Jay Leno Sucks!

That oughta get me a few accidental web hits!

But obviously I am not hear to talk about Jay Leno...this is a baseball card blog for Pete's sake! So lets talk about baseball.....well, since I feel bad about luring unsuspecting victims to my blog, I guess we can talk about Leno for just a little bit. It kinda leads into my actually blog topic...somewhat.

So I will just come right out and say that I am on team Conan. I have followed Conan ever since he and Andy first entertained audiences AFTER Leno. Helped get me through college...that and Madden football...and my hacky sack.

Anyways, Conan was spot-on with his statement he issued the other day. Moving the tonight show back 30 minutes would destroy the legacy of the show, and also would disrupt the Jimmy Kimmel show as well as Carson Daly. Conan stuck up for himself and his peers, and that was a totally classy move.

Now there are plenty of people out there that will argue that Leno is just doing what the network wishes to do, its not his fault, right? Well, WRONG because, unlike Conan, who has gone out of his way to defend the integrity of the show and his peers, Leno has not even come close to saying "you know what? I had my run on this show, it's Conan's now and I don't want to ruin the experience for him". Leno could have taken the high road, but absolutely did not.

Go Conan.

Anyways, the segway is that during my daily multiple-periodical scan for industry stories, I have read a lot of stories on the late-night drama. The other day, while reading these multiple-periodicals, I stumbled on a nice little gem in the sports section of the Wall Street Journal regarding "Blue Chip Cards" or more specifically a 30 sports card industrial average consisting of 15 baseball cards, and five football, basketball, and hockey cards that Beckett (WHOA, take it easy there) designates as the most influential cards in each sport.

WSJ listed seven of the 30 cards and illustrated the value of the card over the last five years. Since WSJ only included a photo of one card, I decided to jump in and find the other six and share them with you. Here is the sampling...


Topps 1952 Mickey Mantle - This card made the comment list of Most Elusive Treasure yesterday. The values (now remember folks, this is according to Beckett, so take it with a grain of salt) is as follows: in 2004 the value was $20,000. As of 12/31/09, the value is $30,000, an increase of 50% over 2004.

1933 Goudey Babe Ruth - Note: WSJ list the product as "Gaudey", so this might be the wrong card, but more likely it is just a typo. In 2004, this card was valued at $6000, today it is $8000, or and increase of 33%.

Topps 1966-67 Bobby Orr - 2004: $2500. 2009: $3000, an increase of 20%.

Topps 1965 Joe "I wanna kiss you, Suzy" Namath - 2004: $1600, 2009: $1800, and increase of 13%

Topps 1957 Bill Russell - 2004: $1000. 2009: $1100, and increase of 10%.

Bowman 1948 George Mikan - Heads the other way. 2004: $2500. 2009: $2250, a DECREASE of 10% value.

Finally, a T206 1909-1911 Honus Wagner. Obviously this is a reprint and you would be hard-pressed to find an original on Ebay. The original was valued at a smooth $500,000 just five years ago. Today? $350,000, a DECREASE of a whopping 30%.

The article does not speculate WHY some cards increased so much in value or why poor Honus decreased so steeply, but at the very least you are able to see some of the hottest movers and shakers over the last five years (according to Beckett).