TRADING - THE WORLD'S GAME

With the Euros going full steam over in Poland / Ukraine, the US Soccer Team was covertly earning its way to the next World Cup playing without TV coverage in Guatemala. 

In the spirit of international peace, I am not going to write and rant about this past Tuesdays US Soccer World Cup Qualifier being only available on pay-per-view. The American escaped from the 3rd World hell with a 1:1 draw thanks to stalwart  net minder - TIM HOWARD.

2011 Futera Unique TIM HOWARD card

As the USA will be take a break from the qualification to BRAZIL 2014 with no games until September, I am offering up a 2012 US SOCCER YEARBOOK to scout out the Yank's squad. 

It is filled with full color biographies of all the players with other stats and photos.

(above - Landon Donovan bio page.)

I usually sell these for $15 bucks in the year they come out and $10 when the next one comes out. 

Also, if anyone has this card ...

2011 Allen & Ginter  - TIM HOWARD autograph, I would be willing to trade and even add to the kitty.

I need all versions of the card - mini, black, jersey and base.

AUTOGRAPH HAUL: PART 2

Here is what treasure hunting is all about. As I said in part 1, my eye caught the handy work of renown baseball artist DICK PEREZ. These 4 x 6 Perez-Steele cards were produced as beautiful, full color portraits in 15 series between 1983 and 2001. The following cards were limited edition of 10,000 all numbered on the back of the cards.

I'll let the pictures do most of the show:

What I was able to pick out of the box was:

Two Boston Red Sox HOF : BOBBY DOERR and RICK FERRELL

Two Chicago Cub HOF : ERNIE BANKS and  BILLY WILLIAMS

Two St. Louis Cardinals HOF : STAN MUSIAL and ENOS SLAUGHTER

Two HOF pitchers : ROBIN ROBERTS and WARREN SPAHN

Two HOF American Leaguers : GEORGE KELL and LOU BOUDREAU

Two fleet HOFers : RAY DANDRIDGE and LOU BROCK

Two HOF L.A. Dodgers: SANDY KOUFAX and DON DRYSDALE

A Minnesota "killer: HARMON KILLEBREW

And two of the greatest : HANK AARON and WILLIE MAYS

The signatures are all nice a readable, in blue sharpie ink. 

As you can see, I ended up with 2 Ernie Bank cards, so if anyone wishes to trade or purchase, please shoot me mail.

When I looked these up in Robert Edwards Auction, I found out that 104 Hall of Famers were possible to have signed from the 15 series' produced. Having these 17 autographed is a great start. 

AUTOGRAPH HAUL: PART 1

With so much soccer on TV these days, World Cup Qualifiers, Euro 2012 - I find myself writing the blog either before the 11:45 morning game or after the 2:45 afternoon match. Its what I love about these tournaments - every day through the week there is a game.

But there is nothing like attending a live game at a stadium. I was fortunate enough to get two matches in two weeks here in Florida. The U.S. National Team played Scotland on May 26th (Jacksonville) and returned (to Tampa) for a World Cup match on June 8th. So, I made a special effort to get one of the harder signatures in person - 

Austria's all time top goal scorer - ANDREAS HERZOG

Herzog was well know outside Austria as a international star, but also a top star in the German Bundasliga with Werder Bremen. He was part of the Austrian side that defeated the USA 2:1 at World Cup 1990 in Italy. He also played in the 1998 World Cup and is his countries all time leader in caps (103).

I decided a while ago not to let the glut of low end soccer cards go to waste. I have been getting my Upper Deck World Cup and 1990-91 ProSet English League cards signed every chance I get.

I have about 75 Upper Deck cards autographed and about 35 ProSet - all signatures obtained in person. I have duplicates autographs of most of the players.

BASEBALL

This past weekend, I struck gold (or should I say yellow ?) with baseball autographs. I found an estate sale that was liquidating a collector's baseball collection. I spied a box with a few Perez-Steele 4 x 6 cards. I asked about the price, and got a favorable reply. So I picked out (what came to) 22 cards.

These included 2 HALL of FAME Plaques signed by deceased players. They had stickers on the plastic sleeve indicating "died in 1988" and "pre-stroke" regarding the autographs.

