richie.rocket.cards
Verified Trader,
Hello HI!
Another six months gone, and while there have certainly been busy periods, it has been an equally insane 2016 for the hobby as it was in 2015! I attended hockey events in my hometown, got on a plane spur of the moment for another, and organized an actual vacation to attend my first Comic Con across the border =)
I’m also happy to report a new hobby milestone: I have just passed 80% completion for my all-time Canucks autograph collection – 456/569 players!
Enough talk, on to the show! If you remember where we left off at the end of the last thread, I had just finished a day of volunteering at Hockey Helps the Homeless, where I met one of my favorite Canucks players of all time, Geoff Courtnall. At the time of that thread, the two items I got signed by Courtnall weren’t quite complete yet, but here is one of them now:
(The patch is unfortunately manufactured though)
December was rather quiet, spent mostly with family and friends. But with a few days off, I did get out to the laser cutter to get some “cut” autos completed:
Willie Huber (deceased)
Sean Pronger (for whatever reason, other people get returns TTM, but I have not yet on two attempts):
Mel Bridgman (who, just as I finished this, announced he was doing his first public signing in 25 years lol)
Bob Manno
Fast forward to the early new year, Pastime Sports & Games, Langley put on a public signing featuring Alexandre Burrows, which was perfect timing to complete the other..well, you’ll see
Burrows was awesome at the public signing as one’d expect, spending time to chat with those who wanted, posing nicely for photos, signing everything and anything. Yet another great event by Pastime!
First, got this nice 8x10 done:
And, part two of the Courtnall project:
!!!
Again, the Courtnall piece is manufactured, but seriously, it doesn’t even bother me any more looking at this outcome!
Thanks Burr!
This year, the annual Orr-Cherry Top Prospects Game took place at the Pacific Coliseum, right in my hometown. Not only would I get to witness some of the best youngsters outside the NHL in a single showdown, I would also get a chance to meet/see tonnes of NHL scouts, many former players and even legends of the game!
Guys like Adam Foote, Ron Hextall, Tomas Holmstrom were walking around the concourse amongst the slew of fans. It was pretty fun leading up to the event going through all the scouting staff per team to prep custom cards. Most people brought stacks of items for the big guns Bobby Orr, Don Cherry, Joe Sakic..
I did meet Joe Sakic =)
But me? I was looking for guys like Scott Lachance, Steve Tambellini, and Robert Nordmark haha
Actually, Steve Tambellini was the first guy I ran into out in the parking lot:
And met the Assistant Coach for the night, Colby Armstrong:
Met Jim Benning:
And Thomas Gradin:
But the BIG success of the night was a guy I was really not expecting would be there. Good thing I was prepared. He is currently a European scout for the LA Kings…hence, I thought he’d be stationed in Helsinki. What do you know, I caught him just as he was exiting the building:
Christian Ruuttu!!
In February, I rotated out at the UBC Sports Medicine Clinic and what do you know, the Canucks practiced twice at Thunderbird Arena. I managed to catch some of them post-practice in the parking lot:
Finally got a picture with both Sedins. They certainly aren’t getting younger, and they are certainly, going to have both their numbers retired at the end of their careers. I’ll show the autographed stuff from them later in the thread! Can you tell who’s who?
Derek Dorsett:
Chris Higgins:
Brandon Sutter:
Matt Bartkowski:
Luca Sbisa:
Yannick Weber:
Alexandre Burrows:
Bo Horvat:
Markus Granlund:
Alex Friesen:
Chris Tanev upgrade:
Andrey Pedan!!
Jacob Markstrom:
Sven Baertschi (thanks Kev for picking up the patch all the way across the border for a number of these)
Emerson Etem:
Stan Smyl to complete this double!!
Radim Vrbata:
Jared McCann:
Ryan Miller:
Love these old spaghetti jerseys!
Ben Hutton (Mr. Barbie Girl himself!):
I originally thought with this Brilliance card, it’d be easy to buy a Canucks hologram sticker to use in the shadowbox window…but these are impossible to find, if they even exist. So I had to buy some crappy medallion to use instead:
A quick funny story on one Peter McNab: the Avs were visiting Vancouver a bunch through the late regular season, and as you know, McNab, a former Canuck who played briefly with us in the mid-80s, was their colour commentator. I had tried mailing him a few cards twice in the past, but had no success. Other TTMers also cited no luck with McNab via mail. So of course, here was my chance to get him in person!
