, and the newly obtained Jonathan Papelbon. And if you want stocking stuffers, we have your Phillies stocking stuffers ... from key chains to wrist bands to magnets to car decals to Pez to patches to tattoos to wallets (and on and on and on). I'm telling you ... if you want Phillies items ... you WILL find the perfect something HERE!

But don't think we've forgotten other teams. We have almost every baseball, football, and hockey team set. And because of our Yankees fans (or those shopping for them) ... we're carrying a bunch of Yankees merchandise. We have figurines, photos, plaques, canvas prints, puzzles, Shrinky Dinks (it's true!), and more. And if you like multiple teams ... no worries there either. We are now carrying mini pennant sets in every sport and sets of mini football, hockey, and baseball helmets. They're the perfect gift idea for kids under 10! I have this on good authority, as my friend's son Max (9 years old) either owns or has requested ALL of them! He's very happy I own this store!

And on a somewhat random note, we have been selling a lot of Topps Attax Football (and now Baseball) packs and starters. Much like two summers ago when a camp bunk got a hold of them, a local school has caught the Attax fever. If you know of anyone who likes the Attax card game, please send them here. We have football, baseball, hockey, and WWE!

On that note, I want to encourage you to spread the word about our store if you like us and are so inclined. We can really grow by good word of mouth, and we are so happy when new faces walk through the door because one of our customers recommended us. We've found recently that a lot of people (especially gift buyers!) often don't know where to go to find items that we carry. There are only so many baseball card stores, so if someone is specifically looking for a factory set or a card box ... they might find us. BUT, for things like Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, old Magic packs, Winter Classic items, and all sorts of sports novelties; if you haven't been here ... you probably don't know we carry those items. PLEASE tell your friends. Now that we have the new store, I've really tried to cram it full (in a good way!) for the holidays with all sorts of things we couldn't display in the old one. AND we're always open to suggestions for carrying new items and often able to special order items we already have, but in different teams for you.

As for NEW PRODUCTS in trading cards, I highly recommend the 2011 Leaf Rookies & Stars Longevity Football. At $55 for a box with 10 packs and FOUR hits this year, it's ideal in every way. We are selling a lot of these for the holidays (along with Topps Baseball Factory sets ... our annual best seller). We have a new PETE ROSE product from Leaf that guarantees you a Pete Rose autograph in every box. That's an interesting gift idea. My favorite new product is naturally 2011 Triple Threads Football. We sold a ton of the baseball, and the football is following its lead. Topps followed the 2 hits per pack precedent they did for baseball, and it does make for some fun opening. Other new arrivals include 2011 Certified Football and Hockey, 2011 Gold Standard Football, 2011 Gridiron Gear Football, 2011 Bowman Draft Picks and Prospects Baseball, 2011-12 Upper Deck Series One Hockey, 2012 Press Pass Racing, 2011 UFC Moment of Truth, and Yu-Gi-Oh Hidden Arsenal 5.

On an almost parting note, YES ... we do have GIFT CERTIFICATES! I can't think of a better way to put a smile on someone's face than with our cute graphics (and available in every denomination). If you can't figure out what to get someone, let them do it themselves!

Don't forget to Like us on Facebook for weekly updates. I just posted a bunch of pics from our Grand Re-opening on there; and as always, it's such a great way for me to communicate with you quickly, effectively, and often! If you haven't checked out the website recently, we have a new photo array on the home page (many from the aforementioned Grand Re-opening). YOU might be in it! And we have some updated HOT PULLS as well.

Thanks for reading, and MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY HANUKKAH, everyone !!!

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

Hi everyone and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

As we speak, it's midnight on Wednesday; and I'm at the store getting ready for our Black Friday event. I promised to tell you if we are participating in the Panini Black Friday pack promotion, and I'm happy to announce that we ARE! The special Black Friday packs which are multi-sport and feature randomly inserted autograph and jersey cards are available by purchasing Panini products, and on Friday only.

Our raffle prizes were very popular at our Grand Re-opening, and they won't disappoint on Black Friday either! I have everything from the Vance Worley autographed photo to a complete 25 card set of the 2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary cards (includes Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Mike Schmidt, Roy Halladay, Ryan Howard and 20 other stars) to a complete Prime 9 card set to a Chase Utley stadium giveaway jersey and MUCH MUCH more!

We also have a ton of giveaways, available with purchase. I have Yu-Gi-Oh backpacks; deluxe deck boxes; canvas drawstring bags; individual Prime 9 cards; a hockey rookie set (with Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin); that 25 card 2011 Topps Diamond Anniversary 25 card set (also available via raffle); Topps Diamond Die Cuts of Joe Montana, Troy Aikman, and Tom Brady (also available via raffle); and MANY MORE. Our give-aways are well worth your trip here on Friday!

We're also giving away FREE blaster boxes ... your choice from several including 2011 Topps Updates & Highlights Baseball and 2011 Bowman Platinum Baseball if you purchase certain hobby boxes that we'll have marked in the store. So if it's a box you'd buy anyway, then that's a FREE $20 gift for you!

We always have our GIFT CERTIFICATES available, but if you purchase one on Friday (available in denominations of $10 or more)..we'll give you a FREE raffle ticket. And because we're not sure enough people know we sell candy and cookies now ... we'll give you a FREE raffle ticket just for spending $1.50 on them! You can't beat that deal!!

So please come visit us on Friday. Enjoy refreshments, raffles, give-aways, and fun!

Monday, November 7th, 2011

Hi everyone!!! I started writing this BLOG almost two weeks ago; and as usual, life got in the way! I have so much to tell after our Grand Re-opening two Saturdays ago, so I think I'll devote this BLOG to the Grand Re-opening only. Settle in. This is going to be a long read.

First, THANK YOU to everyone who attended our celebration. Saturday, October 22nd was a great day, and we thank YOU for making it a success. It's no fun throwing a party and having no one come, so I'm glad we didn't have that experience! I'll tell you about a bunch of HOT PULLS we had that day; but I have a whole list of prize and raffle winners to congratulate and friends to thank first, so here goes ...

OUR BIG WINNERS were JESSE ALMANZA who won the RYAN HOWARD AUTOGRAPHED 18 x 20 FRAMED PHOTO, and DAVID ZICHERMAN who won the Veteran Stadium seat. VINCE McCORMICK won the Guess the Candy Contest with a guess of 230 pieces. The correct number was 227! Pretty good, Vince! Vince had to choose his prize ... either a $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE or all of the candy ... 227 pieces to be exact. Even though I think the candy was actually worth more than $25, Vince and his dentist opted for the cash.

Everyone who walked through the door received a door prize. Of particular note was our mystery box door prize, chosen by JOE MILLER. Lucky for Joe it contained a $25 GIFT CERTIFICATE, so that was a great choice. For those of you wondering what was in the MYSTERY RAFFLE BOX, it was the winner's choice of any door prize we had that day. AMANDA McCLAIN was the winner, and lucky Amanda twisted my arm to receive the Carlos Ruiz Phillies give-away backpack. It was featured in another raffle, and I had a second one. The winner of the aforementioned raffle with Ruiz backpack and Roy Halladay canvas print was MARY ANNE DEGRANDIS. She was the envy of many ... especially Mr. Max Lebofsky, who badly wanted the Halladay print and made a deal with Amanda that if he won, he'd give her the Ruiz backpack. LOL!

Candy winner Vince also went away with a raffle prize ... the MLB logo messenger bag with Ryan Howard canvas print. And yes ... Max was jealous of his win too. Many people envied RICHIE SLIWINSKI'S win of the Vance Worley autographed photo and SCOTT McMULLAN'S win of the Chase Utley jersey, which Scott gave to his son JARED. The last baseball themed raffle was won by PATRICK O'DONNELL (in absentia ... as Patrick's parents entered his name). It included a Cole Hamels McFarlane figure and some Upper Deck swag (t-shirt and cap). Patrick's dad also scored big by winning the YOU-PICK-THE-WINNERS FOOTBALL CONTEST weekly prize of $25 (it's normally $15, but we increased it for the Grand Re-opening week); so we got to see Patrick the following weekend when he redeemed his Dad's winnings. I might add that he got only ONE wrong in that pool ... a further disappointment to second place Max Lebofsky who had TWO wrong. Boy, it seems like it just wasn't Max's day ... but stay tuned!

DONALD WELSH attended our Grand Re-opening with his two sons and scored the very nice Upper Deck laptop case with luggage tag. And with the raffle prize that kept on giving, NATE BORRMANN won the DeSean Jackson McFarlane with 5 packs of 2011 Score Football. When Nate came in to pick up his prize, he went on to pull the Player-of-the-Day from one of the packs from the raffle prize. So he received ANOTHER free pack of Score Football and was entered into that weekly raffle as well! Good job, Nate! Well played.

And our last three raffle prizes were our gaming raffles. We wanted to make sure everyone was represented, so we had something for everyone ... sports cards fans AND gaming fans. Our Pokemon Black & White Gift Set was won by JUSTIN TANG. ERIK GOODWIN was the lucky recipient of our Yu-Gi-Oh raffle. It included a life size standee of Skull Archfiend of Lightning with canvas backpack and deluxe deck box. It was a popular choice amongst gamers (and me!) because of the standee. Where Erik will fit it in his house, god only knows! And our last gaming raffle was our Magic: The Gathering one, won by AL FOLSOM. Al won a Deck Builders tool kit, two cool play mats, and a deluxe double deck box. When I told Al how jealous one of our customers was by his win, he immediately and generously re-gifted his two play mats to GARY BURGER. Nice action, Al!

I need to give a BIG THANK YOU and shout out to MATT & DARYL from the best distributor a hobby shop could have ... SPORTS IMAGES. Sports Images really goes above and beyond to promote this hobby, and their contributions to this event were incredible. They were the ones who arranged the Ryan Howard autograph piece with TOPPS (THANK YOU, TOPPS!), and they provided us with all sorts of DOOR PRIZES and GIVE-AWAYS. We are very grateful for all of the swag they sent our way. Topps gets a nod for not only the Howard piece but also for providing us with some packs to give away. We had a lot of people enjoying FREE 2011 Topps Updates & Highlights Baseball packs, and it's because of them. Thank you to Upper Deck for providing us with some of their branded merch, especially the lap top case ... which served as a real nice quality raffle prize.

THANK YOU to my friends the Lebofsky's (Adam, Shana, Benjamin, Emily, and Max) who generously helped me and Steve all day. Their youngest, Max, is the aforementioned child who wanted to win the canvas prints. Luckily, he was rewarded for his efforts on Saturday with some packs of 2011 Upper Deck Soccer ... from which he pulled a double jersey card of David Beckham and Landon Donovan worth $60!!! So needless to say, Max was thrilled (and stopped talking about the canvas prints for at least 5 minutes). My friends Trina and Trevor Thome were also on hand and helped out with door prizes (and where ever they were needed). Trevor and his dad Steve were the ones having the bake sale outside, and they thank YOU for your purchases as well.

So I think that's the Grand Re-opening wrap up. We did have some sweet HOT PULLS that day, some of which are overdue in being posted on the website. JOHN KEMMERLING pulled a Brandon Belt 1/1 printing plate from 2011 Bowman Chrome, not long before DON RIMMER pulled a Freddie Freeman 1/1 x-fractor from Finest. DAVE ZICHERMAN definitely had THE pull of the day though ... a double cut auto of MUHAMMAD ALI and HOWARD COSELL from the new Leaf Sports Icons. That was SO sweet..especially when we only saw the Cosell side at first and then realized it was a double cut, and flipped it over!. Yowza!

I will write another BLOG soon to update you as to other HOT PULLS (a Dale Earnhardt Sr. cut signature, anyone?), FOOTBALL CONTEST STANDINGS (we've had two weekly winners in our new Player of the Day contest ... so we're almost half-way to the GRAND PRIZE), and NEW PRODUCTS (2011 Topps Chrome and Crown Royale Football are selling well, as is 2011 Bowman Chrome Baseball. Oh, and we just received the new Yu-Gi-Oh tins!). Also JUST in are the new 2011-12 Score FLYERS team set, which at $6, is definitely worth mentioning ... and buying! If you weren't able to attend the Grand Re-opening and haven't been here for a while, you might not know we have lots of new sports novelties on display ... and lots of PHILLIES everything ... photos, team sets, autographed items, games (Connect 4, Jenga, Rubik's cube, etc.), tattoos, magnets, plaques, and signs. If you have a holiday gift to buy, we have something you'll love.

So please come visit and take a look. We're also planning a mini event for Black Friday ... with details to follow. Thanks for the long read, and as always, please Like us on Facebook!!! It's the best, most effective, and most efficient way for us to communicate with all of you.

Wednesday, October 19th , 2011

Quick BLOG ...

CONGRATULATIONS to Steve K, who just pulled an autographed Bryce Harper refractor from the brand new 2011 Bowman Chrome Baseball.

And no worries for future buyers ... that case is gone!!

I'm ready to announce that we're giving away a Ryan Howard autographed photo this Saturday at our GRAND RE-OPENING (among many other things). I hope you can join us!!

And we're adding a special prize package to our normal $15 weekly prize for our You-Pick-the-Winners Football contest. It will be on display on THIS Saturday.

Stay tuned for a BLOG every day until our GRAND RE-OPENING!!!!

Tuesday, October 11th, 2011

Hi everyone! Well, it's getting busy, busy, busy around here ... and it's official! Our GRAND RE-OPENING is Saturday, October 22nd ... all day, 11-5. More details to come, but when we do an event, we do it right. Rest assured, it will be worth your while to be here. There will be FREE contests, raffles, door prizes, and refreshments ... and our store will be fully stocked.

One of the things we're doing, speaking of stocking the store, is building our "Wall of Wax". This is one of the things we've wanted to do for a while ... to showcase our vast inventory of sealed boxes available for sale. It was hard to see them all in the old store, and we want you to know what we have ... so soon, you will.

I will write another blog soon to tell you all about 2011 Triple Threads Baseball opening (there's been a lot ... and it's a great product with 4 hits this year!), and other great new products (2011 Topps Updates & Highlights Baseball is here); but let me bring you quickly up to date on our You-Pick-The-Winners Football contest. We've had 6 weekly winners so far ... although two of them have been two- peats (each won twice!), so really, four people who need to be celebrated. They are ... Brian Ruegner (he won weeks 1 and 2), Mike Dolan (he was a co-winner in week 1 ... he and Brian not only tied after Sunday's games ... but they both chose the same team and total points for the tie breaker), Darleen Milligan (winner of week 3), and Nate Borrmann (winner of weeks 4 and 5). Congrats to all four, and special kudos to our Runners-up so far (runners-up are created whenever the Monday Night game is needed as a tie breaker ... because more than one person had the same number of correct picks). Our Runners-up so far are James Gallo, Steve Babb, Jenny Hodoba, Scott Santos, and Mark Stemphoski. Each weekly winner received a $15 gift certificate and gets to compete in the finals (during play-offs) for a $100 gift certificate. Runners-up get to compete for a $40 gift certificate.

