I mentioned yesterday that one of the biggest ways that summit retailers are able to recoup travel expenses and badges for the Industry Summit, is to collect the many giveaways that are available over the course of the event. The best of the best can fetch hundreds of dollars on eBay, and we have already seen some of them start to show up!
2013 Industry Summit Panini Black Box – Unopened
2013 Industry Summit Topps Oscar Taveras Bowman Auto
2013 Industry Summit Upper Deck Sealed “Black Box”
2013 Industry Summit In the Game Malkin, Jones and Lemieux Triple Jersey
2013 Industry Summit Leaf Frank Thomas Attendee Signature
Obviously, the top giveaway at the show each year is the “Black Box” from Panini, which is basically an encased card that mirrors a lot of their releases from the previous year. Many of them seem to be cards pulled for QC purposes, but there is also original content available as well. They included a green Select pack for the first time as well, which Panini is using to celebrate their rebranding of that line.
Other companies have also done Summit Exclusive giveaways as well – including special cards from Topps, Benchwarmer, Leaf, and In the Game. Beckett has even put together commemorative cards of their magazine, encased in BGS holders, but that has the appeal of a base card in a Topps Total pack to me. Bottom line, these giveaways seem to be getting better each year, which only makes me MORE excited leading up to the National Convention in Chicago this year. Who knows what fireworks will happen!
The Frank Thomas looks really nice, kinda puts Topps’ card w/ the logo to shame.
Leaf has Frank Thomas on Monday morning sign autos for all of the attendees.
Upper Deck the ONE TIME industry leader followed Leaf on Tuesday and brought in Frank Thomas. Jaysuit and his sidekick Cash looked stunned and embarrassed as Leaf paraded the “big Hurt” into the room on Monday knowing that they were going to get egg on their face the next day. Leaders lead followers follow. Jaysuit is a follower and hopefully he is terminated soon over this type of soiling of the Upper Deck name.