Per a press release from Panini, the following players are short prints in the Contenders set:

"The following players are printed to 499 or fewer: Hasheem Thabeet, James Harden, Tyreke Evans, Jordan Hill, Brandon Jenningsand Tyler Hansbrough.

 These players were produced to 649 or fewer: Blake Griffin, Dante Cunningham, Earl Clark, Jonny Flynn, Stephen Curry and Terrence Williams."

 We here at Penny Sleeves guessed that Harden, Evans, Jennings and Clark were SPs but we did not see it coming with Griffin and Curry.

Clearly, the big names get listed en masse like Griffin and Curry and we believe that's what threw us off.

Additionally, although there are SPs in this set its really not quite the same as football with guys #'d to 21 etc.  Click the player names above to see what of the SPs is available on eBay!

I'm a talk radio guy on my commute to and from work. I get sick of hearing the same 40 songs played over and over in different genres on different stations. I get even sicker of DJ's that find themselves extremely funny, when in reality, they are really one of two things - airhead or meathead, or a mix of both.

That being said, I'm going to cast out a blanket statement and guess that many readers of this blog have at one point in time thought that being a sportscaster, sports announcer or sports talker would be a great job. I mean, we've all got a million thoughts on our favorite teams, cards and otherwise. Getting paid to do this daily would be wonderful.

This morning, as I listened to one of the local Kansas City talk show hosts talk about how fired up he was about the "sticks in the Royals lineup," this season, I felt sorry for him. (Disclaimer, not originally from KC, not a KC sports fan, I just listen) The photo above represents what I believe those sticks to be and the Royals better be careful with them. Get those sticks near fire and up they'll go and by April 15th Dayton Moore will only have ashes to work with.

The point is this, unless you are a Kansas or Kansas State basketball fan, as a sports talker in Kansas City you have very little to work with these days, the same is true in other cities. It just has to be hard to wake up each day, go to work, feign excitement about the Chiefs, discuss the epic of GilgaMeche, or try and figure out what Mangino's been eating, I mean up to.

Now, that being said, we all have meetings, projects and other tasks we aren't excited about on a daily basis. Perhaps some more than others, they aren't pleasant but we get through them. However, from April to early October, broadcasters must eat, sleep, drink and I'd have to think puke Royals. That's not an enviable task. Every fifth day Grienke pitches, that's fun to talk about. Billy Butler, nice young bat. Jose Guillen, good for two to three soap operas per year. This years offseason signings - Jason Kendall (no comment) and Rick Ankiel - did you know he has a cannon for an arm in the outfield?

The phrase "ad nauseam" has never been so appropriate and for once in my life this morning, I felt sorry for someone who had to cover sports as a job.

As a reminder, in my 3 cases of Elite I pulled the following:

In my 3 cases of Elite, I pulled the following:

26 Gold Status Diecuts /50 - Chapman was the highlight
41 Red Status Diecuts /100 - Tate was the highlight
99 Blue Aspirations Diecuts /200 - Ackley was the highlight

My total sales were as follows:

26 Gold Status Diecuts /50 - $93.29
41 Red Status Diecuts /100 - $57.72
99 Blue Aspirations Diecuts /200 - $117.40

Total sales were $268.41, that makes Thomas, who guessed $252.52 the winner of an Elite auto.  I'll be sending him and email and getting the prize out.

Thanks to everyone for participating!

On the 28th of January I wrote a post titled "A Mighty Flood." The flood referred to in that post was the amount of 2009 Elite Extra cards currently on eBay. Additionally, I mentioned that if you were looking to buy "your guy," from 2009 Elite, the time might be at hand. I figured that it was probably time to evaluate that post and see if any of my assertions "hold water." In the original post, I ran a bunch of eBay searches and totaled results, I'll re-run them now, again, all confined to the baseball category. Here we go:

2009 Elite- Then: 4,591 results, Now: 3,357 results

2009 Elite AU*- Then: 2,406 results, Now: 1,162 results

Elite Aroldis Chapman-Then: 54 results, Now: 21 results

Elite Dustin Ackley- Then: 83 results, Now: 63 results

Elite Tate - Then: 57 results, Now: 49 results

I think the most notable drop-off in listings is in the "2009 Elite AU*" search.  There will always be some Ackley, Tate and Chapmans listed.  Those are the big names people busting packs are trying to sell to recoup their money.  However, "your guy" that you were buying, there is probably a lot less of him on there and if there are still buyers, prices have jumped a bit.  I know my buys certainly have.

