Trading Cards

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the Los Angeles Times, which was published Friday.IT IS with a straight face that we report that the parents of five San Diego children filed a class-action lawsuit recently alleging that the makers of the wildly popular Pokemon trading cards are setting their kids on the road to rack and ruin by encouraging them to, well, gamble.In essence, the complaint alleges that collecting trading cards is a form of illegal gambling because the odds of finding any one of the 150 different cards in any given package vary greatly.

Pokemon -- the latest craze of America's children -- invaded Towson Town Center yesterday. The mall didn't stand a chance. More precisely, the shopping center was no match for the mythical Japanese monsters' thousands of devoted fans. Speaking a language all their own, they came to catch up on the latest Pokemon news and buy the latest Pokemon merchandise. They came to trade Pokemon playing cards and square off with their hand-held Pokemon video games. And most of all, they gathered on every level of the mall to revel in all things Pokemon.

From time to time I run across a program or Web site that intrigues me, and I put it on a "someday" list for my column. When I collect enough of them, someday arrives -- in this case, today:Collectibles Department: When I was a kid, we'd take baseball cards and attach them to the struts of our bicycle wheels with clothespins so they'd slap against the spokes and make a sound like a motorcycle.Nobody's likely to do that today. Trading cards are big money. Kids and adults collect them as an investment, and publishers are constantly coming up with new wrinkles to convince buyers that today's card is tomorrow's tuition at Harvard.

Pokemons may look like cute, cuddly little monsters, but they can whup even Godzilla when it comes to sales. Since storming the U.S. toy industry last fall, all things Pokemon (pronounced poke-ee-mahn), the latest toy craze from Japan, have been emptying the wallets of pre-adolescent boys and girls (and their parents) nationwide.Here's how big it is:* Nintendo has sold 1.7 million of the Pokemon hand-held Gameboy video games (more than $45 million worth), making it the company's biggest seller ever.

CONCORD, N.H. -- The 48 bits of cardboard read like a Who's Who of American presidential politics: John F. Kennedy, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard M. Nixon, Colossus G. Benson.Yes, Colossus G. Benson. And Billy Joe Clegg, Georgiana Doerschuck and Arthur O. Blessitt, all people -- or at least primates -- with one-time presidential ambitions and now stars of New Hampshire Presidential Primary Trading Cards.First printed last year as a civics lesson for the state's fourth-graders, the trading cards have become keepsakes for political junkie types who mainline C-SPAN and know Edmund S. Muskie's middle name (it's Sixtus)

Watch out, Cal Ripken Jr. Step back, Brady Anderson. Take a rest, Eddie Murray.Competition is on the way. The Baltimore Police Department has issued trading cards -- mugs of their officers who want to become a different kind of hero for the city's youth.They aren't likely to be eyed by starry-eyed children with dreams of ball fields and hot dogs, but for hundreds of students at Edgewood Elementary School yesterday, the cards quickly became reason to smile."This is great," said a beaming Cierra Lewis, 7, a second-grade student showing off her new collection of Baltimore's Finest.

TOKYO -- There are no high fives when Reiko Togashi gets together with her friends. No air kisses or handshakes. There is, instead, a small pause as each teen-ager rummages in her purse or pocket to pull out a neat box made especially for business cards.Each girl solemnly exchanges her own card for another's, closely examines the one she receives and carefully puts it away.In Japan, the exchange of business cards has long been the essential first step in seemingly every adult relationship other than love.

The best-known Olympics collectibles, over the years, have been pins.But trading cards are a part of the Centennial Games, too, focusing on history and the U.S. basketball teams.Upper Deck is the third major card manufacturer to offer Olympic cards this year, and it has two sets. The first, U.S. Olympic Champions Olympicards, features top American athletes of past Olympics and potential members of the 1996 teams (cards were printed before selections were made). It has 135 basic cards and four insert sets totaling 44 cards.

Trading card fans can soon add pictures of the Sykesville's police chief and six officers to their collections of famous sports figures.The cards with mugs on the front and brief biographical information on the back will "break the barrier between officers and citizens," said Officer John Iannone, a two-year veteran of the town police force."

A roundup of new products and servicesA Can-do CompanyWho could coordinate the delivery of a bottle of Dom Perignon from Baltimore to a lord in Britain, locate a new pair of navy pumps before stores open (for a busy executive) and find a Santa Claus in 15 minutes to replace one who didn't show at a holiday party? Charm City Concierge says it can and has. Among the more than 100 services the local firm provides are gift buying and wrapping, catering, chauffeuring, and picking up and delivering dry cleaning.