Every year, Upper Deck, Donruss and Topps give collectors some very cool freebies at the Hawaii Trade Conference, which was held in Phoenix this year. I wrote about what was given away in a recent blog and promised I'd update some of the values after more items hit the market.

While Topps didn't give anything away during its Meet the Industry segment, the Allen & Ginter cards given away at the Topps retailer party are arguably the hottest items from the conference. Remember, this set features Hall of Famers and the cards are sequentially numbered to just 30. A Walter Johnson sold for $132.50, while a Ty Cobb sold for $70, with Thurman Munson, Jimmie Foxx, Lou Gehrig, Honus Wagner, Jackie Robinson, Cy Young, Christy Mathewson, Tris Speaker, Mel Ott and George Sisler and Rogers Hornsby and Roy Campanella all selling in the $40-$50 range. The only semi-duds from the set appear to be Pee Wee Reese and Johnny Mize and they are selling for $30. Not bad for something that was given out as a three-card pack just for showing up.

Donruss' Black Boxes are always one of the most sought-after items at the conference and this year is no different. The boxes have seven cards, all of which are 1-of-1 printing plates, with two autographs per box. Even several weeks after the conference, only roughly 20 of these appear in the closed auctions on eBay, which tells us how tough they are to get sealed. The bust was strong enough that most people opened their boxes to see what autographs were inside so this will be a scarce sealed box in the future. Boxes started out right around the $200 level and have settled slightly to around $175. I would expect these prices could rise a little in the near future since there will be very few available (only six currently listed in the active items). There haven't been a lot of the signed printing plates listed individually, but a Tony Romo sold for $218 a week ago.

Upper Deck gave away a ton of sealed boxes at its Retailer Reception, but that's impossible to track since they are identical to other wax boxes. The Meet the Industry boxes included three cards, including a multi–signed card in the middle. The highest signed card I've seen was a Carl Yastrzemski/Bobby Orr single, which sold for $169. There are ton of very cool combinations with these and many are selling in the $80-$100 range, including Peyton Manning/Danny Granger, Ken Griffey Jr./Chad Johnson and Kevin Durant/Felix Hernandez. I've also seen a Patrick Kane/Joakim Noah and a Al Horford/Mark Teixeira/Kovalchuk triple autograph, which both sold in the $60 range.

Unless you were asleep or out of the country all weekend, you noticed the NFL Draft was this past weekend. It's so well-covered at this point that we are generally pretty familiar with the top players going into the draft, but there are still a ton of sleepers out there. And with guys like Tom Brady drafted in the sixth round, nobody really knows for sure whether Matt Ryan will be the best quarterback or Alex Brink (17th round, 223rd overall).

Quarterbacks: The cream of the crop is definitely Matt Ryan and he should get a chance to start right away for Atlanta. Baltimore obviously liked Joe Flacco a lot to move up to get him, but it's tough to figure out how his skills translate from Delaware to the NFL. Long term, I like Brian Brohm a lot and think he wound up in a perfect system for his skills. I'm also a Colt Brennan fan, but he may not even make Washington's team. Andre Woodson is another guy worth mentioning since he has all the skills and if he can clean up those couple of poor decisions he seems to have every game, and his delivery, he could be a great sleeper.

Running Backs: This was a great class for RBs. Darren McFadden steals the headlines, but he's got a lot of competition in Oakland. Two guys that will be very popular in the collecting world (behind McFadden, of course) are Jonathan Stewart and Rashard Mendenhall. Both should split carries as rookies and become very solid running backs. There are a ton of sleepers too, led by Matt Forte, who could start over Cedric Benson in Chicago, and Kevin Smith, who will probably be the opening day starter in Detroit. I also really like Ray Rice, Jamaal Charles and even Mike Hart, although all are behind some big name backs (Willis McGahee, Larry Johnson and Joseph Addai, respectively).

