The Great Zo
Verified Trader,
Several HI members have contributed to this mail post -- but I'll begin with a break of some cards I've been looking to find for months!
Mail Post #2 for 2014
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13-14 PANINI PRIZM -- ONE BLASTER (7 Packs + Bonus)
13-14 PANINI PRIZM -- ONE RACK PACK (3 Packs + Bonus)
Base Cards
13-14 Panini Prizm Emerson Etem RC (SP)
13-14 Panini Prizm Charlie Coyle RC (SP)
13-14 Panini Prizm Nicklas Jensen RC (SP)
Why is it that I was just now able to find retail versions of Panini Prizm at a local major retailer? It's a bit odd to have them finally show up in mid-January, after I had been searching for the final three months of 2013.
Looking for some variety in the bonus packs, I picked up one blaster ($20) and one rack pack ($10). I pulled five RCs out of the ten regular packs, including two to be pictured later.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Panini Prizm Pivotal Players Jeff Carter
13-14 Panini Prizm Immortalized Teemu Selanne
Here are my two insert cards. I really like the Immortalized design.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Prizms Jeff Skinner
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Prizms Dennis Wideman
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Prizms Josh Harding
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Pulsar Prizms Andrei Markov
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Pulsar Prizms Devan Dubnyk
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Pulsar Prizms Ryan Spooner
Here are the results from the bonus packs! These cards are fantastic -- especially the Pulsar versions. It's everything a "shiny" collector can ask for.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Prizms Oliver Lauridsen
13-14 Panini Prizm Green Prizms Cam Fowler
The ten regular packs also yielded two prizm parallels -- another blue, and one of the tough green variations as well.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Panini Prizm Sean Collins RC (SP)
13-14 Panini Prizm Radko Gudas RC (SP)
The last two cards are incredible hits -- two RCs that I needed for my own collection! Radko Gudas is my favorite of the two, as he's a full-time member of the Lightning, and a player that other teams are learning to hate.
Out of the ten packs, only one pack was a dud, with five RCs, two inserts, and two parallels.
-------------------------------------------------------
Base Cards
The next eight pictures contain a whole bunch of cards I received in a trade with Derek (cheeseheadman). Derek searched diligently through my wantlists, finding several cards for my yearly binder project (pictured here), and a whole bunch of RCs as well.
-------------------------------------------------------
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 113 Bob Beers RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 244 Sergio Momesso RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 471 Jeff Beukeboom RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 497 Jeff Parker RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 509 Rod Buskas RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 510 Grant Jennings RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 527 Wayne Van Drop RC
90-91 Score Canadian 394 Adrien Plavsic RC
90-91 Upper Deck American 471 Karl Dykhuis RC
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 96 Steve Chiasson / Yves Racine
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 405 Anatoli Semenov RC
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 429 Zdeno Ciger RC
I still have a rather large wantlist from 90-91, but this batch helps quite a bit!
The most interesting card here is the Chiasson card from Upper Deck. The photo on the card back is actually Yves Racine. Since Racine's RCs are in 90-91 products, I figured it might be worth picking this one up as well!
My Zdeno Ciger RC collection is now complete (5 for 5).
-------------------------------------------------------
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 527 Wes Walz RC
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 528 Robert Kron RC
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 536 Peter Bondra RC
91-92 O-Pee-Chee 116 Bryan Marchment RC
91-92 O-Pee-Chee Premier 99 Bryan Marchment (x2) RC
91-92 Score Canadian Bilingual 360 Reggie Savage RC
91-92 Score Canadian Bilingual 606 Bryan Marchment RC
91-92 Upper Deck American 590 Igor Ulanov RC
91-92 Upper Deck Canadian 47 Mario Lemieux / George Bush
92-93 Upper Deck 306 Ted Drury RC
92-93 Upper Deck 403 Dean McCammond RC
The next batch of cards includes one I hadn't even asked for, but perhaps think is among the most interesting from the transaction -- Mario Lemieux and George Bush at the White House -- or, la Maison Blanche! I can't think of any other presidents that have appeared on a hockey card.
Completed collections from this picture -- Wes Walz (6 for 6) and Ted Drury (just one card).
