The Great Zo
Verified Trader,
This is sort of a mixed-up mail post, but the last few cards are timely, coming just over a week after the end of the 2014 season -- and the awarding of the Stanley Cup.
Mail Post #10 for 2014
-------------------------------------------------------
Base Cards
I'll begin with a few cards from the Royal Oak Elks Club card show in Michigan on Wednesday, May 28. As usual, my purchases were limited to just one dealer, but I found a few interesting cards. I'll begin with some base from recent sets, which will go toward my yearly binder project.
-------------------------------------------------------
94-95 Ultra Power Jeremy Roenick
94-95 Ultra Power Keith Tkachuk
98-99 Black Diamond Double Diamond Saku Koivu (0513/2000)
98-99 Black Diamond Triple Diamond Olli Jokinen (0149/1000)
98-99 Black Diamond Triple Diamond Keith Tkachuk (0875/1000)
98-99 Black Diamond Triple Diamond Mike Vernon (0559/1000)
02-03 Bowman Young Stars Gold Mark Recchi (194/250)
03-04 Pacific Complete Red Joel Kwiatkowski (21/99)
These cards are headed to my tradelist -- Chris (hockeyguy2006) gets the first shot at the Black Diamond parallels. I like the design of the Ultra Power inserts!
-------------------------------------------------------
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Ron Hainsey
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Robert Lang
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Ryan Shannon
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Olli Jokinen
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Todd Fedoruk
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Mark Recchi
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Kris Versteeg
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Derek Boogaard
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Adam Hall
This was the big find of the day -- nine gold parallels from the 08-09 O-Pee-Chee update set. Why are these low-end parallels such a big deal? Because they aren't low-end parallels at all. The gold cards from the update set were very hard to find, and I estimate that the print run is only about 50 copies each. The fact that they were in the dime bin is remarkable!
-------------------------------------------------------
10-11 Pinnacle Rink Collection Bobby Ryan
13-14 UD Artifacts Emerald Jared Cowen (68/99)
08-09 Ultra All Star Royalty Rick Nash
10-11 Upper Deck Biography of a Season Brandon Dubinsky
10-11 Upper Deck Biography of a Season Marian Gaborik
10-11 Upper Deck Biography of a Season Ryan Callahan
I may keep the Biography of a Season cards, which feature players who all ended up with the Blue Jackets or Lightning -- at least for a while.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Pinnacle Pierre-Cedric Labrie RC
03-04 Pacific Complete Nathan Horton
05-06 Hot Prospects Red Hot Darren Reid (011/100)
06-07 Flair Showcase Ryan Shannon RC
11-12 SP Authentic Rookie Extended Brett Connolly
These cards are headed to my rookie collections. Since the cards are so cheap and not that tough to find, I am including Pacific Complete in my checklists, even though they aren't true RCs by strict definition.
My Pierre-Cedric Labrie rookie collection is now complete at a perfect 2-for-2.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Upper Deck Overtime Rookie Profiles Ryan Murray
13-14 O-Pee-Chee Boone Jenner RC
13-14 Score Steven Stamkos / Martin St. Louis / Ben Bishop / B.J. Crombeen
13-14 Score Michael Kostka RC
The Jenner RC here is from the update set released in Upper Deck Series 2. I also like the Score Team Leaders cards, and I'll miss those when Upper Deck takes over the exclusive in 2014-15.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Panini Prizm Ondrej Palat RC
13-14 Panini Totally Certified Nikita Kucherov RC
Here are the final two cards from the show -- two recent RCs of very good young Lightning players. This is my first RC from Totally Certified.
-------------------------------------------------------
2009-10 Upper Deck MVP Gold Script 92 Dany Heatley (077/100)
2013-14 Upper Deck MVP Gold Script 10 Thomas Vanek (079/100)
The next four pictures contain cards I received in a trade. The first two cards -- these MVP parallels -- are going to my tradelist.
