Upper Deck has produced two eight-card sheets featuring players from the Chicago Bears that will be available for $1.99 each this month at all 180 Jewel Food Stores in the Chicagoland area.

A sheet featuring eight offensive players (pictured below) will be available for one week, while a sheet featuring eight defensive players will be available the other week. The sheets will be promoted in the store’s newspaper ads and through in-store signage and will be available while supplies last.

The promotion was supposed to begin the third week of September, so if you live in the Chicago area you might want to check with the Jewel store in your area to see when the promotion officially begins.

Minnesota Twins pitcher Pat Neshek is also an active card collector. His web page includes, among other things, his reviews of recent card products. You can also offer to trade him your baseball or hockey cards in exchange for his signed cards.

Included on his website is information about a pack opening event attended by Neshek, Twins manager Ron Gardenhire and roughly a dozen of the team's players. The event was coordinated by the MLB Players Association.

A story about the pack opening event will air Sept. 19 on ESPN between 7-8 p.m. Eastern time.

Topps released a report this week it hopes will convince its shareholders to vote in favor of a proposed sale of the company to Michael Eisner's Tornante Co.

It's filled with lots of charts and graphs and rather dry business talk, and a rather frank discussion of Topps' current weaknesses in the sports card and candy markets. It also criticizes Upper Deck's recent takeover attempt and the efforts by a dissident group of shareholders (Crescendo Partners) to block the proposed sale to Eisner's group.

If you're interested in reading the report, click here.

Between business travel, Labor Day, a magazine deadline and a much-needed vacation day, there’s been little time left for bloggin’. But the schedule has calmed down a bit, so the blog entries should become more frequent.

Speaking of travel, odds are that you probably have to drive a little further these days to find a card shop or card show. There are an estimated 1,200 independently owned card shops around the country, down from more than 4,500 stores a little more than a decade ago. And there are also far fewer card shows around the country.

Online competition has played a role in both of these declines, of course, Dealers are finding it easier and more cost effective to sell material online. With less quality material at the shows, it’s harder to attract consumers. Owners of hobby shops are finding it difficult to compete with the prices offered by some online dealers, many of whom do not have the overhead costs (i.e., rent, utilities, wages) involved in operating a hobby store.

Are there fewer card shops and card shows in your area of the country? If so, has this reduction affected your buying habits of sports collectibles? Any comments are appreciated.

An insert card from Topps’ Allen & Ginter Baseball product that features a strand of hair from George Washington generated bids as high as $8,300 before eBay cancelled the auction.

Topps produced three Relic cards in the set with strands of Washington’s hair. One turned up on eBay in an auction that was supposed to end Wednesday night. But the item was pulled after an eBay user reportedly complained that Washington can’t be listed in the baseball card section of the auction site because he is not a baseball player. The collector who pulled the card has relisted the item.

The story of the card has generated a fair amount of publicity, including a lengthy story in Wednesday’s New York Times. The paper even quoted the senior curator of Washington’s home in Mount Vernon, Va., as saying it was “shocking” Topps would put something of such great value in its baseball card packs and expressing concern the eventual buyer “might not be a responsible custodian” for the piece.

Topps spokesman Clay Luraschi is quoted in the story as saying the company bought the hair from John Reznikoff, who is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the “Largest Collection of Hair from Historical Figures.”
In the Times’ story, Reznikoff said a strand of Washington’s hair has an approximate value of several hundred dollars.

While some non-card collectors will roll their eyes at the thought of a trading card with a strand of someone's hair, the fact this story garnered attention in a paper as widely read as The Times is good publicity for the hobby.

I was at a Target department store recently and saw a guy (looked like he was in his late teens or early 20s) feeling up packs of trading cards. It was obvious what he was doing -- he was feeling the edges of every pack with the hope of detecting the thicker memorabilia cards.

I watched this guy do this for a few minutes, then went up to him and said, "You know, pack searching isn't cool." His reply to me was "Why not?"

By searching the packs, I said, he was taking the chance to find a memorabilia card away from everyone else who bought packs from that box. His reply: "It's not my problem if they don't know what to look for."

I spoke to one of the managers, and they understood what I was telling them. But, as long as the person wasn't damaging the other packs or stealing anything, there wasn't anything they could do about it.

So my question to you is: Do you believe pack searchers are truly doing something wrong, or are they just savvy collectors?

Among the people who were happiest to hear of Upper Deck’s plan not to purchase Topps are the folks who own card stores. While most card stores generate plenty of revenues from Upper Deck products, they also generate plenty from Topps products, as well.

For the most part, retailers believe the marketplace is better off with two very strong competitors. Here’s a sampling of the reaction I received:

• Ken Hoffman, Card Stadium, Harrisburg, Pa.: “Everybody’s happy that it’s not going to go through. Everybody wants competition. I don’t think anybody is interested in just one company controlling the marketplace. But I don’t think it was a concern to most of our customers.”

• Jeff DeGraw, Matt’s Sportscards, Joliet, Ill.: “I didn’t want to see (the takeover) happen. Right now, in my opinion, the hobby is as strong as it has been because of what both companies have been doing. Now they can focus on their own products and stop worrying about what the other is doing.”

• Rob Veres, Burbank Sportscards, Burbank, Calif.: “Having two competitors is much better than having one. I think the reaction (to a takeover) would have been minimal at the collector level, because people would have just collected the cards that were available.”

• Rob Vandorick, All-Star Baseball Cards, Las Vegas: “Anytime there’s some waves going around in our industry, there are going to be some concerns over how things will end up. I had customers who were worried about the future of some of the popular Topps brands. There had been some trepidation.”

• T.J. Schwartz, Tuff Stuff columnist and owner of Porky’s Baseball Cards in Woodland Hills, Calif.: “As a 20-year store owner, I must say that it is good news. To us store owners, having that cardboard competition is everything and I'm sure collectors like it that way, too. Now hopefully, the Eisner deal will go through and bring some fresh, competitive capital to the hobby. It's good to know that they'll both be keeping each other on their toes."

• Mike Fruitman, Mike’s Stadium Sportscards, Aurora, Col.: “I'm very happy. Should it have happened, I would have been concerned about the potential reduction of the Topps brand name. Over the past two years, Topps has repositioned itself as a serious player in the high-end product category. Their recent releases have been complete sellouts and I wouldn't want that to change anytime soon. Now it's up to see if the Eisner group can move ahead and acquire Topps. Since hearing that he might get on the scene, both myself and my customers have been excited to see what his company might do both in terms of content and with the overall direction of Topps.”