Did you get all you wanted before things started to dry up?  The mighty flood is now much more of a meandering river.

There are now 1,100 items open if you search Contenders in basketball on eBay and an additional 2,100 closed. When I started this tracker there were only 400 open.

I will continue to update the numbers as often as I get the chance.

Player	Listed	Sold
Brandon Jennings	6	16
Tyreke Evans	8	17
James Harden	8	11
Blake Griffin	13	18
Jrue Holiday	13	14
Ty Lawson	22	37
Jonny Flynn	14	14
DeJuan Blair	19	28
Earl Clark	8	8
Stephen Curry	7	23

To see what's listed of any particular player, just click their name. It will take you to the eBay search for their Contenders Autos. So here are my predictions:

Non-SPs: Griffin, Lawson, Blair, Curry

Possible SPs: Harden, Evans, Jennings

Sure SPs: Clark

All the others, it is too early to call, do you think my predictions are right?

In the relatively short history of modern prospecting; the Bowman Chrome era, we have seen some mighty leaps and some mighty big falls.

For example: How about Billy Rowell 2006 Bowman Chrome Draft non-auto Gold Refractors for $400? Or a Yovani Gallardo 2004 Elite Autos for $10.  One good, one not so much, two of many possible examples. 

Since the release of 2006 Bowman Chrome Draft, prices on prospects, even great ones at release have ebbed somewhat. Several factors have contributed to this; the global economic slowdown, the slower influx of new prospectors, the exit of people who once prospected but quit once prices got too high and probably lots of other reasons.

As a result, prices have declined a good bit and now even the best prospects are available for reasonable prices at release. Particularly when the market is flooded with options, like the month after BDP, Sterling and EEE came out. My point is better made with numbers though: so let us look at 5 examples.

2009 1st Round Picks:
3. Donavan Tate - 2009 Elite Auto /999 on-card - $20 per
4. Tony Sanchez - 2009 Bowman Chrome Draft Auto - $10 per
6. Zack Wheeler- 2009  Sterling - $7 per, Elite - $7 per, BDP - $10 per
8. Mike Leake - 2009 BDP - $7 per
11. Tyler Matzek - 2009 Sterling - $8-$10 per

We aren't here to debate the merits of each of these prospects, but this is true:  In each case, these players are near the top of their organizational prospect chart, have at least some scouts who are big believers, were highly touted in college and high school and perhaps even performed well in the minors.

In spite of all that, you still have the opportunity to build a large stash of this player at a relatively low cost per card.  Maybe you buy 30 Matzek Sterlings for $300, Kershaw Sterlings once sold for $40 per so if Matzek gets even half way there, to $20, where Bumgarner is, you double your money.

So my question to you is this:  Is it time to build a big stash of "your guy," or are there other reasons that continue to keep you out of the market?

There are now 1,100 items open if you search Contenders in basketball on eBay and an additional 1,500 closed.  When I started this tracker there were only 400 open.

I will continue to update the numbers as often as I get the chance.

Player	Listed	Sold
Brandon Jennings	6	12
Tyreke Evans	10	8
James Harden	9	7
Blake Griffin	13	12
Jrue Holiday	9	9
Ty Lawson	23	22
Jonny Flynn	14	9
DeJuan Blair	21	19
Earl Clark	5	5
Stephen Curry	8	13

To see what's listed of any particular player, just click their name.  It will take you to the eBay search for their Contenders Autos.  So here are my predictions:

Non-SPs: Griffin, Lawson, Blair

Possible SPs: Harden, Evans

Sure SPs: Clark

All the others, it is too early to call, do you think my predictions are right?