Wide Receivers: This was a bizarre year for wide receivers with none selected in the first round and a  whopping 10 in Round 2. What that means is that really nobody is going to be huge in the hobby until they start performing on the field. My favorite picks to make an impact early in their pro careers are: Devin Thomas (Washington, should get a chance to start right away); Limas Sweed (Pittsburgh, big play ability and should be the third guy in Pitt's receiving core); Early Doucet (Arizona, should be the slot receiver for Arizona and will always have a good matchup with Fitzgerald and Boldin on the outside); Jordy Nelson (Green Bay, because Ted Thompson's last two receiver choices were Greg Jennings and James Jones); Mario Manningham (NY Giants, should have a chip on his shoulder after falling to the third round and has major big play ability); Marcus Monk (Chicago, huge guy, who played in Arkansas' passing-challenged offense...think Colston).

I'm sure I'll be proven completely wrong in a few years, but at least I'm trying. It's not like Todd McShay and Mel Kiper aren't wrong all the time either and nobody really has a clue about this draft for a couple of years anyway. By then, you'll have forgotten you read this blog.

How far has Vince Carter fallen in this hobby? If you still own a bunch of his rookies, I hope you are sitting down. Carter was on top of the basketball world during his first two seasons in the league. He won Rookie of the Year and then dominated the 2000 NBA Slam Dunk competition during the All-Star Game in Oakland. He had the most impressive array of dunks anyone had ever seen (maybe until Dwight Howard this year) and everyone loved him and wanted his rookies.

His 1998-99 SP Authentic rookie was selling for $3,500 on eBay in a PSA 10 case, while most of his others were also at ridiculously high levels. I even remember someone grading his second-year Bowman's Best card in a PSA 10 and selling it for around $200. Not since Shaq in 1992-93 had I ever witnessed hobby domination like this.

Back to the present time, Carter is resting after ankle surgery and isn't even one of the top 20 players in the league. My opinion is he might not even be top 50. His numbers aren't really down that much, but he's no longer the dynamic athlete he used to be and his acrobatic dunking show that led ESPN every night turned into a bunch of fallaway jumpers and selfish play. Carter is now one of those guys with a huge contract that nobody even really wants on their team.

His cards? All I need to do is show one closed eBay auction for that same 1998-99 SP Authentic rookie in a PSA 10 case to tell the story. It sold for $92.88. That paints a pretty clear picture. I think you would have been better off investing in Enron stock.

If you don't know much about the Hawaii Trade Conference, it's one of the most important events of the year. Last year was the first year we've hosted it on the mainland (Ft. Lauderdale) and this year's event took place last week in Phoenix. It's literally a who's who of the sports industry and the only place you'll ever find leading figures from MLB, NFL, NBA and NHL, along with all the card manufacturers, distributors and retailers in the industry all in the same place at the same time.

Some of the major news coming out of the week included:

Topps signed a exclusive card licensing deal with CMG for the rights to produce trading cards of 16 baseball legends, including Lou Gehrig, Christy Mathewson, Jimmie Foxx, Ty Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Cy Young, Thurman Munson, Honus Wagner and more. The first cards will be unveiled in Topps Triple Threads Baseball with an array of triple game-used memorabilia cards. The deal officially begins in June and runs through 2010.

Upper Deck is making some very cool and consumer friendly changes to its redemption program and is also reducing the number of super premium brands this year. The redemption program involves tiering the redemptions and allowing collectors the flexibility to exchange their redemptions for a different player in that same tier that is currently in stock, thus reducing the amount of outstanding redemptions. Collectors can also cash in their redemption cards for "points" and save up for other redemptions from UD's inventory. It's also worth noting that Upper Deck will soon introduce inserts featuring strands of hair from historical figures, like Geronimo, Marilyn Monroe and Ronald Reagan.

Donruss unveiled its impressive football card lineup for 2008, along with details of its upcoming Celebrity Cuts and Americana II (releases this summer) products and admitted, "We have celebrities contacting us wanting to be in the set." I also thought the Donruss retailer roundtable was really impressive. It's an open discussion where retailers don't hold much back and Donruss seemed to welcome the difficult questions.

The exclusive cards given out at this conference are always a very hot item in weeks/months after the show. I'll update this scene a little later in the week since most of the stuff is either just hitting or not even on ebay yet. There was some very cool stuff given out this year, including the coveted Donruss black box (with seven 1/1 printing plates, including two autographs), Upper Deck's black box (with three cards, including one autograph) and Topps' Allen & Ginter cards numbered to just 30 sets and more.

