TNA 2010: The New Era

A NEW ERA HAS ARRIVED:
TRISTAR ANNOUNCES UPCOMING RELEASE OF NEW TNA WRESTLING TRADING CARDS AS TNA MAKES HISTORY TONIGHT ON SPIKE TV WITH MOVE TO MONDAY NIGHTS

All-New, Exclusive-Licensed Trading Card Set Features Legendary Pop Icon HULK HOGAN

HOUSTON, March 8, 2010 – As TNA Wrestling begins a new era with “TNA iMPACT!” moving from Thursday nights to Monday nights beginning tonight, Monday, March 8 (9:00-11:00pm ET/PT), TNA’s exclusive trading card licensee, TRISTAR, announced the upcoming release of an all-new trading card release, entitled “TNA 2010: The New Era.”  The new product is scheduled for release in late April 2010.

“TNA 2010: The New Era” Trading Cards will hit stores worldwide in late April, featuring TNA’s many new talent additions this year, namely legendary pop culture icon Hulk Hogan, one of the most recognizable celebrities in the world.

Hogan is the subject of numerous cards in the new product and is featured prominently on the product packaging.  “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair, who debuted with TNA on the company’s first-ever Monday live “TNA iMPACT!” on January 4, 2010, will have his first-ever TNA trading cards in the set.  Plus, special cards of Jeff Hardy, Scott Hall, Mick Foley, Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle and many more.  "The Icon" Sting, who has signed a new contract with TNA and will be at tonight’s historic broadcast on SpikeTV, will be featured as well.

“With Hulk Hogan’s arrival, “TNA iMPACT!” has delivered its highest-ever ratings and is growing its fanbase,” said Mandy Fuerst, TRISTAR’s Vice President of Operations.  “As a new era dawns in TNA with iMPACT!’s move to Mondays, we look forward to showing the TNA fans that TNA trading cards are a great way to collect their favorite stars.  Collectors recognize the quality and value of these cards with all of the autographs, serially-numbered parallels and event-used memorabilia cards.”

Among the cards to be most highly sought-after in the new product are a limited quantity of trading cards featuring Hulk Hogan’s hand-signed autograph, as well as cards including a swatch of the shirt that Hogan wore on his first-ever live appearance on “TNA iMPACT!” on January 4, 2010.

The new set of high-quality, glossy cards showcases never-before-seen photos, with parallel editions of each base card featuring serial numbering.  What can TNA Wrestling fans and collectors look forward to in “TNA 2010: The New Era” Trading Cards?  Highlights include:

• Special card subsets including
  • “Hulk Hogan: The Pop Icon”
  • “The Nature Boy” (Ric Flair)
  • “Dynamic Duos
  • “Monday Night Magic”
• TNA Debut cards of newcomers Flair, Hardy, Hall, Eric Bischoff, Jimmy Hart, Mr. Anderson, D’Angelo Dinero, Desmond Wolfe and many more.
• TNA Autograph cards with hand-signed signatures from 60+ different TNA stars. Dual, triple and quad autograph cards!
• TNA Authentic Action event-used memorabilia cards, featuring clothing right off the backs of top TNA stars, including Hogan, Flair, Foley, Angle, Kevin Nash, AJ Styles, The Beautiful People, Sting and more! Look for dual and triple event-used memorabilia cards, plus event-used memorabilia and autograph combo cards.

The TNA 2010: The New Era Trading Card checklists, as well as all the product details, will be available online next week at www.TNAWrestlingCards.com.

My Take: I just got finished watching the big TNA move to Monday night and it was a good show.  I like the current TNA roster a lot.  They’re not bogged down with geriatrics like they were when the Main Event Mafia was dominating the show.  The additions of Jeff Hardy, RVD and Shannon Moore should compliment an already great roster.

As usual with TRISTAR products, this set will be all about the fun autograph cards.  Each set keeps getting better as far as design and photography goes.  I’m excited to see what’s in store with this set.

Technorati Tags: TRISTAR,TNA Wrestling

Dispatches From The Island

Since Jorge Garcia has a blog of his own on Blogger, I thought that I’d post a quick reply over there letting him know about my post.  His most recent post didn’t have any replies on it and was a couple of days old so I figured that it was a safe spot to post without it looking like I was trying to grab attention for my site.  I had forgotten that Jorge had begun moderating his posts and that’s why it looked like there weren’t any comments.  So, today he approved a bunch of comments, including mine, and then came over and posted on my blog.  Go ahead and check it out.

