Hockey Season is Here - why not get some new cards

There are days that I wish I could live a little closer to Target so that I can fulfill those daily urges for more cards. Most days I'm glad that I don't. It helps keep me from flinging money away on blasters and packs of cards that end up in the back of the closet. Laziness trumps collecting desire 99 percent of the time.

However, there are times when I really, really want some cards and I don't feel like buying an entire box or organizing a trade. So I journey out to COMC (check out my cards) and put a personalized “blaster” together. Keeping the total (without shipping) to somewhere around $20 I pick and choose some cards that I need. Here is the latest “blaster” I put together:

Heritage needs:

I'm probably never going to complete either the 2009 or 2012 sets, but it's always nice to plug away. Rizzo and Posey pretty much finish off the non-short print needs. I ended up picking up only one 2009 Heritage and it's another Cub – Ryan Theriot. For some reason, scores of women in their young to mid-twenties wear Theriot jerseys to Wrigley even up to this season despite the fact he hasn't sported the pinstripes since 2010.

1983 Topps:

The Cal Ripken, Jr. was the first card to go into the shopping cart. Love the orange and white uniform collection (along with the no belt look). The Wade Boggs rookie card is one of the bigger priced cards in the set. Since I'm not looking for huge value I settled with an off-center version with a really good price.

Vinny Lecavalier Personal Collection:

Through six games this season, Vincent has yet to make the line-up in Philadelphia. It's beginning to look like his career in the NHL is almost over (although you wonder if his old coach/nemesis John Tortorella might be able to find a use for him in Columbus).

I went with a theme for these three – Stanley Cup. It's always nice to see your favorite player's name associated with the Holy Grail.

The Russian Rookies:

One shiny Namestnikov, a retro of MY BOY NIKITA KUCHEROV and a Young Guns of the recently suspended Nikita Nesterov. The Lightning kind of shot the wad with rookies over the last few years. This year, it's probably just going to be Slater Koekkoek and Jonathan Marchessault.

The autograph hit:

JT Brown Artifacts Auto Facts. Whenever you can get a fourth-liner's autograph for around a dollar you gotta do it!

The memorabilia hit:

2014-15 Jonathan Drouin Trilogy Tryptics.

A very nice card from Jo Drouin's rookie year. It's numbered to 400 and is a two-color swatch. Can't really get much better than that!

So there ya go. Fourteen cards, all killer – no filler!

Hey Look Who's Writing About Hockey Cards! This Guy!

Thanks to some budgeting, a couple of unexpected gift cards, a slightly better month on eBay, and countless brown bag lunches I was able to secure a new box of cards. On a beautiful October day in Chicago I took the CTA up to the Western stop to visit Tim’s Baseball Card shop. I’ve been a couple of times this year, but not since I’ve moved out on my own. The money just hasn’t been there to justify it until I scored big getting rid of a couple of cards (thanks Buster Posey!).

So I figured why not reinvest in a box of 2010-11 Panini Certified. The online reviews have been mostly positive, with the major concern being the number of parallels and inserts. Not a problem I thought, as a recent player collector convert I’d figure I’d score enough cards that didn’t matter to me to swap for new Lecavalier’s. Who knows, maybe I would finally pull a Vincent insert on my own.

I didn’t.

Not only did I not get an insert, I didn’t even get a Vincent base cards. Not only did I not get a Vincent base cards, there was nary a current Lightning player to be found. Nor was there a Sidney or an Ovechkin or Datsyuk to be found. Sadly, for the Captain there was no PK Subban, nor was there a David Krecji for Shane. As a matter of fact I didn’t pull a single base card that I could trade with anyone.

That’s because I didn’t pull a single base card at all. 52 cards with 52 serial numbers stamped on the back. Apparently, I done got hot-boxed. That’s right, Panini knew I would be visiting Tim’s store today, sometime late in the afternoon. They knew that someone who had promised to pick up a box on Friday would not show up thus leaving me with the last box in the shop thereby guaranteeing I would be wowed and write up a great review. Those dastardly demons!