-------------------------------------------------------
2001-02 SPx Rookie Threads 140 (Away) Jason Chimera RC (238/800) (White / Dark Blue)
1998-99 SP Authentic 112 Josh Holden (1003/2000)
2001-02 Topps 277 Jason Chimera RC
2001-02 SPx Rookie Redemption R17 Scottie Upshall (0246/1250)
2001-02 Private Stock Retail 121 Jason Chimera RC (341/450)
2002-03 Upper Deck 440 Scottie Upshall RC (SP)
2002-03 Topps Chrome 168 Scottie Upshall RC
The next batch of cards is a big help toward my low-priority Scottie Upshall and Jason Chimera RC stashes. There's also one card in there for a set I'm working on -- 98-99 SP Authentic.
-------------------------------------------------------
2002-03 Parkhurst 240 Stephane Veilleux RC (114/500)
2003-04 Upper Deck 216 Nathan Horton RC (SP)
2003-04 Pacific Complete 559 Sean Bergenheim
2005-06 Upper Deck Trilogy 207 Jeff Carter RC (125/999)
2005-06 UD Artifacts 278 Jean-Francois Jacques RC (724/750)
2006-07 SP Game Used 123 Benoit Pouliot RC (991/999)
The Nathan Horton Young Guns RC is my favorite card from this batch. As always, those are among a player's most important RCs.
-------------------------------------------------------
2006-07 Between The Pipes Autograph A-SM Steve Mason
2010-11 SP Game Used 159 Anders Lindback RC (145/699)
2012-13 Upper Deck Young Guns 202 Carter Camper RC (SP)
Here are the final three cards from the trade, including a pre-RC autograph of Steve Mason.
-------------------------------------------------------
06-07 ITG Heroes and Prospects Update Heroes Memorabilia Manny Fernandez (/50)
Next up is a card I have had on my wantlist for a while, because it's one of very few examples of a picture from the International Hockey League being used in a major-issue trading card set. Manny Fernandez is pictured with the Kalamazoo Wings (later the Michigan K-Wings), where he played from 1994-95 to 1997-98. The 50th Anniversary patch on his jersey indicates that the picture was taken during the 1994-95 season.
Although he's pictured with his old IHL team, the jersey swatch is a dark green swatch from a Minnesota Wild sweater. As far as I know, the only IHL jersey to actually be used as memorabilia in a trading card was a Johan Hedberg jersey from the Manitoba Moose.
This isn't the only card of Fernandez from 2006-07 ITG H&P that shows him with the Kalamazoo Wings -- that picture was also used on a triple memorabilia card (with Luongo and Belfour) and at least one of his HSHS redemption cards.
Several minor league products in the 1990s used IHL pictures in their sets, including ProCards, Collector's Edge Ice, and several other sketchy products in the mid 90s. I can't think of an IHL picture being used in a licensed NHL set, and I can only even recall ITG doing it once more -- the Gordie Howe cards from ITG Decades.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Panini Certified Tim Erixon RC (131/299)
Next, I'll move into the rookie portion of this mail post. This Tim Erixon RC may not look very special, but it's actually very important. The vast majority of all Tim Erixon cards from 11-12 Certified contain white jersey swatches. I've only seen a few with a blue swatch, and I knew I had to get one of them for my collection!
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 SPx Cory Conacher RC (222/499)
Here's a two-color SPx rookie card of Cory Conacher, with black and red swatches. With a print run of 499, and only a percentage of that print run having multiple colors for the jersey pieces, I thought it was important to buy one of these sooner rather than later.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 SPx Ryan Murray RC (159/499)
It's even more important for this card, which somehow fits all three of the main Blue Jackets colors on two swatches -- one dark blue and white, and one red. This is one of my favorite Ryan Murray RCs so far.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 SP Game Used Andrej Sustr (44/62)
My very small collection of 13-14 SPGU jersey numbered rookies increases by one with this card. Sure, of the ten cards on my wantlist, Sustr has one of the highest print runs at 62 -- and I already own Cory Conacher, with 89 copies made. I doubt I'll feel like paying for the shorter print runs in the set, such as Ondrej Palat (18) or Tyler Johnson (9).
