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!

Recently found Wil Goff card

Recently I was digging around doing some research for the upcoming edition. I usually run across my best finds when I've completely exhausted every other avenue for a particular card or set then I stumble across something completely different that I knew nothing about.

That was the case for a paticular card that I ran across about a year ago. I was doing my normal reseach and digging around on google for some cards (It could have been any crazy path I was on that day) and I came upon a photo of a player trading card of former af2 player Wil Goff. Although the card looked authentic, in the back of my mind I thought, "I would have known of this if it were a real card". I didn't notice a year on the card but then again I only had a pic of the front of the card. I saved that picture that I came across and once in a while as I was in the folder I would open it and take another look at it. I had done a slight bit of research on the card such as the player and team and yes, they matched. To the best of my knowledge the research narrowed it down to a 2003 card.

Well this morning I had a few extra minutes and I happened to open that folder and the photo file seemed as if it wanted to be opened today.....as if it were in bold (I know it wasn't but it sounds good for the story) anyway, I looked at that card again and had another thought to research the card. Long story short, within 8 hours I was speaking to Wil Goff himself and he confirmed that this is a real card. Wil seemed very happy that we wanted to include his card in the fourth edition.

Message From The Editor

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the fans, collectors and leagues for your continued support in BMP. Since our first publication in May 2006, we have quickly become the leading publication in the Indoor/Arena Football trading card industry and again we thank you for that, but like any industry when you’re at the top of your game others will collaborate ways to knock you from the top.

Right now BMP is experiencing issues that have affected our ability to provide you, the collectors and fans, with the most up-to date information within this collecting arena. In short, our research and hard efforts to collect the data necessary for collectors to stay on top of the industry is at jeopardy.

BMP’s staff puts an extensive amount of time and effort in the research and development of each guide, but within the past six months we have been unable to provide our research to you, the collectors and fans, for fear that our hard efforts might be lifted, and we take our copyrights and research very serious. We have invested over ten years of research and development into our guides and we are not taking this situation lightly.

In no way will this situation affect the status of BMP’s publishing of our current guide or any future guides, our fourth edition will still be released on its normal February 2009 date. We are confident that BMP will amicably resolve this issue and continue to bring collectors of Indoor and Arena Football trading cards the most accurate and current information on the market.

Sincerely,


Bob Garcia - Editor
BM Publishing