Arlington, Texas-based Donruss produces cards under the Playoff, Leaf and Score labels. It was established in 1954 and was known throughout the 80s and 90s for “Rated Rookies” and “Diamond Kings.”

Donruss is currently publishing officially licensed products for the NFL under license.

The acquisition means that the newly former American branch of the Italian Panini will have its headquarters in Texas. It will take over NFL products in May and start NBA publishing in October.

Panini is also the exclusive producer of cards and sticker albums for FIFA soccer and trading cards for the Harry Potter movies.

Upper Deck is releasing several new, rare Joe DiMaggio cards in 2009

Upper Deck and the estate of the great New York Yankees slugger Joe DiMaggio reached an agreement to produce trading cards that include DiMaggio memorabilia and cut signature cards.

To commemorate the exclusive deal for UD, a limited Joe DiMaggio card, #0, will be packed inside 2009 Series One Baseball packs coming out this week. The card features “Joltin’ Joe” next to a chalkboard after he tied the Major League Baseball consecutive games hitting streak record at 44. On the chalkboard it calls out “44 EQUALS RECORD” with a smiling DiMaggio kneeling behind it.

“We are thrilled to be able to work with the estate of one of the biggest names in baseball history,” said Jason Masherah, Upper Deck’s senior brand manager. “Collectors and sports fans should be excited about finding Joe DiMaggio content inside of many of Upper Deck’s 2009 baseball card releases. In this day and age when records fall frequently, DiMaggio still holds one of the most amazing baseball achievements of all time.”

It’s baseball card season again kiddies!

Pay attention to Upper Deck 2008-09 Basketball, if you’re a fan of that side of the hobby. Whole boxes are coming out dirt cheap. It’s a 200-card base set without many bells and whistles — great for a younger collector or just a really good basketball fan who wants to collect a whole set easily. I cracked a square hobby-edition box with 24 packs of 18 cards. It’s very easy to form the whole set.

There are much better options on the football side of things with Upper Deck Icons 2008. Boxes are going for $75-$100 with 10 packs of six cards in each box. You get two jersey cards and an autograph in every box, so if you’re at the card store and pull a pack of these, there’s about a 1-in-3 chance that you’ll get something good.

On the cheap side, get 2008 Upper Deck Football First Edition. You can get a box for $20, and you get a Starquest Foil insert in every one of the 36 packs of 10 cards. The base set is 225 cards, and you will probably make it with one box. The big draw with this set is that it has 75 rookie cards.

If you’re a huge Peyton Manning fan, I’d spend the $20 on the box and just leave it sealed because he’s on the cover.

If you’re really all about the rookies, for under $10 you can get 2008 Upper Deck Football Rookie Premiere. It comes in a 30-card box set including Rashard Mendenhall and Limas Sweed from my always-using-their-draft-picks-well Steelers, and some guy named Darren McFadden.

I didn’t even crack open my box. It’s a set, and I’m holding onto it.

Remember, you’re buying these cards because you enjoy the hobby and love the sports. Cards aren’t worth anything anymore, and unless you get lottery-ticket lucky and pull a super rare card, don’t expect to turn a profit on your cards. And if you do get a super rare valuable card, sell it right away or end up like all those guys that held onto Jose Canseco, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens rookie cards (or worse, bought it at their peak) and now have some useful toilet paper.

“As the wrecking balls ready themselves to start demolishing the old site, the Upper Deck Company has released the largest baseball trading card set ever assembled in tribute to the world-renowned sports shrine. The “Yankee Stadium Legacy” (YSL) collection is a 6,661-card compilation,” the company said in a statement this week. “It began its official debut in February by being inserted in random packs of Upper Deck’s 2008 Series 1 Baseball release. Since then, seven of the nine additional Upper Deck baseball launches including YSL insert cards have packed out.”

With the old Yankee Stadium playing out its last regular season this week, Upper Deck decided it was a great opportunity to acknowledge the incredible history and happenings that have occurred at Yankee Stadium since its doors opened in 1923. Besides chronicling 85 seasons’ worth of Yankees home games, this enormous compilation also includes some of the most famous sporting events that have taken place at Yankee Stadium including: legendary Notre Dame Football coach Knute Rockne’s famous “Win one for the Gipper” halftime speech inside the Yankees locker room (Nov. 10, 1928); the then-Baltimore Colts’ 23-17 overtime victory against the New York Giants in the NFL Championship game, which is often referred to as “the greatest game ever played” (Dec. 28, 1958); and Muhammad Ali’s title defense against Ken Norton (Sept. 28, 1976). 

