deepbluejacket
Verified Trader,
This isn't going to be your typical show and tell with a lot of photos - you know what this set looks like. But if you collected this set, you may find some of the detail interesting.
First things first, no, I didn't pull a Stanley Cup Hologram. I'm now something like 0 for 30 lifetime. I have no idea what the odds are, but for me, it's worse than 30 to 1.
I also didn't pull any of the super rare errors nor any 'Stanley Cup' printing flaws, at least not on Aaron Broten. I haven't gone through everything in any great detail yet - we're talking about 23 x 36 x 15 cards! - so you never know, but I didn't see anything.
I would say this was a fairly late era case, but not absolute late because there were 6 corrected cards that I didn't get a single copy of. That said, there were some errors I didn't expect to see either.
Error Only: Ray Bourque, Kurri, Tonelli, Bellows, Horava, Ridley
Correct Only: Galley, Andreychuk, Arniel, Mullen, Nieuwendyk, Manson, Secord, Burr, Krushelnyski, Gillis, Bester, Fergus, McBain, Olausson, Patrick Trophy
Everyone else was a mix. Pulled just one McGill ERR and just two Corson AS COR. Not too many Phil Bourque COR. Of the recognized print variations, most of them showed up. Good mix of cards with clipped characters, both Nilan variants were out in force, 1-2 Kasper comma cards, and a large array of Schneider options.
Now some pictures.
Got two bleeding Ray Bourque, but not so extreme to completely obscure a letter, although part of the U is gone.
Got a wild Steve Thomas card where the ink from the wedge spilled out into the card. Looks like the card is torn, but it's intact.
A few Sean Burkes caught my eye. It looked like the pos and number were tinted yellow. There's definitely color, but not sure what caused it. Take a look at one side by side with a pure white.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to print variations. Even the staid Hartford Whalers have some oddities. Ulf Samuelsson has an accent mark over the A on a few cards much like the John Vanbiesbrouck accent over the U variant.
Now, when you open 20 boxes of Pro Set at once, you start to detect patterns. Ultimately, I was able to derive what Pro Set was doing. Why are there 405 cards in the set? Because it is divisible by 15, the number of cards in the pack. In fact, each 'slot' in the pack has 27 cards assigned to it. In a normal box, the same players will appear in the same spot every time. If the box gets fouled up and one of those slots appears twice at the expense of another slot, then you will not get those 27 cards. Some slots are very team-centric. If you lose the Pittsburgh slot, then you get 0 Penguins. I had three boxes that were Penguin-less.
If you're interested in the dispersion, I put it in a spreadsheet and I can send it to you. PM me with your e-mail address.
Pack with fewest amount of cards? 12
Pack with most amount of cards? A stunning 22
One pack had both Nilan variations in it (this pack was part of a box with a slot error)
Also broke 3 additional boxes from different sellers; these were early error boxes, but not early enough to pull in Gillis, Burr, or Krushelnyski. Mullen and Nieuwendyk errors in there. Also noted that any box with a Brett Hull promo card in it did not have a single Ray Bourque card and vice versa. They both share card #1.
One of the boxes was a 'bleeder'. The Oilers cards are very blue and some of that ink seemed to make its way on to other cards from other teams in consistent patterns such as Mogilny and Moog.
Pretty much everything is available. I wouldn't mind attempting to balance out some of the correct/errors. I still need these 'standard' variants for my own set:
Error: Burr, Krushelnyski, Gillis, Fergus
Correct: Bellows, Horava
Mike
First things first, no, I didn't pull a Stanley Cup Hologram. I'm now something like 0 for 30 lifetime. I have no idea what the odds are, but for me, it's worse than 30 to 1.
I also didn't pull any of the super rare errors nor any 'Stanley Cup' printing flaws, at least not on Aaron Broten. I haven't gone through everything in any great detail yet - we're talking about 23 x 36 x 15 cards! - so you never know, but I didn't see anything.
I would say this was a fairly late era case, but not absolute late because there were 6 corrected cards that I didn't get a single copy of. That said, there were some errors I didn't expect to see either.
Error Only: Ray Bourque, Kurri, Tonelli, Bellows, Horava, Ridley
Correct Only: Galley, Andreychuk, Arniel, Mullen, Nieuwendyk, Manson, Secord, Burr, Krushelnyski, Gillis, Bester, Fergus, McBain, Olausson, Patrick Trophy
Everyone else was a mix. Pulled just one McGill ERR and just two Corson AS COR. Not too many Phil Bourque COR. Of the recognized print variations, most of them showed up. Good mix of cards with clipped characters, both Nilan variants were out in force, 1-2 Kasper comma cards, and a large array of Schneider options.
Now some pictures.
Got two bleeding Ray Bourque, but not so extreme to completely obscure a letter, although part of the U is gone.
Got a wild Steve Thomas card where the ink from the wedge spilled out into the card. Looks like the card is torn, but it's intact.
A few Sean Burkes caught my eye. It looked like the pos and number were tinted yellow. There's definitely color, but not sure what caused it. Take a look at one side by side with a pure white.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to print variations. Even the staid Hartford Whalers have some oddities. Ulf Samuelsson has an accent mark over the A on a few cards much like the John Vanbiesbrouck accent over the U variant.
Now, when you open 20 boxes of Pro Set at once, you start to detect patterns. Ultimately, I was able to derive what Pro Set was doing. Why are there 405 cards in the set? Because it is divisible by 15, the number of cards in the pack. In fact, each 'slot' in the pack has 27 cards assigned to it. In a normal box, the same players will appear in the same spot every time. If the box gets fouled up and one of those slots appears twice at the expense of another slot, then you will not get those 27 cards. Some slots are very team-centric. If you lose the Pittsburgh slot, then you get 0 Penguins. I had three boxes that were Penguin-less.
If you're interested in the dispersion, I put it in a spreadsheet and I can send it to you. PM me with your e-mail address.
Pack with fewest amount of cards? 12
Pack with most amount of cards? A stunning 22
One pack had both Nilan variations in it (this pack was part of a box with a slot error)
Also broke 3 additional boxes from different sellers; these were early error boxes, but not early enough to pull in Gillis, Burr, or Krushelnyski. Mullen and Nieuwendyk errors in there. Also noted that any box with a Brett Hull promo card in it did not have a single Ray Bourque card and vice versa. They both share card #1.
One of the boxes was a 'bleeder'. The Oilers cards are very blue and some of that ink seemed to make its way on to other cards from other teams in consistent patterns such as Mogilny and Moog.
Pretty much everything is available. I wouldn't mind attempting to balance out some of the correct/errors. I still need these 'standard' variants for my own set:
Error: Burr, Krushelnyski, Gillis, Fergus
Correct: Bellows, Horava
Mike
