New Tangradi PC Cards

Yes, that's right.  I'm still collecting Eric Tangradi cards.  The Winnipeg Jets winger that has spent more time off the ice than on this year is still part of my personal collection.  I remember posting a loooonnnnggg time ago about Tangradi's first goal as a Jet.  That was so long ago now and he only has one other to match.  He has played in 36 games so far this year, has 4 points and when healthy, has been relegated to 7-10 min of TOI as a 4th liner.

Despite all that, I still think he's got potential.  It's in there somewhere.  It has to be.  It's just buried under the dark memories of that vicious elbow he took at the hands of Trevor Gillies way back in 2011.  Eric just needs to get healthy, forget the demons, get more aggressive, and start putting pucks on the net.  Yeah, just like that.  Easy.

Ok, enough of me trying to convince myself this is still a good idea.  Here are some recent additions to my Tangradi collection (six months ago still counts as recent).

 2010-11 Certified Freshman Signatures Mirror Emerald #/5

I figured I'd start with the big one.  I even scanned the back so you can see.  It's the Mirror Emerald version of the Certified Freshman Signatures card.  I have been hunting for this for years.  I only have ever seen one and it was being sold by a dealer for a ridiculous amount of money.  Patience paid off and I was able to successfully bid this one into my collection a few months back.  It's hard to see since I didn't scan this but instead opted for a phone photo.  I'll show my "rainbow" at the bottom of this post just for fun.

 2013-14 O-Pee-Chee Red Border Redemption Parallel

This is the Red Border parallel, for those not in Canada, and was part of Upper Decks' wrapper redemption program.  This year was the second year they offered Canadian collectors the opportunity to obtain a pack of six cards in exchange for 50 hobby wrappers at any Upper Deck Diamond Certified Dealer.  Because they were only available in Canada, obviously these are harder to come by in the states...unless you do Ebay.  Which I do.  And that's why I have it.  So there.

2010-11 SP Game Used Authentic Rookies Gold #/50

Here is the SP Game Used rookie of Eric.  I know I have shown this card before but I don't think I have ever shown a Gold version.  I picked this up for way less than I was prepared to spend so it was definitely a win for me.  I have the base version #/699, the Spectrum #/10 and now this.  The only one missing in the proverbial "rainbow" is the Gold Spectrum #/1.  I've never seen it and am not sure if it has been unearthed yet.

 2013-14 Panini Titanium Game Worn Gear (white swatch)

This is the newest, as in release date, card for my PC.  This comes from the just released 2013-14 Panini Titanium release and is a Game-Worn Gear card.  The swatch is white, boring I know, but it just adds to the ever-growing pile of Tangradi jersey's in my collection.  I have seen this also in black and I am in the process of obtaining at least one of those as well.

Eric's cards cooled off after his rookie season with Pittsburgh, mostly because he was relegated to Wilkes-Barre/Scranton and didn't get a lot of big team ice time.  The Pens were deep and I don't fault them for unloading Eric when they did.  He has played more in Winnipeg so his cards have began to pop back up in the deeper releases.  He's up to 199 cards now that I know of.  In 2013-14 alone, he has added another 11 cards.  One of these days I'll get around to updating my wantlist/checklist for Mr. Tangradi.  I'm also looking to add some items, other than cards, to my ET collection.  Stay tuned for that.

Oh, I almost forgot.  I was going to show my "rainbow" of Freshman Signature cards.  The only one I am missing is the Black version #/1.  Again, like the Gold Spectrum Game Used, I have never seen one of these so I don't know if anyone has ever released one into the wild.  Here you go.

 In order from left to right...base (silver), red, blue, gold, emerald

Here's a better shot at the colors...

And finally the backs where you can see the serial numbering.  Like I said, the only one missing is the Black.

If you can read the back of this card, you can see he was a beast back when he played for Belleville in the OHL.  Hopefully someday he can get back to a semblance of himself.  Maybe then I can retire off this collection.  Stop laughing.

Super Mario Brothers

No, not those mustachio'd fellows created by Nintendo.

These that I'm about to show.