-------------------------------------------------------
92-93 Upper Deck 475 Tommy Soderstrom RC
93-94 Score Canadian 618 Fred Brathwaite RC
93-94 Score Canadian 627 Kirk Maltby RC
93-94 Upper Deck 558 David Wilkie RC
93-94 Upper Deck Program of Excellence E3 Jason Wiemer
94-95 Upper Deck 505 Nolan Baumgartner RC
95-96 Leaf 75 Brantt Myhres RC
95-96 Parkhurst International 302 Pavel Torgajev XRC
95-96 Upper Deck 517 Chris Phillips RC
96-97 Select Certified 99 Mattias Timander RC
98-99 Upper Deck Gold Reserve 332 Mike Maneluk RC
98-99 Upper Deck Gold Reserve 345 Jan Hrdina RC
I have dreams of completing the entire 15-card 93-94 UD Program of Excellence set, but this Wiemer card (a pre-RC) is just the first one I have acquired. I still have a long way to go.
Pavel Torgajev is done (2 for 2), as is Jan Hrdina (6 for 6).
-------------------------------------------------------
99-00 O-Pee-Chee 253 Alexandre Giroux RC
99-00 Pacific 124 Brad Lukowich RC
99-00 Pacific Omega 33 Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre RC / David Moravec RC
99-00 Upper Deck Gold Reserve 209 Dan Hinote RC
01-02 Between The Pipes 162 Martin Prusek RC
01-02 Upper Deck MVP 228 Raffi Torres RC
01-02 Pacific Adrenaline Retail 208 Ty Conklin RC
01-02 Pacific Adrenaline Retail 216 Radek Martinek RC
01-02 Pacific Adrenaline Retail 224 Nikita Alexeev RC
There are several more completions in this picture -- Lukowich (5 for 5), Grand-Pierre (2 for 2), and Prusek (4 for 4).
Those Adrenaline Retail cards aren't all that easy to find. They help me get a little closer for Nikita Alexeev -- I'm now up to 28 out of 32.
-------------------------------------------------------
01-02 O-Pee-Chee 359 Ty Conklin RC
01-02 Topps Chrome 179 Raffi Torres RC
05-06 Parkhurst 183 Brett Lebda RC
06-07 BAP Portraits 121 Ryan Shannon RC
06-07 Beehive 147 Michel Ouellet RC
08-09 Montreal Canadiens Centennial 82 Bob Fillion
08-09 Montreal Canadiens Centennial 88 Leo Lamoureux
08-09 Montreal Canadiens Centennial 156 Sam Pollock
At long last, one fairly-large RC collection is done -- Michel Ouellet, with 18 cards! That would be exciting if I really cared that much about Ouellet, but it's still a pretty good completion. It's odd that it came down to a card as easy as Beehive to finish the deal.
-------------------------------------------------------
98-99 SP Authentic 103 Mike Watt (0280/2000)
00-01 Topps Chrome Blue 245 Rostislav Klesla RC (0274/1250)
The Watt card here is not a true RC, but is an entry into my 98-99 SP Authentic set. I only need six more cards to finish the whole thing.
I now own two of the Klesla Topps Chrome RCs -- I still need the red version to complete the trio.
-------------------------------------------------------
02-03 BAP All-Star Edition 149 Scottie Upshall RC (86/100)
The final card from Derek is the most scarce, and it's from a very shiny set I happen to enjoy quite a bit!
Derek, thanks for your hard work to help me fill all these holes in my collection. I really appreciate it!
-------------------------------------------------------
03-04 O-Pee-Chee Nathan Horton RC
11-12 Crown Royale Jeremy Smith RC (SP)
Next up, for a much smaller transaction -- here are four cards I received from Matt (Matches). This is my first RC of Blue Jackets fourth-string goaltender Jeremy Smith.
-------------------------------------------------------
03-04 SP Authentic Nathan Horton RC (863/900)
03-04 Pacific Prism Nathan Horton RC (915/975)
The other two cards from Matt include two decent Horton cards. I think the SP Authentic RC is one of his most essential. Horton is likely to stick around in Columbus for quite a while, so I look forward to slowly completing most of his collection.
Thanks for the easy sale, Matt!
-------------------------------------------------------
00-01 Titanium Hobby Oleg Saprykin (71/99)
How should I close out the brought-to-you-by-HI portion of the mail post? How about with eight cards from Jeremy (gomaz), our owner?
To start things off, I'll tick one more virtual check box on the 00-01 Titanium Hobby set. I thought I was insane to ever begin working on this a couple years ago, but I'm well over halfway there -- 29 of the 50 short prints are mine.