We will be beginning our 2011 Player-of-the-Day Football contest very soon as well, and the Grand Prize package will be on display during our Grand Re-opening. Look forward to it! We'll be sending an e-newsletter out this week to announce the date of our Grand Re-opening. We hope to see you HERE! And as always, if you're on Facebook, please Like us for weekly updates.

Sunday, September 4th, 2011

Happy Labor Day weekend, everyone. We hope you're celebrating and barbecue'ing with your family and friends ... or enjoying a last few precious days down the shore.

We continue to get ready for our Grand Re-opening ... date still to be announced (but likely to be on a Saturday at the end of September) ... by stocking our shelves, ordering new product, and creating displays of product you didn't know we had because we never had the room to showcase them. We're pretty happy with how the place is turning out, and the best is still yet to come. Our stools have arrived, so you can be even more comfortable. We have a "loaner" table (because there was a problem with the one we ordered), so moms can now sit on a bar stool at our table while waiting for their kids to make their purchases. And when our second big tv arrives, we will really be styling!

Gaming continues to be (somewhat surprisingly) our big seller right now. We've really increased our Magic offerings by adding duel decks, event decks, Commander decks, and now this upcoming week ... play mats. We have Innistrad play mats and gaming sleeves coming as well when the new set is released at the end of September. The new Pokemon Black and White Emerging Powers is coming in this week, and we have the new starter decks now. Yu-Gi-Oh just released new and very popular tins with special holos including "Pot of Duality" inside, and this was on the heels of their newest set being released ... Generation Force. We have a nice display of Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh singles growing (sorry ... no Magic singles).

We have a bunch of new HOT PULLS just posted on the website. Apparently, I've been slacking, so my apologies to our lucky July customers who are just now seeing themselves on the site. Our luckiest new customer is Ryan Bresnan. To recount his exploits here, Ryan came in for the first time a few weeks ago. He bought one pack of 2011 Bowman Jumbo Baseball and pulled a Bryce Harper Chrome Rookie (and did a happy dance around the store). His next visit was a few days later, where he pulled a Manny Pacquiao trunks relic card from ONE pack of 2011 Allen & Ginter Baseball. I know Manny isn't known by everyone, but his very rare trunks card is worth $250!!! Just this past week, Ryan returned and proceeded to pull a Bryce Harper AUTOGRAPH card from 2011 Bowman Baseball Jumbo! Ay yay yay. This kid is lucky. Never mind that there was also a Bryce Harper Chrome rookie in the same pack! That was an afterthought once he pulled the auto! So if you look at our newest HOT PULLS pics, you'll see Ryan and his brother Connor who clearly has had the luck rub off on him too.

I like to feature some of these amazing pulls from individual packs so that everyone knows you can absolutely get a $400 card (or more) from a single pack. I realize that the odds of getting a high valued card go up tremendously when you buy a high dollar box, and not everyone can afford that. Believe me ... I get it. But just let these examples show you that you can absolutely get a tremendous pull without spending a lot of money. Just ask July's featured HOT PULL getter Troy, who spent $8 and pulled a $400 card. It happens.

We'll be re-doing our HOME PAGE photo array soon to feature the new store, so don't be shy about asking to have your picture taken if you want to see yourself there. It's my pleasure!

NEW PRODUCT-wise, we received 2011 Fanfare Racing (with one auto or memorabilia piece per pack, and we ARE selling it by the pack!), 2011 Finest Football, and 2011-12 The Cup Hockey. Expected this week (if all manufacturers release on time) is 2011 Topps Chrome Baseball, 2011 Topps Platinum Football, 2011 Panini Timeless Treasures Football, 2011-12 Artifacts Hockey, and Pokemon Emerging Powers (the second series of Black & White).

Please check out the new store, and thanks for reading!

Wednesday, August 24th, 2011

Hi everyone. Just a quickie! We sent our first e-newsletter out in over a year yesterday. PLEASE check your In-box. If you didn't get it, then we don't have your correct e-mail address. Please do me a favor and give it to us by clicking the "E-mail Sign Up" link at your left. I know that addresses change, and it's been a while since we've sent a newsletter.

I REALLY want to make sure we're communicating with as many of our customers as possible, so if you could take the time to add/update yours, I'd appreciate it!

And just a reminder that we're on Facebook. Please LIKE us on there for weekly updates!

Thanks everyone!

Friday, August 19th, 2011

Hello everyone. Well, if you don't know ... we ARE in the new store ... two doors down from the old one. We love it here and are very quickly settling in to the new space. Our signs have arrived as well, which is good because a few people thought we had closed because the original store is dark. We ARE keeping the first store for storage (and some mail order needs) so that everyone can enjoy a nice, comfortable environment here. It's about time. (The picture on the right shows part of our new shelving and one of our brand new TVs for your viewing pleasure.)

As many of you know, all of our NEW PRODUCTS (both packs and boxes) and all of our GAMING (Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Magic product) are HERE in the new store. I just put out some singles ... including a pretty sweet double autograph of Shane Victorino and Raul Ibanez and rookies of Vance Worley (our recent bestseller). Our 2011 Score Eagles team sets are HERE. We ordered a few other team sets as well, and we will be placing another order soon; so if there are ANY teams you want, just let me know and I'll get them for you. All are available. I've started putting out some new Phillies novelties ... new die cast, tattoos, family magnets, Rubix cube, wallet, puzzles, "frozen rope necklaces", and more. Our latest McFarlane figure is a Cliff Lee in the gray jersey.

We also have some pretty cool ideas for the new store which will be unveiled in September. That will be a big month for us, because not only will we have our Grand Re-opening (date to be announced); but it's also the start of our FREE You-Pick-the-Winners Football contest. (The Player-of-the-Day Contest starts in October).

We have Hunter Pence and Vance Worley autographed balls and photos coming. I think the Worley photos are going to be THE holiday gift this year because they're VERY affordable. We also have more Worley rookies on the way, and we expect to have some cards of him and Pence in a Phillies uniform once 2011 Topps Update Baseball is released.

Our GAMING selection is increasing, in part due to our extra space and ability to properly display NEW product. We have a bunch of non-mainstream Magic product like Commander Decks and Duel Decks. Our Yu-Gi-Oh customers are enjoying the release of the NEW Generation Force set with black bordered XYZ cards. And our Pokemon customers are seeing more older sets here ... like EX Emerald, EX Unseen Forces, and EX Deoxys. We are also introducing World of Warcraft offerings (we have 3 different decks), and we're very willing to expand that product line if there's a customer base for it. By the way, that can be said for almost any product we carry. If there's interest in something new card-wise, we're very open to trying it here ... so please don't be shy about asking. We've introduced many new sets (like Bella Sara and MarioKart) just because customers asked for them. (Below is part of one of our new displays, featuring gaming products. We're still stocking.)

As for NEW PRODUCTS that have come in since my last BLOG ... Topps baseball stickers and albums have arrived. Panini Americana (a celebrity costume and autograph product) and 2011 Leaf Cut Signature (same) are here; and 2011 Donruss Threads Football will be here next week.

HOT PULLS continues to be all about 08 Triple Threads Baseball. We have three different store customers who have been opening from a 9 box case we purchased (it's gone now); and there were THREE booklets in that case. That was so much fun! One such booklet was pulled by David Z., and included swatches of jerseys and bats from Mickey Mantle, Roberto Clemente, Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski, Harmon Killebrew, and Frank Robinson. The recent big hit was a cool one, and once again, pulled by Taki (if you don't know of Taki's Triple Threads luck ... see our HOT PULLS link on this site). It was a 1/1 triple autograph on the sweet spot of a baseball, which we've never seen before in Triple Threads. We didn't even know the possibility existed. The three autographs were Phil Niekro, Billy Martin, and Phil Rizzuto ... VERY sweet looking card. Because of its popularity and certain customers' good fortunes, Steve is looking into another Triple Threads case before the 2011 Triple Threads arrives in mid-September.

Come see us and check out our new digs. I will be sending an e-mail newsletter out to announce our Grand Re-opening (as well as posting it in this BLOG and on Facebook of course), so if you don't think I have your current e-mail address, please let me know. I can be reached at heidig@sportscardplayground.com. You will not want to miss our Grand Re-opening event. If you've ever attended one of our in-store events, you know that we do it up! We have raffles, contests, door prizes, specials, coupons, give-aways, and refreshments. Rumor is we will be giving away a certain star Phillies autograph that day! So please don't miss out on celebrating with us.

We hope to see you soon!

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Hi all. I'll have an update on the new store later this week (we're getting close!), so TWO BLOGS this week. What a treat for you (LOL) !

As usual, I can't believe how much has happened or how much time has passed since my last BLOG. This summer is flying by, and now the back to school ads and sales actually look right. That's sad because that's how I know summer is coming to an end more quickly than I'd like to admit.

We're all very happy that football is a go for this season. That's pretty major for us, card-wise ... so we were a bit nervous.

BASEBALL is in full swing, both Phillies-wise and card-wise. We're loving the addition of Hunter Pence and Vance Worley. They've re-energized our already great team, and I'm excited for the Phils.

Product-wise ... we've gotten a lot in lately. After a draught in Baseball for about a month after 2011 Bowman and Gypsy Queen came in, new products are now streaming in again. 2011 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions (categorized as baseball, but more of a multi-sport product), 2011 Topps Allen & Ginter, 2011 Bowman Platinum Baseball, 2011 Topps Lineage Baseball, 2011 Leaf Best of Baseball (a high end two card "pack"), 2011 ITG Heroes & Prospects Series 2 (another box = pack product), and 2011 Historic Autograph "Ball of Fame" (an actual autographed baseball ) have all arrived. Upcoming releases that customers are talking about and are highly anticipating include 2011 Triple Threads (arriving September 14th, after being pushed back by Topps), 2011 Bowman Chrome (October 19th), 2011 Topps Marquee (August 25th), and 2011 Topps Chrome (September 7th). I would say that last list is in no particular order (because it clearly isn't organized by release date), but it's basically in order of how often I get asked about each. Triple Threads is clearly a very hot item in this store (check the last two HOT PULLS).

Of the new BASEBALL, we're selling 2011 Allen & Ginter and Bowman Platinum the best. Allen & Ginter because it has an established customer base; has a nice card design; and interesting non-baseball related card subjects that collectors have come to expect. Bowman Platinum is in its second year, and customers love it for the up and comers. It's an attractive, relatively thick card with a foil finish; and we've had two Bryce Harper autograph cards pulled so far. Goodwin Champions looks like an old Goudey product but reminds me a lot of Allen & Ginter because of its non-baseball subject matter. I've seen a Sidney Crosby auto and John Elway jersey card, so there's definitely a mixture there. One of the more popular inserts is the entomology redemption cards ... redeemable for an actual bug (dead, mounted in a card)! I know it might sound strange, but these cards are cool.

2011 Leaf Best of Baseball is a one pack product with two slabbed cards in it. One is a cut signature of 17 possible players, produced by Leaf. The other is either an autographed rookie card (not necessarily Leaf ... and not usually ... so think Derek Jeter, Albert Pujols, etc.) or a vintage card of a legendary player. The only one we've seen opened so far was fairly exceptional. The cut signature was Sandy Koufax, and the autographed rookie card was Cal Ripken (congrats to our customer David Z). So I'm guessing that isn't necessarily typical! Topps Lineage is a fairly basic card design but has today's players in past Topps designs inserted often. It also has legendary players as part of the regular set (just saw a Honus Wagner pulled), which I liked a lot.

FOOTBALL is heating up ... especially since the announcement that they're playing! We just received basic 2011 Topps (always a good seller) and Panini's Rookies & Stars Football. I like them both. Rookies & Stars has 4 hits as usual; and this year's Topps Jumbo is a bit better in that its 3 hits are two autos and a rookie patch (real, not manufactured). Prior to those two ... Donruss Elite, Prestige, and Score were released. All are good, and similar to last year's products. While it's nice to buy something new, there's a lot to be said about consistency and knowing what to expect from a given product. That can be said about all of the football releases listed here.

Please note that Topps Football has a redemption give-away program like it did last year (and similar to the Diamond Redemption baseball program), with redemption cards found in every 6 hobby packs. The site is www.toppslegends.com, but the site is not up and running just yet. It took about a month for the baseball one to be operational after Series 1 Baseball was released, so I'd give it a few more weeks. We will announce it on our Facebook page as soon as we hear anything.

I'll leave NEW PRODUCTS for now to move onto HOT PULLS. Our most recent one was from a new TNA product (TNA Signature Impact Wrestling) ... a 5 person autograph of Jeff Hardy, Matt Hardy, Rob Van Dam, Nick Foley, and Kurt Angle numbered to 5. And in the same box was a Kurt Angle autograph numbered to 25! Pretty good box, Don R. Also pulled by Don were Larry Bird and Kobe Bryant autograph cards from the same box of the new Gold Standard product. Dave Z was one of the two customers who pulled a Bryce Harper auto from Bowman Platinum. Dave Z also got lucky with a box of 2008 Triple Threads Baseball. He pulled an autographed booklet of Ozzie Smith and Robin Yount ... very sweet! This rivals Taki's luck (again, see our recent HOT PULLS).

In other NEW PRODUCTS, 2010-11 Victory Hockey was the first 2010-11 HOCKEY release. 2010-11 National Treasures Basketball, the aforementioned TNA Signature Impact Wrestling, Ringside Boxing Round 2, and 2011 Leaf Cut Signature Edition all arrived as well. Due to customer requests, we started selling packs of MarioKart WII and Cars stickers. We have a few new World of Warcraft players, so we added a few different starter decks to our product offerings. We'll have 2011 Score Eagles team seats soon.

So that's it for now. We'll talk again soon.

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

Hi everyone. I know what you're thinking ... but Heidi, you JUST wrote a fresh BLOG a couple of days ago. You couldn't possibly be spoiling us again with new information. But yet I am. Read on ...