I gave myself a Christmas present during the Black Friday card sales last year.  Most of the boxes I picked up were opened.  But there were three or four that I left in the shipping box.  Why?  I don't really know.  I think I was going to save them for some reason or another.  But after opening the one box of 2011-12 Parkhurst Champions and pulling this guy...the itch to open the other box I picked up has been strong.  Surely I wouldn't be lucky enough to get two Tier A autographs in back-to-back boxes, would I?

Well the urge finally overwhelmed me the other night and I had no choice but to tear the cellophane and dive in.  I will preface the rest by saying that I did not, in fact, find any other Tier A autos.  Let's get that out of the way first.  But I did get something special.

Let me start by showing the family of Mario cards that came out of this box.  I was intrigued when I realized all of these were in the same box.

2011-12 Parkhurst Champions Mario Lemieux base card (w/ horrible scan job)

2011-12 Parkhurst Champions Mario Lemieux B&W Renditions SP (w/ nice scan job)

2011-12 Parkhurst Champions Mario Lemieux Wire Photo (w/ eh, scan job)

 2011-12 Parkhurst Champions Mario Lemieux Mini SP (w/ beautiful scan job)

Oh, and I can't forget...the whole reason I made this post in the first place was to show off the other Mario that was in this box.  

Any guesses?

No?

Well if you said it was a card that has the odds of falling about 1:2,560 packs, you guessed correctly.

Nestled away in one of the last packs was this beauty...

 2011-12 Parkhurst Champions Mario Lemieux Mini SP Parkhurst Back Variation 

(w/ crappy scan job on the back)

Now, I'm not one to brag but...who am I kidding?  Yes I am.

Things I've learned:

A) Never count out any box because of the perceived impossibility (improbability) of odds.

B) My scanner generally sucks and I hate it but I'm not keen on replacing it at the moment.

C) I now want more boxes of these.  I'm sick.

I don't really know what to do with all the duplicate base cards but I'm sure I can figure something out.  NO, you can't have this card.  But, does anyone need cards for this set?  Would anyone like an most of, if not an entire base set?  Let me know.

New PC Cards, Rare Ones Too

So I hinted last week in my three-card PC post that I had some bigger pull-type cards on their way for my PC.  Well they arrived.

As most people know, I have an Eric Tangradi personal collection that I started back in 2010 when he was a prospect in the Penguins organization.  Now that he is with Winnipeg, I still actively chase the missing links that I don't have. 

The problem for me has always been that I am aware of at least a half-dozen other Tangradi collectors.  This poses a problem when searching for cards on the auction sites.  I can't tell you how many times I have gotten into a bidding war with someone and ended up overpaying for a card just because the demand was there (or lost at the last second or just got bid right out of the auction). 

One of those collector's periodically puts up many of his/her rarer cards, assuming to test the market.  Up to this point, I have only ever seen them listed for BIN numbers reaching in the ridiculously high stratosphere of values.  I have always watched them, but they have never ended with a sale.  A few weeks ago, some of these cards hit the Bay again, only this time, they were traditional auctions with starting prices of $.99.

It was on.

After all was said and done, I ended up winning 4 of the 6 auctions I bid on.  The other two just got too rich for my blood.  At any rate, I figured I would share.

2010-11 Certified Freshman Signatures Mirror Gold #/25

So with a tiered system in any card set, the ones numbered under 50 are next to impossible to find.  I have only seen this gold one pop up a couple times.  I was happy to bid and finally win this one.  I have the basic Silver #/899, the Red #/250, and the Blue #/100.  I just need the Emerald #/5 and the Black #/1.  I have actually found the Emerald recently and am working on procuring it.  We shall see. 

2010-11 Ultimate Debut Threads Signed Jersey #/50

This is another in a long line of "tiered" cards.  These were found as just jerseys, jersey autos, patches, patch autos, and I think there is a black version or something like that.  I know I have the regular Jersey #/200 and the Patch #/35 but I had never seen the jersey auto.  Never.  Maybe I just didn't pay good enough attention.  I did pay for the card though.  And now it's mine.