“Not only is this an ambitious effort by our Product Development Team, but it’s a timely tribute to one of the sporting world’s most celebrated franchises ever, “ said Kerri Stockholm, Upper Deck’s director of sports marketing. “And we packed the cards out in a very unique way as we decided to insert them inside of ten different Upper Deck baseball product launches during the course of the year, giving collectors everywhere a chance to share in the tribute.”

The card set has its own website that includes message boards where collectors can share their personal Yankee stories. There is also a comprehensive YSL Checklist, which shows all 6,661 game cards within the set as well as seven “miscellaneous events” cards from Yankee Stadium’s glorious past that Upper Deck has included.

We’re curious about this one. If you somehow have assembled the entire or close to the entire set, contact us and tell us about it!

One of the original trading card manufacturers, The Topps Company has been on the trading block lately. CFO Catherine Jessup recently left and rival Upper Deck threw out a $450 million curveball of an offer, leaving the industry in an uncertain state.

It is a dark age for the traditional baseball card store. Many dealers are unloading valuable product for pennies on the dollar on Ebay. Regardless, there have been some amazing products coming from all sides. With prices so low and many premium athletes undervalued, 2007 has been the perfect time for collectors to get back in the game.

If you’re like many collectors just starting to look back into the hobby, here’s what’s going on: Rookie and vintage cards are holding their value. Magglio Ordonez’s 1998 rookie cards and C.C. Sabathia’s 1999 rookies are on the rise. On the flip side, cards with game-used materials–bats, balls, jerseys, etc—are seemingly worthless unless they come off a major star player and are rare, serial numbered gems.

One card set sticks out lately. 2007 Topps Allen & Ginter claims to have a card with an actual piece of George Washington’s hair. Another card, a cutout autograph of Mother Teresa, just sold for $10,000 on Ebay!

Three of Upper Deck’s latest releases show diversity the hobby.

2007 Upper Deck Artifacts have been extremely devalued. The set should have been a hit. Each box of 10 packs contains three memorabilia cards; autographs are all over the place, and unique 1 of 1 cards make packs tasty lottery tickets for resellers.

Unfortunately. The appearance of cheap Target and Wal-Mart variety blister boxes has thrown the value of base cards way down. What’s more, while the rare and unique cards are extraordinary pulls, most of the memorabilia cards are junk.

I cracked open a box of UD Artifacts to see for myself. The three memorabilia cards were disappointing, but did show some life. Finding Josh Johnson and Vernon Wells jersey cards was a heartbreaker. They were serial numbered to 199, but there’s no star power here. Most collectors don’t collect these guys—and that means, no matter what the price guides say, the cards aren’t worth anything. I did pull a David Ortiz jersey card too—great for my personal collection, bad for people looking to turn around a profit because it’s also not worth much.

Base cards are pretty, shiny and well designed. The best ones I found were a Delmon Young rookie and a Derek Jeter. Jeter cards are always among the most valuable.

In football, 2007 Upper Deck First Edition is the perfect trading card for young collectors. I call it the “brothers box.” The base set is only 100 cards. I made the set twice with cards to spare and pulled nearly every NFL rookie in my box. A full box goes for as low as $30 on Ebay. That means mom and dad can buy one box (36 packs, 10 cards per pack) and two kids can each get every card and have enough to trade with and fight over later.

I also found three Michael Vick cards in this box–which is an interesting twist, because this is one of the only sets that Vick will appear in this year, making the cards fairly rare.

Depressingly, while I got nearly every rookie card, except for the main two—JaMarcus Russell and Brady Quinn. I also didn’t get any major inserts; no autographs, rare cards or memorabilia. It’s still a good set and remarkably cheap.

The biggest surprise out of Upper Deck lately came from hockey. 2006-07 Ultimate Collection is a rare and expensive product. Each box contains four packs, and each pack contains an average of one autograph, one rookie, and one memorabilia card!

Every card in the 60-card base set is serial numbered to 699. A limited print run base set means the rare and unique cards are easier to find. This set has everything from autographed rookie cards limited to 99 in existence to triple memorabilia cards serial numbered to five. It’s an amazing product and a must-have for hockey fans.

“Of course we appreciate the fact that Mr. Vick is innocent until proven guilty, but the allegations alone have resulted in an outpouring of very strong emotion within our organization and among the collecting community,” said Kerri Stockholm, Director of Marketing for Upper Deck. “We believe collectors will agree and support this decision as being the best course of action for our football business.”

The company’s Ultimate Collection Football will be the first trading card set affected by the move.

Upper Deck also decided to pull a variety of memorabilia and autographs from its website. These include autographed jerseys, footballs and helmets.

The trading card company made its decision to remove Vick from its collections around the same time Reebok halted sales of Michael Vick jerseys. Nike also suspected Vick’s endorsement contract, The Boston Globe reported today.