Have you seen that video with Kobe jumping over the Aston Martin, while promoting a new shoe? I assume it's not real, but it looks pretty crazy. He's with teammate Ronnie Turiaf and telling kids to not try this, but then he signals something and gets ready to jump. You can kinda see a shadow on the side of the car so I think he just jumps next to the car, but it's amusing anyway. Here's it is: Kobe video link.

I'm gone for the next week attending the Hawaii Trade Conference in Phoenix and then on a short family vacation. I'm going to try to do blogs from the conference, but I don't think the hotel has wireless internet and that makes it very difficult. It's in the high 30s here in Wisconsin right now and it's supposed to be 96 and sunny on Sunday in Phoenix. I'll either really enjoy it or die of heat stroke.

It's a hotly debated subject with NBA fans: Was the 2003 draft better than 1996? The two years are widely considered the best drafts every, but which year had the edge? Here's my analysis:

First, we'll check out the 1996 NBA Draft. Superstars: Allen Iverson, Ray Allen, Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant. Players who have made major impacts: Marcus Camby, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Stephon Marbury, Antoine Walker, Peja Stojakovic, Jermaine O'Neal, Derek Fisher. Players who at least did something: Lorenzen Wright, Kerry Kittles, Samaki Walker, Erick Dampier, Tony Delk, Walter McCarty, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Othella Harrington, Jeff McInnis and Shandon Anderson.

Now, the 2003 NBA Draft: Superstars: LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade. Players who have had major impacts: Chris Bosh, Kirk Hinrich, TJ Ford, David West, Leandro Barbosa, Josh Howard, Mo Williams. Players who at least did something: Chris Kaman, Darko Milicic, Michael Pietrus, Nick Collison, Luke Ridnour, Boris Diaw, Brian Cook, Kendrick Perkins, Jason Kapono, Luke Walton, Steve Blake, James Jones, Kyle Korver, Zaza Pachulia, Keith Bogans, Willie Green.

It's tough to compare since players from the 2003 class could still move up a class, but they could also move down. A few years ago, Marbury might have been considered a superstar and Steve Nash definitely wasn't a superstar five years after he was drafted. Some may argue that Bosh is a superstar, but if I didn't put Jermaine O'Neal on that list, I can't put Bosh.

The superstar quality of the 1996 class is better than 2003. And including Hinrich, Ford, Barbosa and Mo Williams on the major impact list is questionable, but I'm trying to project to five years down the road. Right now, none of them should probably be included, but it's hard to argue with any of the players from 1996 (Abdur-Rahim would be the only one, but his stats were very impressive until the past few years).

The "at least did something" list from 1996 doesn't look good since most of the guys are washed up or out of the league now, but I'm not sure I see any budding stars in the 2003 list either. My vote clearly goes to 1996, especially when you look at the following two paragraphs.

Looking at the list of first rounders, the 1996 draft was loaded with quality selections. You have to go all the way down to No. 11 to find the first bust and that was partly because he died (Todd Fuller) and then it's down to No. 21 with Dontae Jones. There are arguably only seven total busts in the first round. The second round is weak with only three players who made any type of impact, and no I'm not counting Moochie Norris.

The 2003 draft is very different. It already looks like No. 8 Mike Sweetney is a bust and the same with No. 15 (Reece Gaines), No. 16 (Troy Bell), No. 20 (Dahntay Jones), No. 22 (Zoran Planicic) and No. 26 (Ndudi Ebi). It's scary to think this many have already fell on their face and I didn't even count Marcus Banks, who has a little life now in Miami. In fact, after TJ Ford at No. 8, there's only one decent player (David West) until you get to No. 28 (Barbosa). The second round has a couple bright spots with Mo Williams (unless you actually watch him play), Luke Walton, Kyle Korver and Willie Green, but it's not considered strong.

I was looking at the prices for some of the recently-released Adrian Peterson cards and found something that just doesn't make sense to me. There are two different Peterson rookies from similar products that have a patch, autograph and are numbered to 99. One is selling for around $700 and the other is selling for $2,500. Why is there such a huge difference?

The first product is Playoff National Treasures. The card is vertical, which is usually preferred. It's got a nice big patch, with a signature and, like I said, numbered to 99. Boxes of National Treasures are selling for around $400 and the product appears to be doing very well with collectors. There are two completed sales on ebay, with one for $592 and one for $689.

