One of the most interesting things about going to the Hawaii Trade Conference every year is coming back and looking at the prices of the giveaways. This year's conference in Ft. Lauderdale was no different. Virtually every event has card giveaways of some kind and attending the conference is the only way to get it. I've never seen anything leak out in quantity months after the conference is done.

Here were the highlights of this year's giveaways and some of the details.

Donruss Playoff: Distributed its famous black boxes at Meet the Industry. Each box has five printing plates used in 2006 Donruss Playoff football products so you have the chance to get Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, Vince Young, etc. These were selling for $200 right after the trip, but have settled at $150-$160 for now. They did the same thing last year before everyone realized how tough they were to find and then they shot up to well beyond $200 before completely disappearing. Another Donruss Playoff was a six-card set given away at registration, which includes JaMarcus Russell and Adrian Peterson among others. It's tough to find complete sets, but the Russell single has sold anywhere from a penny to $15.50. These aren't appearing in much quantity either so it'll probably be Russell and Peterson's rarest rookie card for most of the season.

Upper Deck: Gave away a black box of its own at Meet the Industry, with a four-card pack that included one autograph. Since attendees opened the box as part of Upper Deck's Meet the Industry, I haven't seen a single sealed box appear on eBay, which is a tribute to limited these are. As far as sales, the Jordan autograph (numbered to 27) sells for close to $500. The LeBron autograph (numbered to 34) sells for $150, with Cal Ripken at $113, Akinori Iwamura at $110, Derek Jeter at $105 and Peyton Manning close to $100. Unsigned singles are also popular, with Sidney Crosby and Michael Jordan both selling at $20 or more consistently. Daisuke Matsuzaka is also available unsigned and sells for near $60.

Topps: Gave away a three-card pack of Allen & Ginter cards at an evening reception. The cards featured different Topps employees and could be exchanged for other Allen & Ginter cards, numbered to 25, during the week. These have been very popular, with Mickey Mantle selling for $154 and $150, Bruce Lee selling for $107, Ryan Howard for $79 and $56 and David Wright for $69 and $46. These have been incredibly rare to find on eBay so far.

Other rare singles, mostly 1-of-1s were given away at various events, usually the retailer roundtables for each company. There was a Bush Certified Mirror Blue that sold for $227; a 2001 Leaf Auto Jerome Bettis for $167; a Bush Topps Turkey Red Auto (numbered to 25) for $130; a 2001 Quantum Leaf Auto Fran Tarkenton for $100; a 2007 Bowman Chrome Alex Rodriguez Auto (numbered to 35) for $96; and a Leinart Topps Turkey Red Auto (numbered to 25) for $60.

Two observations should be very clear. First, collectors who didn't attend, but still want the cards are going to have to pay premium prices for them and supply is very limited. Second, it's pretty easy to see that just by going and attending most of the event...and with a little luck...a retailer can more than pay for the conference.

I attended the Heritage live auction on Saturday and was very impressed. First, they were testing a live bidding software on the web site that allowed bidders to actually see the auctioneer as the bidding was going on. They could also compare items to other similar items and look at different images of the item. This was pretty amazing and worked just like you were sitting in the room. The only thing it couldn't do was show you how incredible the mid-1960s Ray Nitschke jersey they sold was. No photo could do this one justice. It's the most impressive football jersey I've ever seen, with the shoulders and neck area featuring a ridiculous amount of repairs. I'm a game-used bat collector and I go for the most beaten, ball-marked, pine-tar-covered ones I can find so I had a real appreciation for this jersey and no doubts about its game use. The jersey sold for $38,837 and the winning bidder definitely will not have any buyer's remorse.

Heritage really knows how to run an auction and made it very easy to bid. Bidding was done five different ways:

1. By attending the live auction
2. Bidding on the Heritage site (either before the auction or live during the sale)
3. Bidding on eBay live
4. Bidding by phone
5. Bidding by mail or fax

The leading piece in the auction was a 1922 Babe Ruth signed contract addendum, which limited his drinking and late nights. The one-of-a-kind contract sold for $65,725 and had plenty of bidding action. The No. 2 item was a 1922 Bert Cole game-worn Detroit Tigers uniform, which sold for $47,800. This one surprised everyone, including the auction house, since it was estimated around $10,000. The No. 4 item was a 1922 historic sale of Babe Ruth promissory note, which is one of only three to exist. It sold for $35,850 and led to the winner bidder mentioning to us that there are only three that exist and he now has two of the three. And yes, he actually seemed a little upset that he didn't have the third.

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This auction was the first time I had the chance to meet and talk with authenticator Lou Lampson for any length of time. Most sports memorabilia message boards spend a lot of time ripping on this guy, but I'll be the first to advise you to give him a chance. I'm not sure if I've met anyone more passionate about what he does than Lampson. He's also just basically a collector with 100x more knowledge than most of us, who happens to wind up authenticating for auction houses because others have priced themselves out of the market. Does he make mistakes? Sure, but it's more related to trying to do too many items at one time than anything else. And the responsibility is still on us to do our research before buying an item to "double check" the authenticator's work. I'm sure Lampson has plenty of faults. We all do. But when he starts talking about athletes that he's met, knows and is very good friends with and going through his photo album of his collection and pictures of him with guys like JaMarcus Russell and Larry Fitzgerald, it's hard not to like him. If anyone else was a better option, I'm sure the auction houses would use them to authenticate, but don't think that this guy doesn't know his stuff.

What was really amusing is when he took us to the site where JFK was assassinated (something tells me I should re-word this immediately) and listening to him act as our tour guide. Yeah, he's also very passionate about that and knows his stuff. The actual tour guides around the site were actually stopping and listening to Lou point out details about where certain people were and what happened. He even got up on the concrete pedestal which extends from the John Neely Bryan concrete structure overlooking Elm Street in Dealey Plaza and imitated Abraham Zapruder filming the motorcade. Check back on the site in the next week because we'll be posting video of our interview with Lampson.