Tuesday started off with Upper Deck founder and owner Richard McWilliam giving a "State of the Indusry" presentation. He outlined 10 goals the company is putting in place to improve the buying experience for collectors and retailers. Two of the highlights on that list included shipping products on time and reducing the number of and turnaround time with redemptions. Upper Deck also announced new distribution guidelines stating that retailers can only order products from one of 12 authorized distributors in the US or three in Canada, or directly from the company. No dealer-to-dealer sales will be allowed and the majority of sales must be to in-store customers. In turn, distributors will only be allowed to sell to brick-and-morter retail stores.

This will dramatically change the sale of products in online venues and some questioned if this was possible to police such a program. The changes will take place with SP Authentic Basketball.

The MLBPA announced there would be fewer products in 2008, with Topps and Upper Deck limited to 17 products each (down from 20 this season). This good news was soon lost though when retailers and the MLBPA's Judy Heeter argued about the rookie card designation. Retailers argued that the impact of the rookie card designation was minimized by products like Bowman that included prospects before other products albeit not true rookie cards. She eventually said, "Telling them to buy Bowman is not a smart choice," which I must have heard 30 times through the rest of the night.

The site for the 2008 Trade Conference was also formally announced. It will be held at the San Marcos Golf Resort in Phoenix from April 13-17. This also included a "name that show" contest with chances for attendees to rename the Hawaii Trade Conference because saying "Hawaii Trade Conference Mainland Edition" is way too difficult, even when you are sober. The winner gets a free registration for next year.

The eBay-sponsored charity auction also went smoothly, with 53 lots sold, including some really nice UDA Tiger and Jordan stuff, four Playoff Printing Plates framed pieces, some uncut card sheets from the Topps vault and a bunch of other autographed items.

The night ended at a place called Fat Tuesdays with me and a crew of dealers and distributors, and then at the Hard Rock, which was about 15 minutes away but took us 40 minutes to get to. I learned that the Canary Islands are off the coast of Moracco and not Spain, and all I can say about any of this is "No Mitch, don't do it." You really had to be there.