2010-11 Upper Deck Magenta Printing Plate #1/1

I believe this would be my tenth printing plate.  These never popped up at all a few years ago but then last year around summer time, I found quite a few.  The difference though was that they were all The Cup plates which feature the other releases by Upper Deck (ie. SP, SPx, Black Diamond, Arifacts, etc).  I didn't realize that the basic flagship set had it's own plates outside the realm of The Cup.  The card itself is made of metal (as most plates are) and you can see it on the back (although I didn't scan it).  The corners are rounded too.  There is a sticker identifying it as the actual plate, signed by our friend Richard P. McWilliam.
 

2010-11 Zenith Autograph

Finally I was able to get my hands on a Zenith auto.  These have popped up on a number of occasions but every time they have a BIN that is well out of my price range.  Not anymore.  This one set me back a whopping $3.  It is numbered out of #/99.  Unfortunately it's a sticker auto although the design of the card had the white space for signing. 

One of these days I will get around to updating my Tangradi page and checklist.  One of these days seems to be my mantra lately.

New Cards For The Tangradi PC

I have still been picking up Tangradi cards for my PC even though he is long gone from the Pens.  So far this year he has 1 point on 15 shots on goal.  Nothing to write home about but he has thus far only appeared in 11 games.

Just wanted to take a minute and share a few that have recently fallen in my hands.

2013-14 Artifacts Autofacts

So Artifacts has been out for a while and as most people know, the Autofacts cards are not a one per box kind of thing.  They say they fall about one per every three boxes but for some reason, there are a ton already on the secondary market.  When these first hit the shelves, I was bidding feverishly on the Tangradi's that I would see pop up because I knew that other than OPC, he wouldn't get a lot of exposure in this year's products.  So I bid.  And lost.  Bid again.  And lost.  Continuing over, and over again.  Finally, I found a multitude of $.99 auctions with this card and bid on all of them because at this point, odds were that I'd get at least one of them, right?  Well my plan backfired.  Instead of winning one of them, I won FIVE!!

2013-14 O-Pee-Chee Black Rainbow

The same scenario as the Autofacts card above went for this one too.  I didn't want to pay more than a few dollars for this and once some of these auctions got over five, I bowed out.  But finally I won one (not five) and all is well with the world.  

2010-11 Donruss Rated Rookie Autograph

For as prevalent as 2010-11 Donruss was, and still is, this card has eluded me repeatedly.  In fact, I have been monitoring Ebay auctions since I decided to start collecting ET and this card has only come up FIVE times that I can remember.  Each time, the owner wanted an extraordinary dollar value on a BIN price.  I watched these auctions close with no bids and no sales over and over again.  But finally, someone posted a regular auction starting at $.99.  That's how you do it.

That was it for now, just three cards.  I have recently snatched up some BIG ones for the collection from another Tangradi collector that occasionally pops up online.  They are low numbered ones with a 1 of 1 thrown in for good measure.  Once I get those in hand and scanned, I will be sure to share those

...TO BE CONTINUED.

New PC Addition

Just thought I would share a one card post of my latest PC card for my Eric Tangradi collection.  Most of you know that he went to the Jets this past season but I still think he has the potential to make an impact in the NHL.  Now in Winnipeg, he will at least get the opportunity for a couple more years.  He signed with the Jets for two more years for about $1.3 million. 

Anywho.....

Here is my latest card.  It's graded, but I don't care.  I wanted a high grade Young Guns card and now I have one. 

Huge Bill Guerin For The PC

Huge I tells ya!!  HUGE!!

Well if you are thinking I pulled some sick, monster, mojo hit then you would be wrong.  If you were thinking I scored some super-rare, rookie, auto, patch, DNA sample card you would also be wrong.

What I did get was in fact huge though.  As in size.

The auction that I bid on said that this was a 2006-07 Upper Deck BAP Dual Signatures of Bill Guerin and Doug Weight.  Here was the auction picture of the card.  Other than the full bleed to the edge on all sides, I didn't really notice anything different about this one. 

Then a 9x12 padded mailer showed up at my door.  I wondered what it could have been since I hadn't ordered anything that large or bought any lots that may have to be packaged that way.  Once I opened it, I realized that this was no ordinary card.  It is an 8x10 sized card, almost like a photo. 

Here it is against my computer monitor to give you an idea of the size (although you can still see Wayne's giant forehead behind them).