I've been having a lot of conversations lately with collectors who are very involved with the Topps Baseball Diamond Redemption program (those code cards you find in random packs of 2011 Topps Series 1 and 2 Baseball). They are enjoying A. unlocking old cards and the NEW diamond die cut cards and then B. digging for virtual rings (to collect and redeem for prizes) and instant win prizes. Those conversations have yielded some miscellaneous facts I figured I'd share with you, especially if you are one of the people in search of 45 virtual rings to redeem for the free 2011 factory set and also for those in search of all 60 to redeem for the real "Diamond" ring. First, the 45 rings ... VERY do-able, provided you have entered at least 45 redemption cards. There is a lot of trading available, and I'm not aware of any ring being harder than any other, except one ... the Mickey Mantle ring, which brings me to the topic of the 60 rings. We have a customer who has entered 250 redemption code cards, and he still doesn't have the elusive Mickey Mantle virtual ring. We have also heard of another collector who has entered over 500, and he too did not get a Mantle ... so just know that the Mantle ring is tough. Who knows how many Topps is making available to collectors? So please be aware of those odds if you are in search of the 60 to redeem for the real ring.

Other Diamond Redemption program facts ... it seems that more of the diamond die cut cards are being made available to collectors unlocking their codes now, versus when the program first went live. Our customer who entered 250 codes only revealed 3 of the diamond die cuts prior to two weeks ago, but his last 12 codes entered yielded him 2 more! We've seen the actual cards you get ... they're nice. Even though you can't tell from looking at them on the computer screen, they ARE actually die cut (it's not a white border at top) and they're thicker than normal ... as thick as a typical jersey card. They also have a peel away film on the surface, so if the card looks strange to you inside of the top loader, that might be why. As for instant win prizes, we know of two customers who have dug up (in the virtual dig) a free 2011 factory set (this is in addition to the set they'll get with their 45 virtual rings). One collector we know dug up three packs of cards from different years ....like one from the 60's, 70's, and 80's. That was a cool prize. If you know of other prizes, I'd love to hear them.

I didn't discuss NEW PRODUCTS (other than Topps Series 2 and Bowman Baseball) in my last BLOG, so I figured I'd take the opportunity to do so now. Other 2011 TOPPS BASEBALL PRODUCTS have been Opening Day, Heritage, Topps Attax, Gypsy Queen, and Pro Debut. We are highly anticipating both Triple Threads and Bowman Platinum releases. Other non-Topps Baseball products for 2011 have been Upper Deck's SP Legendary Cuts Baseball (one cut per pack, and pack = box), Tri Star Pursuit, Historic Autographs Legends of the Hall (a slabbed, oversized card with cut signature of legendary player), and Historic Autographs In Memory of Update (3 autos per pack, pack = box). 2011 FOOTBALL releases have been ... Sage Hit Low and High, Press Pass Draft and Legends, Sage Autograph, Tri Star Signa Cuts Football (one cut auto per box), Leaf US Army, Leaf Metal Draft, and Leaf Ultimate Draft (the last three Leaf products are all pack = box releases with multiple hits per pack), Panini Prestige, and Topps Rising Rookies. The most recent 2010-11 BASKETBALL release was SP. It's pricey this year, but with a reason. Every 6 box case guarantees you a certain special autograph. 50% of the time it's a Michael Jordan or LeBron James (I mentioned in my last BLOG our customer who pulled a Michael Jordan autographed floor card numbered to 5), and 50% of the time it's a chance of a few different players, including those two, but also Demarcus Cousins (one of our customers also got him ... so that wasn't a great pull!). HOCKEY-WISE, we just received In the Game Decade 1980's (not a box of packs ... a pack of autograph and jersey inserts). Contenders came in recently, and we're selling ITG Between the Pipes and Upper Deck's SPx well. NON-SPORTS releases have included Leaf Pop Century (which features 8 celebrity autographs), Marvel Beginnings, Lost premium pack (including one auto and two relics), James Bond Mission Logs, WWE Dog Tags (with a one per box jersey relic dog tag ... NEW for this year), UFC Title Shot (a VERY good seller with 2 autos and 2 relics per box), and Thor (with popular sketch cards). We have also started carrying many different Panini sticker boxes. We have the NEW Cars, Disney Princesses, Justin Bieber, Harry Potter Deathly Hallows, Tangled, and Toy Story 3 (among others) available as boxes (and Cars and Disney Princesses by the pack ... $1 a pack). Gaming arrivals have been Magic: The Gathering New Phyrexia, Pokemon Black & White, and Yu-Gi-Oh Duelist Pack Crow and Extreme Victory.

I would love to hear from you on Facebook and start some conversations amongst collectors. It's the best way to learn ... by sharing information. Happy Father's Day to our wonderful webmaster (our Dad!) and to all of you Dads out there. Be safe.

Saturday, June 11th, 2011

Hi everyone. So, apparently, I said in my quickie "We're moving" BLOG that we were hoping to be operational in our new space at the end of May. Well, we're still hoping that, but now it's June; so alas, we have to face the reality that the new store isn't ready quite yet. Things are moving along, but a bit more slowly than we'd hoped. My best guess is the end of June now. Fingers crossed. If that doesn't happen, I'm just going to start saying Summer 2011.

There's a lot going on here, partly because we started ordering in (and receiving) some of the added items we're going to carry in the new store. We're expanding our product line of sports and other novelties, and several new Phillies bobble heads have arrived. We now have NEW 2011 Roy Oswalt, Cliff Lee, Carlos Ruiz, Shane Victorino, and Ryan Howard bobble heads; and NEW Cliff Lee, Shane Victorino, and Ryan Howard BIG Heads. We're now carrying complete league micro helmet sets for football, baseball, and hockey. We have 2011 Topps team sets for PHILLIES (of course), Mets, Orioles, Nationals, Dodgers, Cardinals, and Red Sox. We also expanded our line of Game Wear Phillies wristbands. Besides the regular red and white one with the red Phillies "P" logo, we have the all red, all green (Irish); and vintage maroon and light blue ones plus player specific Halladay and Victorino bands. They've become good sellers and a nice, inexpensive present. Also new to our inventory is Phillies patches (iron-ons for jerseys, sweatshirts, and jackets). We have 3 different styles, including traditional "Phillies" with Liberty Bell, 2004 Inaugural season, and 2008 WSC patches.

2011 Topps Series 2 Baseball has just arrived and was much anticipated. We have every type of packaging ... jumbo, hobby, retail, and blaster boxes; and it's presently one of our best sellers. Special limited edition sparkle cards are back, including 3 "double sparkle" cards ... Tim Lincecum, Jason Heyward, and Evan
Longoria ... .which feature two separate sparkles (shiny diamond starburst type design) on each player's card. One interesting note, especially in this area, is that there is a Domonic Brown Phillies card that looks like it must be a Sparkle card because of the sparkle on his helmet. Well, in fact, it is not; and if you have that Domonic Brown, take a look at it because it gives you a good idea of what a sparkle card really does look like if you've never seen one in person. Unfortunately, it's just a shiny reflection of light off of his helmet, and every Domonic Brown appears that way. I'm sure it's a disappointment to many collectors who thought they FINALLY had a sparkle card in their possession, and of a Phil, no less. There ARE, however, sparkle cards of Ryan Howard and Cole Hamels in Series 2.

Baseball fans have also been eating up 2011 Bowman Baseball ... for which we have jumbo, hobby, and retail boxes. CONGRATULATIONS to Troy Cohen, who pulled a Bryce Harper autograph, THE hot pull, out of TWO packs of retail! That was amazing. While I'm on the topic of CONGRATULATIONS, kudos to the "Philly Boys" Chris Allegra & Ben Wright (seen a few times in our Hot Pulls link) for their latest treasure ... a Michael Jordan autographed floor card numbered to 5 from 2010-11 SP Basketball. That's a keeper. We've had a bunch of other hot pulls lately, including another couple Wayne & Tina who ALSO pulled a Bryce Harper autograph from 2011 Bowman Baseball (Hobby this time). Our navy friend Bill has been all over everything good in basketball rookies; pulling a Derrick Rose autographed rookie from 08-09 Hot Prospects, a Blake Griffin autographed rookie from 09-10 Crown Royale, AND a John Wall autographed rookie from 2010-11 Panini Limited Basketball. I know ... kind of ridiculous, and it didn't take him nearly as many boxes as you might imagine for him to pull all of this. He's been on a bit of a role! The "Philly Boys" would be quite jealous of Bill's successes; if it wasn't for their Kevin Durant autographed patch rookie from 07-08 Hot Prospects, their own Derrick Rose autograph from 10-11 Timeless Treasures; or their aforementioned Michael Jordan auto. Good job, boys! Yeah, I know. I'm jealous too. Steve & I are never as lucky ... no matter how much we open. And it's certainly nice to see a kid like Troy get a $400 card from two packs. It proves it can be done!

There's a lot more I could say, but I want to make sure I get this BLOG posted. I say it all the time, but if you haven't checked us out on Facebook, please do. I post weekly updates about NEW PRODUCTS that have arrived and occasionally list some HOT PULLS and other misc. Hobby information. Right now, I have on there the mention of a website I really like for early baseball checklists. It's like Wikipedia for Baseball collectors, and a lot of our customers use it. It's baseballcardpedia.com, and you should check it out ... especially for early 2011 Topps Series 2 info. Take care. Come visit. Happy graduations. Be safe.

Thursday, May 11th, 2011

Wow! It must be busy around here because I haven't blogged in two and a half months! There have been a lot of rumors circulating about us, and I'd like to take this opportunity to confirm one of them. Yes, we ARE moving! No worries ... we're not going far ... two doors down! The flooring store in Horsham Center has moved out, and we're moving in to create a fresh, new, uncluttered retail space. We're keeping this storefront for some of our mail order activity and inventory, so we REALLY will have a box-free environment for you. It's about time; I know, and getting the extra storefront was the only way we could figure out to make that happen. We're planning on being operational in that space at the end of May, and we'll have an official Grand Re-opening celebration in June. There will be a lot for everyone to look forward to, as we will also expand some of our product lines, including supplies and autographed items.

We'll be sending an e-newsletter out to announce our Grand Re-opening, and we will most definitely have an event surrounding the celebration (meaning contests, raffles, and FREE stuff for you!). I'll blog again tomorrow with NEW PRODUCTS that have arrived of late, and other goings-on. Take care, and expect a bigger, better us coming soon!!

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

Hi everyone.

The store's been busy lately, both with the arrival of 2011 Topps Baseball ... which is proving to be very popular with customers once again this year; and a bunch of other products that are on the rise, including 2010 Playoff Contenders Football and 2010-11 Upper Deck Series 2 Hockey. 09-10 Basketball has been HOT HOT HOT because of Blake Griffin. Basketball collectors are clamoring for his autographed rookies cards. We've also had some attention paid recently to 03-04 basketball packs for those collectors going after the Miami Heat triumvirate. So all in all, the market is healthy and looking good. This is obviously good news in general, but even better for me because I get to see more stuff opened here!

As for NEW PRODUCTS, there have been several popular ones, including the three just mentioned. Also having arrived are 2010 Topps Tribute Football, 2010 Panini Plates & Patches Football, 2010-11 SPx Hockey, and UFC Knockout. Plates & Patches Football is pretty risky if you ask me (it's one of those high end one pack products with multiple hits per pack), but our customer who pulled the 1/1 Michael Vick autographed printing plate was happy. UFC Knockout has been surprisingly popular, and we've had a lot of short printed, high value autographs of the likes of Chuck Liddell and Randy Couture pulled (one double auto fetched over $400!).

I have really been enjoying seeing 2010-11 SPx Hockey opened. I love the Upper Deck ICE bonus packs. ICE is not a stand-alone product this year, but Upper Deck has included ICE bonus packs in their 2010-11 Black Diamond and SPx Hockey boxes. Each pack has, in addition to a few regular ICE cards, one ICE rookie numbered to either 99, 499, 999, or 1999. It's tough to pull one numbered to 99 (see the paragraph on HOT PULLS for that), but if you're lucky enough to pull a Taylor Hall or Tyler Seguin, they're worth upwards of $300-400. And that's before you open any of your Black Diamond of SPx packs! Pretty cool bonus.

This week is going to bring a lot of new (and some highly anticipated) arrivals, including 2010 Topps Five Star Football, 2010 SP Authentic NCAA Football, 2010-11 Crown Royale Hockey, 2010-11 Playoff Contenders Patches Basketball, 2010 ITG Heroes & Prospects Hits Baseball, and 2011 Eclipse Racing.

Let's re-visit 2011 Topps Baseball for a minute. This year is Topps' 60th anniversary, and to celebrate and help promote its products, Topps is employing a diamond theme. They started by giving away an actual diamond ring on Valentine's Day in New York City. They're continuing with their Diamond Giveaway redemption cards in 2011 Topps Baseball. Like last year's Million Card Giveaway program, each redemption card unlocks a vintage card in Topps' inventory, but this year's program also lets you cyber dig for prizes as well (you get to put your shovel on a ball field and dig up a square). Many of the prizes are virtual team rings, which you can collect and trade (if you collect them all, you get a bonus prize). There are also some instant win prizes, and every time you dig, you get a tally mark. Multiple tally marks earn you free stuff. 5 digs gets you a bonus card reveal and free dig. 10 gets you a $10 Topps.com gift certificate. And there are other goodies to be had.

A customer turned me onto a website that I found particularly valuable for 2011 Topps Baseball, but you can obviously use it for any product. It's www.baseballcardpedia.com. It's like wikipedia for card collecting, and it's awesome. I found all 60 "sparkle" Topps cards listed here before they were listed anywhere else comprehensively. A sparkle card is this year's version of a special Topps baseball insert, like the Pies in the Face or Abraham Lincoln cards were last year. If you haven't seen one yet (I hear they're one per case), there's a little starburst (supposed to look like the sparkle from a diamond) somewhere on the card. They're a little tough to notice, so you really have to look for them. Sometimes the starburst is on the player's chest; sometimes in his glove; sometimes on his foot ... so it can be anywhere (which makes it harder). But they're valuable. One of our customers found an Alex Rodriguez and sold it for $100. So, be on the look-out!

