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.

US Hockey Hall Of Fame Elects Bill Guerin

(My favorite Bill Guerin photo on cardboard)

One of my favorite all time players and subject of one of my player personal collections, Bill Guerin was elected to the USA Hockey Hall of Fame in its 2013 induction class which is both an honor and well deserved accomplishment.

Now a player development coach for Pittsburgh, Billy G. is probably the most accomplished American-born player that hasn't already been enshrined in the Hall.  Take a look at a snapshot of his career.

1. Played for 18 years in the NHL; for 8 NHL teams.
2. 2 Stanley Cups (Devils in 1995, Penguins in 2009).
3. 4-time NHL All Star; including MVP in 2001.
4. 2-time World Cup participant; Gold Medal for Team USA in 1996 World Cup.
5. 3-time Olympian; Silver Medal for Team USA in 2002 Olympics.
6. Hockey East Championship in 1989-90 for Boston College.
7. 13 seasons of scoring 20+ goals.
8. 13th All-Time for US-born players in points with 856.
9. 8th All-Time for US-born players in power play goals with 130.
10. 7th All-Time for US-born players in goals with 429.
11. 4th All-Time for US-born players in game winning goals with 77.

That last one is significant to Pens fans that remember Game 2 of the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals against cross-state rival Philadelphia.

Congratulations to Bill Guerin and his family!  Keep up the great work you do for hockey and the Penguins organization.

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.

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. 

Card Show Recap - - Sun Times Sports Spectacular

Every trip to a card show should be accompanied by some collecting goals.  Otherwise, it becomes just a melee of ridiculous purchases and time spent ogling things you have no intention of ever acquiring for you collection.  A couple weeks ago now, I made my bi-annual trek out to Rosemont, Ill. to take in the sites at the (eh, em) 46th Annual Chicago Sun-Times Sports Collectibles Convention.  Considering this happens twice a year, I'm not sure you can call this an "annual" event.  Bi-annual maybe?  What do I know?  I'm not a marketing guy.  At any rate, I picked Saturday to hit the show floor as there is never enough time on a Friday and Sunday just seems too rushed.

(Check out this link from the Herald to see a few pictures of the show)

As I said, you need a game plan at these shows.  The sheer amount of dealer tables, merch vendors, industry businesses, and memorabilia peddlers can be overwhelming when you consider the 220,000 square feet of show floor these things take up (and that was the small hall).  The National will be here too this year but we will save that for later.

So my goals on this trek...

1. Pick up some set needs to try and knock out an incomplete set or two.  Never an easy task considering many of the "common" tables have very large men parked two deep in chairs, actively engaged in a feeding frenzy over all the $.10 cards they can get their greasy fingers on.  This will require strategy and cunning unlike has ever been seen (not really but you have to have some flare for the dramatic otherwise it isn't interesting).

2.  Find some cards for my Player PCs (Guerin, Lemieux, Jagr, Tangradi [I doubt it] perhaps a footballer or two).  This is usually an easy one considering they guys I collect have a plethora of cards out there that I have been unable to acquire over the years.  I don't really think I will ever complete a comprehensive player list of any of these guys but as long as I keep collecting, I'm sure gonna try.

3.  Pick up some autographs for my Penguins project I started last year.  This is something that has always kind of just happened but was never a priority.  This time that changes as I have an extensive list of guys I need to cross off my roster. 

4.  Do some trading.  What fun would a show be without the aspect of the hobby we all love?  Not very.  That's why I spent the better part of my free time over the few days before the show, digging through wantlists of the collectors/bloggers I knew would be there.  Trading is my favorite part of the show.

5.  Pick up some cards for my Team PCs.  Again, this is usually an easy one as my teams of choice tend to be popular ones.  I try to get at least one cool card from each sport (hockey, baseball, and football) that I don't already have.  Keep in mind, cool is in the eye of the beholder.

6.  Bust some wax.  Usually I have a list of boxes that I am targeting, whether for set building or otherwise.  This time around, with many popular hockey releases cancelled, I don't really have a certain type in mind.  I will just see what has the best bang for my buck and go from there.

Let's see how we fared this time around.

1. Pick up some set needs to try and knock out an incomplete set or two.

In typical fashion, the cattle were a grazing.  Big Time!!  There wasn't space to be had at many tables, even just to take a peek at what was on them.  That makes for a long day when you are a set building on a quest for completion.  So instead, I stuck to the quarter, three for a dollar, and other discounted bins, hoping to find something, anything that will fill my goals.  As luck would have it, I was able to pick up quite a few cards from my Parkhurst Champions set I'm working on as well as a few Victory Rookies I still needed.

But the big score came during trading.  Guys knocked out my 4th complete base set for this years Upper Deck Series I and also contributed to numerous other sets.  I can successfully say that I completed a set (albeit a duplicate one).

2.  Find some cards for my Player PCs (Guerin, Lemieux, Jagr, Tangradi [I doubt it] perhaps a footballer or two). 

No brainer here.  I got a handful of Lemieux's, a handful of Jagr's, a couple Guerin's and one Bettis card for my secret, unpublished "Bus" collection.  I already showed every one the Jagr's the other day after he got his 1,000 career assist and the Lemieux cards too.  Here were the other's in case anyone wanted to see...oh, no?  No scans?  Ok, then.  Moving on.