The "card", if you can call it that, is pure awesomeness.  For one, it is a dual auto of two great role players.  Second, it shows Billy G in a St. Louis uniform.  His stint with the Blues was short lived and there are not a lot of cards out there with him wearing Blues digs.  And finally, its another card I don't have in my Billy G. collection.

Stuff...Both Random And PC Related

I've been hard pressed for time and hard pressed for ideas as of late.  With the NHL season winding down and the 2nd season getting ready to start, the NFL draft the last couple days, and both my kids playing baseball this year, I'm more interested in watching the sports rather than blogging about them.

But I'll throw a bone to my readers just to let them know I'm still alive. 

The following are some newer additions to the old collection.  There are a few PC cards in there, a couple intentional and one by accident.  Enjoy the digital cardboard for your eyes.

First, I am unofficially collecting the 2012-13 Panini Classics Signatures autos as I have already mentioned here and in my original box break post.  Here are a few more I have received from successful bidding.

Here we have Cliff Ronning, who played the better part of six seasons with Vancouver in his 18 year career and Rod Langway, one of the last "grandfathered" players to play without a helmet.  Langway definitely doesn't get the credit he deserves as he played on some pretty awful Capitals teams.  But he did get a Cup while with Montreal in 1979.   

I also picked up this nifty Jethro auto.  Both Gillies and Langway were enshrined in the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2002.  Ronning isn't but with over 300 goals, over 800 points, he might very well get the nod someday.


I picked up this nice Bill Guerin.  I already had this OPC Retro Parallel but this one is the "Blank Back" version.  These are hard to find so I figured I better strike while the iron was hot.

Here is the front and the back of the card.  Although, I don't know why I'm showing the back.  That blank cardboard could be anything.  I could be lying to all of you.  I'm not, but I could be.  At any rate, I can cross off another elusive Guerin card from my list.

I'll be featuring this over on my autograph project blog too but I figured I would give it a shout out now.  This is a 2002-03 Upper Deck Trilogy Script Autograph of Brooks Orpik.  The long-time defensive mainstay for the Penguins was a scratch in tonight's romping of the Hurricanes but will be firing on all cylinders for the playoffs...I hope.  This was/is the first auto I have of Mr. Orpik.  He has kind of a lazy signature but it is still recognizable somewhat.

This card has no real bearing on anything for my collections.  I don't collect Fuhr.  I'm not a Blues fan.  I'm not even a goalie hoarder.  I found this card in a box of football cards that were in The Garage (which has subsequently become The Storage Locker).  I found it interesting because I have some of these and they only have a small "chip" down on the bottom where the Champion Salute ring is.  This one was different though.  The "chip" is much bigger, sticks up much higher, and basically makes this card not fit in a normal top loader.  Turns out...It's a PROMO.  I'm going to guess these were giveaways at various shows and events by Pinnacle back in the late 90s.  Either that or they were given to dealers as samples.  Regardless, I thought it was interesting so I figured I would share.

This scan isn't very good but you can at least see what it is.  This is another in a long line of 1/1 Tangradi Printing Plates I have been pursuing.  This is my 9th printing plate from The Cup set.  This happens to be the Black plate from the SPA set from that year.  I have the magenta already.  In fact, of all of my plates, I have 2 magenta, 2 cyan, and 5 black.  Not a single yellow to be found yet.  I'll keep looking.  If you want to check out all of them together, you can go to my main web site and my Wall of Tangradi.


So after winning an auction online, waiting a couple weeks for Canadian snail mail, and opening my package, I was pleased to find a bonus pack of 2011 National Hockey Card Day cards.  They were, of course, the Canadian version, of which I have none (except maybe the Crosby).  Lets see what was in there...

We have a "Rookies" card of Jordan Eberle, which wasn't such a bad thing.  I don't know if it can really be considered a real "rookie" per se since this wasn't a major release.  I don't mind though.  We also pulled a "Heroes" subset card of Wayne Gretzky.  Not a bad looking shot of Wayne here.  I don't know why he is staring over there at the side panel of the blog.  Maybe he wants you to go click on some other blogs to read?

There were also these two "Pride" cards of Roberto Luongo and Jason Spezza.  I don't know how these slipped my radar because I really like the design pattern Upper Deck used.

