It's one of the more volatile times right now in the basketball card market as teams make their playoff push. While a couple players on hot list are obvious, like Kobe, LeBron and Kevin Durant, others are a not quite as obvious. Two rookies from this season are really heating up near the end of the season. Al Thornton (Clippers) and Thaddeus Young (Sixers) have really shot up collector's wantlists and their prices are rising, in many cases, up to the level of Al Horford, Mike Conley, Jeff Green, etc.

Both are basically a result of playing time. Neither guy saw the court early in the year and is now regularly in the starting lineup. Both are also extremely athletic and highlight film worthy, which never hurts. Neither guy will be the Rookie of the Year, but both have really caught fire.

Two rookies from the 2006-07 class have also made significant gains this year. Rudy Gay has had a breakout year for Memphis, with most of his rookie singles increasing significantly throught the season. Rajon Rondo has held the starting point guard spot for the best team in the league all season and collectors were very high on him already going into the season. Even with the addition of Sam Cassell, Rondo will hold the bulk of the minutes through the playoffs.

On the flip side, Kirk Hinrich is one of several Bulls who has fallen significantly this season. Hinrich is still clinging to his starting job, but losing minutes to Larry Hughes and not very effective when he does play. In addition, teammates Luol Deng and Tyrus Thomas have also been huge disappointments this year. Deng was extremely hot in the playoffs a year ago, but has been ineffective and battled injuries this year. Thomas has been given many chances to start, but isn't anwhere close to consistent. He's currently buried on the bench.

Also, Andrea Bargnani was the runner-up to Rookie of the Year last season. This year he's been horrible. He's a 7-footer, who stands at the three-point line all the time and doesn't rebound. His sophomore season has been a bust and most of his cards are half the value they were when the season began.

If you haven't read it anywhere yet, Upper Deck is cutting production levels for its remaining 2007-08 offerings. This means hobby shops that purchase direct from Upper Deck will not be guaranteed allocations of the products with cards available on a first-come, first-serve basis.
 
“The cuts actually started with SP Authentic Basketball and have been pretty significant,” said Chris Kollmeyer, Upper Deck’s basketball brand manager. “The cuts are difficult to take from a financial standpoint, but allow us to make improvements to the brands.” Kollmeyer said the lower print runs for UD Black Basketball means a higher concentration of superstar autographs. There are two autograph cards per box. “This is the type of enhancement the production cuts allow us to make to improve the brand and ultimately the market.”

Production levels of two of Upper Deck’s higher-end products are being cut significantly. UD Premier Basketball, scheduled to be released April 2, will be limited to just 499 cases. SP Rookie Threads, scheduled to be released April 18, will be limited to just 599 cases. The cases will now be sequentially numbered.

Upper Deck reported that after its announcement, interest in its UD Premier product line has gone up dramatically.  They recently conducted a signing with Michael Jordan who was kept very busy with the sharpie as he added his signature directly to many of the cards in the set.  The photo above is a sneak peak of some of the cards Jordan will have in the 07-08 NBA Premier product.

A few interesting items were sold last night in Premier Auctions, including a Frank Sinatra single-signed ball from the Halper auction. I can't remember seeing another Sinatra ball in the auction circuit and this one got up to $2,413 with the juice. That still may wind up being a bargain for that rare of an item with stellar provenance. The bidding was around $1,000 until the wee hours of the morning and I thought it might go for a steal price, but it didn't. They also had a George H. Bush single-signed ball from Halper's collection, which finished at $312.

Another really interesting item in Premier was a single-signed Pope Paul VI ball. PSA/DNA wouldn't authenticate it, but Premier felt it was authentic and it seems like the bidders felt pretty good about its authenticity too. It finished at $3,327.

Since I touched on presidential candidate single-signed balls a few blogs ago, did anyone notice the Barack Obama PSA 10 ball that sold in Mastro Auctions on Wed.? It finished at $2,760. That's absurd, but congrats to Mastro and the consignor. Who pays that sort of cash for a signature of a guy who might not even with the Democratic ticket? Crazy things like that happen all the time though in the auction circuit, as evidenced by the Margaret Thatcher ball that finished close to $3,000 in SCP/Sotheby's internet auction Jan. 31. A similar Thatcher ball finished at just $390 last night in Mastro. Go figure.

Did anyone notice this card on eBay a while ago? I didn't record the auction number so I can't send you a link or anything, but I saved the image and thought it would be fun to post it. Did Magic think he was Larry Bird or did Larry Bird think he was Magic?

I don't think anyone would be complaining about getting an Ultimate Collection Quad Signature of Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson numbered 1/5, but it's crazy that it isn't signed in the right place. The first instinct is to think someone at Upper Deck stuck the stickers in the wrong place, but this is an on-card autograph.

It basically means one of them signed in the wrong place and the final guy to sign it must have thought, "hey, that moron signed his name in my spot...I guess I'll just use the last open spot."