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Titanium Sean Collins (24/43)
Staying on the jersey numbered rookie theme, here are my first two "base" cards from 13-14 Titanium. This one features Sean Collins, whose print run is right in the middle of the road.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Titanium Radko Gudas (45/75)
I've always given Panini a ton of credit for their quick turnarounds on players joining new teams, or new rookies becoming eligible for cards. However, the jersey numbers they used in 13-14 Titanium are one rare example where Upper Deck beat them to the punch. Maybe they needed to get the Titanium cards ready to print very early, because the numbers they used are from the 13-14 pre-season at best, and in some cases appear to be from the 12-13 season. Radko Gudas, for example, wears #7.
Now, as a collector who is trying to acquire these cards, is that really such a bad thing? It's much easier to find a card with a print run of 75!
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Fleer Showcase Skybox Premium Nikita Kucherov (131/299)
13-14 Fleer Showcase Skybox Premium Ryan Murray (170/299)
The big question I have with Fleer Showcase involves these Skybox Premium cards, as well as the Ultra cards also inserted into the product. Are these a big, extended insert set (like UD Canvas) or do they count as a separate base set simply released through the Fleer Showcase packs? This is one of those grey areas where RC status is certainly in question. To be honest, I'd lean toward the former scenario -- a large insert set that is set up to look like a base set from a product that doesn't exist. However, it's not that different a situation from the last few years of UD Ice, with the exception that those cards were released in separate bonus packs.
Are these RCs? Probably not. Do they have a place in my collection anyway? Sure they do.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Fleer Showcase Alex Killorn RC (119/149)
I am really baffled by the decision to go with such an incredibly limited print run on a subset of mid-tier players on sticker autograph cards. These cards are the toughest in the set -- even more scarce than the best tier of patch/auto rookie cards!
This isn't one of my favorite Alex Killorn cards, but the print run means that I'm really glad to have it off my wantlist.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Fleer Showcase Ryan Murray RC (047/375)
To continue the Fleer Showcase theme, I've also acquired my second and third cards from the patch/auto subset. I already own the Cory Conacher RC.
This card features Ryan Murray of the Blue Jackets, and has a really nice swatch -- blue jersey, red patch, white patch, red patch, and blue jersey. It's most likely from the shoulder numbers on a Blue Jackets home jersey.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Fleer Showcase Richard Panik RC (274/375)
The swatch on this Richard Panik rookie card is even better! It has several layers -- a small bit of white at the top, four layers of blue, three layers of black stitching, and a very tiny piece silver at bottom. It's very similar to the Cup Ty Wishart RC I also own, and appears to be from the shoulder patch on the late-00s Lightning jerseys.
The last patch/auto RC I need from Fleer Showcase is Boone Jenner, who is in the best tier (limited to 175 copies). At least half of his cards feature Los Angeles Kings patch swatches, which is really embarrassing for Upper Deck. I'm going to have to try to find one with a Blue Jackets swatch.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Upper Deck Distributor Promos P9 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
12-13 Upper Deck Distributor Promos P11 Nikolai Kulemin
12-13 Upper Deck Distributor Promos P17 Chet Pickard
12-13 Upper Deck Distributor Promos P26 Jason Zucker
These four cards were included for free with the next card in the post.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Upper Deck Day With The Cup DC-28 Phil Pritchard
As I get ready to end this mail post with some timely additions from a Stanley Cup hero, I'll start with this one -- the only card of the guy who protects the best trophy in all of sports. I thought it was awesome that Phil Pritchard was included in the Day With The Cup insert set, and although it took me a while to get one of these cards for a fair price, I'm glad that I was able to do it. Here's the text from the card back.
Pritchard has been "Keeper of the Cup" since the fall of 1998. Each year, along with Craig Campbell, they have had the honor to walk the red carpet and deliver the Stanley Cup after the Final concludes. Pritchard's travels have taken him to such places as Russia, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and all across Canada and the United States.
The big question here is this -- will the Stanley Cup's other keeper, Mike Bolt, get a card in the 14-15 edition?
Also -- why the heck would anybody get this card graded? I plan on breaking it out of the case.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Titanium Game-Worn Gear Patch Alec Martinez (03/25)
This was not an easy Alec Martinez card to find, but it was even tougher to find one with a multi-color swatch. I'd guess that at least half of the print run contained single-color patch swatches. I was very glad to find this one, with a three-layer swatch -- black jersey, silver stitching, and white patch. It finally completes my run of Titanium Game-Worn Gear cards, along with the jersey and prime versions.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 SP Game Used Stanley Cup Final Materials Net Cord G3-AM Alec Martinez (01/25)
Alec Martinez was no stranger to scoring big goals in the Stanley Cup Finals, even before winning the championship in OT in 2014. In 2012, he scored the first goal of Game 3, which ended up as a 4-0 win for the Kings at the Staples Center. This net piece was used during the series in Los Angeles, which means that there's a 50 percent chance it's part of the net that Martinez scored into.
