Working On Some Sets

We made a stop at our local card shop the other day between kids basketball games and actually spent some time sifting through hockey singles.  Yes, that right.  I said hockey singles.  As in, the LCS, which is located in the United States, outside of Chicago, had singles of hockey cards...for sale...and not as part of a huge collection.  It's true that odds are usually better to find a unicorn in a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, instead of hockey singles, but I digress.

In all, we grabbed about 94 cards that covered set needs, player collection needs, and some other interesting collection adds.

Just thought I would share some of what we found.

First, shockingly there was a significant pile of 2009-10 Champ's cards, mostly the minis.  This was the second year Upper Deck released the Champ's set and I think it was the best version.  These aren't found very often.  Even at shows that I've attended where there are actually dealers with significant amounts of hockey cards available, these are no where to be found other than the blue base cards.  Full boxes/cases have even somewhat dried up on the secondary market unless you want to pay about $100/box plus $10-30 shipping to get some.  But at this point, most of those boxes are duplicates for me.  So when I saw these, the list came out and off we went. 

I need quite a few of them still as I have been trying to build the base set including all the minis, as well as 1-100 in blue, green, red, and yellow (yellow animal variation too but that's a huge undertaking).  I have a few sitting in my COMC account waiting to be shipped but even after that, there are a lot that I need.  If you have any of these lying around that you don't need, check my setlist page and see if you may be able to help. 

We also found some of last years 2016-17 O-Pee-Chee base cards that we needed.  I have incomplete sets of O-Pee-Chee dating from 2006-07 thru this years set.  It's much easier to find full boxes of these but unfortunately, the last three that I have picked up have yielded nothing but duplicates.  In fact, even the high numbers in one of the boxes were all dupes. 

Also included here is a hodgepodge of Score, Black Diamond, Victory, and Prizm that knocked off a few needs. 

Trilogy singles are rare to find as well but for some reason, today was our lucky day.  The picture doesn't help much here but there was a significant pile of these.  You don't get many in a box, definitely not enough to polish off a base set.  Even two boxes (which we opened that year) didn't get us a base set.  We are just a few cards shy now.

Also in the picture are a few Young Guns from various years and a couple Rookie Anthology cards I still needed for some reason.  I can never remember if these are 2011 or 2012?

Finally, a few other interesting items we found.  Going back to the Champ's for a second, there were three colored back variations in the mix.  I don't actively pursue these but if I can find them either by accident or on purpose, I generally snatch them up for the right price.  Here we have one each of a Red (Mike Bossy), Green (Alexandre Burrows), and Blue (Frazer McLaren RC) back variation.

Also in the photo is a Brent Sopel 2010-11 Victory Black Variation card. The Blacks were next to impossible to pull from Victory, falling about 1:720 packs.  The rookies are even harder to come by.  Just check out the resale market on Ebay for these and you will see what I'm talking about.  An intro product by Upper Deck with the lowest price point, virtually worthless base cards, and the Black Parallels garner a buck or two just for commons.  I don't actively pursue these but if I find them, why not?   



As always...
CHECK MY SETLIST PAGE AND LETS DO SOME TRADING!

Trade Post & A "Sedin'ing"

Did you ever have one of those days?  You know the ones I'm talking about.  That was today.  So when I came home to find a nice giant yellow envelope in my maibox, it seemed the bad day would turn into a nice evening.  But then this happened...

For the sake of straining your eyes on my crappy webcam picture taking abilities, let me translate.  That says "? Baseball Has Bip.  Hockey Has..."  What the heck could that mean?  You can't Bip someone with non-baseball cards, can you?  Has it been done before?  I don't know.  But certainly not to me.  What did I do to anyone?  But there really couldn't be anything too horrible in here, could there?

 

I have one word...Payback.  Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow.  But it will come.  You are lucky your package has already been sealed up and I don't really feel like re-opening it.

So on to what I really wanted to show.  The rest of what was in here.  I got some major dentage to my 2009-10 Champs set.  Here we have a bunch of Red and Green parallels that I needed. 

What Champs trade would be complete without some minis.  Here are a few that I needed from my list.

Also, there were a bunch of 2011 Topps Baseball that I needed.  I kind of gave up on this set a while ago because I really didn't feel like picking up any more packs/boxes.  Also, with all the great hockey releases that continued to come out throughout the year, baseball became sort of an after thought.  Here are a few.  I know they look blurry but you get the point.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't mention the O-Pee-Chee cards that were in there.  We had some from 2008 and some from 2009.  As you can see, the majority were rookies, including a Carey Price Marquee Rookie.  Very nice stuff. 

Thanks for the cards, Nick.  The evening turned out pretty well after all.  Despite the "bipping" the cards are all a welcomed addition to the set needs.  I have your package ready to go so be on the look out.  I also have some ideas for a future package. 

Just remember...You started it.

A New Collecting Endeavor - - Taste the Rainbow

I wasn't big on the Champs sets of Upper Deck over the last few years.  I figured it was just a novelty set that would eventually go away because hockey collectors weren't like baseball collectors.  They wouldn't drool and fawn all over a "retro" themed set in the spirit of Allen & Ginter, would they?  Of course they would.

Fast forward to last year.  I picked up a box.  Then another.  Then a blaster.  Then some packs.  Then...you get the point.  At any rate, it took three boxes just to get a complete base set (partially because I traded away about 50 base cards before I realized I was insane) but it made me start to actually like it.  I built the base set, traded off a ton more, started to collect the mini's, and traded off a bunch more of the non-player mini's.  I then tried a second base set for whatever reason only to trade that one off too.  I don't know what it is about the design but I got hooked on it.