-------------------------------------------------------
09-10 O-Pee-Chee Premier Spencer Machacek RC (176/299)
I'm doubting that Machacek will ever see the ice for the Blue Jackets, but even if he doesn't, I can't find a problem with owning one of these nice OPC Premier RCs. This is easily my favorite design from the several years of OPC Premier rookie subsets. All four swatches are powder blue, from the Atlanta Thrashers third jersey.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 SP Game Used Cam Atkinson RC (312/699)
11-12 SP Game Used Allen York RC (095/699)
2011-12 is the first RC season in which I'm still really far behind, thanks mainly to a large supply of Blue Jackets rookies, but also due to Panini's 05-06-UD-esque proliferation of RCs. These two cards (proving Upper Deck wasn't innocent either) certainly help things out for me.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Crown Royale Cam Atkinson RC (SP)
This card is also a big help for the 11-12 stash, and it's especially nice as an autographed card of one of my favorite Blue Jackets players!
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 ITG Heroes and Prospects Kerby Rychel (SP)
12-13 ITG Heroes and Prospects Autographs Adam Erne
Adam Erne is a Lightning prospect, and this is the first of his autograph cards that I own.
This is also the first ITG 3D card in my collection (this one features Blue Jackets prospect Kerby Rychel). I am very impressed with this card -- it's the most convincing 3D effect of this style on a trading card that I've ever seen.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Panini Prime Tim Thomas (095/249)
The final card from Jeremy is the lone player collection addition in this entire mail post. Although I already own the holo-silver and holo-gold parallels, it took me a year and a half to get the base version!
Jeremy -- thank you for the sale! It's quite a mix of stuff for my collections -- sets, rookies, prospects, a player collection too.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Select Richard Panik RC (174/399)
Panini isn't making thing easy on me in 13-14, with huge rookie checklists in Select, Dominion, and Titanium. I'm over halfway done with Select, thankfully, and this Richard Panik card gets me a little closer to the goal. Panik has the distinction of being perhaps the only Lightning rookie forward to struggle this season (a testament to how good the rest of them have been). He was recently demoted to AHL Syracuse.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Panini Rookie Anthology base cards
These base cards were included with the next card in the post.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Dominion J.T. Brown RC (79/99)
J.T. Brown has been a fixture with the Lightning for the past few months, adding energy on the lower lines, and showing some promise offensively from time to time. This is probably his best rookie card (if you count it as a RC, since it wasn't part of a stand-alone release). The large patch swatch contains four layers -- white jersey, black patch, white patch, and blue patch. This appears to be a swatch from the big numbers on the Lightning away (white) jersey.
Although J.T. Brown now wears #23 (to honor his father, former NFL running back Ted Brown), he spent time earlier in his Lightning career wearing #49 and #19.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Titanium J.T. Brown (14/19)
On the subject of J.T. Brown's jersey number, his 12-13 Titanium base card is limited to just 19 copies, matching the jersey number he wore at the time. As it stands right now, this is the lowest-numbered jersey-numbered rookie issue in my entire collection.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Panini Certified Allen York RC (19/99)
The last card in this mail post is a surprisingly tough one! Allen York, a minor-league goaltender, was certainly an odd choice for the #/99 tier of 11-12 Panini Certified. I would imagine that it was a decision made due to jersey or autograph availability, rather than the caliber of player. This card was included in the update set from Rookie Anthology, and features a dark blue jersey swatch.
Allen York played in 11 NHL games during the 11-12 season for Columbus, and has bounced between several AHL and ECHL teams in 13-14. This card's appearance is a timely one. Due to some injury recalls to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Syracuse Crunch of the AHL were left with a goaltending vacancy that needed filled quickly on January 31. To fill the hole, the Crunch picked up Allen York on loan from South Carolina of the ECHL. York stopped 29 of 31 shots en route to a shootout loss for the Crunch, earning himself a game played in the organizations of both the Columbus Blue Jackets and Tampa Bay Lightning.
-----------------
News and notes:
** I'll be taking a little time off from new trades over the next month or so, while I catch up on old mail and finish one or two deals currently in the works. I'm still hoping to finally get my Tim Thomas checklist completed, and hopefully before he starts earning cards as a member of the Panthers.
** BOBROVSKY!
That'll be it. Thanks everyone!