We have all varieties of Topps Baseball to suit every budget ... hobby, jumbo, retail, and blaster boxes ... which are $19.99 for 10 packs plus a bonus patch card and Diamond Giveaway redemption card. Blasters make a great, affordable gift as well. We'd like to be able to offer blasters for every product because they're such a good price point. We're glad to be able to offer this one. And as a reminder, DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR 2011 TOPPS BASEBALL WRAPPERS. There is a wrapper redemption program in place where Topps will send you a special Black Diamond Baseball pack for every 36 hobby or 10 jumbo wrappers. For details and the address to send your wrappers to, check out ... http://www.topps.com/sports/news/toppsNews.aspx?news_id=369.

As for HOT PULLS, Don R.'s luck continues with hockey products. First, I reported that he pulled TWO Taylor Hall autographed rookies from Panini Limited Hockey. He also pulled a Mario Lemieux auto, two Ovechkins, a Tyler Seguin auto rookie, and a Patrick Roy 1/1 regular card (which sold for $100!) ... all from Panini Limited. EVERY box he opened had at least one of these cards. It was really amazing. Then, his luck continued with 2010-11 SP Game Used Hockey with a Gretzky/ Gordie Howe double auto out of 25. Recently, he opened SPx Hockey, and the Taylor Hall auto rookie luck continued in the first box. In his second box, he pulled a gorgeous Tyler Seguin auto patch out of 25. And this is a guy who has never been lucky, so this run of hockey luck is nothing short of shocking to us and him.

Staying on the hockey theme, Al S. is the customer who just pulled a Jeff Skinner /99 ICE rookie from SPx Hockey. It was SUCH a surprise to see one of the elusive rookies out of 99. It fetches upwards of $400 right now, and the best part is that he got this before he even opened any of his SPx box! Great pull!

The "Philly boys", Chris A. and Ben W., just called in to report their success with a few boxes purchased earlier today. It doesn't quite compare to their Tom Brady 1/1 autographed NFL shield card from 2009 Topps Unique Football at Christmas, but they did pull a Blake Griffin autographed rookie from Court Kings and a Barry Sanders autograph out of 25 from Panini Limited Football. Not too shabby!

I guess that's enough hot pulls for now. I keep promising to post the last batch on the website. I think I'll leave now to upload some photos. Before I go, I do want to tell all of our non-Facebook users (who were already told) that we have a large supply of current Phillies, Flyers, and Eagles rookies, autographs, patches, and jersey cards currently on display and at very reasonable prices. We've been stocking up and I just priced and displayed them. Come check them out.

And I can't end this BLOG without announcing the GRAND PRIZE WINNER and RUNNER-UP WINNER of our 2010 You-Pick-the Winners Football Contest. They're both AL SPOTTS! Yes, Al championed both pools. He spent his $140 winnings the day he got his Jeff Skinner ICE rookie, so I'm just going to say THAT'S the box he bought with his prize winnings. So you're welcome, Al! LOL.

Be on the look-out for details about the NEW NHL promotion ... The NHL Player of the Day (similar to the football contest). We just received the prize package and will be posting details (including the start date of course) soon, both on Facebook and in an upcoming BLOG. That's the second time I've mentioned Facebook. See it there first! Friend us, peeps!

Take care all.

Tuesday, January 25th, 2011

Hi everyone! Lots to say, and I'm actually going to START with HOT PULLS because we've had so many lately, and I'm excited to talk about them! For our Facebook fans, this will be repetitive, as I've posted most of them there already, but for everyone else ... let's go! First, Steve K. pulled a Justin Bieber autograph from 2010-11 Donruss Hockey! This was particularly cool because Steve and I had seen an insert card of him in there, and wondered if he did in fact have an autograph as well. Apparently, yes! And it sells for about $300, so that's a great pull. Al S. pulled one of the sweetest Colt McCoy cards I've seen to date from 2010 Triple Threads Football (my favorite product). The play by play, because everyone knows I love a good story, is that after he opened the first pack and got an non-autographed jersey card (I don't remember the player), we knew the next pack would be an autograph ... so when we saw it was a booklet, that was VERY exciting! We've only seen a few autographed booklets from all of the Triple Threads we've had opened here (in all sports), so this was pretty exciting. The booklets are usually horizontally held, but this one was vertical, so it does in fact open like a little book ... with the Triple Threads logo on its cover. On the left side of the book, there are two Colt McCoy jersey patches, and the card is numbered 3/3. On the right side, there is an autograph at top, and then a Letterman swatch from his jersey underneath. What makes this swatch particularly sweet though is that it was cut from an autographed jersey, so Al's card has yet another autograph on the Letterman swatch! I will be posting a photo of the card on our HOT PULLS page soon. It is truly a sight.

And there's still more! Young Tom M., who just celebrated his 23rd birthday, pulled a great double autograph of Tom Brady and Randy Moss, worth $400, from "plain old" 2009 Topps Football. Happy Birthday to him! Mike D. FINALLY pulled a Sidney Crosby autograph. I know most of you are thinking that this is not an easy pull, so why am I saying "finally"? Mike is a frequent opener. He can be seen several times in our HOT PULLS section. He is ridiculously lucky, but the one autograph that he wanted that kept eluding him was Crosby. Well, thanks to this year's SP Game Used Hockey, he is now the proud owner of a nice Sidney Crosby autograph card. Ironically, a first time customer wandered in and purchased the last pack of SP Game Used Hockey in the box on our shelf and ended up pulling a Dion Phaneuf /3 quad patch card with laundry tag. That was an unexpected surprise! Another great Triple Threads hit, this time in baseball, was made by David Z. He pulled a # 5/36 triple relic card featuring a Babe Ruth jersey piece, Mickey Mantle bat piece, and Roger Maris jersey piece. Awesome! He opened it here, and needless to say, I was screaming when I saw Babe Ruth's face! And the last HOT PULL I will report happened before Christmas, but I just never announced it. Also from 2010 Triple Threads Baseball, Ed A. pulled a dual autographed booklet (when it rains, it pours) of Tommy Hanson and Jason Heyward /50. That was a beautiful card as well. So congrats to all. I'm sure I've forgotten a bunch, but I will post more in the next BLOG.

FOOTBALL CONTEST update ... we're down to the wire now in our You-Pick-the-Winners Football contest, with only 3 people left in the Winners Pool and 2 in the Runners-Up pool. The Super Bowl will now be used as a tie breaker. The 3 people vying for the $100 Grand Prize are Al S., James G., and Brian R. The 2 vying for the $40 prize are Al S. and Dean R. Good luck to everyone!

This week will see the arrival of two hot new FOOTBALL products ... 2010 Supreme and Plates & Patches. 2011 Topps Baseball is going to be released NEXT WEEK, two weeks sooner than it's original mid-February release date. We now have BOTH 2010 Bowman Sterling Football and Baseball. Obviously, 2010-11 SP Game Used Hockey is here (hence the HOT PULLS). And 2011 Elements Racing just arrived.

On the topic of 2011 Topps Baseball, Topps has announced a wrapper redemption program. See http://www.topps.com/sports/news/toppsNews.aspx?news_id=369 for details. If you'd like to win a $10,000 diamond ring, also check out Topps' website. They're giving one away to a lucky couple to celebrate their 60th anniversary.

That's it for now. Take care, and come visit us!

Thursday, January 6th, 2011

Yowza! When it's been nearly two months since you've written a BLOG entry (apparently, someone took Thanksgiving through New Year's off!), where do you start? Have there been NEW PRODUCTS? Check. Have their been any HOT PULLS? In the last two months which is typically the busiest time of year? Another Yes. Any unannounced Football Contest results? Affirmative ... our 2010 NFL Player of the Day contest has a Grand Prize winner. And possibly any upcoming Football Contest goings-ons? Only that we're in the Playoff round of our You-Pick-the-Winners Football Contest! So Check on that too! Let's get started.

First, I genuinely hope you all enjoyed a VERY happy, healthy, stress-free holiday season (as much as possible, that is). It is literally one of the most stressful times of year! Any holiday that allows me or Steve two days in a row of sleep is a good one in our book. Since we last talked, Cliff Lee became a Phillie again. Loving that! If you haven't seen the Youtube clip with the animated characters talking like Cliff Lee and Jayson Werth, you should. It's hysterical (although not incredibly appropriate, language-wise, for young kids). If you search on their names, it's the first clip that comes up. Oh, and while you're there, if you haven't heard the voice of the formerly homeless gentleman who was just hired by the Cleveland Cavaliers to do some announcing, check him out as well. His name is Ted Williams. We searched under his name and "Cavaliers". And back to Philly sports ... the Eagles are also in the Playoffs with Michael Vick as our starting quarterback. I'm not sure we saw that coming in the beginning of the season!

Our You-Pick-the-Winners Football contest ended with the Grand Prize claimed by friends "The Philly Boys" Chris Allegra and Ben Wright. They received loads of Eagles loot and football cards worth almost $300. Congrats boys!

Our other big football contest ... You-Pick-the-Winners ... is down to the Playoffs. This week, our 17 Winners and only 10 Runners-up are making their first week's Playoff picks (all correct picks for the 10 Playoff games get added together to make one's score). The Grand Prize is $100, and the Runner-up Prize is $40. We usually have at least as many Runners-up as Winners, so having only 10 makes each person's chances pretty good (especially since a couple won't play). So good luck to everyone, and I hope to see all of you by the start of the first game at 4:30 on Saturday.

As for NEW PRODUCTS ... obviously, there have been many in the past 7 weeks, so to catch you up but not bore you to death, I'll let you know the last few arrivals per sport. In BASEBALL ... this week saw the arrival of 2010 BOWMAN PLATINUM. Last week brought 2010 BOWMAN DRAFT PICKS & PROSPECTS and the 2010 TOPPS USA boxed set. Before that was 2010 TOPPS STERLING. In FOOTBALL (which hasn't had a great deal of new products lately), we received 2010 TOPPS MAGIC this week, but besides PANINI NFL STICKERS; the newest products were 2010 GRIDIRON GEAR, TOPPS PRIME, CERTIFIED MATERIALS, and TOPPS UNRIVALED. BASKETBALL has had a bunch of new arrivals. We just received 2010-11 DONRUSS and TIMELESS TREASURES. 2010-11 PANINI LIMITED, THREADS, ROOKIES & STARS, and LONGEVITY came in before that. The 2010-11 HOCKEY season has seen the arrival of BLACK DIAMOND, OPC, UPPER DECK, DONRUSS (yes, Panini is making Hockey now), PANINI LIMITED, CERTIFIED MATERIALS, FAMOUS FABRIC INK, VICTORY, SCORE, and ARTIFACTS. There have been a slew of new NON-SPORTS/MISC. products, including DEXTER SEASON 3, TNA EXTREME, GHOST WHISPERER 3/4, and 2010 LEAF CUT SIGNATURE EDITION "SPORTS ICONS".

As a miscellaneous note, 2011 Bowman Baseball will have the first autograph card of Bryce Harper in a Nationals uniform. 2011 Topps will be the first 2011 Baseball product released, due in in mid-February. They've signed the normally reclusive Sandy Koufax to an exclusive deal. Topps has also extended their wrapper redemption programs for hobby wrappers of both 2010 Bowman Chrome and 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball. For more details, see their website.

As for HOT PULLS, I need to update the website with a few new pictures, but the latest HOT PULLS have been by Nick D. in 2010 Certified Materials Football. Steve and I opened 5 boxes of Certified to try to come close to Nick's luck. No luck for us! But for Nick, a 1/1 Tony Romo auto, a Joe Flacco /10 auto, and a Jim Kelly /25 auto jersey card ALL in one ridiculously good box. When it rains, it pours ... for some! Don R also had incredible success with 2010-11 Limited Hockey. He pulled TWO Taylor Hall and one Tyler Seguin autographed rookies, a Mario Lemeux and two Alexander Ovechkin autographs, a quad patch card with Taylor Hall on it, and a 1/1 Patrick Roy card (which sold for $100 ... and it wasn't even an auto or jersey!). Don is NEVER lucky, so this was some major haul for him. As I get back to my regular blogging routine, I'll tell you more of the pulls.

Okay "kids", I want to get this posted. I want to remind everyone that everything written in this BLOG has previously been published on Facebook (it's just so quick and easy to type a note every day or so). If you haven't become a Fan yet and you're actually on Facebook, what are you waiting for? And if you haven't considered Facebook because maybe you aren't a social animal and don't think that the fit is right for you, you just might re-consider. All of the major companies (Topps, Upper Deck, Press Pass, etc.) have a presence on Facebook, and give worthwhile weekly updates as to the goings-ons in their companies. You would never need to use Facebook to communicate with friends and family, but only use it to read info from others ... if that's the way you want it. Just a thought!

Take care ...

Saturday, November 13th, 2010

Hi everyone. Today is the GRAND PRIZE GIVE-AWAY for our 2010 NFL PLAYER of the DAY FOOTBALL CONTEST. Today, at 4:30, we'll pick the last weekly winner (so there's still time for you to enter!), and then immediately after that, all five weekly winners will be entered into the Grand Prize raffle drawing. The first four winners were ... Ed Allen, "Philly Boys" Chris Allegra and Ben Wright, Marc Sesken, and Ed Allen (again ... he won weeks 1 and 4!). Who will be lucky number 5? Maybe YOU!

In our other season-long football contest, You-Pick-the-Winners, Week 8's winner was Eileen Sliwinski; and Week 9's winner was James Gallo. Eileen is our second woman to win this year, which of course always pleases me. And James is a three time winner, so he is an obvious threat for the $100 Grand Prize. Good luck to everyone!

In miscellaneous hobby news, Topps is rewarding buyers of 2010 Bowman Chrome Baseball (Hobby only) by offering a wrapper redemption program (i.e. you send them 24 wrappers and they send you a special pack). I like the idea (probably designed to help out hobby stores), but wish they could have announced it BEFORE many customers had already opened boxes and disposed of their wrappers. So I'm sorry if you're one of these customers (we are too!), but here's the link for any future Bowman Chrome opening ... http://www.topps.com/sports/news/toppsNews.aspx?news_id=354

Many new products have been released the past two weeks. In BASEBALL ... 2010 Bowman Chrome (both hobby and retail) and 2010 Tri Star Signa Cuts Baseball Bronx Edition. In FOOTBALL, 2010 Triple Threads and Crown Royale. In BASKETBALL ... 2010-11 Panini Limited and 2010 Upper Deck Ultimate NCAA Basketball. In HOCKEY, 2010-11 Upper Deck Series 1, Artifacts, Score, and Panini Certified. In other hobby offerings, Leaf Cut Signature Encore Edition (mostly celebrity autos); Pokemon HS Triumphant, and the Yu-Gi-Oh Marik Structure Deck and two new tins.