Actually it appears that one out of every eight boxes have been stuffed with nothing but parallels. There have been reports of some folks getting more than the estimated number of hits. It seems that either they have a whimsical sense of quality control or that Panini is splashing into the hockey market by giving their customers more than what they expect. Either way I’ll take it.

Despite the joy of opening an entire box of cards that had a limited production run I’m not overly wowed by the set on a whole. Of the 50 cards I pulled there were some nice ones, a lot of shiny ones and one or two that garnered a second glance. Yet I’m not going to be heart broken to part with any of them.

The tight photos on the player limit the variations of poses that you see so that after a couple of packs the images are almost redundant. Winger waiting for a pass, goalie playing the puck, defenseman waiting for a face off, etc. Not exactly the awe inspiring camera work that other sets put out there (UD regular for instance).

The inserts are plentiful and a little bit better. I’m a fan of the Masked Marvels. Anytime I get to see an overhead shot of a goalie making a save I’m happy, even if it’s tiny goalie. The Certified Champions would make a nice card to get hand signed, nothing beats a picture a player holding the cup and showing the ultimate joy.

Overall, I was happy with this box as it gives me plenty of fodder for trade or sale on the bay. Would I recommend it for purchase? I would, just know what you’re getting into. If you’re a set collector run from this box. It will drive you insane with all of the variations. Better to wait till someone else collates it and buy it from them.

Four hits per box for about $100 isn’t bad either. It seems to be breaking down the middle pretty much with two auto’s and two jerseys (that’s what I pulled) and there is the usual mix of good players and midline common skaters.

Now on with the crappy photos.




Three stacks of Platinums.
1 Green # to 5
10 Blue # to 250
32 Red # to 999




The inserts

Mirror Gold Brad Richards 5/25
Mirror Red Zack Boychuk 158/250
Masked Marvels Blue Ondrej Pavelec 59/100
Masked Marvel Regular Steve Valiquette 434/500
Certified Champions Nicklas Lidstrom 236/500



The Hit's Part One

Marc-Andre Fleury Certified Champions Jersey Card 59/99
Derek Roy Blue Mirror Jersey Card 63/100




The Hits Part II

Michael Cammalleri Mirror Signature 14/25
Justin Mercier Mirror Freshman Signatures 100/250

The Hopeful Chase Three Stars of the Box

3. Justin Mercier Signature - Youngplayer and on card autograph
2. Brad Richards Gold Mirror - Former Lightning, Shiny and numbered to 25
1. Marc-Andre Flurey Champions - nicely designed card of Pittsburgh Netminder

I rate the box a second line winger. (again these rankings have no basis in reality).

Why is it?

I always have computer issues when my eBay auctions end? I finally gave in and laid the big honkin' HP notebook to rest. It did well for me, but the days of lugging around a 17" screen laptop are over with.

Now I have a nice little netbook. Lite and sleek I'm the coolest kid in the coffee shop, well the coolest kid on the couch anyway. This is just a test post to see how typing is with the smaller keyboard. My fingers, being anything but dainty, seem to be adjusting well.

Hopefully, with the frustration of dealing with spotty computer performance a thing of the past, I'll be posting more often.

That is all. Now back to the All Star Game.

Trade Bait! Rays' Retro Relic

So it's been awhile since I've dangled any trade bait. Mainly because I've got no cards to trade with me in Chicago. Well, and the fact that I don't have much money to pick anything up.

Today, being a hum-drum, rainy/sunny/rainy kind of Sunday, was just the type of day to hop on the Western bus and check out Tim's card shop. I browsed a bit, found some '73 O's I didn't have and wavered on picking up a box of Chicle.

In the case he had this nice looking card - knowing there are some Rays collectors out there I figured what the heck.



It's a 2010 Evan Longoria Heritage relic. Since I wavered in the direction of buying the box of Chicle he gave me a good price on the card. So whoever can come up with a nice offer can have it. I'm thinking something along the lines of a Carl Crawford relic/auto or an Oriole relic/auto.

Since I don't have a scanner yet I stole the image from some guy on eBay - so thanks random eBay auction guy.

Hope this Sunday is finding everyone well! Oh and I pulled my first legitimate 1/1 from the box of Chicle. Details of the break coming sometime in the near future.