--Andy
http://www.thegreatzo.com/cards/
-------------------------------------------------------
Mail Post #2 for 2014
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 PANINI PRIZM -- ONE BLASTER (7 Packs + Bonus)
13-14 PANINI PRIZM -- ONE RACK PACK (3 Packs + Bonus)
Base Cards
13-14 Panini Prizm Emerson Etem RC (SP)
13-14 Panini Prizm Charlie Coyle RC (SP)
13-14 Panini Prizm Nicklas Jensen RC (SP)
Why is it that I was just now able to find retail versions of Panini Prizm at a local major retailer? It's a bit odd to have them finally show up in mid-January, after I had been searching for the final three months of 2013.
Looking for some variety in the bonus packs, I picked up one blaster ($20) and one rack pack ($10). I pulled five RCs out of the ten regular packs, including two to be pictured later.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Panini Prizm Pivotal Players Jeff Carter
13-14 Panini Prizm Immortalized Teemu Selanne
Here are my two insert cards. I really like the Immortalized design.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Prizms Jeff Skinner
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Prizms Dennis Wideman
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Prizms Josh Harding
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Pulsar Prizms Andrei Markov
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Pulsar Prizms Devan Dubnyk
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Pulsar Prizms Ryan Spooner
Here are the results from the bonus packs! These cards are fantastic -- especially the Pulsar versions. It's everything a "shiny" collector can ask for.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Panini Prizm Blue Prizms Oliver Lauridsen
13-14 Panini Prizm Green Prizms Cam Fowler
The ten regular packs also yielded two prizm parallels -- another blue, and one of the tough green variations as well.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Panini Prizm Sean Collins RC (SP)
13-14 Panini Prizm Radko Gudas RC (SP)
The last two cards are incredible hits -- two RCs that I needed for my own collection! Radko Gudas is my favorite of the two, as he's a full-time member of the Lightning, and a player that other teams are learning to hate.
Out of the ten packs, only one pack was a dud, with five RCs, two inserts, and two parallels.
-------------------------------------------------------
Base Cards
The next eight pictures contain a whole bunch of cards I received in a trade with Derek (cheeseheadman). Derek searched diligently through my wantlists, finding several cards for my yearly binder project (pictured here), and a whole bunch of RCs as well.
-------------------------------------------------------
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 113 Bob Beers RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 244 Sergio Momesso RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 471 Jeff Beukeboom RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 497 Jeff Parker RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 509 Rod Buskas RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 510 Grant Jennings RC
90-90 O-Pee-Chee 527 Wayne Van Drop RC
90-91 Score Canadian 394 Adrien Plavsic RC
90-91 Upper Deck American 471 Karl Dykhuis RC
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 96 Steve Chiasson / Yves Racine
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 405 Anatoli Semenov RC
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 429 Zdeno Ciger RC
I still have a rather large wantlist from 90-91, but this batch helps quite a bit!
The most interesting card here is the Chiasson card from Upper Deck. The photo on the card back is actually Yves Racine. Since Racine's RCs are in 90-91 products, I figured it might be worth picking this one up as well!
My Zdeno Ciger RC collection is now complete (5 for 5).
-------------------------------------------------------
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 527 Wes Walz RC
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 528 Robert Kron RC
90-91 Upper Deck Canadian 536 Peter Bondra RC
91-92 O-Pee-Chee 116 Bryan Marchment RC
91-92 O-Pee-Chee Premier 99 Bryan Marchment (x2) RC
91-92 Score Canadian Bilingual 360 Reggie Savage RC
91-92 Score Canadian Bilingual 606 Bryan Marchment RC
91-92 Upper Deck American 590 Igor Ulanov RC
91-92 Upper Deck Canadian 47 Mario Lemieux / George Bush
92-93 Upper Deck 306 Ted Drury RC
92-93 Upper Deck 403 Dean McCammond RC
The next batch of cards includes one I hadn't even asked for, but perhaps think is among the most interesting from the transaction -- Mario Lemieux and George Bush at the White House -- or, la Maison Blanche! I can't think of any other presidents that have appeared on a hockey card.
Completed collections from this picture -- Wes Walz (6 for 6) and Ted Drury (just one card).