And if you're doing your holiday shopping (apparently, a lot of people shop earlier than I do!), please note that our jersey grab bags make excellent and popular stocking stuffers; and we now have Phillies Silly Bandz for your fingers! Yes, rings, not bracelets!

That's it for now. Hope to see you soon!

Saturday, October 30th, 2010

Hi everyone. Another quick BLOG to update football contest winners. This week's You Pick the Winners Football contest winner is first timer Al Spotts. Al has played each week, and has come close previously, but this week was his first victory. He spent his $15 winnings today toward a 2010 Absolute Memorabilia Football box. He surprisingly pulled 3 autographs, including a nice Shonn Greene one out of 5.

The second NFL Player of the Day weekly winner was a duo. You've seen them in the Hot Pulls section of our website (twice!). They're Chris Allegra and Ben Wright. Funny story ... Chris and Ben don't even know they were entered! So they certainly don't know they won ... until now! Chris and Ben collect as a team, and they bought a football box last week, which automatically qualified them in Saturday's raffle (unbeknownst to them!), so Steve entered them after they left and pulled their ticket later. So surprise guys! Wait till you see all of the Grand Prize loot you'll be vying for.

We did receive the 2010-11 Panini Certified Hockey and 2010 Topps Updates & Highlights Baseball last week, as expected. This week saw the arrival of 2010-11 Artifacts Hockey and 2010 Press Pass Legends Racing.

It was so sad to see the Phillies season end. I watched our final game in Santa Fe while on vacation visiting my mom, and I have to say Saturday's game was excruciating. I think I had three heart attacks and bit off all of my nails. I'd like to say we played our best , but "Eh!", I've seen better. But I am proud we made it as far as we did. It was a fun season. Now the Giants just look ridiculous (as in ridiculously good). They just keep hitting. I might have to start the "I Hate Cody Ross" fan club. He was too good against us.

That's it for now. Only 4 people are entered in Saturday's Player of the Day drawing right now, so now is YOUR time to play! See you soon!

Wednesday, October 20th, 2010

Hi everyone. Just a couple quick contest updates. The FIRST weekly winner of our brand new 2010 Player of the Day Football Contest is newcomer Ed Allen. Ed won a special POD t-shirt; limited edition card set including 2 Tim Tebow and 3 Peyton Manning cards, and 6 packs of Panini branded trading cards. (The same prize is available this week as well). Ed will be one of 5 people who will be entered into the almost $300 GRAND PRIZE drawing on Saturday, November 13th. That prize is on display in the store and includes a LeSean McCoy autograph card, box of 2010 Score Football, 15 packs of 2010 Prestige Football, 3 bobble heads, a football, and many Eagles novelties.

This week's You-Pick-The-Winners Football contest victor is this year's first two time winner, James Gallo, who got only 2 wrong! Honorable mention to three contestants (and almost contenders!) with 3 wrong...Al Spotts, Jesse Brauer, and Steve Babb. I thought the three of you were going to duke it out Monday night, until James snuck in there. Congrats James!

We're expecting 2010 Topps Updates & Highlights Baseball (hopefully with Oswalt in a Phillies uniform) this week (as well as 2010-11 Panini Certified Hockey).

Talk to you soon.

Wednesday, October 13th, 2010

Hi everyone. So our second football contest ... The 2010 NFL Player of the Day Contest ... started this week, and six customers are already entered into Saturday's first (of five) weekly drawings. The GRAND PRIZE, worth almost $300, is also on display, and includes ... a LeSean McCoy autograph card; box of 2010 Score Football; 15 packs of 2010 Prestige Hobby Football; Tony Romo, Peyton Manning, and Jeremy Maclin bobble heads; two pairs of Eagles slippers; an Eagles football; Eagles helicopter; Eagles team set; two Eagles vehicles; and an Eagles car fan wave. So hopefully, an Eagles fan wins the GRAND PRIZE, but if not, someone is going to have a lot of extra Christmas presents handy this year (we love the slippers!).

Entering the contest is FREE and easy. Each day, a different player is designated as the "Player of the Day". Today's player is Adrian Petersen, for example. Then, there's also a hometown team "Player of the Day" (POD) selected to double your chances of winning. We selected DeSean Jackson. So, today, if you were to pull EITHER an Adrian Petersen card or a DeSean Jackson card from ANY pack of football cards or a grab bag, you win your spot in our weekly drawing (as well as a pack of 2010 Score Football). If you purchase a BOX of football cards, you're automatically entered (because it's assumed you'll get the player in your box). This week's prize (to be given away by random draw amongst all of this week's entrants) is a special POD Limited Edition card set, including two Tim Tebow and three Peyton Mannings cards; a POD t-shirt; and two packs each of 2010 Prestige, Score, and Adrenalyn Football cards. The contest lasts 5 weeks, and each weekly winner will then be entered into the GRAND PRIZE drawing ... to be awarded Saturday, November 13th.

Good luck to all, and please come in and play. Now we have two contests for you! Oh, and speaking of which, let me update the week 4 and 5 You-Pick-the-Winners contest winners. Week 4 was won by Brian Ruegner. Week 5 was won by Dorothy Moritz, with runners-up Dean Ralston and Jared McMullan. Congrats to everyone.

NEW PRODUCTS ... we've gotten in a lot of good ones lately, thankfully. Since my last BLOG, in which I mentioned the arrivals of Epix and Finest Footballs and Triple Threads Baseball, we've received, in FOOTBALL ... 2010 Rookie & Stars Longevity (10 pack box with 3 hits per box), 2010 Topps Chrome (1 auto per box), 2010 Absolute Memorabilia Football (4 packs, 4 hits), 2010 Sweet Spot (players in college uniforms, 6 pack box with 4 jerseys and 2 autos), and 2010 Topps Factory sets. In BASEBALL ... 2010 Topps Chrome (2 autos per box), 2010 Elite Extra Edition Baseball (minor league product with 6 autos per box and hot boxes available), and 2010 Topps Pro Debut Series 2 (also minor league). In BASKETBALL ... the first 2010-11 product arrived, Panini Prestige. In HOCKEY, 2009-10 The Cup. Other GAMING/MISC. SPORTS/ NON-SPORTS ... 2010 Leaf MMA, 2010 UFC Round 4, TNA Icons, 2010 WWE, 2010 WWE Rumble, 2010 Main Event Racing, Magic: The Gathering Scars of Mirrodin, and Yu-Gi-Oh Legendary Collection album.

Just an interesting side note ... if you've opened any 2010 Elite Extra Edition Baseball, please note that Panini announced a mistake. Instead of finding an autograph of St. Louis Cardinals prospect Jordan Swagerty on his card, you might just find Magic Johnson's! His sticker autographs were used instead of Swagerty's (whether it's every Swagerty card or just some, is unclear). Another note ... if you're opening 2010 Topps Chrome BASEBALL Hobby (doesn't apply to football), save your pack wrappers! For every 24 pack wrappers you send in, Topps will send you a special 3 card refractor pack (with every 10 packs having a green refractor).

A couple of HOT PULLS on our newest products ... Al Spotts pulled a Randy Couture auto out of the 2010 Leaf MMA and a Tim Tebow jersey rookie from 2010 Absolute Memorabilia. Don Rimmer pulled not only a Sam Bradford jersey rookie from the 2010 Absolute Memorabilia, but a Sam Bradford autograph jersey rookie out of 25 from the same box! New customer Lou pulled a whopper of a double auto from 09-10 The Cup Hockey ... a Gretzky/Lemieux out of 5 ! Jealous! And even though Steve and I almost never pull anything good, we ourselves opened two boxes of 2010 Rookies & Stars Longevity Football and pulled a Tim Tebow autograph out of 10! Sweet!

Thanks for reading, and GO P-H-I-L-L-I-E-S! We're VERY hometown proud.

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

Hi everyone. So we had some good news earlier this week when the Phils clinched the National League East. I would say, "Was there ever any worry?", but clearly, there was a while back. I'm really happy with how our team is playing right now. It feels good. We were at Sunday's rainy loss (story of my life on both counts) for Fan Appreciation Day. Someone on our row won the autographed photo set (each photo is autographed, and it contains every member of the team!). I was so jealous!

Oh, speaking of jealousy, one of our customers, Mike D., pulled a Stephen Strasburg 1/1 autographed printing plate (white whale) triple patch card from the brand new 2010 Triple Threads Baseball. It's currently on E-bay, and we wish him luck finding a generous buyer. He's pulled some amazing cards in the past (he's the same guy who pulled the redemption for 4 autographed baseballs from 2010 Press Pass Showcase Racing ... each one autographed by an entire racing team), but this is probably his most valuable. We'll see soon! Good luck, Mike, and congrats on another great pull.

As for other HOT PULLS, Jesse A., who previously pulled a triple auto of the Jets' Namath, Favre, and Sanchez from 2009 Panini Limited Football, just pulled a double auto of Namath and Sanchez from the same product.

CONGRATULATIONS are in order to our first three weekly winners of our You-Pick-the-Winners Football contest. The first winner was announced in the last blog ... Matthew Nyttall. Since then, James Gallo won week 2, and just yesterday, David Zicherman sealed his victory for week 3. It did come down to the Monday night tie breaker game for week 3, so three people are now in the Runners-Up pool ... Don Rimmer, Al Spotts, and Dean Ralston.

I want to make sure you know about all of the new McFarlanes we have. They've been good sellers for us. We currently have Roy Halladay in both pinstripes and cream; and Ryan Howard, Chase Utley, Jimmy Rollins, and Cole Hamels in pinstripes. We also have in stock David Wright, Jose Reyes, Johan Santana, Derek Jeter, and Alex Rodriguez. New bobble heads include Jeremy Maclin and Michael Vick.

NEW PRODUCTS ... 2010 Panini Epix Football, 2010 Finest Football, and 2010 Triple Threads Baseball.

Topps issued the following press release ...
" New York, NY (September 28, 2010) – The Topps Company, Inc., today has announces a new option to help simplify and expedite the replacement of missing cards from hobby boxes.

Beginning immediately, any customer who failed to receive a card within the stated odds printed on its respective packaging can now contact Topps Customer Service electronically for replacements, eliminating the need to mail items in.

Customers can email Support@Topps.com and include their name and address, along with digital pictures in PDF format which must include the UPC symbol from the box with either an “X” or hole punched through the center, the wrapper from the pack with the missing card and a copy of the store receipt evidencing the purchase. Once we receive this email and confirm, we will expedite the process and ship your missing hit."

So that's all the news for today. Take care. Come play our football contest!

Tuesday, September 14th, 2010

Hi everyone! This BLOG entry will be a quickie! I wanted to give a shout out to our first weekly winner of our You-Pick-The-Winners Football contest, Matthew Nyttall. Matthew only got 3 picks wrong, so he did a tremendous job. And yes, it looks like it's going to be a very long year for the Eagles, sadly. Remember that this week's entry forms will be available on Wednesday and due back on Saturday at 5:00. Each weekly winner, including Matthew, receives a $15 GIFT CERTIFICATE and gets to compete during the Play-offs for a $100 GIFT CERTIFICATE GRAND PRIZE.

I also wanted to make sure every BLOG reader knows that we sent out our first E-NEWSLETTER in almost a year this past Friday night. It announced the start of our You-Pick-The-Winners Football contest, amongst many other things. IF you did not get that e-newsletter in your In Box, then please know that I do NOT have a valid or updated e-mail address for you! PLEASE click the sign-up link at the top of this page or simply call me with your e-mail address.

NEW PRODUCTS due in this week include ... 2010 Upper Deck NCAA Sweet Spot Football, 2010 Topps Platinum Football, 2009-10 Panini Hall of Fame Basketball, Topps UFC Series 4, and hopefully, the Pokemon holiday tins.

Thanks for reading!

Friday, September 10th, 2010

Hi everyone! Happy back to school week (for many of you). It is weird adjusting to a different schedule (and dealing with unhappy children who don't want to go back to school!).

My BIG NEWS right now is that our YOU-PICK-THE-WINNERS Football contest has begun! The first week's entry form's are due back this Saturday (and no games played before Saturday at 5:00 count, so no worries!). We award a $15 gift certificate each week, and each weekly winner then competes during the Play-offs for a $100 gift certificate grand prize. The contest is FREE and easy to play, so come on in before 5:00 Saturday.

We're gearing up for our other popular annual football contest ... The NFL Player of the Day, and we'll have that GRAND PRIZE worth over $250 on display soon. That contest will start in early October.

As a quick update, Topps just announced that 2010 Topps Series 2 Rookie Redemption #8 is Stephen Strasburg, and #9 is Mike Minor.

I usually spend some amount of time in each BLOG entry talking about Stephen Strasburg and his effect on the hobby and 2010 baseball card sales. Well, most of you have heard that Strasburg needs Tommy John surgery and will be out of baseball for 12-15 months. This was pretty upsetting news to a lot of collectors who have been buying up his card and saw them initially rise greatly, only to now fall as interest in him has waned due to his uncertain future. There is growing interest in another rookie pitching phenom Aroldis Chapman, so hopefully, some of the interest that collectors had in Strasburg will transfer to him.

NEW PRODUCTS in the last few weeks have been ... In FOOTBALL ... 2010 Panini Threads, 2010 Rookies & Stars, and 2010 Topps. In BASEBALL ... 2010 Topps 206 has arrived. In BASKETBALL ... 2009-10 Panini Season Update Basketball and 2009-10 WNBA Factory set (with two autographs). In HOCKEY (and reported in last blog) ... 2010-11 Victory and 2009-10 OPC Premier. In MULTI-SPORTS ... 2010 Leaf (formerly Razor) Rookie Retro. In MISC. SPORTS ... 2010 WWE. In NON-SPORTS ... Elvis Milestones, Lost Archives, Heroes Archives, Harry Potter Heroes and Villains, Bella Sara Miniatures, and Benchwarmers Vault. In Magic: The Gathering ... the Elspeth vs. Tezzeret duel deck. In Yu-Gi-Oh ... Duelist Revolution and 3 great new tins (all of which have 5 holo foil cards and 5 packs). In Pokemon ... HS Unleashed.

Remember to Become a Fan of "Sportscard Playground" on Facebook!

That's about it for now. Take care!