As pointed out by Bradical on FCB, there is a seller who has an unbelievable inventory of high-end cards on eBay right now. It's truly stunning, the picture at the top of the post is just one of many like it.

Check out all the high-end auctions here, there is something for everyone.

A few cards have sold thus far:

2000 Fleer EX Tom Brady RC #12/1500 - $975
2003-04 Lebron James Honor Roll Gold Auto /25 PSA 10 RC - $1900
2000 SP Authentic Tom Brady RC /1500 BGS 10 - $3100
2001 Donruss Elite Albert Pujols Gold Diecut /68 PSA 10 RC - $1200
2003-04 Exquisite Michael Jordan Logo Patch Auto /75 BGS 9.5 - $3500

and a few others for far lesser amounts.

The Lebron Collection simply defies words.

If I had to pick a couple cards though it would be the Lebron Gold Exquisite Auto /23 and the Seaver Topps RC PSA 10.

How will they do on these auctions? Its hard to tell, it depends when they bought all that Lebron, when they bought the Brady. They will likely lose money on the Jordan Autos and Patches, there are more of those coming into existence every day.

Speaking of every day though, you certainly don't see that kind of collection every day. More of a once in a blue moon kind of thing.

So the question today is, "what game used cards will maintain and perhaps even rise in value?"...and..."how can I spot these cards?"

The answers to these two questions are much the same throughout the card collecting world, they must be:

1. Visually attractive
2. Unique in some manner, low chance of being made again (think Ruth Jumbo)
3. Rare, rare is not equivalent to low serial #

What doesn't meet this criteria: Topps Sterling Bat Cards

While the visual merits of the card can be debated, it most certainly does not meet the second two standards. This card isn't unique, you can find a card like it in several brands, particularly Triple Threads which also features multipiece bat cards. Nor is it rare; Speaker bat cards can now be found in older issues of Topps Tribute, Triple Threads, 2010 Topps, Topps Sterling and Topps T206 just to name a few. Sure, all of the cards themselves are #'d below 50 but 50 times 100 different varieties is still a lot. Heck, even Topps Sterling itself has a seemingly endless array of different Tris Speaker Bat cards.

What to do, what to do, you like GU, you like having them but you don't like buying cards that are worth 40% of what you paid a few years later. Here's a couple examples of GU cards that I think do meet the standards above.

I really like the Satchel Paige Jumbo Jersey, the photography is fantastic. The Jimmie Foxx from a visual perspective is ok, not stunning. However, I do think it is unlikely we see another Satchel Paige Jumbo Jersey, there just aren't that many jerseys of his out there and the jumbo part makes it infinitely more rare. Although Foxx Bat Cards abound, glove cards do not. Getting a bat and a glove of this pre-war 500-HR club player is something that again, I don't think we'll see again.

As I said, the Paige will run you in the $175-$200 range and the Foxx sold for $172 on eBay yesterday. Certainly, they are going to cost you a little more when you do pick up GU examples like this. But at least you know it is not like driving a new car off the parking lot.

These two are just a couple examples of GU cards I believe that can hold value, there are others, have fun searching!

There are roughly twice as many Contenders auctions in the basketball category than when I started this tracker.

I will continue to update the numbers as often as I get the chance.

Player	Listed	Sold
Brandon Jennings	8	8
Tyreke Evans	3	6
James Harden	6	6
Blake Griffin	17	6
Jrue Holiday	7	6
Ty Lawson	19	16
Jonny Flynn	12	6
DeJuan Blair	17	14
Earl Clark	6	3
Stephen Curry	6	11

If you are interested in checking my totals, or finding out what of each player is listed, you can simply click through on the player's name and see the total cards listed presently.

It seems like Lawson, Griffin and Blair are out of the running for SPs and the early Contenders (sorry) for SPs are Earl Clark, James Harden and Tyreke Evans.

Another note, there are 963 auctions currently when you search "Contenders" in the eBay category basketball.  There are 1,081 closed auctions under the same search parameters.  That just isn't very many auctions, this product is not being busted en masse even though I view as Panini's best basketball effort to date.