I’ve got to say that’s pretty cool and Mr. Garcia has earned even more cool points in my book.  Now you’ll have to excuse me as I go search the couch cushions for the .41¢ to send out to Hawaii.  I don’t want any smoke monsters coming to get me.

Technorati Tags: Jorge Garcia

I owe Jorge Garcia .41¢

When it came to sending out autograph requests through the mail, I wanted to make sure that my first attempt would be a successful one.  Fortunately, one of my current favorite actors is great with his fans and is probably one of the best people there are at the moment for autograph requests.

I’ve been hooked on Lost since before the show even aired.  I bought into the hype big time and was eagerly awaiting the series premier.  Once I saw that ABC was actually committed to the show and that I wouldn’t get burned for following it (as opposed to ABC screwing around with Cupid until they finally cancelled it) it quickly became my favorite show.  The one character that grabbed my attention right away was Hurley.  His comic relief was perfect for the show, but we eventually found out that he wasn’t quite so happy-go-lucky off of the island and he was as tortured as the rest of the survivors from Oceanic 815.  Hurley’s winning lottery numbers, which somehow corresponded to Jacob’s numbered list of potential candidates, brought him nothing but bad luck off of the island.

So, I sent off my first autograph request on January 20th and waited.  It arrived in my mailbox on March 1st.  While I thought that I had done everything correctly, I think that I forgot the additional cost that the Post Office puts on rigid envelopes.  It turns out that Jorge Garcia had to put an additional .41¢ on the return envelope in order for it to get back to me.  So, thank you Jorge, for both the autographs and the extra postage.

Here’s the awesome picture that was sent.  The inscription reads, “To Mike, Aloha”  This is going to be the first item that I hang in my room once the construction is all finished and the paint is dry.

 

Technorati Tags: Jorge Garcia

A Day Late and a License Short

I'm still without access to my computer and wasn't able to chime in on the big MLB vs. Upper Deck settlement that was reached yesterday. It turns out that many of my thoughts in my original post on the topic were right on the money. Upper Deck was dumping a ton of their relic and autograph inventory. They rushed three products out at once with no previews because they knew exactly what was going to happen. This was their last hurrah in baseball and only the settlement kept it from being the last we'd hear from the company as a whole.

Given the terms of the settlement, I don't see Upper Deck as being able to produce baseball card sets as we know them in the near future. What I could see is Upper Deck leveraging their spokesmen and producing sets on those subjects. It would be something along the lines of the Team USA box set which Upper Deck also lost the rights to. The set could be limited to one player or could contain a mix of players. I think that a lot of collectors would love a 35 card Derek Jeter set where every set contained either a relic card (in single, dual, triple and quad varities), autograph card or autographed relic. Heck, produce some of the cards in all-time favorite set types such as Exquisite and Sweet Spot. Put the right cards in there to chase and collectors will buy it.

I will miss Upper Deck, but the truth is that it has been a long time since I've purchased a new box of Upper Deck product. In my opinion, Upper Deck products were far too expensive and that's a huge factor for me. Collectors love Masterpieces, but a lot more of them love it now that you can get the boxes cheaply then did when it was first released and going for twice as much. OPC that was supposedly going to limited due to a previous lawsuit and settlement is still sitting around and low prices. Those cheaper boxes are still going to be around and I'll continue buying them.

There's also part of me that's not going to miss Upper Deck. They've pulled too much crap that shows they have absolutely no respect for the hobby or collectors. Their customer service was terrible. This is not the Upper Deck of the 90s that took the collecting world by storm. That's the Upper Deck that I've been missing for a while now. I have a hard time feeling bad for Upper Deck when they knew full well what they were doing when they released those three sets.

In other news: It's now been two and a half weeks and the construction is still ongoing up on the third floor. I'm not sure what's taking so long, but it might have something to do with the fact that the contractors never get here earlier than 10:30 in the morning. I'm hoping that they're done today so that I've got the weekend to work on it since I still have to paint and arrange the furniture before I can start setting things up.

I had no idea things would stretch out this long so I'm going to reveal the big news which will probably be a letdown at this point. I was sent a box of Prospects+ by TRISTAR to break on my site. I feel badly because it has been sitting here for almost a week now and I haven't been able to post the box break. Don't worry though because once I'm up and running and can post the box break, I'm going to celebrate by having a handful of TRISTAR related contests.