Friday, August 13th, 2010

Well, I just re-read my last Blog, and more could not have changed for the Phils! We're doing well now, even though almost our entire team is injured! Yesterday's game was ridiculous, but I'm completely ashamed to admit I turned it off in the 7th inning, AND they're not replaying it today. I'm beside myself. I've only seen clips of the good part of the game, and that little boy who was constantly shown with his magic fingers willing us to hit is now doing the talk show circuit talking about his role in our win! LOL.Weather-wise, we have a nice weekend ahead, and I could not be happier. We've even enjoyed some mid-80 degree days here and there. The National Card Convention just took place in Baltimore, and we have a bit of news from that event. And Stephen Strasburg continues to be the talk of the hobby, even during his time on the Disabled List!

Let's start with some NEW PRODUCTS! In BASEBALL ... 2010 Topps Tribute, 2010 OBAK, 2010 Topps Factory sets (All-Star, Hobby, and as of later today ... team specific). In FOOTBALL, 2010 Panini Classics, 2010 Topps Attax, and 2010 Panini Adrenalyn. In BASKETBALL ... 2009-10 Panini Crown Royale and 2009-10 Panini Adrenalyn 1st Edition. In HOCKEY, 2009-10 Victory, and as of later today, 2009-10 OPC Premier. In RACING ... 2010 Press Pass Showcase and 2010 Stealth. In MULTI-SPORT ... 2010 Razor Sports Icons. In ENTERTAINMENT/ NON-SPORTS ... 2010 Razor Cut Signature Edition and 2010 Razor Pop Century. In OTHER SPORTS ... 2010 TNA Icons, 2010 Ringside Boxing, and 2010 Ace Authentic "Aces" Tennis.

I've seen some Razor Pop Century opened recently, and I like it. Each box has 3 celebrity costume cards and 3 autographs. If you liked Razor's Ink Vault product (which I did), you'll probably like this. Costume cards we saw yesterday included Denzel Washington, John Wayne, Eliza Dushku, and Sascha Baron Cohen. Autographs included Elvira, Kevin Sorbo, and Linda Hamilton. It's a fun product.

Now an UPDATE on TOPPS BASEBALL ROOKIE REDEMPTIONS ... for 2010 Finest Baseball, we left off last time at #7, which was an autographed Andrew Cashner. #8 has been announced, and it is Dayan Viciedo. For 2010 Topps Series 2 Baseball, we left off at #4 ... Mike Stanton. Three more have been announced ... #5 ... Starlin Castro, #6 ... Logan Morrison, and #7 ... Domonic Brown. We have #8 and are hoping it's Strasburg!

Speaking of Strasburg, here's an update on autographs of him presently available or available in the near future. Topps announced that there are 500 Strasburg autographed relics (250 solo and 250 dual autos) in its already available Topps Tribute product. The Million Card Giveaway autographed Strasburgs (numbered to 300) have been signed and shipped (but many are still available by redeeming codes on toppsmillion.com ... you have to be lucky enough to get the regular Strasburg card, and then pay $350 to upgrade to the autographed version). Strasburg autograph cards for the upcoming Triple Threads release have all been signed and are ready for insertion. No redemptions. Triple Threads releases at month's end; and I don't know if this holds true for all 2010 Triple Threads rookies, but Strasburg's card design is vertical instead of the usual horizontal style (and looks gorgeous ... but I'm biased because Triple Threads is my favorite product). If you were lucky enough to get an Allen & Ginter Strasburg mini autograph, they have been signed and are being "framed". They'll ship in the next few weeks. T-206 is due September 1st, and its Strasburg autos WILL be redemptions. Those cards are with him now however, so it shouldn't be a long wait (and it sounds like they'll be hard signed).

By the way, if you're curious about the Bowman Strasburg autograph 1/1 that was recently on E-bay and reached almost a million fake dollars; it was taken off and sold at auction by Huggins & Scott for $17,000. Given that the non-autographed 1/1 fetched over $21,000 the second time around on E-bay; I'm guessing that the owner of the autographed one is pretty angry!

Still speaking of Strasburg but seguing into news from the National Convention, Topps made a splash at the National by giving away 999 Topps Heritage Strasburg cards (in this year's reprint of the 1961 design). They're currently fetching $60-75 on E-bay. Various manufacturers had a strong presence at the National with some sort of give-away. Upper Deck gave away packs with random Michael Jordan and LeBron James autographs in them (among other athletes). Panini had a special limited edition set it gave away. But a few of our customers liked the Press Pass booth best, where you received a free autograph or memorabilia card just for opening 5 packs! Razor had big news ... they're now Leaf! The Leaf brand name was available; and now they own it, as well as the rights to their card designs. I'm still unsure how that change will resonate with collectors. I see Razor as a more cutting edge, current company ... and not one to use an older, non-glossy card design. They have also somewhat established themselves in the hobby with their products over the past few years, so the name change seems surprising to me. Razor's management is certainly excited about the announcement though, so I assume they know better than me.

That's all the news that's fit to print. I've been ending each blog recently by mentioning that we're on Facebook. If you haven't checked us out, please search for us (Sportscard Playground), and check out the information we post each week. All NEW PRODUCTS are announced as they are released, as well as misc. HOBBY HAPPENINGS. It's definitely worth getting info as it becomes available ... for FREE. For us, we want to grow our "fan base" so that we have an effective way to communicate with everyone. It's so quick and easy to post updates on Facebook, and we'd love it if you would "Like" us!

Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Hi everyone! So summer is in such full swing that stores have back to school supplies already, and Hallmark has Halloween decorations. That is both depressing and wrong. And the Phillies are doing terribly, which I can describe with the same two adjectives. And I thought we had seen the worst a few weeks ago. Ugh! And the heat! This incredible heat. Boy, this blog is depressing so far, so let's change that.

STEPHEN STRASBURG ... he's good news. There's lots to say about him. First, his Allen & Ginter mini card is HOT HOT HOT, and impossible to find; I might add. Steve and I opened two cases ... didn't get him. We did, however, get a piece of paper from the world record paper airplane making champion, so clearly all was not lost (I'm NOT kidding). I actually like Allen & Ginter, but the aforementioned pull was not a great example of why. The rip cards are fun. To rip, or not to rip ... we ripped every time. The rip card is a regular size card that has a little card inside of it. You have to ruin the outer card to see what's inside (if you dare). The inner cards are not available any other way, so they're unique; and you can get original Tobacco cards (and I think autographs) inside. The rumor (which I think is unsubstantiated anyway) was that Strasburg mini cards could only be found in rip cards. Alas, as previously reported, we didn't find any of him.

Topps has announced more of their 2010 Finest Rookie Redemption cards. For those of you who haven't been keeping track, I'll re-cap the list. #1 Jason Heyward #2 Ike Davis #3 Starlin Castro #4 Mike Leake #5 Mike Stanton #6 STEPHEN STRASBURG, and #7 Andrew Cashner (which is autographed). Someone came up with the idea that maybe #10 will also be Stephen Strasburg, but an autographed version. Topps did that in a previous year ... two of the same player, with one being autographed. That would be fun, since most people think he's "only" #6. More info as players are announced.

For those of you with Red Hot Rookies from 2010 Topps Series 2, four of them have been announced so far ... #1 Carlos Santana #2 Jose Tabata #3 Brennan Boesch and #4 Mike Stanton. We have #8, so I'm hoping that's Strasburg. Time will tell.

Many of you will be happy to know that we have acquired a bunch of new Phillies and Flyers jersey and autograph cards, including Mike Schmidt, Steve Carlton, and Claude Giroux (all of whom we haven't had recently). We also obtained some Babe Ruth cards (no originals ... don't go crazy!) for several customers who have been wanting him, and we have 09-10 Flyers team sets from MVP. We are also fully stocked on baseball jersey grab bags and Phillies team sets.

TOPPS ATTAX BASEBALL collectors will be very happy to hear that we now have Battle of the Ages tins, which contain EVERY legend card (in regular white card format) and TWO foil legend cards in each tin as well. They've been selling very well, especially as gifts for campers!

Do you know that Sportscard Playground pre-sells boxes? This became especially popular because of Strasburg products going up in price quickly, and often before the product's release. We sold cases of Bowman Baseball at $64.95 a box, and it's now over $225. It was already $100 within days of its arrival. Our next big pick to pre-buy is 2010 Topps Chrome Baseball. It's $85 now, and due out at the very end of September. We expect it to be higher before it arrives (possibly substantially so), also because of Strasburg's popularity with collectors. If you want to reserve your box ahead of time, you can pay for it now; and we will give you a receipt to bring back with you, and a phone call the day it arrives. Pre-orders with us could not be safer. We deliver even if we are cut from the manufacturers/distributors.

And just to wrap up Strasburg and the products he's in, the 2010 TOPPS BASEBALL FACTORY SETS have begun to arrive. We always sell through these sets, as they're the ideal holiday gift (and baby gift). So far, the All Star set has arrived, and the regular hobby set is due in at the end of the week. They came out a little later than usual this year, and why? You guessed it ... because Strasburg is in it! The 2010 Topps Baseball sets have a special Strasburg card #661 in them. #661 will probably also be in the 2010 Topps Updates & Highlights product, but most likely with a different picture.

NEW PRODUCTS ... this week saw the arrival of Yu-Gi-Oh Hidden Arsenal #2 (and we still have Yu-Gi-Oh Gold 3), and we received Magic: The Gathering Core Set 2011 last week (boosters and fat packs). Sports-wise, it's slim pickings as usual. We've received 09-10 Ultimate Collection Hockey, 09-10 Panini Court Kings Basketball, 2010 Score and Elite Footballs, and SportKings Series D recently. For non-sports fans, we have both James Bond Heroes & Villains and Harry Potter Heroes & Villains, as well as Star Wars Empire Strikes Back 3D Widevision.

WORLD CUP SOCCER has been popular for us on-line. There is a Panini Adrenaline card game (but also purchased by collectors and not game players), and then a FIFA Panini sticker product, both of which we stock, but do not sell by the pack ... .so please ask if you're interested.

We posted a couple more HOT PULLS on the website, so check them out before you leave. We've had TWO Kobe Bryant autographs pulled by different customers in the past week, so that's been fun.

If you're going to the National Card Show in Baltimore this year (in August), make sure you know what manufacturers are offering. So far, Upper Deck, Razor, and Press Pass have announced that they will be giving away FREE cards/packs/boxes/autographs if you open product at their booths. Each has different plans for their give-aways and different requirements as to how to get them , so visit their websites before you go.

Last, I want to give a shout out to two awesome 17 year olds who used to shop here when they were mere kids who just visited us this past Saturday ... Andrew Spognardi and Ben Budenstein. Both have become awesome young men, and it was so great to see them. Thanks, guys! You made my weekend.
That's it for now. Hope summer is going well for everyone!

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Hello all. Okay, school's out for summer (even if you're in the North Penn school district!). With camps starting up, we expect kids to start collecting new and different gaming cards with their bunkmates, especially the 2010 Topps Attax Baseball card game. We had a run on this game with the kids at St. Alphonsus, and we expect it to continue now with campers. We DO have decks available at $5 for those looking for the all important and "not available in packs" Legends cards. We're also fully stocked on Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh cards. We re-stocked the original Jungle and Fossil packs for Pokemon and have the brand new Gold Series 3 for Yu-Gi-Oh.

On the figurine front, we now have Roy Halladay ... both McFarlane figures and Big Head bobble heads. We also stocked up on a bunch of new Big Heads, including Jayson Werth, Raul Ibanez, and Shane Victorino. These 3 are in addition to our current stock of the Phanatic, Jimmy Rollins, Ryan Howard, and Cole Hamels. We also have new Chase Utley and Phanatic regular bobble heads; as well as the Jimmy Rollins World Series Champion bobble head where he's holding the WSC trophy. Other new Phillies items include more Game Wear wristbands (including a new Halladay one) and a few new vehicles (including the 2010 tractor trailer).

We didn't have a mad rush for Flyers items following our Finals run, but we do have a few new items. In addition to our stock of Winter Classic bobbles of Jeff Carter and Mike Richards, we just introduced the Daniel Briere McFarlane to the store. Also new are James Van Riemsdyk autographed photos and helmets. We also re-stocked Flyers pucks for autograph seekers.

Stephen Strasburg is still the talk of the hobby, with one of his cards (a non-autographed Bowman 1/1) selling for $16,000 plus on E-bay and then over $21,000 after being re-listed by the buyer. Of course, there is also another Bowman 1/1 Strasburg (an autographed one this time) that was temporarily up to $999,900. It's currently $500,000, but we have no idea what it will really sell for (as that seems a tad high ... read that as sarcasm). But there is no doubt that Strasburg cards are HOT HOT HOT. Topps is offering autographed Strasburg cards for $350 to the first 300 people who take them up on the offer. The Strasburgs are available through their www.toppsmillion.com website, and you have to have a Strasburg card unlocked in your account (no small feat, as there have only been roughly 150 unlocked so far ... by entering Topps Series 1 and 2 "Million Card Giveaway" redemption codes). This week, Topps will unveil their 2010 Allen & Ginter product, and there is sure to be a Strasburg rookie in there as well.

In related news, many customers are waiting to see which Redemption Strasburg is going to be in 2010 Topps Finest Baseball. Well, he's not # 1-5, because they are ... 1. Jason Heyward, 2. Ike Davis, 3. Starlin Castro, 4. Mike Leake, and 5. Mike Stanton. In 2010 Topps Series 2, the Red Hot Rookie Redemptions announced so far are 1. Carlos Santana and 2. Jose Tabata. We'll release more names as they're announced.

In NEW PRODUCT news ... the aforementioned and highly anticipated 2010 Allen & Ginter Baseball will be in this coming week. We just received Yu-Gi-Oh Gold Series 3. 2009-10 Ultimate Hockey was pushed back (along with Panini Courtside Kings Basketball) to roughly July 7th.

We are in the process of re-stocking our Baseball Jersey Grab bags. We should have a fresh supply later today.

Enjoy the heat (again, sarcasm) and GO P-H-I-L-L-I-E-S ! We seem to be getting over our slump (knock on wood). The last few games we've been hitting well. Let's keep it up!

Hope to see you soon!

Tuesday, June 15th, 2010

Well, school is winding down; and summer is around the corner. College students are already home, and Father's Day is this Sunday. The Flyers season has ended, and the Phillies are hopefully working things out. So basically, a lot is going on everywhere, and the sports card world is no exception.