This is a pretty remarkable trading card, and it's one of the thickest cards I own. It has twelve standard-size card stock layers -- the top and bottom layers are acetate, and the middle ten layers are die-cut card stock. The acetate covers the net piece on both sides, so unlike the similar cards produced by Panini in the past few years, it can't actually be touched.
Though I'd missed several auctions for this card after SP Game Used was released, I got pretty lucky to acquire this one. I had just bid on an auction for a copy of the card, losing out as it sold for $40. I remembered that another one had been sitting on ebay for a long time, with a $60 BIN/BO listing. I offered up $25, and it was accepted. Not only did I save $15 off the price of the card that just sold at auction, but I also got the first copy numbered!
With two wins in three years, Alec Martinez can safely be described as a "Keeper of the Cup." With these two cards, my Martinez collection is down to needing just two non-1/1 cards -- the 09-10 UD Champ's Parkhurst Back, and the 12-13 Panini Certified Path to the Cup Prime (with Paul Bissonnette). However, his heroic exploits in the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs will virtually guarantee an onslaught of new cards -- and probably several very expensive cards -- in the 14-15 product year.
-----------------
News and notes:
** My dream of having a single card picturing Cory Conacher as a member of the Lightning appears to be fading. I find it hard to believe that neither manufacturer could find the space to include him with Tampa Bay in one of their many retrospective-type insert sets. He played almost his entire rookie season with the team, and frankly, he was better as a member of the Lightning than he's been with either the Senators or Sabres since then!
** Anyone else think the rookie checklist for Panini Contenders is very unnecessarily complicated?
That'll be it. Thanks everyone!
--Andy
http://www.thegreatzo.com/cards/
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Mail Post #10 for 2014
-------------------------------------------------------
Base Cards
I'll begin with a few cards from the Royal Oak Elks Club card show in Michigan on Wednesday, May 28. As usual, my purchases were limited to just one dealer, but I found a few interesting cards. I'll begin with some base from recent sets, which will go toward my yearly binder project.
-------------------------------------------------------
94-95 Ultra Power Jeremy Roenick
94-95 Ultra Power Keith Tkachuk
98-99 Black Diamond Double Diamond Saku Koivu (0513/2000)
98-99 Black Diamond Triple Diamond Olli Jokinen (0149/1000)
98-99 Black Diamond Triple Diamond Keith Tkachuk (0875/1000)
98-99 Black Diamond Triple Diamond Mike Vernon (0559/1000)
02-03 Bowman Young Stars Gold Mark Recchi (194/250)
03-04 Pacific Complete Red Joel Kwiatkowski (21/99)
These cards are headed to my tradelist -- Chris (hockeyguy2006) gets the first shot at the Black Diamond parallels. I like the design of the Ultra Power inserts!
-------------------------------------------------------
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Ron Hainsey
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Robert Lang
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Ryan Shannon
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Olli Jokinen
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Todd Fedoruk
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Mark Recchi
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Kris Versteeg
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Derek Boogaard
08-09 O-Pee-Chee Update Gold Adam Hall
This was the big find of the day -- nine gold parallels from the 08-09 O-Pee-Chee update set. Why are these low-end parallels such a big deal? Because they aren't low-end parallels at all. The gold cards from the update set were very hard to find, and I estimate that the print run is only about 50 copies each. The fact that they were in the dime bin is remarkable!