I've got a bunch of news to post, a very cool TTM to write about, trades to send out and a small pile of new cards to write about. Ideally, room preparation would be Saturday and blog stuff can take place on Sunday. Wish me luck.

New England Championship Wrestling

It’s been a busy weekend and the construction still isn’t finished up on the third floor, so I didn’t get a chance to do much as far as baseball cards go.  I didn’t want to go the whole weekend without posting something, so here goes.

I’ve been a wrestling fan for most of my life.  It only made sense that I would end up becoming friends with a co-worker who is a wrestler.  One of the federations that he wrestles for has a weekly OnDemand show on NESN, the same network that carries the Red Sox, and also has their shows available online and on iTunes as a free podcast.  I’ve attended the last two TV tapings and they’ve been a lot of fun.

Here’s the first episode that my friend appeared on.  Here he challenges for the TV Title.  It’s a great match and my friend is a great heel.  You have to skip ahead to get to the match, but it is worth it if you’re a wrestling fan.

NECW On Demand - February 15, 2010 from NECW on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags: New England Championship Wrestling,NECW Wrestling,NECW,Ray Kejimura,Iron Raymond

Finally a trade goes through!

I can't believe it. After offering around 30 trades, I've finally had one accepted. I got some older cards, but they were of players that I didn't have any connection to. I decided to try and offer them up for some players that I did have a connection to. It's not like I was trying to get Williams or Yastrezemski for commons. Unfortunately, not a lot of peeople seem to be checking their trade offers on the site. Someone finally checked and deemed my trade worthy. Here it is for your viewing pleasure:

I also noticed this while going through my trade offers. Has anyone else seen this on the site? Is it bad to offer to give someone else more than what you're getting in return? That's what the site makes it seem like.

I'm not quite sure what the make of that error message. It's probably because I'm offering some of those super valuable 1987 Topps cards in that stack.

Lazy Friday

I apologize for the lack of real content lately, but the state of the third floor just isn’t conducive to doing much of anything.  I’m up here right now for a little while, but I don’t plan on staying for long.  I’ve been told that things should be finished Monday or Tuesday which is cool since I’ve got Monday and Friday off next week and could get a lot done putting the room together and loading it back up.

Topps sent out a PDF with a ton of images from National Chicle.  For a set that was almost universally shit on when the first images were released, I think that this is a set that is going to end up pleasing most people.  The majority of the cards are nice looking and you get two on-card autographs per box.  If the product contains a strong autograph checklist then this product will be popular.

Since these cards were done by a variety of artists, some are better than others and cards that one person loves will be hated by another.  I have a feeling that the on-card autos will sell a lot more boxes than bad paintings might keep away.

I leave you with a couple of other cards that caught my eye.  A lot of the retired player cards have these same clouds in the background.  I’m guessing they were all done by the same artist.

Love the Eck in a BoSox uni.  He’s become a pretty good analyst for NESN.  He didn’t do that good of a job willing in for Jerry Remy though.

One thing that I dislike about many short prints is that you don’t know who is short printed until the company releases a list and without that list you have no way of knowing what is a short print and what isn’t.  That’s why I don’t mind when all of the SP are at the end of a set or on a different card stock.

Panini sent out information about the short printed Rookie Ticket cards in Contenders Basketball.  They just weren’t very specific about it.  Hasheem Thabeet, James Harden, Tyreke Evans, Jordan Hill, Brandon Jennings and Tyler Hansbrough were all printed to 499 or fewer copies.  There are a lot of numbers that are fewer than 499.The cards themselves aren’t serial numbered so you have no way of knowing just how limited they are.  To me, it sounds like Panini started with 499 copies, threw out any that got damaged and then packed out the rest.  Blake Griffin, Dante Cunningham, Earl Clark, Jonny Flynn, Stephen Curry and Terrence Williams have cards printed to 649 or fewer and I’m assuming greater than 499.

In more Topps news, they’re taking a page out of Panini’s book and offering a prize to collectors who pull a certain card out of packs.  The first person to pull the triple signed Dana White, Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz card out of UFC Main Event will be flown to Las Vegas, NV and be Dana White’s personal guests at the UFC Training Center.  There are 10 copies of this card in existence and the other nine people that pull the card will get a pair of UFC gloves signed by the three fighters.

Panini sent out some news about their Adrenalyn Tour.  While it sounds cool for those lucky enough to go to games when the tour is visiting, I don’t think they’ll find enough players by just focusing on game crowds.  They need to be outside of the arenas as well.  If it turns out that they’re inside of the arena when they come to Boston I might have to think about making a trip to the Hoops Hall instead and see them there.  Probably not worth it though.