-------------------------------------------------------
92-93 Upper Deck 475 Tommy Soderstrom RC
93-94 Score Canadian 618 Fred Brathwaite RC
93-94 Score Canadian 627 Kirk Maltby RC
93-94 Upper Deck 558 David Wilkie RC
93-94 Upper Deck Program of Excellence E3 Jason Wiemer
94-95 Upper Deck 505 Nolan Baumgartner RC
95-96 Leaf 75 Brantt Myhres RC
95-96 Parkhurst International 302 Pavel Torgajev XRC
95-96 Upper Deck 517 Chris Phillips RC
96-97 Select Certified 99 Mattias Timander RC
98-99 Upper Deck Gold Reserve 332 Mike Maneluk RC
98-99 Upper Deck Gold Reserve 345 Jan Hrdina RC
I have dreams of completing the entire 15-card 93-94 UD Program of Excellence set, but this Wiemer card (a pre-RC) is just the first one I have acquired. I still have a long way to go.
Pavel Torgajev is done (2 for 2), as is Jan Hrdina (6 for 6).
-------------------------------------------------------
99-00 O-Pee-Chee 253 Alexandre Giroux RC
99-00 Pacific 124 Brad Lukowich RC
99-00 Pacific Omega 33 Jean-Luc Grand-Pierre RC / David Moravec RC
99-00 Upper Deck Gold Reserve 209 Dan Hinote RC
01-02 Between The Pipes 162 Martin Prusek RC
01-02 Upper Deck MVP 228 Raffi Torres RC
01-02 Pacific Adrenaline Retail 208 Ty Conklin RC
01-02 Pacific Adrenaline Retail 216 Radek Martinek RC
01-02 Pacific Adrenaline Retail 224 Nikita Alexeev RC
There are several more completions in this picture -- Lukowich (5 for 5), Grand-Pierre (2 for 2), and Prusek (4 for 4).
Those Adrenaline Retail cards aren't all that easy to find. They help me get a little closer for Nikita Alexeev -- I'm now up to 28 out of 32.
-------------------------------------------------------
01-02 O-Pee-Chee 359 Ty Conklin RC
01-02 Topps Chrome 179 Raffi Torres RC
05-06 Parkhurst 183 Brett Lebda RC
06-07 BAP Portraits 121 Ryan Shannon RC
06-07 Beehive 147 Michel Ouellet RC
08-09 Montreal Canadiens Centennial 82 Bob Fillion
08-09 Montreal Canadiens Centennial 88 Leo Lamoureux
08-09 Montreal Canadiens Centennial 156 Sam Pollock
At long last, one fairly-large RC collection is done -- Michel Ouellet, with 18 cards! That would be exciting if I really cared that much about Ouellet, but it's still a pretty good completion. It's odd that it came down to a card as easy as Beehive to finish the deal.
-------------------------------------------------------
98-99 SP Authentic 103 Mike Watt (0280/2000)
00-01 Topps Chrome Blue 245 Rostislav Klesla RC (0274/1250)
The Watt card here is not a true RC, but is an entry into my 98-99 SP Authentic set. I only need six more cards to finish the whole thing.
I now own two of the Klesla Topps Chrome RCs -- I still need the red version to complete the trio.
-------------------------------------------------------
02-03 BAP All-Star Edition 149 Scottie Upshall RC (86/100)
The final card from Derek is the most scarce, and it's from a very shiny set I happen to enjoy quite a bit!
Derek, thanks for your hard work to help me fill all these holes in my collection. I really appreciate it!
-------------------------------------------------------
03-04 O-Pee-Chee Nathan Horton RC
11-12 Crown Royale Jeremy Smith RC (SP)
Next up, for a much smaller transaction -- here are four cards I received from Matt (Matches). This is my first RC of Blue Jackets fourth-string goaltender Jeremy Smith.
-------------------------------------------------------
03-04 SP Authentic Nathan Horton RC (863/900)
03-04 Pacific Prism Nathan Horton RC (915/975)
The other two cards from Matt include two decent Horton cards. I think the SP Authentic RC is one of his most essential. Horton is likely to stick around in Columbus for quite a while, so I look forward to slowly completing most of his collection.
Thanks for the easy sale, Matt!
-------------------------------------------------------
00-01 Titanium Hobby Oleg Saprykin (71/99)
How should I close out the brought-to-you-by-HI portion of the mail post? How about with eight cards from Jeremy (gomaz), our owner?
To start things off, I'll tick one more virtual check box on the 00-01 Titanium Hobby set. I thought I was insane to ever begin working on this a couple years ago, but I'm well over halfway there -- 29 of the 50 short prints are mine.