And finally, the accidental PC card that I mentioned...

I don't know about any of you, but Mario looks tired on this picture.  Must be a combination of the cancer and the back issues.  Right now, he's looking at the giant Diet Mt. Dew can on my desk.  I know you want a drink of this Mario.  But you can't.  This is mine. 

New Tangradi PC Addition: ROXX!

A little while back (a few weeks ago) I put a bid in on a Tangradi item that I had never seen before.  It wasn't a card.  It wasn't a piece of memorabilia.  It wasn't a photo autograph or anything of the sort.  What I placed a bid on was this...

(This is my attempt at scanning the item.  As you can see, not so successful.)

This, my friends, is what is known as a ROXX (As "a" ROXX? Or "as" ROXX?  I don't know).

ROXX are manufactured by a company called TCG (or The Canadian Group) and were released last year in Canada with the NHL endorsement.  Here in the states, we now have our own version of ROXX only they are what the company calls, "edgy, collectible game pieces featuring unique art in diverse themes that appeal to school-age and tween boys, including skate, hip hop, grunge, humor, super heroes, action figures and much more."  Apparently, these are supposed to be modeled after the so-called "street game" of Skully.  I can't really speak to that because until I read that on their website, I never heard of Skully (other than Fox Mulder's partner). I will take their word for it.

(Here is a better shot of the item.  This is the auction scan.  Yes, I stole it, but I'm acknowledging that.)

But what they did remind me of was everyone's favorite alternative game of the 1990s...POGS!!  As it turns out, one of the partners in TCG, Michael Albert, is one of the marketing geniuses behind the once $50 million POG business.  For those of you too young to remember (or those too old to care), POGS was a game that was played using round discs (POGS) with all sorts of colors, themes, and marketing ploys to get parents to purchase more for their ungrateful children.  No one is really sure where the game originated (some say Hawaii, some say Japan) but essentially it started with juice bottle caps back in the 1920s or 30s.  After laying dormant for 60-70 years, the fad took off in the 1990s with major popularity, and huge profits for many of the manufacturing companies.

(Here is the back of the item.  You can see the copyright of 2012.)

I'm not sure what these retail for or where you can find them because, well, I don't live in Canada.  Maybe some of my awesome Canadian audience can enlighten the rest of us.  What I can tell you is they sell for a buck or two on the secondary market all the way up to double digits for some of the more "rare" pieces.  You can go to www.ROXXNATION.com to find out more about the checklist and see if your favorite NHLer was included.  But chances are, they were.

The checklist features 243 of what are called "Classic" ROXX, 71 Rare "Starzz" "Cage Masters" and "Trophy Winners" ROXX, 36 Ultra Rare "Starzz" and "Original 6" ROXX, and 30 Limited Edition "Starzz" ROXX which are a metallic gold color around the name area.  Essentially the LE ones are the same as the Ultra Rare ones but without the Original 6 pieces.

I think the scans do a good job of showing what these look like.  Essentially, they are small (the size of a 50 cent piece [remember those?]) disc-like objects.  They remind me of a good skipping rock you would find on a beachfront somewhere.  They almost have a "flying saucer" type shape to them with thin sides and bulging in the middle.  At first I thought there was something wrong with the back of mine with that white "stressed plastic" type crease in it.  Upon further investigation, that's the glare off the graphic of the hockey puck.  See, it pays to be observant. 

I'm not going to nitpick on these here (well actually I am) but I want to point out one thing about this Tangradi piece.  If you notice on the front under his name, it says "Rookie/Recrue", indicating that Mr. Tangradi is a rookie.  However, these were manufactured in 2012, supposedly beginning last summer.  At that point, Tangradi had already played 1 game in 2009-10, 15 games in 2010-11, and another 24 games in 2011-12.  I would hardly consider that to be a rookie piece.  I'm not sure how many others in the checklist have the same treatment but I'm not liking that because it makes it seem like these should be older than they are.  Not nitpicking.  I swear.

I think these are sort of neat but I won't be trying to collect all 380 of the NHL ones, partly because they just don't store very well, the other part being that I don't live in Canada (that's a theme of this post).  I wouldn't mind putting together all the Pens but that would require some work.  If any readers out there have any of the Penguin ones and want to trade for something, let me know. 