It looks like the big site news will have to wait until next week.  I’m excited for it to happen and to share it with all of you.  Have a great weekend everyone!

J.D. Drew

Unlike most of Red Sox Nation, I was a fan of the J.D. Drew signing when it happened and am still a fan of it today.  I can understand Sox fans getting annoyed with the fact that Drew tends to be a little injury prone, but I can’t understand fans getting so upset about his salary and an incorrect perception that he’s not playing well enough to warrant that salary.

I was happy to see an article in the Valentine’s Day edition of the Boston Globe explaining “Why the critics of J.D. Drew may be off-base” written by my current favorite Sox writer over at the Globe, Amalie Benjamin.  She’s a breath of fresh air from the gloom and doom, muckraker Dan Shaughnessy.

Benjamin uses data from fangraphs.com to show Drew’s “worth” compared to his salary and then she compares it to other outfielders who signed multiyear deals after the 2006 season.  I’ll list the data first and then see if you can guess who is who.

Value: $15.4M
Salary: $25.5M
Difference: -$10.1M

Value: -$5.2M
Salary: $26.2M
Difference: -$31.4M

Value: $33.4M
Salary: $41M
Difference: -$7.6M

Value: $45.4M
Salary: $42M
Difference: +$3.4M

Value: $40M
Salary: $43M
Difference: -$3M

The players are Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Lee, Gary Matthews Jr., Juan Pierre and J.D. Drew.  Can you match the players with their numbers?

Of those players, only J.D. Drew has a value higher than the salary he was paid.  You can find his numbers 4th on that list.  The only other decent signing on that list is Carlos Lee who has produced $40M of value while being paid $43M.  When you take into consideration that this takes into account a 2007 season where Drew was absolutely terrible until hitting a grand slam in Game 6 of the ALCS, it makes his 2008 and 2009 seasons look even better.  Would Sox fans have preferred that the team sign Alfonso Soriano (3rd on the list), Juan Pierre (1st on the list) or the absolutely terrible Matthews (2nd on the list)?  According to this rating system, Matthews owes money to the Angels.

There are plenty of numbers to back up why fans are wrong about Drew.  Benjamin states that only 10 players had an OPS of .900 or greater in 2008 and 2009: Pujols, Manny, A-Rod, Berkman, Teixeira, Youk, Hanley Ramirez, Holliday, Chase Utley and Drew.  Fans love Youk and his serial killer look because he’s “intense.”  Fans loved weak hitting, slow moving Trot Nixon because he was a “Dirt Dog” and dove after those balls he was too slow to get to.  Fans haven’t taken to Drew because he is quiet and reserved.  They say he doesn’t put effort into the game, but many of those fans were alright with Manny not running out ground balls and pop-ups.

Benjamin also states that in the three years that Drew has been in Boston there have been only three players with a better on-base percentage than Drew’s .390 and they are Manny (.412), Holliday (.403) and Ordonez (.397).  Adam Dunn has also gotten on base at a .390 clip over that span.

Critics always point at Drew’s low RBI and HR totals while ignoring his high run total and the number of times he gets on base.  Fans will continue to call him “Nancy” and unfairly criticize him.  I’ll continue to root for him knowing what he brings to the team.  He’ll never get credit for playing in 2007 when all he probably wanted to do was spend time with a sick child.  Now it has come out that he was battling a sore shoulder in 2009 which was his best season in Boston.  He’s the best defensive right fielder that the Sox have had since Dewey who was the best ever.  He’s never going to be the guy that carries the team on a daily basis, but he’s the type of player that you need on a winning team.  His contributions are going to be especially important this season on a team that is a little bit weaker on offense than normal.  He has to get on base for those rare occasions when Mike Cameron closes his eyes and makes solid contact with the ball.  I think it happens 20 or so times a season.  2010 would be a nice time for fans to accept Drew because they’re going to have enough to complain about with Cameron and Beltre hitting around .260 and not getting on base much more often than that.  As the Amalie Benjamin article showed, things could be a heck of a lot worse.

Technorati Tags: Boston Red Sox,J.D. Drew

Topps Releases Details on Series 2 Baseball

Even though collectors are feverishly ripping through packs of the all-new 2010 Topps Baseball Series 1 and Opening Day is still over a month away, it’s never too early to start talking about…2010 Topps Baseball Series 2!

