Monday, November 28, 2011

A Card Showin' I Went

Before the holiday weekend I attended the Sun Times Sports Collectibles show.  There wasn't really a good reason for me to go since no vendors accept PayPal in person and that's where my card budget is located.  But I knew Sal and Tim would be there and they lured me in with the promise of free cards. 

So I went.  I browsed, but did not buy.  Finally I met up with my fellow bloggers - and blogger aficionado Nick B. and swapped out some cards.  I had one card for Sal and about 15 commons for Tim....I left with 52 new cards. 

I was also able to live vicariously through those two and watched them bust a couple of boxes of product I won't be buying this year (Upper Deck Base and Parkhurst Champions).  It's fun to rip packs even if I'm not keeping the cards.


Here is a sample of the cards that have been added to the collection:




From Sal - An ITG redemption from the National earlier this year and an Emerald Parallel of Steven Stamkos from Artifacts.  It's numbered 35/50 and is the lowest numbered card in my Stamkos collection.








Some more Sal cardboard goodness.  A Cedrick Desjardins Luxury Suite Rookie numbered72/899.  Sadly, Desjardins is no longer in the Lightning organization.  He could have helped out with their current goaltender conundrum.   Next to him is a Victor Hedman Rookie Materials card from Upper Deck.  The back of the card swears that he wore the jersey - at a rookie photo shoot. Big Vic is having a rough year so far, the Bolts need him to improve to have any chance of making the playoffs.






Just a small sample of the goodies that Tim provided.  First up is a retro-parallel of Dwayne Roloson from this year's O-Pee-Chee set. Next to Father Time is a card that Tim thought was just a base set at first.  Instead, it's an unannounced parallel version.  It's the playoff beard variant.  That's not a joke, the first 50 cards in the set have a variation featuring the player rocking his best facial hair.  Seeded at 1:9 packs it won't be easy to complete, but not impossible either.

Finally, a Jimmy Wright Young Guns card.  He made the team in his rookie year, but has yet to crack the line-up since.  Hopefully, after a solid season in Norfolk he'll be back up on the roster soon.

The generosity of fellow collectors never ceased to amaze me.  Thanks, guys!

3 comments:

Nick B. said...

Great, now I feel like a slacker! Not really, I sent all the good Lightning stuff I had in the last trade. I did pull a Brett Connolly Young Gun from one of the boxes I picked up at the show, so my next one is all yours if you don't have it already.

TheRealDFG said...

No problem. The Lightning pile has begun anew.

Justin G. said...

Nick - if you happen across another card of King Conn I will definitely take it off of your hands...

DFG - awesome. Unfortunately I used all of my Penguin cards to line my cats litter box so it'll be a bit before I can even it up :)