I found an ED ROUSH and Negro Star, BUCK LEONARD

Roush was with the White Sox in 1913 but on the winning side of the 1919 Cincinnati Reds whose defeat of Chicago led to the Black Sox scandal.

I also pulled out 2 1964 TOPPS Giant cards with nice blue sharpie signatures.

N.Y. Yankees pitcher WHITE FORD and Twins slugger HARMON KILLEBREW

The second batch of autographs were what blew me away. I'll post them next.

2012 FUTERA UNIQUE CARD REVIEW

Most avid collectors around the world probably already know and have samples of the 2012 FUTERA UNIQUE card collection. However, like often is in North America, we get soccer just a bit later. But thanks to our contacts at Futera we received some examples which we can review here.

The high end products are not sold in packs,but rather a box. Each box has at least 1 HEROES card - a subset of 40 players and Limited to 365 copies each. We got 2 African players:

Chelsea's Michael Essien of Ghana

and Cameroon's Samuel Eto'o who now plays in Russia.

The base set is 200 cards which are subdivided as follows:

# 1 - 10 The Goalkeepers

# 11 - 57 The Defenders

# 58 - 116 The Midfielders

# 117 - 160 The Strikers

# 161 - 190 The Greats

# 191 - 200 The Next

The last two groups include retired players (Greats) and up and coming young stars (Next). The base set also comes in a 'Ruby' parallel which are limited to 295 of each players.

Futera continues its memorabilia cards with ARCHIVE set of 24, 16 single swatches and 8 double swatches of jersey cards. Our example was the Sweden and AC Milan strikers ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIC featuring his a shirt swatch from his Inter Milan days.

These cards are limited to only 225 of each card.

On the successes of their online game which allows collectors to play using the codes on the reverse of the cards, Futera has included a new subset. The MANAGERS is a set of 10 cards limited to just 240 and coated in 24 ct. gold plate.

We were happy to pull the legendary Liverpool man KENNY DALGLISH.

We were not able to get any autograph cards which were distributed in 4 styles - Brown, Mint, Blue and Silver. Each player was able to sign up to 60 cards in each color. However, some only returned as little as 49 from some choices. (For complete list see here)

The next to last most coveted cards are the 1 of 1 autograph cards. For collectors, this is truly the greatest card to own of your favorite player. These regularly command hundreds of dollars on the secondary market. One of the criticisms, however, is the sloppy and illegible signatures on many of the examples. 

Another item we did not get to see in person is one of the ten cards known as The MYTHICALS.

These cards, we are told, have 5 encrusted diamonds and are gold plated. Each card is only one of 10 in the world. The list of players:

• 1. Franz Beckenbauer
• 2. George Best
• 3. Eusebio
• 4. Claudio Gentile
• 5. Diego Maradona
• 6. Roger Milla
• 7. Pele
• 8. Socrates
• 9. Lev Yashin
• 10. Dino Zoff

What we like about Futera Unique set: 

The photos are pretty nice with these cards. Since the players are pictured with their National sides, there is no worry of a transfer from your team. The base set cards are also great to get autographed. 

What we do not like about the Futera Unique set:

The cards are not easily available in the North American market. They are sold on the secondary market on the internet. The worrying aspect is many of the sellers are in Asia - a place know for its counterfeit products.

PANINI EURO 2012 IS A FUN SET

For everyone in North America who has discovered daytime soccer, the next few weeks will be lounging on couches, late breakfasts, and lunches while tracking European soccer stars.

Euro 2012 has kicked off (hosted by Poland and Ukraine) on ESPN with games near midday and 2:45 PM. (check your local listings)

Just like the World Cup 2 years ago, fans can follow the teams and players through the latest PANINI  EURO 2012 issue.

Loaded with the best players in the world, excluding Brazil and Argentina, the top players in Europe are featured with their national teams.

As summers past, Major League Soccer will miss personnel due to the tournament. New York's Roberto Donadoni was absent for Euro 1996 representing Italy. For Euro 2012 Los Angeles Galaxy's Robbie Keane will be Captaining the Republic of Ireland.