Everyone is talking about and buying up Stephen Strasburg (the Nationals' young ace pitcher) rookie cards and autographs. He's the main reason that 2010 Bowman Baseball is selling so well, but it is loaded with other hot rookies too (including Bryce Harper, Jason Heyward, and Starlin Castro). Strasburg had autographs in a few 2008 Upper Deck products, including 2008 Timelines, 2008 SP Authentic, 2008 Sweet Spot, and the 2009 USA set. Now he has autos in 2010 Bowman and 2009 Tri Star Projections, and he has rookie redemptions in 2010 Finest and 2010 Topps Series 2. It has not been announced which redemption card number Strasburg will be assigned in either product. 2010 Topps Allen & Ginter Baseball will be released next week, and it is expected that he will have a rookie card in that product as well.

Topps has announced that 2010 Topps Baseball Factory sets will contain a Stephen Strasburg rookie card. In fact, the Hobby Factory set (one that our store sells, but is not available at mass marketers) will have an additional 5 random parallel cards included which could contain a Strasburg short print as well. Some buyers of Topps Series 2 Baseball who logged onto www.Toppsmillion.com to redeem their million Card Giveaway redemptions after Strasburg threw out his first major league pitch were rewarded with his Topps rookie card. We believe that this Strasburg (from the Million Card Giveaway redemption), the Strasburg rookie included in the factory set, and then the one that will appear in the 2010 Topps Updates & Highlights Baseball release will probably all have different photographs on them so they are distinguishable in some way. We'll provide details as they surface.

NEW PRODUCTS ... 2010 Donruss Elite Football, 2010 Sage Squared Football, 2010 Bowman 8 pack Baseball Blaster Box, 2010 Stealth Racing, Razor Poker, and Topps Star Wars Empire Strikes Back 3D Widevision. We will be receiving 2009-10 SP Authentic Hockey, Ringside Boxing, and Razor Sports Icons later THIS week; and NEXT week ... 2010 Topps Allen & Ginter Baseball, 2009-10 Ultimate Hockey, and Yu-Gi-Oh Gold Series 3.

More info later, but wanted to put this in print for now!

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

Hi everyone! I hope you all enjoyed your Memorial Day weekend plans. Since I last blogged, we've received the 2010 TOPPS SERIES 2 BASEBALL, and it's very popular! So far, we have the hobby and jumbo packs, but I'm sure we'll be receiving the retail and cereal boxes soon. We've gotten a lot of walk-in traffic looking for the 2010 Topps Baseball Factory sets. Since Series 2 has now been released, Topps can work on them, but we don't expect them to be released until the end of June for the All-Star set packaging and mid-July for the traditional Hobby set (the ones most of you buy for holiday gifts).

Other NEW PRODUCTS include the 2009-10 Be-A-Player Hockey, 2010 TRI STAR PURSUIT SERIES 2 BASEBALL (a minor league set with 6 bonus autograph cards numbered to 80 or less), Razor Poker, YU-GI-OH "Duelist Tool Box" Starter Decks, Toy Story, and WWE Series 2 Dog Tags. We're expecting 2010 Sage Squared Football, 09-10 Panini Court Kings Basketball, 09-10 SP Authentic Hockey, and 2010 Press Pass Stealth Racing next (all possibly this week).

A few new HOT PULLS have been made and will soon be added to the Cyber Wall of Fame. Two worth mentioning here were made by friends Chris A. and Ben W. They pulled a Tyreke Evans auto/jersey rookie phenom from this year's Panini Limited Basketball and an Evan Longoria Rookie Auto out of 08 SP Authentic Baseball. And I tried to discourage them from buying the 08 SP Baseball. Little did I realize the riches it would hold! The duo has pulled a bunch of other good cards lately, and I haven't been giving them attention in this blog, so hear it now ... Congrats, guys!

Upper Deck has just hired a new President Paul Meyer (formerly of Shuffle Master), and he will hopefully breathe some new life into the company that recently lost its NFL trading card license.

That's it for now. Go F-L-Y-E-R-S !!!!

Monday, May 24th, 2010

HAPPY 40th BIRTHDAY MIKE D!

HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY STEVE K!

Saturday, May 22nd, 2010

Hi everyone! It always shocks me when I find out I haven't blogged in almost a month! My goal is to update you weekly, but frankly, there just hasn't been a whole lot to say. So I've saved it all up, and now it must spill! First things first ... NEW PRODUCTS! Just this week we received 09-10 ICE HOCKEY, 09-10 ABSOLUTE MEMORABILIA BASKETBALL, and 2010 UPPER DECK SOCCER. Last week saw the arrival of 2010 BOWMAN BASEBALL, 2010 PRESTIGE FOOTBALL, 09-10 TIMELESS TREASURES BASKETBALL, YU-GI-OH SHINING DARKNESS, POKEMON H.S. UNLEASHED (for which we have singles available), and MAGIC: THE GATHERING RISE OF THE ELDRAZI.

2010 TOPPS SERIES 2 BASEBALL is coming in soon. Its original release was scheduled for Wednesday; and due to production problems, Topps does not think they'll meet that, but they are still aiming for the end of the week. The Series 2 will continue their popular "Million Card Giveaway" promotion, with T206 cards part of the possible redemptions.

BOWMAN BASEBALL has been incredibly hot, as there are autographs of Stephen Strasburg and Jason Heyward, and regular cards of those two and Bryce Harper. A young boy in the store JUST pulled a Starlin Castro refractor autograph ... not bad for one pack. PRESTIGE FOOTBALL is the first NFL licensed product, and all rookies are true rookies (unlike in Sage and Press Pass).

On the Football licensing front, I blogged last time about Upper Deck losing their Football license for 2010; and mentioned that I hope that Topps regains theirs. Well thankfully, that has happened. Topps WILL be making 2010 Football, starting in August. I'm very relieved that we will at least have two different company's products to choose from. Topps announced some products that they're working on to appeal to Upper Deck fans who won't be getting their favorite SP and Ultimate brands. More info on those as it's released.

We posted 6 new HOT PULLS pictures on our Cyber Wall of Fame, so check that link if you haven't already. I'll blog again soon (before another month passes at least!). Be well. Happy Memorial Day, and go Flyers and Phils!

Wednesday, April 13th, 2010

Well, it's been a month since I've written ... and I apologize. The hobby news is piling up, and while I'd like to say it's all good, I'd be lying. We just found out that Upper Deck will not be making Football cards for 2010. Details are few, but Upper Deck was unable to come to a licensing agreement with the NFL. This news is pretty shocking, given that A. Upper Deck Football products are very popular amongst collectors, and B. Upper Deck had previously announced that it would not be making 2010 Baseball cards (because of a Topps exclusive). So that leaves Upper Deck as a manufacturer of only Hockey and Collegiate cards. The one silver lining that we're hoping for is that Topps will somehow regain their Football card license for 2010, although whether they're in a position to do so is unknown. (Do they have the staff in place ? How quickly can they get the photography? Etc.).

On a related subject, some customers have wondered why it seems like there aren't as many new products being released. Because there's not! With all of the exclusive licensing agreements, fewer companies are making cards in each category (Baseball, Football, Basketball, and Hockey). New products are being released slowly, and that problem is compounded by the fact that there are so many fewer products being released. Let's re-cap who's making what. In Major League Baseball, Topps. In Football, Panini. In Basketball, Panini. In Hockey, Upper Deck (next year, Panini will be added). Surprising, huh? There's presently only one company per sport. Now with that said, Topps produces the following brands in Baseball ... Topps, Topps Heritage, Bowman, Bowman Sterling, Bowman's Best, Bowman Chrome, Triple Threads, Allen & Ginter, Chicle, Sterling, Unique, Stadium Club, Finest, Chrome, Moments & Milestones, etc.; lest you think that A. we're going backward to a day with only 3 sets to choose from, or B. there is no variety ... clearly, there is.

While the negatives of exclusives and too few products seem obvious, let me highlight some of the positives. First, some collectors long for the day when there were only a few sets to choose from (I'm not one of them, mind you), and find the current number of products overwhelming. These collectors will probably enjoy the slower pace of product releases ... for Baseball, about 1 or 2 per month currently. Baseball collectors will not be bombarded with another new product before they have the time to complete the current set they're working on. Some people see this as a very good thing. There is now less pressure to see what's new each week, and collectors have a chance to work on one set longer. Also possible is for a collector to build a set he/she wouldn't have in the past because another set he/she DID collect is not being made. For example, if you were a fan of Upper Deck's Goodwin Champions last year, maybe you'll sample Topps' Allen & Ginter this year instead.

Another positive that most people can agree on is that when a certain rookie catches fire, there are now less of those rookies available, and each card is worth more! Atlanta's Jason Heyward is all the rage in Baseball right now, and he is single-handedly driving sales of 2010 Finest Baseball and 2010 Topps Pro Debut Baseball. With his autograph cards fetching big bucks, there are only so many products available that have him. Whereas formerly, Upper Deck and Topps both would have had 5 or so products each with him in it, Topps' exclusive means that only they do now ... so each Heyward card is worth more because demand is high and supply is low.

A third positive is sales of past year products. This is healthy for the industry as a whole, as some collectors will switch from collecting 2010 Upper Deck Football products to buying more of the 2008 and 2009 Upper Deck Football products they missed. Both 2008 and 2009 had great rookie classes, so those years of product remain in demand, and consequently, the value of the rookies do as well (which helps everyone).

So while the switch to exclusives and less product isn't great, there are good things that will come from it ... so I am at least thankful for that. I would encourage everyone to keep an open mind as we move forward and sort through everything. It takes everyone time to adjust to change, and I don't think these exclusives will necessarily be permanent. Manufacturers and leagues both have to respond to their customers and are ultimately motivated by profits, so if this new system (so to speak) doesn't work for everyone, it will have to be tweaked. Hang in there! I know we are.

NEW PRODUCTS since my last BLOG ... 2010 FINEST BASEBALL, 2010 TOPPS PRO DEBUT BASEBALL, 2010 SAGE HIT LOW and HIGH SERIES FOOTBALL (6 and 9 autographs per box respectively), 2010 PRESS PASS DRAFT FOOTBALL (has Tim Tebow autos), 2010 RAZOR ARMY ALL AMERICAN BOWL FOOTBALL, 2009 EXQUISITE FOOTBALL, 2009-10 UPPER DECK CHAMPS HOCKEY, 2009-10 SP GAME USED HOCKEY, 2009-10 PANINI CERTIFIED BASKETBALL, 2009-10 PANINI CLASSICS BASKETBALL, and 2010 RAZOR INK VAULT (non-sports product with 4 autographs plus random sealed box). Expected in shortly are PRESS PASS LEGENDS OF KISS and RITTENHOUSE MARVEL 70th ANNIVERSARY.

Recent HOT PULL ... one of our regulars Al Spotts just snagged a #3/3 triple autograph/triple jersey (appropriately enough from 2009 Triple Threads Football) of Troy Aikman, Peyton Manning, and Matthew Stafford. Not bad!

TOPPS EXCLUSIVE ACCESS. This is the name given to this year's Topps' weekly Baseball Card Give-away. Featuring the new rookie card logo prominently on the card, this 50 card set of past, present, and rookie baseball greats is available (a new card each week) to anyone who purchases a pack of 2010 Topps Baseball. This week's player is Albert Pujols. 10 of the 50 players (just to show you player selection) are Ty Cobb, Mike Schmidt, Babe Ruth, Ichiro, Tim Lincecum, Tommy Hanson, Mickey Mantle, Alex Rodriguez, Jackie Robinson, and David Wright.

In other HOBBY NEWS, Topps has announced that the #1 redemption for 2010 Finest Baseball is Jason Heyward; and 10% of the cards will be autographed. So if you've redeemed yours on-line, go check and see the updated status. I believe they're shipping soon as well. 2009-10 OPC METAL HOCKEY and 2009 UPPER DECK LEGACY FOOTBALL have been cancelled.

Thanks for reading! It's fun to see the baseball season get underway. Go Phils!

Friday, March 12th, 2010

Hi everyone! SO much to say. I posted a TON of things on Facebook today, so if you're a fan, some of this will be redundant. If you're not a fan, then please add us!

First, we had a TREMENDOUS HOT PULL yesterday night in the store. I'll give you the long version, for effect. Anyone who knows me knows I like to tell a story. JESSE ALMANZA was opening a box of 2009 Donruss Limited Football. You get 3 auto or jersey cards. So Steve and I were both looking over his shoulder. I see that one card has three autographs on it and the team uniform color is green, so I figure out it's Jets. I'm PRAYING for Mark Sanchez. Actually, I was saying out loud (repeatedly) ... "Please be Mark Sanchez"! Shonn Greene would have been good too, but I didn't get that far. This all happened in a matter of seconds. So the first player was Joe Namath. Good start. Then Brett Favre. Oh, nice! Almost forgot he was a Jet! And the last player? Mark Sanchez! Triple autograph, #10/10. YOWZA!!! I was more excited than Jesse, but he was happy! It was, by far, his best pull ever. Thank you for opening in the store, Jesse! See everyone ... it IS good luck to open here.

Major League Baseball has settled its lawsuit with Upper Deck over their trademark infringement in 2010 Upper Deck Baseball, 2009 Signature Stars Baseball, and 2009 Ultimate Collection Baseball products. Remember that Topps has a MLB exclusive for 2010. So how did they settle it? By Upper Deck agree'ing not to produce any more baseball products this year! So ... now cancelled are 2010 Goudey, SP Authentic, and SPx Baseball. Consequently, the in-store "National Packtime" event (previously scheduled but delayed from March 6th) has been officially cancelled. Apparently, Upper Deck was going to be producing the baseball cards for this event.

Other cancellations include 2010 Upper Deck Draft Football. Upper Deck couldn't get the autographs back in time for insertion, and it wasn't worth releasing the product without them. WWE Chips Series 2 (a professional wrestling poker chips product) was also cancelled.

TOPPS' MILLION CARD GIVEAWAY will continue in Topps Series 2 with actual original T206 cards being given away.

Shortprints available in 2010 Topps Series 1 Baseball include at least 3 cards with Abraham Lincoln's likeness on them. Previously, we noticed that the Rogers Hornsby shortprint had Lincoln in the background (upper right corner), but to date, we haven't seen any Hornsby's that haven't ... so we're assuming that this is the only way the Hornsby comes. Because it's hard to find in general (like the other legendary players..it's seeded 1 per several boxes), it's a shortprint, but not because of Abraham Lincoln being on it. The 3 normally common cards (all Cubs players) that sometimes have Abraham Lincoln in the background are Ryan Dempster, Jeff Samardzija, and Milton Bradley. We have all of the commons, but alas, no Abe's! If I find out of other Abe cards, I'll let you know. These Topps Abe shortprints add to the already super hard to find Pie in the Face Yankee cards (mentioned in my last BLOG).