Whether people are collecting for the excitement of the Million Card Giveaway, all the cool inserts, the hobby and retail exclusives, the great photography or all of the above…one thing is for sure: Topps, the exclusive producer for MLB Trading cards, and its flagship brand, Topps Baseball, is loaded with excitement.  And Series 2 features everything collectors love about Series 1 and much more. (image attached)

From the addition of T206 cards in the Million Card Giveaway to the all-new 4^th of July Hat Logo cards, Series 2 plans to pick up the momentum of one of the best Topps baseball products in years.

Here’s a closer look:

BASE CARDS (330)

PARALLEL CARDS

• Gold Parallel (330) sequentially #’d to 2010
• Black Parallel (330) sequentially #’d to 59 HOBBY ONLY
• Platinum Parallel (330) Platinum-bordered cards #’d 1 of 1
• Printing Plates (330) Printing plates of the base cards #’d 1 of 1 HOBBY ONLY
• Silk Collection (100) sequentially #’d to 50. HOBBY ONLY
• Black Background (330) WAL-MART ONLY
• Throwback Parallel (330) TARGET ONLY

INSERT CARDS – PAST (TOPPS AND BASEBALL HISTORY)

• The Cards Your Mom Threw Out (58) Inserted 1:3.
• The Cards Your Mom Threw Out Original Backs (58) 1 per box
• Topps Vintage Legends Collection (25) Retired legends featured on vintage Topps designs on which they’ve never appeared. (1:4)
• History of the World Series (25) Inserted 1:6.
• Turkey Red (50 subjects) (1:4).
• 1962 Mickey Mantle Reprint Relic (1 subject) Sequentially #’d to 62.
• Legends Cut Signatures #’d 1 of 1.
• Hall of Fame Buybacks (500) Repurchased cards of Hall of Famers are inserted in packs.
• Legendary Lineage (30) Inserted 1:4.
• Legendary Lineage Relic…Sequentially #’d to 50.
• Peak Performance (50) Inserted 1:4.
• Peak Performance Autographs (30)
• Peak Performance Relics (40)
• Peak Performance Relics Blue Parallel (40 subjects) Sequentially #’d to 99.
• Peak Performance Dual Relics (15 cards) Sequentially #’d to 50.
• Peak Performance Jumbo Relics (20) Sequentially #’d to 20. HOBBY ONLY
• Peak Performance Autographed Relics (10) Sequentially #’d to 50. HOBBY ONLY.
• Red Hot Rookies (10 subjects) Redemption cards for the ten hottest rookies of the new season, to be announced as the season progresses. (1 per box) HOBBY ONLY
• Sketch Cards #’d 1 of 1. HOBBY ONLY.
• Manufactured 4^th of July Hat Logo Cards (160) #’d to 99. HOBBY ONLY.
• Topps Attax plus pin code (30 subjects) 1 per pack.
• Topps 2020 (20) Kid-focused foilboard cards featuring the stars of today on their 2020 Topps base cards. (1:6).
• Million Card Giveaway 1:6
• Create Your Own Sketch Card 1:24.
• MLB Logo Man Manufactured Patch Card Continuity Program – 5 subjects. #’d to 50.
• Manufactured Event Patch Cards (50) 1 per Retail Value Box.
• 1951 Topps / Walmart (15)
• 1951 Topps / Target (15)
• Cereal Box Chrome Refractors / Wal-Mart  (10)
• Cereal Box Chrome Refractors / Target  (10)

My take: Those of you who thought that there were too many insert sets in Series 1 are really going to hate Series 2.  The Cards Your Mom Threw Out return and are joined by cards of legends on set designs they never appeared in.  Mike Schmidt on a ‘52 Topps?  Why not!  George Brett on ‘61 Topps?  Sure.  These could be cool, but I’ll have to reserve judgment until I start seeing some of them.  It looks like these take the place of Tales of the Game from Series 1.

History of the World Series replaces History of the Game.  Turkey Red continues through Series 2 as do the 1951 Red and Blue Walmart and Target exclusives.  Peak Performers continue as do all of the relic and autograph versions of these cards.

The 1962 Mantle Reprint Relic seems odd.  This is the type of card that Topps has previously included as a bonus card in factory sets, but this time the card is going to be extremely limited with only 62 copies existing.