Some new PC love

I posted about my EPIC Pirate card the other day that I just added to my PC.  But that isn't the only thing I have been adding.  I have increased all four of my player PCs and Team PCs by about 100 cards (total not each) or so over the last few weeks.  Here are just a few to show some PC love...

The new CORNERSTONE of my Bill Guerin collection is this Be A Player Autograph of Bill Guerin.  As you can all see, Billy G is sporting his holiday best in his NHLPA Bauer sweater and matching Santa hat.  While not the most scare of his autos and certianly not the most valuable, I have wanted this card since I started collecting Guerin.  Why?  Just look at it.  It's freakin' cool!  Billy G is still young (I think this was still with the Devils), he looks goofy (possibly drunk), and he's wearing a Santa hat.  Did I mention he is wearing a Santa hat?

I have been sort of "hawking" many of the young stars in the Penguins system as of late.  I am not sure why since I started my Eric Tangradi collection about a year ago and he has still to crack the lineup on a permanent basis.  Brian Strait here as well as Joe Vitale saw a lot of ice time last season, especially Vitale.  These guys are pieces to the puzzle for the future development of the team.  We will see how well they fare this season (IF THERE IS A SEASON!! DAMNIT!!). 

I also found this nifty dual auto Simon Despres and Joe Vitale Titanium card you see here below.  These are numbered out of 50 and are sticker autos.  Unfortunately for me, the Despres was signed off the sticker so his signature is kind of cut up.

I picked up another Billy G auto as well.  This is another Be A Player auto from the Millenium Signature Series.  This is a Gold Parallel version of the auto, or at least I thought it was until I realized that all the autos in this set are gold.  Boy did I feel stupid.  Either way though, it is a nice card with a nice graph.

Here are a couple of James Neal cards.  I haven't officially made him a part of my PC yet but I have been considering it.  What irks me is that ever since they did the James Neal NHL:36 special, the fact that he has exploded production-wise on the line with Malkin and Kunitz, and the fact he is in a bunch of product from 2008 on up, his cards are selling way higher than they should.  Lot's of bandwagonners out there I guess. 

The one on the right is from the 08-09 Ovation set.  It looks kind of like Artifacts too which is strange.  I don't recall if I had any of these but looking back, it's probably because they were issued 50 cards per tin and sold in retail stores.  The one of the left is another Yellow Parallel from 2009-10 Champs.  Only, look close above the crossed sticks.  See those?  Those are Kudo Antelopes.  They look like deer with curly horns.  This is the Yellow Animal Parallel version and was seeded about 1:80 packs, a hard pull indeed. 

This came out of a pack, which came out of a hobby box of 2012-13 Score that I picked up from some dealer online who I can't even remember anymore.  It was either D&A Cardworld or that fairly new site WizWorldDeals.  Either way, I bought three boxes of these, thinking I would make a considerable dent in finishing a base set with rookies.  Oh, how wrong I was.  Out of three hobby boxes (which logically thinking would have came from the same case) I am still over 200 cards short.  Pathetic if you ask me.  But now I have lots of doubles, including this guy right here.  This card sort of reminds me of the old Dream Team cards from Score...or even the Bo Jackson from 1990.

What PC post would be complete without mention of a couple Mario Lemieux cards.  Both of these came from hobby boxes of the newly minted 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee.  The best set is back once again to torture me and take up valuable space on my Set Needs page.  Here we have the Mario Pop-Ups card which seem to fall one per box but I have seen some, including one of my own, result in two or three.  The other card is the Marquee Rookie Legend SP Silver Shiny Foilmajig.  It isn't black so there is no serial number but definitely a much harder pull than the other basic foil parallels.  Love those retro yellow sweaters with matching helmets.  They have to bring those back.

And last but not least is this Donrus...er...Panini Elite Series Gold Foil Sidney Crosby.  So many scratches and dust particles show up in this scan that it really looks ugly here.  In reality, this card is pretty sweet.  It's also nice to see a recent card of Sid where the picture chosen isn't one of him sporting his splotchy playoff beard growth.