-------------------------------------------------------
10-11 Pinnacle Rink Collection Bobby Ryan
13-14 UD Artifacts Emerald Jared Cowen (68/99)
08-09 Ultra All Star Royalty Rick Nash
10-11 Upper Deck Biography of a Season Brandon Dubinsky
10-11 Upper Deck Biography of a Season Marian Gaborik
10-11 Upper Deck Biography of a Season Ryan Callahan
I may keep the Biography of a Season cards, which feature players who all ended up with the Blue Jackets or Lightning -- at least for a while.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Pinnacle Pierre-Cedric Labrie RC
03-04 Pacific Complete Nathan Horton
05-06 Hot Prospects Red Hot Darren Reid (011/100)
06-07 Flair Showcase Ryan Shannon RC
11-12 SP Authentic Rookie Extended Brett Connolly
These cards are headed to my rookie collections. Since the cards are so cheap and not that tough to find, I am including Pacific Complete in my checklists, even though they aren't true RCs by strict definition.
My Pierre-Cedric Labrie rookie collection is now complete at a perfect 2-for-2.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Upper Deck Overtime Rookie Profiles Ryan Murray
13-14 O-Pee-Chee Boone Jenner RC
13-14 Score Steven Stamkos / Martin St. Louis / Ben Bishop / B.J. Crombeen
13-14 Score Michael Kostka RC
The Jenner RC here is from the update set released in Upper Deck Series 2. I also like the Score Team Leaders cards, and I'll miss those when Upper Deck takes over the exclusive in 2014-15.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Panini Prizm Ondrej Palat RC
13-14 Panini Totally Certified Nikita Kucherov RC
Here are the final two cards from the show -- two recent RCs of very good young Lightning players. This is my first RC from Totally Certified.
-------------------------------------------------------
2009-10 Upper Deck MVP Gold Script 92 Dany Heatley (077/100)
2013-14 Upper Deck MVP Gold Script 10 Thomas Vanek (079/100)
The next four pictures contain cards I received in a trade. The first two cards -- these MVP parallels -- are going to my tradelist.
-------------------------------------------------------
2001-02 SPx Rookie Threads 140 (Away) Jason Chimera RC (238/800) (White / Dark Blue)
1998-99 SP Authentic 112 Josh Holden (1003/2000)
2001-02 Topps 277 Jason Chimera RC
2001-02 SPx Rookie Redemption R17 Scottie Upshall (0246/1250)
2001-02 Private Stock Retail 121 Jason Chimera RC (341/450)
2002-03 Upper Deck 440 Scottie Upshall RC (SP)
2002-03 Topps Chrome 168 Scottie Upshall RC
The next batch of cards is a big help toward my low-priority Scottie Upshall and Jason Chimera RC stashes. There's also one card in there for a set I'm working on -- 98-99 SP Authentic.
-------------------------------------------------------
2002-03 Parkhurst 240 Stephane Veilleux RC (114/500)
2003-04 Upper Deck 216 Nathan Horton RC (SP)
2003-04 Pacific Complete 559 Sean Bergenheim
2005-06 Upper Deck Trilogy 207 Jeff Carter RC (125/999)
2005-06 UD Artifacts 278 Jean-Francois Jacques RC (724/750)
2006-07 SP Game Used 123 Benoit Pouliot RC (991/999)
The Nathan Horton Young Guns RC is my favorite card from this batch. As always, those are among a player's most important RCs.
-------------------------------------------------------
2006-07 Between The Pipes Autograph A-SM Steve Mason
2010-11 SP Game Used 159 Anders Lindback RC (145/699)
2012-13 Upper Deck Young Guns 202 Carter Camper RC (SP)
Here are the final three cards from the trade, including a pre-RC autograph of Steve Mason.
-------------------------------------------------------
06-07 ITG Heroes and Prospects Update Heroes Memorabilia Manny Fernandez (/50)
Next up is a card I have had on my wantlist for a while, because it's one of very few examples of a picture from the International Hockey League being used in a major-issue trading card set. Manny Fernandez is pictured with the Kalamazoo Wings (later the Michigan K-Wings), where he played from 1994-95 to 1997-98. The 50th Anniversary patch on his jersey indicates that the picture was taken during the 1994-95 season.
Although he's pictured with his old IHL team, the jersey swatch is a dark green swatch from a Minnesota Wild sweater. As far as I know, the only IHL jersey to actually be used as memorabilia in a trading card was a Johan Hedberg jersey from the Manitoba Moose.