The Million Card Giveaway continues through Series 2 and is joined by 500 Hall of Fame Buybacks.  I guess Topps went overboard and ended up purchasing 1,000,500 cards.  There are an awful lot of Hall of Famers in the 1997 set isn’t there?  Just kidding.  If they do as good a job on these as they have with the cards being awarded on the website, collectors will love these, but with only 500 available it won’t affect many box breakers.

I’m disappointed to see Red Hot Rookies return after Topps did such a blah job with them last year.  I don’t think any of them were autographed and they weren’t even refractory.  For the amount of time that you have to wait on these, couldn’t Topps slap stickers on 2 or 3 of them or on 10% of the print run of each card and then send those out randomly as they are redeemed.  I’m at the point where I’m about fed up with redemption cards.  Who knows what year it will be when my 2009 Finest Tommy Hanson autograph will show up.  If I’ve waited this long for it to arrive with a sticker on it, I’m going to be pissed.

For some reason sketch cards are going to be in Series 2.  Other than being 1/1, is there really a big demand for sketch cards of baseball players?  I just couldn’t picture someone going to a comic book convention and asking an artist to sketch Albert Pujols for them.  Then again, a Todd McFarlane drawn piece could be awesome.  Maybe I should have had Terry Moore sketch Big Papi for me instead of having him draw Francine from Strangers in Paradise.  Nah!

There’s also a one-per-box Create Your Own Sketch Card which has been done before in Collectors Choice packs.  Depending on what they are like, these could be cool for sending out to artists for commissions.

The very popular hat logo cards return, but this time they are 4^th of July Logos which I think means that the logos will be red, white and blue.  These will be cool if this is it, but if Topps keeps revisiting this idea year after year then people will tired of these as quickly as they have plain white swatches and sticker autos.

Topps Attax looks like it replaces Topps Town.  If these cards look as good as the inserts in Opening Day then this is a huge upgrade.  Heck, it’s a huge upgrade even if it’s only the gold versions of the inserts that look that way.

Topps 2020 looks like it replaces When They Were Young.  Unless the 2020 design that they come up with is really sharp, I don’t see this as being a popular insert set.

I don’t see myself putting together any of the insert sets other than Turkey Red, but I’ll be buying a jumbo box right when they are released.  Maybe I’ll be lucky and 2 out of 3 of my hits won’t be Yankees next time around.

Technorati Tags: baseball cards,2010 Topps

State of the blog

The power is currently disconnected up on the third floor for this part of the construction so I'm posting from my wife's computer (and finishing up at work). That means no scanner, no Windows Live Writer to compose my posts and none of the files on my computer. All of the insulation is up, they've started framing one section of the new wall and will hopefully have the room finished by the end of the week. I can't wait.

I will also have some great news concerning the blog to share by the end of the week. Part of this news is dependent on my having access to my scanner, but that should be the case by the time I'm ready to share this news.

Also, I had an idea for a group break that I wanted to throw out there and see if people were interested. It's just in the planning stages for now, but I wanted to see what people thought and maybe get some input for fine-tuning it.

The break would be a case of 2006 Upper Deck Future Stars and 2007 Future Stars. These sets are loaded with great autographs. Unfortunately, they're sticker autos, but by focusing on young players, Upper Deck was able to get a lot of great names into these sets.

As far as the autographs go, the break would be hit based. With 30 slots, each slot would get 4 autos. There might be one extra hit in each case if the multiple signature case hits don't count as one of the 4 hits in the box it comes in. For the base cards, people would be able to pick their teams. If more than one person selects a team, the team will be assigned randomly amongst those who selected it. The selected teams would also apply to the numbered parallels. World Baseball Classic cards from the 2006 set would be randomly distributed since not all of the players are on MLB teams.

Since these are small sets, there will be a lot of copies of each card pulled from the cases. You can choose to have all of the base cards, one of each or none sent to you. Any cards not sent out will either be given away on the site or donated.

Based on the regular retail prices of the cases, supplies and shipping it looks like slots would be around $45 a slot, but I'm hoping that we'd be able to get a decent discount on the cases to bring that slot price down even more. Even at that price, you're paying a little less than the cost of a box and will be getting the same amount of autographs, but will also be getting all of the cards of your team from the two sets. There will also be an opportunity to trade autographs before they are sent out to increase the chances of getting cards that you'll keep in your collection.

So, let me know what you think. Is there no interest in these sets? Would it be better to break two boxes of 2006 which I think has a slightly better autograph checklist? Would a one case, 2 hit, $25 break be more desirable? Let me know what you think in the comments.