The majority of superstar who feature in the English Premier League, including top scorer Robin van Persie, will be watched closely.

Panini is the biggest and most consistent producer of soccer cards and stickers in the world.

The tradition continues with superb portrait shots of the players in their national team jerseys or in some cases, warm ups. The stickers list the players height, weight, birthdate and club team.

A very compact piece of data for the soccer collector.

Without the large size of Panini's World Cup sets, this collection is half the size of FIFA's biggest tournament and loaded with talented names.

The stickers are made to be pasted into an album which has been available for these sets since 1980. This is a low end product which is great bargain for beginners or young collectors. However, the sticker mania that began in 2010 is popular with adults and has become an office game in some American circles.

Adding to My A&BCs - Vintage gets Better But Harder to Find

The debut of modern bubble gum cards featuring soccer (football) began with the 1958-59 A&BC Football Stars of England. As explained elsewhere in this blog, A&BC Gum Ltd. was later purchased by Topps. The card designs are often familiar between the Topps sets especially the various sports issues.

The premier set of 92 cards were issued in 2 series of 46 players each. The second series being uch rarer and seemingly difficult to find. Some are found without the Planet Ltd. advert on top (with dotted line).

I was able to obtain 4 excellent to mint cards for my personal set. It included card # 1 Eddie Baily (below).

 England international and later beloved National Team Manager - Bobby Robson.

The cards with yellow backgrounds are very appealing to me. This is Arsenal's Derek Tapscott (below).  The background colors are dark blue, light blue, green and yellow. They follow a pattern with the card numbering. For example the first 5 cards have blue backgrounds. The next four have green backdrops.  

The forth card is one of the up and coming stars of Tottenham Hotspur's Double-winning side - Terry Medwin.

Although these are less favored to me compared to the subsequent year,  the 1959-60 A&BC set, these 1958-59 portrait style and background colors on these are memorable. Much like the 1952 Topps baseball cards, this is a debut set and will stand as a mark for modern soccer card collections.

The challenge, albeit a small set, will be to complete all 92 cards and even harder to find them in pristine condition. I feel fortunate to have added these four to my collection thus far.

Upper Deck - Epic Fail - World of Sports

Trial and success ... trial and error. So goes the ebb and flow of modern trading cards. However, even a fighter knows when their beaten - they throw in the towel. Upper Deck is staggering long the ropes on wobbly feet and ready for the canvass.

The uninspired product from 2010 - World of Sports - that combined college athletes (who are suposed to be amateurs) with a mix of oddities like lacrosse and lesser know activities with MLS soccer players. The design, if it can be viewed as such, lacks total imagination. The photography, amatuerish at best ...

leaves a lot to be desired by collectors. However, the biggest fiasco is the continued sham of marketing non-existant David Beckham autograph cards. This was an issue as far back as Beck's first appearence with Upper Deck when he refused to part take in the signatures on the MLS products.

Yet, here it is (above), the "fanthom" Beckham autograph card. The sticker autograph is a left over from previous MLS sets - the actual signature is that of Luciano Emilio (below) from 2007.

Even the chase cards are a poor selection of design and photos. Kasey Keller (below)  looks to be saying "oh, no ! Its the Upper Deck photographers".

All in all, Upper Deck's MLS products have been sub-quality and hardly changed in a decade of licensed production. An Upper Deck spokesperson has already confirmed that once again the Women's Professional Soccer will be part of the set for 2011.

While I have great admiration for the talent and efforts for the ladies' game (like Marta - below), I feel sorry for the purist who have to wade through these to find their favorite MLS players.

Can you imagine sifting through your pack of NBA cards and only finding WNBA cards as you search for your LeBron or Kobe ?  How about sorting your most wanted baseball stars but forced to discover lady softball players among the packs ?

I would much rather have a sub set of US players who star overseas - like Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard and Maurice Edu. (this can be done with portrait shots or national team shirts to get around the licensing issue.)

With time ticking down on Upper Deck's MLS license, it may be an opening for Panini (or even a non-licensed company like In-The-Game) to swoop in and deliver a mouth watering soccer set. I know I'll be sending in my suggestions. I would love to hear from you fans ....