So it was a Sunday game-day and luckily, I had the day off. I decided to take no chances on missing the guy, so I followed the local autograph-seeking crowd the entire morning through evening. They went to Rogers for the morning skate, they were there after the morning skate, they went to the hotel to catch the incoming bus, and they were also there for the outgoing bus a few hours prior to puck-drop. I’ll tell you, the life of a professional autograph seeker is really not very glamourous…there are a few moments of action (chaos even), and a lot of standing around. Of course, everybody wanted the likes of Duchene, Landeskog, Iginla, Patrick Roy…the crowd swarmed each of these guys as they came out of the hotel to get on the bus. I have to say I was genuinely impressed, most players were very polite, and signed for everyone, posed for pictures, even signed multiples. I even got a picture with Landeskog himself:
But…no Peter McNab.
I was worried that I was just not recognizing the guy and that he could have in fact, walked right past me. Somebody else suggested he wasn’t apart of the Avs organization any more. I went home dejected to be shut-out 0 for 1 that day.
Only to then turn on the American broadcast for the game, and low and behold, at the intermission, was Peter McNab providing analysis on the preceding period! I was in business! I ended up figuring out the autograph-seeking locals had gone to the airport post-game to try to score more autos..and well, crazy as it may sound, I hopped on a train and got myself out there. Hilarious. Same story. Everybody wanted more Patrick Roy, more Iginla, more Duchene. Then, the last guy off the bus, totally unsuspecting that anyone would even know his name, much less want his autograph…was Peter McNab. He was very nice in person. I shook his hand, we introduced ourselves, we spoke for a moment. Then he signed my cards. And, well, there was a day’s work =)
I think really, I am crazier than any autograph hound…I don’t make any money doing this, I don’t have extras…in fact I probably lost money going home on the train lol. But for that checkbox beside a name..well, y’know
And found this thing at the monthly Bonsor Show:
Yes, signed by Corey Hirsch, it can’t get better than that:
Alright, let’s park the bus on all the events for a sec. In early March, a number of envelopes long-outstanding actually began to trickle in through the mail!
Gary Leeman:
Jeff Tambellini! (The two Tambellini’s seriously, took a lot longer than I thought given they are both actually active in pro hockey):
Taylor Fedun:
King Kong Jerry Korab
Curtis Sanford:
Two from EVAN OBERG (been looking for this guy since 2011)!
Marc-Andre Gragnani GU Glove auto!
Wade Flaherty (big thanks to TurcoCollector35 Tim for the help with these):
Dane Jackson
Steve McCarthy:
Alexandre Grenier from Utica:
Brandon Reid upgrade to a stellar PATCH!
MORE Corey Hirsch!
And lastly, close to record length in terms of a return TTM: Heather Mitts!! Sent Feb 22, 2012!
And also a couple cool non-Canucks cards:
Gustav Nyquist FW through a trade (my only trade on HI this year I believe =/
Luc Robitaille featured in Team Canada. Actually, I quite like the Team Canada Master Collection but they are very hard to find, especially particular players. If anyone sees Eric Staal…
Evgeni Nabokov, always liked the look of this set, and the old Sharks jerseys:
Sport Authentix also hosted a couple of private signings featuring Pavel Bure, and Sergei Fedorov!! Two super difficult signers (especially Fedorov!) I’ll save some of the better autographed pieces for later in the thread, but here are two photos, both personalized, that will be up on my future basement wall:
Bure:
Fedorov:
In April, I ventured solo across the border to attend my first ever Comic Con internationally in Lexington, Kentucky! You’re probably wondering why Lexington of all places that have Cons…over say, NY, Chicago, LA, San Diego, you name it. But being the autograph collector I am, I have to say the signing guest list at Lexington was CRAZY AWESOME, and a huge part of why I chose to go there…for a chance to meet many TV heroes of mine as a kid!
Can’t really go to one of these things without a respectable costume can you? The cab driver certainly looked at me like I was psychotic…but when I got to the show, some other fans’ costumes were so elaborate I almost felt under-dressed haha.