So I have decided to "taste the rainbow" and collect the four color parallels: blue, green, red, and yellow.  Originally, I only wanted to do that for the Pens players but the bug has got to me.  With only 100 cards, you would think it would be easy but it's not.  Blue is done.  Green is only about half.  Red...not even close.  Yellow...don't get me started (or do get me started).  I keep seeing these in bunches on Ebay.  Unfortunately, the ones that keep popping up are the ones I already have.

I'm also still trying to polish off the mini's.  I just picked up a bunch of Tobacco sized pages so we will see how that looks in a book.  The Yellow Animal Variation is just against my best judgment so we will leave that one out for now.  Also, the various red, blue, and green back mini's have no place in here either.  That goes for you too, Wonders of the World, World Leaders, and weird prehistoric animals and plants.

So off I go, collecting another set that I will most likely never finish.  But, in my defense, it will be fun trying to build it.  Right now I have about 30 or so doubles of the mini NHL players and a ton of doubles in the base too.  If you have something you would like to contribute or want to trade something here check my needs on the SET NEEDS page and let me know. 

Box Break - - 2009-10 Champs (cont.)

Ok so I figured the scanner stupidity out and was able to get some better shots of some of the cards.  Since I already went over the break down in the previous post, I am going to show some of what came out of the box.

First up are the base.  All of the base cards have a blue border.  As I already stated, they have the retro feel, kind of contrived, but still cool. 

(Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Evgeni Malkin)

There are also a few different colored parallels, including Turquoise, Red, and Yellow.

(Scotty Bowman-Turquoise, Drew Doughty-Red, Ryan Getzlaf-Yellow)

Each pack contained 2 mini cards.  There are also color back variations of these.  Some that were in my box included:

(Marc-Andre Fleury, Bobby Hull, Brian Gionta - Blue Back Parallel)

Some of the "chase cards" that were included were:

(William McKinley - Historical Figures; Natural History Cards - Daspletosaurus, Aublysodon, Common Raven; Wonders Of the World - Palau, Paricutin Volcano)

Here are my 4 "HITS" that I received.  Unlike some of the other breaks I have seen, I actually got three GU and one auto instead of two and two. Unfortunately, they are not the best, although the Robinson is kind of cool.

Overall, my break came out close to what the sell sheet suggested.  I would have preferred 2 autos instead of the extra GU but that is ok.  The chase cards came out as expected with 3 HF cards, 2 WotW cards, and 5 NH cards.  Again, the mini's came 2 per pack and I did get the 1 parallel color back.  The other base color variants came out with 1 yellow, 3 reds, and 4 turquoise. Oh, and I also got this,

along with 5 other mini rookies (1 more than expected).  It is my first Hedman from any product this year.  I like it.  Still not sure if I am going to put this together.  It would be fun but I have a feeling it will be expensive.

Box Break - - 2009-10 Champs Hockey

Puck Junk beat me to it but I am going to post my Champs box that I got from the Sun-Times show a few weekends ago anyway.

I didn't buy any Champs last year because I thought it was a little too gimmicky for my taste.  I did pick up a few Pens I mean, who wants cards with dinosaurs on them?  Well apparently a lot of people.  For those non-hockey collector's out there, I can only compare champs to the likes of A&G in baseball.  It has the old-time feel of the early 20th century cards and features a slew of mini tobacco-esque style cards.  The draw to these has been the variants on parallels such as different color combination's and back printing, as well as the chase sets including the prehistoric creatures.  I just always thought the chance at pulling a real live fossil out of a pack was a little over the top (I really meant fossil, not another Gordie Howe tribute card)

Well this year was different.  Something about the previews Upper Deck released over a month ago caught my eye and I still haven't figured out what it was.  I decided that if I couldn't find the 1 box I have been looking for (ITG: 1972 The Year In Hockey) that this was going to be the one.  For $65 from the guys at Dave & Adam's Cardworld, I was on board. 

20 packs/box
5 cards/ pack
2 Mini Cards/pack

Guarantees:
4 Autos or GU cards:

• 1-2 Mini Signatures/box
• 2 Mini Threads/box

5 Mini Rookies (1:4)
10 Mini "Chase" cards (Wonders of the World, Natural History, or Historical Figures)
1 "Color Variation Back" Mini parallel
8 "Color Variation" Regular parallel


You can also pull case hits here that include 1 "Museum Piece" card that features those fossils and bones I already discussed, 2 Hall of Legends GU cards, 1-2 Mini Rookie Parallels, 4 Regular size Animal Icons, and 7 "Color Variant" Mini parallels.  Like I said, lots of stuff to chase.

I tried to scan this stuff but there is something screwy with the scanner.  So here is a quick pic.  You can see the design of the base cards is blue with the washed vintage feel to it.  The players photo is bordered by the wicked step-mother "mirror-mirror" and there is a crossed-stick masthead, only at the bottom of the card.  I will say, I am not impressed however I do kind of like these.  They are probably my favorite vintage/throwback/retro set since Topps Heritage earlier in the decade.  Bobby Clarke in the first pack.  I guess this is another set with a bunch of retired superstars and HOFers.

The mini's look very similar to last years and there are a bunch of different variations.  Here are the two that came from the first pack.  The nice mountainous landscape and terrain behind Brassard really does remind me of...Columbus, Ohio.


I will post more of this one later.