It kinda reminds me of the joke my dad always used to tell me as a child. He would say that he had these two horses and couldn't tell them apart. So he shaved one's mane, but it grew back. Then he tied a ribbon around one, but it fell off. Then he did something else (you'd think I'd remember after hearing it roughly 400 times), but that difference soon went away too. Then he measured them and found out that the white horse was two inches taller than the black horse. Yeah, not funny, but a decent analogy of this card.

It started out as a playful idea when Upper Deck decided to do Presidential Predictors in the its recently released 2008 Upper Deck Series I Baseball product. Barack Obama was in there. John McCain was in there. John Edwards was in there. And Hillary Clinton.

McCain was in a Ted Williams pose, linking the two celebrated war heroes. Obama was patterned after Jermaine Dye. Edwards was patterned after Moonlight Graham with both being healthcare advocates. But what to do with Hillary? Well, remember that Morgana The Kissing Bandit? While it seemed like a good idea (and still does to me), Upper Deck pulled the Clinton cards before the product hit fearing they might be casting Clinton in a negative manner. Amazingly enough, some have reached the secondary market (not to be confused with Topps' Alex Gordon accidents in 2006 Topps Baseball or Topps' Jeter/Bush/Mantle in 2007 Topps Baseball). How many? Good question. Maybe 50. Maybe 500. Maybe 5,000.

The first wave of them has hit eBay and they are selling very high. One sold for $1,500 on Feb. 12. Two more are ending today and are up to $1,625 and $1,025. My guess is that these will settle quite a bit in the next month, much like any other "wasn't supposed to be released" card seems to do.

What does an unexpected run through the playoffs and an extraordinary Super Bowl upset do to the demand for a player’s cards when the player came into the NFL with the kind of pressure that Manning faced? After several years of little demand, he has become one of the most hotly demanded players in the card market.

Manning’s 2004 rookies had long sat untouched at lofty prices on dealer’s shelves, but are now being pursued and selling quickly. Some of his hottest 2004 rookies include: Ultimate Collection (No. 130, up from $400 to $450), which is signed and numbered to 150; Bowman Chrome (No. 225, up from $200 to $300), which is signed and numbered to 199; Playoff Contenders (No. 131, up $50 to $400), which is signed and numbered to 372; SPx (No. 221, up from $250 to $350), which is signed and numbered to 375; and SP Authentic (No. 216, up from $500 to $600), which is signed and numbered to 299.

Most other Manning rookies are also experiencing a significant increase in demand, with most rookie single prices rising 50-100 percent.

And he has a lot of company
Another Giants’ standout during their playoff run was rookie running back Ahmad Bradshaw. If you ignore Week 16, Bradshaw netted six carries all season, but became a vital change-of-pace running in the postseason and was more effective than Brandon Jacobs. His cards were commons until the postseason, but are now as in demand as any 2007 rookie.

His 2007 Playoff Contenders Rookie Ticket Autograph is selling for around $120, while his SP Authentic rookie (signed and numbered to 1,199) and his Leaf Limited (signed and numbered to 291) are both selling for $100. All were $10-$20 a month ago.

While demand for Plaxico Burress, Aaron Ross, Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora is also up, most of the other collector focus is on Brandon Jacobs, Steve Smith and play-of-the-game receiver David Tyree.

Jacobs top 2005 rookies cards include: Upper Deck Exquisite Collection (No. 59, up from $200 to $300), Bowman Chrome (No. 255, up from $40 to $50) and Playoff Contenders (No. 110, up from $40 to $60).

Smith, like Bradshaw, is a 2007 rookie, which adds more fuel to the collector’s fire. His best singles are from Playoff Contenders (No. 223, $50), SPx (No. 214, up from $30 to $40) and Bowman Chrome (No. 86, $25).

Tyree’s cards are seeing activity for the first time. He was a rookie in 2003, but had caught only 54 passes for 650 yards and four touchdowns during his career, including four catches for 35 yards during all of 2007. That all changed when he caught three balls for 43 yards, including a miraculous one on the final drive, and a touchdown in the Super Bowl. His two best rookies are 2003 Playoff Contenders (No. 193, up from $15 to $60) and 2003 Bowman’s Best (No. 119, up from $10 to $50).

There aren't many collectibles that are cooler than single-signed baseballs of U.S. Presidents. And on the heels of Super Tuesday, single-signed balls of some of the hopefuls continue to heat up. There was a John McCain that ended last night (now that's planning) for $305 and it featured a horrible scan so there's potential for those to sell quite a bit higher, especially after he distanced himself from the competition and looks like a shoe-in for the Republican nominee.

McCain baseballs were selling for around $100 a week ago and for as little as $30-40 a month or so ago when it seemed like he had little chance of winning. In fact, in late Dec. a lot of five single-signed McCain balls sold for only $120.

