Andy's Final 2005 Mailpost!!!

[The Great Zo]

Happy almost New Year. This will be my closing mail post for 2005, so you'll all have to go the rest of the year without another one. Such a long time to wait, I'm sure.

Only eight pictures, as it's a little smaller than usual, but I wanted to clear things out and do a little year-end evaluation. My next mail post will probably be after I've moved back to college, as I don't think I have enough coming in to justify another post within a week.

With that, let's get started!

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01-02 Pacific Heads Up Holo-Silver Sergei Samsonov (/27) (NICE!)
This rare, somewhat-old, and very hard-to-find card came from ebay for a ridiculously cheap price. A similar card from 02-03 Pacific Heads Up of Samsonov hit $30 just a week prior, and this one sold for around 10% of that. To top it off... what an awesome picture! Probably the second-favorite of mine, behind only the Sheldon Keefe 99-00 Black Diamond Final Cut card (link to that picture HERE). Shiny = Good.

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98-99 Ottawa Senators Team Issue Steve Martins
This slightly-oversized card (about an inch in each direction) came from ebay, and goes towards another of my player collections. It's the first time I've ever seen this card available as a single, and thus the purchase was a necessity.

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some minor league / junior commons
92-93 Upper Deck SP3 Insert
95-96 Emotion Generation Next Brendan Witt
1997 Score Board Players Club Sergei Samsonov
00-01 UD CHL Prospects Future Leaders Nathan Smith
99-00 Bowman CHL O-Pee-Chee Dan Tessier, Mathieu Biron
99-00 Paramount Red Shane Willis, Jochen Hecht
see next picture...

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99-00 Topps Premier Plus Parallel Brian Leetch (/250)
99-00 Topps Premier Plus The Next Ones Steve Kariya
03-04 Upper Deck MVP SportsNut Alexander Auld
03-04 Upper Deck Rookie Update Fedor Tjutin RC (/999)
03-04 ITG Used Signature Series Gold Autograph Sergei Fedorov (/70)
05-06 UD Victory Gold Yanic Perreault (/100)
05-06 Black Diamond Kevin Weekes (#222!), and assorted commons
Everything from the last two pictures came from Mikael (TheCollectingSwede). Mikael, as I've found he has a tendency to do, threw in a ton of extras, and was very generous in substituting the Fedorov autograph for a card he no longer had posession of. Mikael's a very high-rated trader in my books, so a big thank you goes out to him for another great deal, and I certainly look forward to more!

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00-01 Paramount Holo-Gold Sergei Samsonov (/74)
01-02 UD Premier Collection Tomas Divisek RC (/399)
Ebay's been my friend recently, after a good month or two in which we had ... shall we say ... some disagreements. Both of these came fairly cheap! The Divisek is an addition to the never-ending UD Premier wing of the Best RC project. The Samsonov is the last card I needed from 00-01 Paramount. Pacific was rather dumb in not labeling the Holo-Gold and Holo-Silver parallels, and then numbering them to the same amount. I have found that the difference is only really evident if the cards are held in the glare of direct light. At least it's not a problem I have to worry about anymore!

 

[The Great Zo]

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05-06 Black Diamond Ruby Kevin Weekes (/100) (#223!), Sergei Samsonov (/100)
05-06 Black Diamond Emerald Kevin Weekes (/25) (#224!), Sergei samsonov (/25)
More very important help from ebay here, as I knock off the four "main" parallels I needed from Black Diamond. The Weekes Ruby is the exception, as it came by way of Chad (Boomer1967). Thank you for your help!

To date, the Samsonov and Weekes Gold and Onyx parallel variations have not surfaced.

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02-03 UD Mask Collection Instant Offense Jersey Sergei Samsonov (/250)
Alright, one more from ebay for good measure! This is one that's been on my wantlist for too long, but truth be told, there haven't been many multi-colored versions to chase. Three years later, I finally found one in my price range! Oh, and that serial number... so close!

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05-06 Upper Deck Shooting Stars Jersey Sergei Samsonov
05-06 Upper Deck HG Glossy Sergei Samsonov (/10) (NICE!!!)
For today's grand finale -- a slightly (ahem) rare Samsonov card by way of Steve (quincy). He got this one back at the expo and we were able to work out a deal for it, making it only the fourth Samsonov card I own with only ten copies printed. As I already owned the base and Fall Expo versions, I have finished the Samsonov trifecta! Steve also included the Shooting Stars jersey, which was certainly a very nice addition. Thanks for your help!

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News and notes:

**With that Samsonov 05-06 Upper Deck "trilogy" completed, it would certainly be nice to complete the Kevin Weekes version as well. If anyone has any leads on a HG Glossy parallel, it would be much appreciated.

**Believe it or not, I had a different card in mind for today's "grand finale", but it didn't arrive in yet. What could be better than a Samsonov out of ten? Something "whaley", perhaps...

**And now, the moment we've all been waiting for: the final status report on my player collections. About seven or eight months ago, I set a goal to reach 90% completion for my player collections by the end of 2005. The end of 2005 is hours away and my card-buying for the year is done. Unfortunately, I did not reach the goal (insert sobbing here). My final statistics are:

---1187/1328
---89.38%

**Extrapolating the math, I still need nine more cards. It should also be factored in that January 2006 Upper Deck releases will add ten more cards to the denominator... although the good news is that I have four cards enroute. So, the end result is: I came close. I'll set a new goal to finish 90% for good by the end of February 2006.

**Yesterday, I completed a re-analysis of my player collection pages and wantlist, and found only a couple of minor errors. However, I came up with a few questions on some checklist entries in the Beckett database. Once I finish the re-analysis of the Samsonov stuff (including a complete listing of all the cards I own!) I'll post a thread asking the questions I've uncovered.

Thanks to everyone here for a great year of trading in 2005, and I wish you all plenty of "missions accomplished" for 2006!

That'll be it. Thanks everyone!

LINKS:
http://www.beckett.com/userpages/hatzosman6.html - Homepage/Wantlist/Tradelist
http://pipsey.net:8080/~thegreatzo/players/players.html - Player Collection Website
http://pipsey.net:8080/~thegreatzo/vipersrc/vipersrc.html - Vipers Best-RCs Project

 

[PenaltyMan]

Love the Fed auto and Sammy silver /27, Andy!

Happy New Year, may lots of alcohol fill you with happiness and cheer.

I might add that I pulled the Sammy /10 out of Q's box at the show for him.

 

[nashfan61]

Is the Fedorov avalible??? If so please PM me Im very interested.

 

[MOGO89]

Very nice Andy!! All those Samsonovs rock!

And happy new year as it already has been over an hour of 2006 here in Finland!!

Tatu

 

[BlindThomen]

Great way to end the collecting year 2005, Andy!

Too bad you didn't make it to the 90%, but still, those collection numbers are most impressive.

Yeah, the Holo-Gold and Holo-Silver parallels are probably the all-time most difficult parallels to tell apart. I mean, for a second, even the reflection on the Silvers look like gold sometimes. You just have to see which one has "more gold".

Happy New Year to you too!

- Sauli

 

[stp]

Can't believe I almost missed one of your posts Andy!

Great stuff as usual, keep it up! And don't worry, you're not the only one that didn't reach your goal this year.

Shaun

 

[Boomer1967]

Nice mail and glad I could help

 

[The Great Zo]

Thank you everyone!

Wes - I don't drink but yes, as I recall, way to go on pulling the Sammy which eventually wound its way to me.

Nashfan - I really didn't see anything that I was interested in for the Fedorov, sorry!

 

[roaddogg1718]

Very nice Andy, good luck on 90%.