The first order of business was to meet Buffy the Vampire Slayer super-vampire Spike, played by James Marsters. Dang he was cool in that show, and frankly, in real life too:
Then, I went around the convention center slowly, but surely, meeting all the Power Rangers Season 3 cast:
Jason David Frank who played Tommy the White Ranger:
Steve Cardenas who played Rocky the Red Ranger:
David Yost as Billy the Blue Ranger:
Johnny Yong Bosch as Adam the Black Ranger
Catherine Sutherland as Kat the Pink Ranger (yea, she spelled Pterodactyl wrong, but I guess who writes that on a day-to-day basis)
Karan Ashley as Aisha the Yellow Ranger
Jason David Frank liked my stuff so much he actually took pictures and posted it on his Instagram account:
There was a lot of other cast from different series as well, including Walking Dead, other Power Rangers series, big films like Force Awakens, Pirates, you name it. Very well put-together signing roster!!
The last person I met, and how could you not: Ciara Hanna =) Yea, new celebrity crush right there -->
Originally, David Prowse (who played the ORIGINAL Darth Vader in Star Wars IV, V, VI) was supposed to be signing at the Lexington Con…but he canceled last minute =(
Luckily, he happened to be signing at the Greedy Goblin Con all the way in London, UK at the latter portion of April. One of the organizers was able to help me get this thing signed:
I now have all posters Episodes IV, V, VI all signed! Cannot wait to get them all framed, and up all in a row on the basement wall =)
So I was on a roll guys! Shortly after discovering the Prowse signing overseas, I found out that Amy Jo Johnson (the ORIGINAL Pink Ranger in MMPR..ok, admit it, we all had a celebrity crush on this girl growing up, no?) was signing at the Philadelphia Comic Con at the end of the month!!
After failing to get a response from any event organizers to help me obtain an auto, I scoured randomly on Facebook in the comment section under the Amy Jo announcement to find a fan who would help me out. Long story short, a fellow fan named Frank was able to help me get this signed:
(Really too bad she printed her name instead of autographing…I thought my instructions were pretty clear. But, you win some and certainly, lose some eh)
No post would be complete without some Canucks (licensed cards) pick-ups:
Starting with two small whales…these two Mika Noronen cards were dirt cheap but unbelievably difficult to find for some reason. Happy to get them off the long-time list:
A few Ronalds Kenins:
Jared McCann:
Low cost Burrows/Kesler:
Pedan’s only RC so far:
Hammer Time!
Some nice Vrbata patches (his first ever memorabilia cards I believe):
Cody Hodgson..who is going for dirt cheap now. Always liked this card though:
Jake Virtanen:
Pair of Sedins!
And surprisingly, this is my FIRST Pavel Bure buyback auto…the others I’ve seen have all consistently gone for pretty big money. Happy to land this, and hoping for more in the near future:
Early in the new year, I began talking with a fellow custom card maker on another forum, who specializes in sticker auto transfers. I’ve tried my hand at this process before, but really, my percentage success has been low…wrecking the sticker altogether. Seeing that he had pretty much perfected this craft, I approached him to help me with a few for my own customs. These are great as they have helped me check off a few players that have been very difficult to otherwise find, or who don’t sign through the mail:
Brad Richardson
Benn Ferriero
Jason Labarbera (probably better that I used the sticker as the space for the
autograph is pretty small)
Bob Essensa (upgraded picture)
Jeremy Walsh (he actually did sign TTM but I had this leftover sticker)
Darcy Hordichuk (elusive, very elusive)
Kirk Muller (love these classic Young Guns)
Shane O’Brien
Cam Barker
Raffi Torres:
Keith Ballard
And the big fish: Fedor Fedorov! Who would have thought there’d be more than one Fedorov in this thread? The KHL is notoriously bad for TTM. I don’t think I’ve actually seen anyone receive autographs back from Russia proper (Slovakia yes). His autograph has to be pretty rare overall regardless:
In early mid-April, I heard about the Alzheimer's Face-off event being held in Edmonton at the end of the month, very much a parallel to the Alzheimer's event I attended back in October. Of course, the signing guests mostly featured former Oilers, including Cujo, Mike Krushelnyski, Fernando Pisani, Kelly Buchberger, Marty McSoreley, and so on.
But in addition, there were also some awesome big name invitees: Bryan Trottier, Wendel Clark, Guy Carbonneau, and...another favorite player of mine: Joe Nieuwendyk! I hadn't met any of these guys before, and none of them really have reason to come to Vancouver.
I basically contemplated until the week before, and decided spur of the moment to spend Aeroplan points for a flight over..to not only see this hockey tourney, but to visit some former colleagues as well. Can't lose to hit two birds with one stone!