The second product is Upper Deck Exquisite. The card is horizontal with a nice big patch, signature and numbered to 99. Boxes of Exquisite are selling around $525. There are six different completed auctions on eBay and the final sale price ranges between $1,705 and $3,600.

What am I missing here? Both are in the highest-end products known to mankind and everything else is extremely similar. Playoff has a great reputation in football cards, which is obvious when you look at the Playoff Contenders Peterson rookie (limited to 355) and see that it sells for $320 to $440. Does the Exquisite name mean that much to collectors? It does in many cases in basketball, where it debuted in 2003-04 and blew everyone away with the first $500 pack (which now go for around $4,000). But in football, both National Treasures and Exquisite have been around for two years. Can anyone explain this one to me?

One of the hottest products right now isn’t really even a product; it’s the Topps McDonald’s High School All-American Game cards.

The cards were passed out to attendees at the game (March 26 in Milwaukee) with one boys and one girls card per pack. These are the first cards of these players and the only ones you'll see until (and if) they have licensed NBA card.

UCLA-bound Jrue Holiday has the highest secondary-market value thus far, selling at $50, while Evans, Arizona-bound Brandon Jennings and Georgetown-bound Greg Monroe singles sell for $40. USC-bound Demar DeRozan and Louisville-bound Semardo Samuels singles sell for $30. Unopened packs sell for around $40.

As for the game, Tyreke Evans showed everyone why he's one of the top prospects from this class. He had 21 points and 10 rebounds, taking home MVP honors. He'll be announcing his college decision on April 16.

Brandon Jennings either had an impressive assist or a bad turnover every time he touched the ball. He was trying to break the assist record and was amazingly flashy on his way to nine assists, but called out the big men on his team after the game for missing some layups.

Jrue Holiday was also impressive with 14 points, five rebounds, five steals and three assists. He seems like he's got a non-stop motor and almost had to tone down his competitiveness for this game.

Other guys I was impressed with were Kemba Walker, Demar DeRozan, Willie Warren, Mike Rosario and Scotty Hopson. Although Semardo Samuels didn't do much in the actual game, many of the players mentioned he was one of the most impressive players during the week with a great performance in the three-point competition among other things.

The only disappointment was Greg Monroe. This is never a big-man's game and Monroe struggled, with one point and five turnovers. He never really seemed to get into the flow of the game, but it wouldn't be the first time that's happened to a very good big man in this game.

I'll have to postpone writing about the McDonald's High School All-American Game for now because arguably the hottest topic in the industry is Beckett Exquisite Football box break video. If you haven't seen it yet, here's the link to the video.

The video has many collectors wondering if the box was purposely loaded with big cards so it would be promoted on Beckett. Sorry, I won't be commenting either way about that. Exquisite sells for $500 per box for a reason; there are a lot of cards like this in this product. While the odds of that happening are minute, it also wouldn't make sense for a company to advertise to the public that two or three of the best cards in the set are no longer available. The better publicity would be for collectors to see those same cards selling on eBay. Either way, this isn't the first time, or first card company, whose online box breaks have been called into question as far as their accuracy.

What I am writing about is what they pulled. First, what is the value of that Peterson Autographed Patch 1/1 card? The regular version is numbered to 99 and sells for anywhere from $1,525 to $2,352 on eBay. Where does that put this one? I'm guessing it's gotta be at least $5,000.

As for the Walter Payton/Brian Piccolo dual-cut signature card, I don't even have a ballpark figure for that one. I guess it might be in the $2,000-$4,000 neighborhood. To me, that was the strangest part of the video because one of the Beckett guys seemed like he'd never heard of Piccolo and the other one was explaining who he was. Piccolo is one of the most desired football autographs in the hobby. Neither seemed all that excited about a card that would probably be the best pull ever for about 99.9% of the collecting public.

Not to be outdone, I opened a box of Exquisite too. How did I do? I got a Jerricho Cotchery Signature Jersey Numbers numbered to 99, Kevin Kolb Rookie Signature Patch numbered to 225, Reggie Nelson Signature numbered to 150, Marion Barber Maximum Jersey numbered to 15, Trent Edwards Patch numbered to 50 and a Lee Evans base card numbered to 150.