In other Topps Baseball news, if you're opening 2010 TOPPS OPENING DAY BASEBALL ... look at CLIFF LEE's card. He's featured wearing his Seattle Mariners jersey, but with an HK patch! The picture was an airbrushed picture of Lee from 2010 Topps Baseball, and the airbrusher didn't remove the HK patch.

In NEW PRODUCTS news ... it's been slim pickings lately. Since my last BLOG, we've received 2010 TOPPS HERITAGE BASEBALL (HOBBY version and 8 and 12 count blaster boxes), 2010 TOPPS ATTAX BASEBALL DECKS & PACKS, 2010 TOPPS OPENING DAY BASEBALL, 2009 ULTIMATE COLLECTION FOOTBALL, 09-10 STUDIO BASKETBALL, 2010 ECLIPSE RACING, TWILIGHT NEW MOON SERIES 2, GARBAGE PAIL KIDS FLASHBACK, and UFC MAIN EVENT. 2010 SAGE HIT FOOTBALL is coming in soon, but especially with Topps' exclusive in baseball and it not being football season, products are arriving slowly. Now is a good time to finish up some sets you haven't had the chance to complete, or choose some older products you never opened but always wanted to.

We now carry SILLY BANDZ. We have 5 different varieties, available in both 24 pack boxes for $5 or as sets of 6 for $2 (or individually for $.50). These are the rubber bands kids wear on their wrists that come in shapes (and stay that way even when they take them on and off). Designs we have are ... pet animals, zoo animals, princess shapes, sea creatures, and dinosaurs. More designs to come!

That's the news for now! Hope to see you soon!

Thursday, February 18th, 2010

Official CONGRATULATIONS to JOHN OELS ... $100 GRAND PRIZE WINNER of our YOU-PICK-THE-WINNERS FOOTBALL CONTEST! John, who chose the New Orleans Saints to win the Super Bowl, beat out Don R and Brian R at the very end to become champion.

NEW PRODUCTS ... 2009-10 PANINI CERTIFIED BASKETBALL, 2009 TOPPS UNIQUE FOOTBALL, 2009 TOPPS PLATINUM FOOTBALL, 2009 SP FOOTBALL, 09-10 UPPER DECK SERIES 2 HOCKEY, YU-GI-OH ABSOLUTE POWERFORCE, and POKEMON HEARTGOLD SOULSILVER.

There has been a lot of talk amongst our customers about MLB's lawsuit against Upper Deck, but to date ... no update. There haven't been any more 2010 Baseball products released by Upper Deck and no further action taken by MLB. The subject of the lawsuit filed by MLB was trademark infringement by Upper Deck in their 09 Signature Stars, 09 Ultimate Collection, and 2010 Upper Deck Baseball products. While Upper Deck has an arrangement with the MLBPA (Player's Association), Topps is the exclusive licensee for MLB in 2010.

2010 TOPPS BASEBALL has been a strong seller, and in part; due to a media blitz featuring Cal Ripken, Jr., some LIMITED EDITION "PIE IN THE FACE" and Legendary Player Inserts, and Topps' MILLION CARD GIVEAWAY. Topps has been inserting short prints in their base Topps set for several years now, starting in 2006 with some Alex Gordon cards that "weren't supposed to" make their way into packs and continuing in 2007 with the special Derek Jeter card featuring Mickey Mantle and George W. Bush. The 2009 set had over 20 short prints ... mostly legendary players (but Barack Obama was also included). The cards look the same as the base set. The only difference is the subject matter. In the Update & Highlights set, the short prints do bear gold writing instead of silver, making them much easier to spot. For 2010 Series 1, there are legendary player short prints (Babe Ruth is back!) but also cards featuring Yankees players with pie in their face.

The short print checklist of the "PIE IN THE FACE" cards (and date of the game in which the player was hit!) is as follows ...

• Alex Rodriguez- 5/16/09
• Johnny Damon- 5/17/09
• Jorge Posada- 7/4/09
• Hideki Matsui- 7/20/09
• Alex Rodriguez- 8/7/09
• Robinson Cano- 8/12/09
• Robinson Cano- 8/28/09
• Nick Swisher- 9/8/09
• Francisco Cervelli- 9/16/09
• Juan Miranda- 9/29/09
• Mark Teixeira- 10/9/09
• Jerry Hairston Jr.- 10/17/09

No mention yet as to how many of each have been produced, but they're very rare (we have a customer who has opened two cases and hasn't gotten one). Consequently, some are selling on E-bay for upwards of $100.

The TOPPS MILLION CARD GIVEAWAY is a promotion spanning this year's 2010 Topps Series 1, 2, and Update Baseball releases where 1:6 packs gets you a redemption card for a FREE Topps base card. Topps bought back at least one of each of their card sets from 1952 to the present, and the '52 Mickey Mantle Rookie is being used as a GRAND PRIZE GIVE-AWAY (via raffle). I was on the special website Topps set up for this promotion (www.toppsmillion.com), and out of 20 redemptions, we did get one common player from 1955 ... but be aware that most are cards you wouldn't necessarily care to take possession of (luckily, you don't have to). We received a lot of commons from 1993 and up (not exactly exciting!). Topps will be having contests using these banked cards, so it's in the collector's best interests to keep them at Topps while contests are being run. Collectors may ask for them to be sent, however, starting March 15th. It looks like shipping will be at the collector's expense.

That's it for now. I'll chat at you again soon ...

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

SO much to say!!! First, 6 to 12 inches of snow this Friday night? Really? If you usually come in on Saturday and can come on Friday, PLEASE do! We want to see you.

There are so many NEW PRODUCTS that have arrived over the last week and a half. The most popular and anticipated has been 2010 TOPPS BASEBALL. We received the regular packs last week, and the JUMBO packs are expected in tomorrow. Just today, we received MAGIC:THE GATHERING WORLDWAKE (booster packs, intro packs, and fat packs), 09-10 TRILOGY HOCKEY, 09-10 CONTENDERS BASKETBALL, and PRESS PASS "8 SECONDS" PROFESSIONAL BULL RIDING (yes, you heard that right!). Earlier this week/end of last saw the arrival of 09 UPPER DECK SIGNATURE STARS BASEBALL, 2009 ULTIMATE COLLECTION BASEBALL, 2010 UPPER DECK SERIES 1 BASEBALL, 09 TOPPS NATIONAL CHICLE FOOTBALL, 09 NATIONAL TREASURES FOOTBALL, 09-10 HEROES & PROSPECTS HOCKEY, TOPPS WWE PACK ATTAX BOOSTERS and STARTERS, and YU-GI-OH YUSEI 2 DUELIST PACK. 09 PLATINUM FOOTBALL will be here early next week.

Along with the news of all of these new products is the announcement of some PRODUCT DELAYS. One thing it seems you can be sure of these days is that things won't arrive when you think they will. We've been waiting for 2009 PROMINENT CUTS and 2009 ULTIMATE FOOTBALL to arrive for some time, and it looks like we will continue to wait because no updated due dates have been announced. 09 SP FOOTBALL has been pushed back (AGAIN!) to February 12th, and 09-10 UPPER DECK SERIES 2 HOCKEY is being released February 16th (for now).

CONGRATULATIONS to A.J. SMUSKIEWICZ ... official winner of our 2009 YOU-PICK-THE-WINNERS FOOTBALL CONTEST RUNNER-UP PRIZE ... a $40 GIFT CERTIFICATE. A.J. slaughtered the competition and did not even need the Super Bowl tie breaker to deem him the winner. Still vying for the $100 GRAND PRIZE are DON R, BRIAN R, and JOHN O. That winner will be determined after this weekend's final game. Good luck guys!!

MLB Properties has filed suit against UPPER DECK for trademark infringement for improper use of team logos in their 09 Signature Stars, 09 Ultimate, and 2010 Upper Deck Baseball products. All three products were released after Topps' exclusive licensing agreement with MLB Properties went into effect. If you haven't seen any of the three products, team names aren't used ... so the Phillies are simply referred to as "Philadelphia", and the Red Sox as "Boston"; but team uniforms (with full team names partially obscured) and cap logos (often in their entirety) are featured. MLB asked for a temporary injunction against the products, but the courts did not uphold it, so as of now, the products ARE allowed to be sold. More information on this case as it develops.

I run the risk of sounding like a broken record on this subject, but if you are on FACEBOOK, and haven't become a FAN, PLEASE look us up. We're really trying to grow our Facebook Fan list because it's such a good way to communicate with you, and in real time! All of the information in this BLOG was listed there first, and often on the day it happened. And if you're not on Facebook, but you've been curious..check it out! It's quick, easy, and FREE to be a member.

Sportscard Playground has great Valentine's gifts for your husband, boyfriend, brother, kids, or other sweetheart! (And for the handful of female customers we have ... your wife or girlfriend!!). Nothing makes a person smile like a pack of their favorite cards! Take care, everyone, and enjoy the snow!!!

Saturday, January 23rd, 2010

Hi everyone! If you've been following us on Facebook, then you're pretty up to date with HOT PULLS, NEW PRODUCTS, and general goings on at the store. But, if not ... then this is probably news to you. This is the last weekend of playoff action for our You-Pick-the-Winners Football contest. The GRAND PRIZE and RUNNER-UP winners will be determined by the contestants who have the best out of 10 playoff wins correct. In particularly good position right now are John O., who has TWO entries with 5 right in the Winners pool going into this weekend's games (the most number right in the Winners pool). John is tied with 4 other contestants, but has an advantage in being able to choose two different combinations for tomorrow's games. Young A. J. Smuskiewicz is the leader in the Runners-Up pool with a whopping 6 right before this weekend ... the most right overall, so A.J.'s the one to beat.

The Super Bowl is used only in the event of a tie breaker. I'll know on Monday whether that will be necessary. I suspect it will be needed for the Winners pool.

I want to give a quick shout out to Mike H and Jen S, who are now Mr. and Mrs. H. They came in on Friday afternoon right after their wedding, in full formal attire. They looked wonderful, and we're so happy for them. Mike even pulled two baseball autographs, and that must have been wedding day luck because he is not that lucky (except for snagging Jen!)!!!

HOT PULLS ... Just today, Mike D had a monster hit from the brand new 09-10 SPx Hockey ... a JOHN TAVARES AUTOGRAPHED PATCH numbered to 25 ... valued at $700!! Mike had some sort of HOT BOX with at least 7 autographs and jersey cards (normal number is 4 hits). Almost all of our other recent Hot Pulls have been from 09 Triple Threads Football, and they've almost all been made by Brian R.! I previously reported Brian's TRIPLE AUTOGRAPH of TOM BRADY, JOE MONTANA, and TERRY BRADSHAW and his TOM BRADY BOOKLET (27 jersey pieces). He has since pulled a LeSEAN McCOY WHITE WHALE (1/1 AUTOGRAPH/ JERSEY) and a KNOWSHON MORENO WHITE WHALE. Possibly even better was Mike G's Triple Threads pull on Christmas day. Just to set the scene, Michael is around 13 years old and didn't even know he was getting Triple Threads for Christmas (an expensive product). He was excited enough just to get it, and then he proceeded to pull non other than a DAN MARINO 1/1 WHITE WHALE! Pretty impressive, huh? So Triple Threads have been treating our customers well.

NEW PRODUCTS ... I last reported the arrival of 09-10 Black Diamond Hockey and 09 Playoff Contenders Football. Since then, we've received 2009 TOPPS TRIBUTE BASEBALL, 2009 BOWMAN STERLING BASEBALL, 2009 DONRUSS ELITE EXTRA EDITION BASEBALL, 2009 USA BASEBALL SETS, 2009-10 SPx HOCKEY, 2010 ELEMENTS RACING, and 2009-10 PANINI LIMITED BASKETBALL. The 09 Elite Extra Edition Baseball is a nice release with a lot of content. There are 6 autographs instead of the originally reported 4 per box, and then 4 HOT BOXES per 20 box case. Our customers have been very happy with it. Just be aware that it's minor leaguers.

The much anticipated 2010 TOPPS BASEBALL is due out next week ... January 27th, as is 2009 SP FOOTBALL. Many other good products are coming in over the next week or so, including 2009 ULTIMATE BASEBALL and FOOTBALL, 2009 TOPPS STERLING BASEBALL, 2009 PROMINENT CUTS BASEBALL (a new multi-sport product with 1 cut per box), 2009 PLAYOFF NATIONAL TREASURES FOOTBALL, 2009 TOPPS CHICLE FOOTBALL (a retro style), and a new TOPPS ATTAX GAMING product ... WWE this time. So after having a little bit of a lull in the card market, the manufacturers are making up for it with many new releases. We have high hopes for many of these items, and have had very strong interest in the 09 SP Football and 2010 Topps Baseball in particular.

That's it for now. Talk to you soon ...

Tuesday, January 7th, 2010

HAPPY NEW YEAR, everyone! I hope yours is off to a good start. Okay, lots of business to get down to and only two new products, so I'll mention them first ... 09-10 BLACK DIAMOND HOCKEY and 09 PLAYOFF CONTENDERS FOOTBALL.

Okay, the BIG FOOTBALL CONTEST NEWS ... we're are now in the PLAYOFFS portion of our You-Pick-the-Winners Football Contest. Each weekly winner and runner-up now competes against each other for the $100 and $40 gift certificate prizes. We add up how many right Play-off guesses each person has (from all 10 play-off games) and add them up to find the winner. The Super Bowl is only used if there's a tie. So even if you get all 4 wrong this week, you still have a chance! BUT, you obviously have to come in to fill out your Play-off pool. Game time is 4:00 Saturday, so all pools must be filled out by then. I WILL call all winners and runners-up the first week to remind you, but then not after that, so you must remember to come in the following 2 weeks. GOOD LUCK everyone!

HOT PULLS ... Jesse B and Brian R have been loving Triple Threads. For Jesse, it's Baseball, and for Brian, Football. Jesse just pulled a triple jersey card of BABE RUTH, Mickey Mantle, and Lou Gehrig, worth about $600; and Brian just pulled a triple autograph, triple jersey card of Joe Montana, Tom Brady, and Terry Bradshaw. Brian tested his fate another time and ended up pulling a Tom Brady booklet, featuring 27 pieces of Tom Brady's jersey !!!! Congrats, guys!

That's it for now. See you soon!