Barrick Obama single-signed balls have been an interesting collectible since he emerged as a leading Democratic candidate. Whether it's this presidential campaign or a future one, collectors feel like he'll be a major name for the next couple decades and are willing to spend more. His baseballs have been solid around $200. A quick bit of advice from surfing around eBay for a bit, beware of any non-authenticated Obama ball because most of them look like pretty bad fakes. It will be interesting to see what this PSA 10 ball goes for in Mastro's Classic Collector auction. There's also a pretty cool lot coming up in R&R with McCain, Obama and Rudy Giuliani that should go pretty high.

Hillary Clinton's single-signed balls are consistently higher priced than McCain or Obama, possibly because many people consider her the favorite and are holding on to them. As far as I've heard, she also doesn't sign as freely as she once did. A nice Clinton ball will cost you $400-$500 at this point. Judging by the last night, these are the only three that I need to mention.

If you haven't been using the most comprehsive auction prices database in the industry, it's time to start. SCD Auction Prices Database launched a few months ago and is currently up to 109,176 items, which will probably be increased by the end of the day. We've got literally every auction during the past two years included and post most auctions to the database within a few days after it closes.

Based on user requests, we also added seven new categories and manuevered the old information to populate them, which means you've already got some pretty comprehensive searches and trends available:

• Broadsides/Advertising Pieces (539 items)
  
• Game-issued/Store Model Equipment (467 items)
  
• Game-used Baseball Gloves (268 items)
  
• Nodders/Bobble Heads (525 items)
  
• Pennants (232 items)
  
• Press Pins (402 items)
  
• Original Artwork (256 items)

To give you a little better idea of how powerful this database is, there are 2,302 listings for game-used bats, 775 listings for autographed checks, 11,359 listings for autographed balls and 2,362 listing for Babe Ruth. Whether you are figuring out who to consign to, what your collection is worth or planning your next purchase, this database is something you should be using.

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On another subject, have you seen this blog? He's the autograph handler for Steiner, which means he arranges and conducts most of the player signings. It's very cool because he comments on how the player was in-person and some signing habits and it seems like he gets a photo with every single athlete he meets. The guy's gotta be racking up a ton of frequent flyer miles too because he's doing stuff every day of the week, with recent signings with many of the Giants' players, like Eli Manning, Plaxico Burress, Michael Strahan, Brandon Jacobs and Ahmad Bradshaw, along with Miroslav Satan, Bobby Murcer, Bill Guerin, Keith Hernandez, Derek Jeter, Y.A. Tittle and Ray Rice. He's actually meeting Hank Aaron today for a signing.

Although there are several good points to eBay's recent announcement, make sure you read everything before getting too excited. The major points for listing fees include lower insertion fees, making gallery photos free and reducing fees for gallery plus, picture pack and feature plus services, effective Feb. 20, 2008.

For example, insertion fees for auctions starting at $.01-$.99 were $.20 and will now be $.15, while insertion fees for items $200-$499 were $3.60 and will now be $3.00. Also, the gallery function used to cost us $.35, but will now be free. Gallery Plus used to cost us $.75, but is now lowered to $.35. Bottom line: It will cost us significantly less to list items on eBay. Great news, right?

Unfortunately, final value fees have risen significantly also. Fees are based on the closing price of the auction and used to be 5.25% for the first $.01-$25 of closing value. They will now be 8.75%. Final value fees for a closing price of $25.01-$1,000 were 5.25% of the initial $25, plus 3.25% of the remaining balance, but will now rise to 8.75% of the initial $25, plus 3.5% of the remaining value.

Here's a couple examples for a $20 item and $100 item (starting price of $.99):

• $20 Item before 2/20: $.20 + $.35 Gallery + $1.05 Final Value Fees = $1.60
• $20 Item after 2/20: $.15 + Free Gallery + $1.75 Final Value Fees = $1.90
• So it's $.30 more to sell an item for $20.

• $100 Item before 2/20: $.20 + $.35 Gallery + $3.76 ($1.32 on first $25 + $2.44 on remaining $75) = $4.31
• $100 Item after 2/20: $.15 + Free Gallery + $4.82 ($2.19 on first $25 + $2.63 on remaining $75) = $4.97
• So it's $.66 more to sell an item for $100.

I don't want this to be a negative blog (coincidentally, I should mention that selling something for $10 is a nickel cheaper under this new fee structure) because there are some nice positives in this announcement concerning feedback.

The most important one in my opinion is that negative (or nuetral) feedback left by the buyer will be removed for transactions in which a buyer doesn't respond to the Unpaid item or if the member is suspended. This means sellers no longer have to fear filing unpaid bidder alerts to recoup their fees only to get negative feedback from a buyer who hasn't even paid for the item. Another plus is that positive repeat customers feedback will count. The one I'm still hedging on is that buyers can only receive positive feedback from a seller. While this stops sellers from leaving retalitory negative feedback, it seems to ignore the fact that there are a lot of bad buyers out there. However we feel about any of this though, we've got until Feb. 20 to get used to it.