3.  Pick up some autographs for my Penguins project I started last year.

Surprisingly, this came easy too.  I found two tables with cheap auto cards, mostly certified, and they had plenty o'Pens.  In fact, there was one table that I even put some back from my stack that I pulled because I felt like I was going overboard.  These will all be posted over on my Auto Project blog that you can get to from this link or over on the side panel.  I will say this though, I have 12 more players crossed off the master list.

4.  Do some trading.

Again, no brainer.  There is always at least one trade going to go down at these shows, assuming another trader will be there.  This time, there were three.  Unfortunately, I didn't know about the third until it was too late so I had nothing available for them.  Next time, though.  Trades at these shows goes something like this...I find a small-to-large stack of things from a persons want list, they find find things off my list, and we swap.  Nothing fancy, no book values, no worrying about who gets the better deal.  No pressure.  That's the way I like it.  I ended up with a bunch of stuff for my set lists including the final UD cards I already mentioned up there.  I also ended up with some other really cool things which will be posted about later.  Thanks to Sal & Nick for all the goodies.

5.  Pick up some cards for my Team PCs.

I picked up 6 Steeler cards, 2 Pirates, and a bunch of Pens stuff.  I would say that this goal was met in spades.

6.  Bust some wax.

Wax is obviously a misnomer nowadays.  But I will still call it that probably forever.  I didn't really have a target product this time around.  I had an idea of some things I would have liked to see at certain price points but all of it was high-end and none of it was in my budget.  What I did wrestle with and finally compromise on was a box of 12-13 Panini Classics Signatures, which I already posted about, a box of 11-12 Panini Rookie Anthology, which I already posted about, and a box of 11-12 ITG Between the Pipes which I haven't posted about but will in the near future.  All the boxes yielded some really nice stuff as you can see if you check out the box break reviews.  I was very fortunate and the breaks were a lot of fun.  

New Mario's For The PC

I picked up some Mario Lemieux cards at the last Sun Times show in Chicago.  I think I may have already had a bunch of them.  In fact, I'm almost sure of it but I don't care.  You can't have too many Mario's. 

I don't really have much else to say other than enjoy the scans.

This is just a parallel version of the one above.  It's known as "full length".

New PC Pickup

As some of you already know, I decided to hang onto my Eric Tangradi personal collection even though his time with the Penguins had expired.  He is now with the Winnipeg Jets and still hasn't really done much, being relegated to the Jets fourth line.  But all hope is not lost, as he finally scored his first goal since October 2010 against the Tampa Bay Lightning the other night.  Hopefully that is a sign of good things to come and with the Jets having an outside shot at making the playoffs, maybe he will get his shot at winning a permanent roster spot.  Who knows?

At any rate, I picked up a few new Tangradi's over the past month or two (although I probably have a ton since the last time I posted about them).  Here they are...

I have sort of updated my Eric Tangradi collection page over on the side panel.  If you want to check out my "Wall of Tangradi" click through that link and you will see some of that collection.

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. 

COBRA!!!!!

Since the Pirates have all but completely choked away their chances at a playoff berth, I figured I would show a new card for my PC of a former Pirate great. 

This guy has a World Series Championship, multiple batting titles, and a league MVP, a feat that no Pirate player has done since and probably never will for that matter.

I'm talking, of course, of the Cobra...Dave Parker.

Check this sweet little wonder out...

This is my first Parker auto in my somewhat respectable Pirates collection.  It is also my first bat card I believe too.  No, wait.  I take that back.  I have a Willie Stargell Bazooka bat relic card.  But still, this is the coolest.  I pulled it off Ebay, of course, and I think I got a steal on it.  I don't know card values per se but I do know what I like and the fin I forked out for this was more than worth it.  I would have paid triple that (or more).

The card is from the 2005 Donruss set.  It's a Diamond King Crowning Moment numbered out of 25.  I'm not a baseball guy so that's the best I could do with a set designation.  What is really cool about it is the fact that the border is raised up so it's almost like a shadow box effect on the card.  The picture on the card is actually a painting rendered by illustrator Don Ivan Punchatz, who is famous for his lengthy career as an artist of portraiture.  He's been featured in the Smithsonian as well as Cooperstown. 

The fact that there is the trifecta of memorabilia (auto, GU Jersey, GU bat) gives this card immediate EPIC status in my collection.  I'm pretty sure this is going out on display in my "sports museum".  I may write about that someday but for now, enjoy the awesomeness!!!

New PC Additions (Not Tangradi related)

That Sports Spectacular show from a few weeks ago that I talked about a week or so ago also yielded me a hefty pile of cards for my other player collections.  Without further adieu, I will just let the scans do the talking.  WARNING...THIS IS A PICTURE HEAVY POST.

First up, Bill Guerin.  Guerin cards are a rough find because unless they are autos or feature some dual memorabilia with a star player, no one really pulls these out to sell individually.  Hence, the quarter boxes tend to be where these come from.  I was able to pick up two cards that I'm pretty sure I didn't have at the time, but not I'm not so sure.  Either way, they are cool.

Next up is Jaromir Jagr.  I almost don't like myself for still wanting to collect his cards but here I am.  Here's what I got.  Most of these are new to the collection because they are all fairly recent.  I don't have a large selection of stuff from 2000 forward.  The older cards are mostly inserts.  Again, you gotta love Quarter Boxes.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally we have Mario Lemieux.  I haven't been through my Super Mario cards in a while so some of these may now be doubles.  But to you and the blog, they are new.  Check these out.

The Contenders card came out of a box I bought at the show.

 

 

 

 

These both came from Sal in a "trade".

 Now that the server has probably crashed due to the amount of graphics on this page, I bid you farewell.