This isn't the only card of Fernandez from 2006-07 ITG H&P that shows him with the Kalamazoo Wings -- that picture was also used on a triple memorabilia card (with Luongo and Belfour) and at least one of his HSHS redemption cards.
Several minor league products in the 1990s used IHL pictures in their sets, including ProCards, Collector's Edge Ice, and several other sketchy products in the mid 90s. I can't think of an IHL picture being used in a licensed NHL set, and I can only even recall ITG doing it once more -- the Gordie Howe cards from ITG Decades.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Panini Certified Tim Erixon RC (131/299)
Next, I'll move into the rookie portion of this mail post. This Tim Erixon RC may not look very special, but it's actually very important. The vast majority of all Tim Erixon cards from 11-12 Certified contain white jersey swatches. I've only seen a few with a blue swatch, and I knew I had to get one of them for my collection!
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 SPx Cory Conacher RC (222/499)
Here's a two-color SPx rookie card of Cory Conacher, with black and red swatches. With a print run of 499, and only a percentage of that print run having multiple colors for the jersey pieces, I thought it was important to buy one of these sooner rather than later.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 SPx Ryan Murray RC (159/499)
It's even more important for this card, which somehow fits all three of the main Blue Jackets colors on two swatches -- one dark blue and white, and one red. This is one of my favorite Ryan Murray RCs so far.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 SP Game Used Andrej Sustr (44/62)
My very small collection of 13-14 SPGU jersey numbered rookies increases by one with this card. Sure, of the ten cards on my wantlist, Sustr has one of the highest print runs at 62 -- and I already own Cory Conacher, with 89 copies made. I doubt I'll feel like paying for the shorter print runs in the set, such as Ondrej Palat (18) or Tyler Johnson (9).
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Titanium Sean Collins (24/43)
Staying on the jersey numbered rookie theme, here are my first two "base" cards from 13-14 Titanium. This one features Sean Collins, whose print run is right in the middle of the road.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Titanium Radko Gudas (45/75)
I've always given Panini a ton of credit for their quick turnarounds on players joining new teams, or new rookies becoming eligible for cards. However, the jersey numbers they used in 13-14 Titanium are one rare example where Upper Deck beat them to the punch. Maybe they needed to get the Titanium cards ready to print very early, because the numbers they used are from the 13-14 pre-season at best, and in some cases appear to be from the 12-13 season. Radko Gudas, for example, wears #7.
Now, as a collector who is trying to acquire these cards, is that really such a bad thing? It's much easier to find a card with a print run of 75!
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Fleer Showcase Skybox Premium Nikita Kucherov (131/299)
13-14 Fleer Showcase Skybox Premium Ryan Murray (170/299)
The big question I have with Fleer Showcase involves these Skybox Premium cards, as well as the Ultra cards also inserted into the product. Are these a big, extended insert set (like UD Canvas) or do they count as a separate base set simply released through the Fleer Showcase packs? This is one of those grey areas where RC status is certainly in question. To be honest, I'd lean toward the former scenario -- a large insert set that is set up to look like a base set from a product that doesn't exist. However, it's not that different a situation from the last few years of UD Ice, with the exception that those cards were released in separate bonus packs.
Are these RCs? Probably not. Do they have a place in my collection anyway? Sure they do.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Fleer Showcase Alex Killorn RC (119/149)
I am really baffled by the decision to go with such an incredibly limited print run on a subset of mid-tier players on sticker autograph cards. These cards are the toughest in the set -- even more scarce than the best tier of patch/auto rookie cards!
This isn't one of my favorite Alex Killorn cards, but the print run means that I'm really glad to have it off my wantlist.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Fleer Showcase Ryan Murray RC (047/375)
To continue the Fleer Showcase theme, I've also acquired my second and third cards from the patch/auto subset. I already own the Cory Conacher RC.
This card features Ryan Murray of the Blue Jackets, and has a really nice swatch -- blue jersey, red patch, white patch, red patch, and blue jersey. It's most likely from the shoulder numbers on a Blue Jackets home jersey.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Fleer Showcase Richard Panik RC (274/375)
The swatch on this Richard Panik rookie card is even better! It has several layers -- a small bit of white at the top, four layers of blue, three layers of black stitching, and a very tiny piece silver at bottom. It's very similar to the Cup Ty Wishart RC I also own, and appears to be from the shoulder patch on the late-00s Lightning jerseys.
