It's Final...Over 500 Cards Make up the 2008 Indoor & Arena Football Collection.

Here we are, the end of the season and we just received the final expected set of team cards for the 2008 season. It looks like there are 14 team sets and a few single production cards to be included in the fourth edition.

Although we set aside our awards announcements for the 2007 year, we will bring it back for the 2008 season. The staff here at BMP are working to put together the seasons awards; toping the list of the seasons best are first year card contributor AIFA Saginaw Stings 9-card set, AFL San Jose Sabercats and Donruss came through with a few great sets with the AFL's Dragons and Desperados.

In addition to this 2008 seasons cards, collectors will also find a few more vintage sets; 1994 Fort Worth Calvary, 2007 Rochester Raiders and more including a few singles from 2003 & 2005.

Collegiate Football Card Collectors Take Notice!

Well....we've done it again. We have manage to take what was already a superb product and enhance it by a million.

As the premier leader in this industry of Indoor & Arena Football trading cards, BMP is continuing to blaze the path for collectors. It was BMP that was the first to put a reliable, accurate and up-to-date product together for collectors to rely on.

It was BMP that was the first to feature the only Indoor & Arena Football college cross-reference of it's kind to collegiate trading card colletors, Allowing collectors to now have the ability to find their favorite college alumnis trading cards for this untapped market.

Now, with the upcoming release of the fourth edition, BMP will blaze another path. We have enhanced the college cross-reference. Collectors will now have the ability to look up their favorite Indoor or Arena players name and followed below their name will list the college and pages that the players cards are listed on. Now although this feature was in the third edition it did not include the players college.

The most important improvement though comes in the form of an alphabetical list of all of the colleges with Indoor & Arena Football player cards. Now if your a person who collects former colligate alumni cards, you can look up your college alphabetically, which will then be followed by a list of players that attended that college who have player cards within the guide.

The swirl of interest that this generated around this is already encouraging. Check our website to see if your favorite college has player cards in the Indoor & Arena Football leagues.

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The Official Indoor & Arena Football Trading Card Guide - Featuring an ArenaBowl Winning QB on the Cover?

WOW!.....The Dragons rolled over the Desperados. The Dragons now head back to Philly for the second time this season and third overall meeting between the two teams. I'll say this again this week.....it's not easy beating a team three times in a season.

Garcia was as solid as ever, goes to show with a little bit of time he's unstoppable. With each touchdown I grew more excited about the idea of The Aaron Garcia being featured on the cover of our fourth edition.

Last Tuesday evening, I spoke with Garcia and firmed up some of the details about the feature cover. The one variable that was still to be determined was the timing of the photo shoot. I mentioned to Aaron that we'd like to get the photos done before he heads back home (California) and he of course follwed my statement with "Well, I hope we don't have to meet up until after the Arenabowl", I agreed and wished him good luck.

Fast forward about 72 hours, as the time ticked away in the final minute of the Dragons 77-65 victory over the Dallas Desperados, I began to think; "Wow, wouldn't that be nice if they went on to the Arenabowl". As a fan of the Dragons I'd be tickled but as an editor of the leading source for Indoor & Arena Football trading cards I'd be as happy as a little pig in mud! Imagine this....again, it's not easy beating a team three times in a season. I'll say this, if the Dragons can win in Philly, I think we have a solid shot at having an Arenabowl winning QB on the cover.

Along with the full color photo of Aaron Garcia on the cover, we will also have a 2-page Q&A. I'm hoping that we have to change a few questions within the next few weeks.

And Aaron, we don't mind you putting us of for a few more weeks...........Go Dragons!!!


Photo courtesy of newyorkdragons.com

Fourth Edition - Quickly approaching

With the regular seasons winding down our editing process steps up. This is the time of the year when many of the teams are finishing up their promotional trading cards. So as the Indoor and Arena Football trading cards begin to pour into our offices; let the editing begin.


Adding the 2008 Cards - Right now we have somewhere around 17 different team issued and single produced card sets for the 2008 season. The editing process is long and tedious; It starts when we receive the cards. Our editing team loads the sets information into the system, complete with a detailed description and data of each card. Next, we analysis the individual cards within the set and determine which card will show the best in the guide. We then scan that card, edit it to black and white then upload the photo with the text.


Changes Made for the Fourth - Each year we make changes to improve the overall quality of the guide and this year is no different. This fourth edition will have several new changes and modification to improve the references aspect of the guide. In the third edition we included the ability to locate each players card by pages, we also added the players colleges for those collectors that are interested in the college players cards.


Well, in this edition, we took it one step further....This fourth edition, collectors will now be able to look up the college by alphabetical order, then follow down the list of players with cards included in the guide from that college.


In the third edition the players names were listed with the first name first, followed by the last name (ex...Mike Smith), the fourth edition will list the last name first, followed by the first name (ex....Smith, Mike), making it much easier on the eyes for looking up the info.


The Cover - This is my most exciting part of the fourth edition. We just met with our photographer that will be shooting the fourth edition cover featuring Aaron Garcia. Now we just wait and see if the Dragons make the playoffs, we'd hate to be the reason the Dragons didn't win their playoff game because Garcia was out doing a photo shoot and not practicing.

Feature Story - We will include a Q&A with the New York Dragons Aaron Garcia. These questions are being complied by our junior editor, Ben Schwartz. Ben has been a helpful addition to our blogs and website graphics. We will work to have Ben master the craft of writing with a few articles for the guide, starting with this fourth edition Q&A with Garcia.

