Inside Look at Leaf Trading Cards: Fall 2012

We recently had the chance to tour Leaf’s new offices and sit down with Leaf President Brian Gray to find out more about upcoming Leaf trading card products and the direction they are headed in. Here are some details on what we learned:

• They are very excited about  2012 Leaf History of Baseball, which has just released. It’s an interesting new product with 1 slabbed cut signature card per box encapsulated in a Beckett Grading holder. At a reasonable price point you have a shot at pulling some huge cards including Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Cy Young. Another exciting product that is about to hit the baseball card market is 2012 Leaf Metal Baseball. This year’s release is highlighted by the addition of Albert Pujols autographs.

• Originals Wrestling has been described as a “labor of love” that hasn’t lacked labor. The product has been pushed back to Mid-Late October in an effort to cut down on redemptions. Originals Wrestling contains 5 autographs per box, with chances at pulling on card signatures of legends like Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair (WOOOOO!), and The Iron Sheik. The set is modeled after the original 1948 Leaf trading card style.

• Leaf previously reached a deal with Pete Rose and produced the popular 2012 Leaf the Living Legend – Pete Rose Baseball Hobby Box. This is a creative product concept featuring a Pete Rose Autograph card in every box, plus the chance at redemptions for hand signed jerseys, baseballs, and bats. We were tipped off on the next superstar that they have worked out a deal with but were sworn to secrecy on who this player is until Leaf makes the official announcement.

• An upcoming product that they are very proud of is Leaf Inscriptions which comes out in December. The cards have a high end look with beautiful patch cards and autographs that should go over well with collectors.

• They will continue to tweak and improve the succesful “Best of” line for Basketball and Baseball to make content even more appealing to collectors. New additions for “Best of” include Football scheduled to release in November and Hockey to follow after that.

• With strong demand from previous basketball releases, Leaf hopes to put out 5 or 6 basketball card releases next year. They also hope to produce more hockey cards.

• Leaf will continue to look for exciting and innovative product ideas that go over well with the collecting community. One idea discussed is to create stronger re-pack products. They are working on a loaded re-pack product that takes the Hidden Treasures theme a couple steps further with added original content to go along with the older packs. Something along the lines of pulling an RGIII auto with a rare older sealed pack.

• Other upcoming products include 2012 Ultimate Golf and 2012 Leaf Cut Signature Edition. We are told golf is looking great and they’ve strengthened the checklist in Cut Signature to be the best roster of cut signatures they’ve ever released.

We would like to thank the staff at Leaf for making our visit a pleasant one. All of us at Dave and Adam’s are looking forward to the exciting products and ideas Leaf will be bringing to the market in the future. We’ll continue to carry a full line of Leaf Trading Cards and provide our customers with updates on new products as they become available.

For more information on Leaf be sure to check out the Leaf Trading Cards Website. You can also follow them on twitter @Leaf_Cards  .