Collect 'em all.

Bernie Madoff on a baseball card

"I'll trade you two Bernie Madoffs for a Derek Jeter and David Wright."

Baseball card collectors could soon be saying something along those lines as the Topps Company will be issuing a trading card of confessed swindler Bernard Madoff as part of a product due out early this summer.

The Topps 2009 Allen & Ginter release will include cards of some 260 baseball players along with cards of historic figures and "world champions" from realms outside baseball. This year's product, though, will also nod to Madoff's financial chicanery as part of a group of cards featuring the "world's biggest hoaxes, hoodwinks and bamboozles." Among the other do-badders in the subset are Charles Ponzi, The Runaway Bride, and Enron.

Ahh Topps, PT Barnum would be proud. Commemorate swindlers and cheats inflating the value of worthless things......on pieces of cardboard with pictures on it that sell for millions of dollars in some cases. I bet you didn't make an "Ironic Realizations" card for that revelation though.

How much are these cards worth? Topps says $60 billion, but investigators say it's probably much less. The cards should eventually be worth something some day as most people, when confronted by a Madoff card, will shred it, tear it, or burn it. So someday it'll be a rare collectors item. Just kidding, it'll be as worthless as his firm's assets. Just one more indignity for Bernie. First he loses his fortune, becomes a public pariah, goes to jail (presumably), and then it turns out his baseball card is worth less than the Billy Ripken "Fuck Face" card. Ouch.