Fall & Winter Slow down

As summer fades into fall, it typically signals a slow down in the bobblehead world.  We all know baseball teams (all of them it seems, no matter the league) are the best at giving away bobbleheads. Last year, the Wolves did a set of 5 bobbleheads and a few years ago the Wild did a set of 5 bobbleheads.  Other than that, the fall and winter have been extremely quiet in Minnesota when it comes to new bobbleheads.  Unfortunately that will likely stay the same this time around.  The Wild have announced their promotional schedule and no bobbleheads are included in it.  I've heard from the Timberwolves that its unlikely they do another set of bobbleheads this season.  They'd have the foundation for a nice set, starting off with top pick Kris Dunn.  Then you could do tribute bobbles for Flip Saunders and Kevin Garnett and why not a dual Rookie of the Year bobble for Wiggins and Towns?  People would go nuts over it!

However, at this point, thats only dreaming and its not looking very good.  So...I deal with it.  Perhaps it'll give me some time (ya know, cuz I have all sorts of that with an 11 week old at home) to organize my collection.

Timberwolves Bobbleheads

Yep, thats right, the Wolves are bringing back SGA bobbleheads this season.  I teased this with a post in early September.  At the time, I couldn't say anything until it was public knowledge.  It's been in the local paper so now I can officially announce the Wolves will giveaway 5 bobbleheads this year, starting with Andrew Wiggins on November 12th.  I haven't secured the names of the other 4, but I can only assume 2 of them will be Kevin Garnett and Karl Anthony Towns.  The other 2 are pretty debatable at this point.  Once I know more, I'll pass it along.  And of course once I have pictures, I'll post them!  Hopefully giving everyone sneak peeks of all 5!

I'm super excited for this set of bobbleheads.  The Wolves haven't done bobbles for a long time (and even the last handful of years when they have, its been for season ticket holders).  I'm glad they got back on the bobblehead bandwagon!

Update

The 5 bobblehead dates/players have been announced.  Here they are!

November 12th - Andrew Wiggins
December 26th - Karl Anthony Towns
January 23rd - Zach LaVine
February 20th - Ricky Rubio
April 13th - Gorgui Dieng

The debate over COAs

A Certificate of Authenticity, commonly known has a COA is extremely important in the world of collecting. Bobbleheads are no different.  The Twins included COA's with all of their giveaway bobbleheads thru 2009. I'm not sure why they stopped, but I don't believe any bobblehead since has had a COA.  The Timberwolves also produced COAs with their early bobbleheads.  Below are a couple different COAs. The first is for Kirby Puckett's first Twins giveaway and the second is Kevin Garnett's first Timberwolves giveaway.  Typically COAs will include a picture of the bobblehead along with the date it was given out.  On the back there is usally a number which indicates the production number.  There is a total production run, but I've read multiple times that number is skewed because the teams typically make plenty more in case they run into any issues when giving them out.  Sometimes they offer season ticket holders, sponsors, and employees the chance of buying these bobbleheads too.  One can never be entirely positive of the true production run of any bobblehead.  

The major question I've ran into concerning COAs, what is their value?  I've heard a variety of opinions on the subject.  Some people say they are just as important as the bobblehead while others say the COA doesn't decrease the bobbleheads value much at all, if anything.  I tend to lean towards the latter.  For example, I certainly would pay $20 for a Puckett bobblehead, but I would never even think about paying $20 for a Puckett COA.  The bobblehead is ultimately the bigger prize.  There are some COAs from the early bobblehead giveaways that are pretty rare and hard to find, those are worth a bit more than their counterparts of the mid to late 90s.  I have plenty of COA's but also have plenty of bobbleheads without the COA.  I've never made it a point to collect the COA and probably never will.  

But, to each their own!