Bobbleheads, Helmets, Jerseys; Now Up for Discussion

Welcome to this new section of BMP's blog. Here we will go beyond the cardboard and will delve into the other collectibles of the Arena and Indoor games. While we may also discuss cards, we will primarily break down the other facets of the collecting hobby. Items such as bobbleheads, helmets, jerseys, game worn items, player statues, autographs, and much more will be featured here.

Arena and Indoor teams often either sell these items or give them away on occasion; these are called “Stadium Give Aways”, or “SGAs”. Teams will give them away to a certain number of fans who enter the game first, such as a bobblehead giveaway to the first 5,000 fans. These items often hold both monetary and personal value in that they represent the day you went to a game or a memory of your favorite player. Items that are particularly unique, rare, or are of famous players often sell for more than others, but Arena and Indoor collectibles almost always have at least some value.

Teams and sellers are constantly releasing new items, so there is always something to talk about in the world of collectables. Whether it is on ebay, the stadium, directly from other fans, or team shops – building a nice collection is not extremely difficult, but just like the card business it takes time, patience and usually money. This part of collecting goes along very well with cards, and often are cards (SGAs), so discussion of this should fit in nicely on BMP's blog. So, we hope you check back every once in a while for new articles, releases, pictures, and new finds so we can all build our collections to fit the way we love the game. After all, game worn and signed collectibles are your ticket to the inside of the game we all love.

Ebay....Now is the time!

Now with the end of the indoor and arena football season quickly approaching a rash of cards have sprung up on Ebay. Just in the past few weeks many sets have made their way through the popular auction site. Many times it takes several different search options to land the cards your looking for but it always happens that you get sidetracked looking at something else and thats where I found myself within the last few weeks.

So in addition to finding the rcently released 2008 Chicago Rush, 2008 LA Avengers and 2008 IFL Odessa Roughnecks, I happened to fall upon a few 2007 NFL Europe cards. Now because I'm a New York Dragons fan, one in particular stood out to me; John Walker. It took no time to confirm that this was the Dragons 2008 star rookie so I put my bid in for $3.

I watched the John Walker team issued NFL Europe Sea Devils card for the seven days that it was listed for and fortunetly for me I checked in on it about a half hour before the end to see that I have been outbid and someone else had interest in this card. It made me think of the time I watched a set of 1992 AFL Cleveland Thunderbolts and passed on it at $65 in 1999; It took me nine years to see another partial-set come through ebay and I won that bid of 8 cards at $65. So as time ticked down I made sure I was logged in and in bid mode....I wait til about 12 seconds left and bid $75 for my high bid, I felt assured that should do the trick if there was someone as fanatical as me about this on the other side. I was High bidder at $15.51 with 6 seconds, I refreshed to see I had won the auction at $23 and change, with shipping it'll be near $30.

I'm glad I got the card, I think I overpaid but thats what happens on ebay when you get that fever. I have since seen a few of these NFLE team issued cards on Ebay and have bid on a few others but no more than $6 or so.

Aaron Garcia; AFL QB Legend to be featured on the cover of the Fourth Edition

That's right! Aaron Garcia will be featured on the front cover of the The Official Indoor and Arena Football Trading Card Guide - Fourth Edition. Just after the release of the third edition we started working on the fourth edition. I give serious consideration to every aspect of the guide and how we can improve on it's interior and exterior content.

This edition I knew we needed to put a big-time players face on the fourth edition. We needed to score on this edition, so the first name that came to mind was my favorite AFL QB; Aaron Garcia.

So I tried the traditional approach and mailed the front office and spoke to a few heads up top but ultimately it was Aarons decision to make. So, being that I'm a Dragons fan and I go to their games what better way to get to Aaron then to waiting in line at the end of a game for an autograph. I got tickets to the April 13th home game versus the Destroyers, ironically it was trading card day, (Ironically? trust me I planned the timing).

So after beating on the Destroyers, I went down to the autograph lines, only this time I didn't want Aarons autograph, I wanted to introduce myself and pass along a copy of our third edition, I knew once he saw it he'd go for it. It was my turn, as he sat with the black Sharpie in hand I put the book down in front of him on the table and slid it toward him, he said "Do you want me to sign this?"...I respond, "No, I want you on the cover of our fourth edition". I gave him the copy and he seem semi-interested, but this wasn't the place to discuss it and I knew he had to skim through it to understand what we do. I told him I left my business card and he can contact me so we can discuss it.

A week or two had pasted and I received a call from a helpful staff member of the Dragons who had mentioned that Aaron was interested but they are focused on the season now, I assured him that this can happen after the season.

So, the impatient guy that I am, went to the Dragons home game versus the Force. Again, after the game I waited in line and again approached Aaron and his Sharpie. I asked Aaron if he had a chance to peek through the book, he lit up..."Oh Yeah!" he replied, "Are you interested in being on the cover of the fourth edition?", I asked. Garcia turned to Kevin Swayne, who was sitting next to him and said, "Have you seen this guys trading card book? Didn't I show you that?, it's pretty cool", Garcia turned back to be and asked me to email him and said he was very interested in doing the photo shot and seemed genuinely excited about it.

I couldn't have been happier, my AFL idol wants me to email him and wants to be featured on our book. I'm so pumped for this day!