-------------------------------------------------------
09-10 O-Pee-Chee Premier Spencer Machacek RC (176/299)
I'm doubting that Machacek will ever see the ice for the Blue Jackets, but even if he doesn't, I can't find a problem with owning one of these nice OPC Premier RCs. This is easily my favorite design from the several years of OPC Premier rookie subsets. All four swatches are powder blue, from the Atlanta Thrashers third jersey.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 SP Game Used Cam Atkinson RC (312/699)
11-12 SP Game Used Allen York RC (095/699)
2011-12 is the first RC season in which I'm still really far behind, thanks mainly to a large supply of Blue Jackets rookies, but also due to Panini's 05-06-UD-esque proliferation of RCs. These two cards (proving Upper Deck wasn't innocent either) certainly help things out for me.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Crown Royale Cam Atkinson RC (SP)
This card is also a big help for the 11-12 stash, and it's especially nice as an autographed card of one of my favorite Blue Jackets players!
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 ITG Heroes and Prospects Kerby Rychel (SP)
12-13 ITG Heroes and Prospects Autographs Adam Erne
Adam Erne is a Lightning prospect, and this is the first of his autograph cards that I own.
This is also the first ITG 3D card in my collection (this one features Blue Jackets prospect Kerby Rychel). I am very impressed with this card -- it's the most convincing 3D effect of this style on a trading card that I've ever seen.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Panini Prime Tim Thomas (095/249)
The final card from Jeremy is the lone player collection addition in this entire mail post. Although I already own the holo-silver and holo-gold parallels, it took me a year and a half to get the base version!
Jeremy -- thank you for the sale! It's quite a mix of stuff for my collections -- sets, rookies, prospects, a player collection too.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Select Richard Panik RC (174/399)
Panini isn't making thing easy on me in 13-14, with huge rookie checklists in Select, Dominion, and Titanium. I'm over halfway done with Select, thankfully, and this Richard Panik card gets me a little closer to the goal. Panik has the distinction of being perhaps the only Lightning rookie forward to struggle this season (a testament to how good the rest of them have been). He was recently demoted to AHL Syracuse.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Panini Rookie Anthology base cards
These base cards were included with the next card in the post.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Dominion J.T. Brown RC (79/99)
J.T. Brown has been a fixture with the Lightning for the past few months, adding energy on the lower lines, and showing some promise offensively from time to time. This is probably his best rookie card (if you count it as a RC, since it wasn't part of a stand-alone release). The large patch swatch contains four layers -- white jersey, black patch, white patch, and blue patch. This appears to be a swatch from the big numbers on the Lightning away (white) jersey.
Although J.T. Brown now wears #23 (to honor his father, former NFL running back Ted Brown), he spent time earlier in his Lightning career wearing #49 and #19.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Titanium J.T. Brown (14/19)
On the subject of J.T. Brown's jersey number, his 12-13 Titanium base card is limited to just 19 copies, matching the jersey number he wore at the time. As it stands right now, this is the lowest-numbered jersey-numbered rookie issue in my entire collection.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Panini Certified Allen York RC (19/99)
The last card in this mail post is a surprisingly tough one! Allen York, a minor-league goaltender, was certainly an odd choice for the #/99 tier of 11-12 Panini Certified. I would imagine that it was a decision made due to jersey or autograph availability, rather than the caliber of player. This card was included in the update set from Rookie Anthology, and features a dark blue jersey swatch.
Allen York played in 11 NHL games during the 11-12 season for Columbus, and has bounced between several AHL and ECHL teams in 13-14. This card's appearance is a timely one. Due to some injury recalls to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Syracuse Crunch of the AHL were left with a goaltending vacancy that needed filled quickly on January 31. To fill the hole, the Crunch picked up Allen York on loan from South Carolina of the ECHL. York stopped 29 of 31 shots en route to a shootout loss for the Crunch, earning himself a game played in the organizations of both the Columbus Blue Jackets and Tampa Bay Lightning.
-----------------
News and notes:
** I'll be taking a little time off from new trades over the next month or so, while I catch up on old mail and finish one or two deals currently in the works. I'm still hoping to finally get my Tim Thomas checklist completed, and hopefully before he starts earning cards as a member of the Panthers.
** BOBROVSKY!
That'll be it. Thanks everyone!
--Andy
http://www.thegreatzo.com/cards/
-------------------------------------------------------
.