The last patch/auto RC I need from Fleer Showcase is Boone Jenner, who is in the best tier (limited to 175 copies). At least half of his cards feature Los Angeles Kings patch swatches, which is really embarrassing for Upper Deck. I'm going to have to try to find one with a Blue Jackets swatch.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Upper Deck Distributor Promos P9 Ryan Nugent-Hopkins
12-13 Upper Deck Distributor Promos P11 Nikolai Kulemin
12-13 Upper Deck Distributor Promos P17 Chet Pickard
12-13 Upper Deck Distributor Promos P26 Jason Zucker
These four cards were included for free with the next card in the post.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Upper Deck Day With The Cup DC-28 Phil Pritchard
As I get ready to end this mail post with some timely additions from a Stanley Cup hero, I'll start with this one -- the only card of the guy who protects the best trophy in all of sports. I thought it was awesome that Phil Pritchard was included in the Day With The Cup insert set, and although it took me a while to get one of these cards for a fair price, I'm glad that I was able to do it. Here's the text from the card back.
Pritchard has been "Keeper of the Cup" since the fall of 1998. Each year, along with Craig Campbell, they have had the honor to walk the red carpet and deliver the Stanley Cup after the Final concludes. Pritchard's travels have taken him to such places as Russia, Finland, Sweden, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and all across Canada and the United States.
The big question here is this -- will the Stanley Cup's other keeper, Mike Bolt, get a card in the 14-15 edition?
Also -- why the heck would anybody get this card graded? I plan on breaking it out of the case.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Titanium Game-Worn Gear Patch Alec Martinez (03/25)
This was not an easy Alec Martinez card to find, but it was even tougher to find one with a multi-color swatch. I'd guess that at least half of the print run contained single-color patch swatches. I was very glad to find this one, with a three-layer swatch -- black jersey, silver stitching, and white patch. It finally completes my run of Titanium Game-Worn Gear cards, along with the jersey and prime versions.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 SP Game Used Stanley Cup Final Materials Net Cord G3-AM Alec Martinez (01/25)
Alec Martinez was no stranger to scoring big goals in the Stanley Cup Finals, even before winning the championship in OT in 2014. In 2012, he scored the first goal of Game 3, which ended up as a 4-0 win for the Kings at the Staples Center. This net piece was used during the series in Los Angeles, which means that there's a 50 percent chance it's part of the net that Martinez scored into.
This is a pretty remarkable trading card, and it's one of the thickest cards I own. It has twelve standard-size card stock layers -- the top and bottom layers are acetate, and the middle ten layers are die-cut card stock. The acetate covers the net piece on both sides, so unlike the similar cards produced by Panini in the past few years, it can't actually be touched.
Though I'd missed several auctions for this card after SP Game Used was released, I got pretty lucky to acquire this one. I had just bid on an auction for a copy of the card, losing out as it sold for $40. I remembered that another one had been sitting on ebay for a long time, with a $60 BIN/BO listing. I offered up $25, and it was accepted. Not only did I save $15 off the price of the card that just sold at auction, but I also got the first copy numbered!
With two wins in three years, Alec Martinez can safely be described as a "Keeper of the Cup." With these two cards, my Martinez collection is down to needing just two non-1/1 cards -- the 09-10 UD Champ's Parkhurst Back, and the 12-13 Panini Certified Path to the Cup Prime (with Paul Bissonnette). However, his heroic exploits in the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs will virtually guarantee an onslaught of new cards -- and probably several very expensive cards -- in the 14-15 product year.
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News and notes:
** My dream of having a single card picturing Cory Conacher as a member of the Lightning appears to be fading. I find it hard to believe that neither manufacturer could find the space to include him with Tampa Bay in one of their many retrospective-type insert sets. He played almost his entire rookie season with the team, and frankly, he was better as a member of the Lightning than he's been with either the Senators or Sabres since then!
** Anyone else think the rookie checklist for Panini Contenders is very unnecessarily complicated?
That'll be it. Thanks everyone!
--Andy
http://www.thegreatzo.com/cards/
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