The first player I met was Wendel Clark. Now, I've heard bad stories about Clark and was thus, expecting the worst, but he was actually very good with the fans. He wasn't the most talkative guy that's for sure. He shook people's hands, took pictures, signed whatever was put in front of him (yes, even the few guys who had 10 Wendel Clark photos they "needed" to have signed).
Ran into former Canuck Jason Strudwick:
And Kevin Primeau:
You know these guys:
Didn't really need to have anything signed by them, was just cool to meet some legends in person and watch them dominate on the ice once more.
And of course, how could one not meet Curtis Joseph at a tournament like this. Cujo was probably the most popular player of the day out there. He's pretty quiet in person also but was receptive to fans. Awesome:
And lastly, there was Joe Nieuwendyk. He is, AWESOME on the ice. A quick flick of the stick blade at the side wall, and he's off. Another quick flick, and it's a back-hand breakaway pass to a teammate. This guy doesn't even need to look. He just knows what's going on. And boy can he still skate. He didn't score that many points for no good reason!
Glad to finally have this classic YG card signed:
And, probably my favorite completed custom to date:
!!
Yes, the patch is actually game used too =)
There is definitely something about those old Flames jerseys...the red and yellow just stand out and really look...fiery.
To conclude this update, I decided to pick out some of the best pieces from the last few months, and save them for one (hopefully) crazy finale:
To start, we go back to when I met the Canucks at UBC, and managed to get autographs from both Sedins. These shells lay on my desk until this past Sunday when I finally found a worthy patch to place in the Daniel Sedin slot, courtesy sedinfan Dave:
And next, one of our new boys (yes, we've had a lot of them this season): Nikita Tryamkin! He was riding with Markstrom and kindly rolled down his window to sign these. I'm pretty sure he knew zero english, but he still gave me a thumbs up.
Note, the foil stamping happened "after" the card was signed...a big risk, and cost me an extra $80 set-up fee, but it turned out pretty accurate:
I also don't know why Pedan tends to sign sideways..haha
Finally, even more Pavel Bure!
The following Cup cards are actually from Cup Proof sheets that somebody cut up and put online. It is awesome because the foil-stamping was already done. The scariest part was putting these through the laser cutter because it was a one shot deal or die. Luckily they turned out quite well I think! Really happy to have these very one of a kind Bure cards:
Last but not least, here is a mind-blowing triple auto: Bure, Mogilny, Fedorov all on the same card, signed neatly and perfectly. My mind was certainly blown. I think this might be the only hard-signed card featuring these three players on the entire planet...custom or licensed! That goes to say how often Fedorov and Mogilny sign anything!
Well, that's it for this update. I don't know if my next post can live up to these last two; the trips, the hours in front of Photoshop, at the laser cutter, mailing, researching..it’s been fun. Hopefully more to come, keep you all posted. Good night!
Another six months gone, and while there have certainly been busy periods, it has been an equally insane 2016 for the hobby as it was in 2015! I attended hockey events in my hometown, got on a plane spur of the moment for another, and organized an actual vacation to attend my first Comic Con across the border =)
I’m also happy to report a new hobby milestone: I have just passed 80% completion for my all-time Canucks autograph collection – 456/569 players!
Enough talk, on to the show! If you remember where we left off at the end of the last thread, I had just finished a day of volunteering at Hockey Helps the Homeless, where I met one of my favorite Canucks players of all time, Geoff Courtnall. At the time of that thread, the two items I got signed by Courtnall weren’t quite complete yet, but here is one of them now:
(The patch is unfortunately manufactured though)
December was rather quiet, spent mostly with family and friends. But with a few days off, I did get out to the laser cutter to get some “cut” autos completed:
Willie Huber (deceased)
Sean Pronger (for whatever reason, other people get returns TTM, but I have not yet on two attempts):
Mel Bridgman (who, just as I finished this, announced he was doing his first public signing in 25 years lol)
Bob Manno
Fast forward to the early new year, Pastime Sports & Games, Langley put on a public signing featuring Alexandre Burrows, which was perfect timing to complete the other..well, you’ll see
Burrows was awesome at the public signing as one’d expect, spending time to chat with those who wanted, posing nicely for photos, signing everything and anything. Yet another great event by Pastime!
First, got this nice 8x10 done:
And, part two of the Courtnall project:
!!!
Again, the Courtnall piece is manufactured, but seriously, it doesn’t even bother me any more looking at this outcome!
Thanks Burr!
This year, the annual Orr-Cherry Top Prospects Game took place at the Pacific Coliseum, right in my hometown. Not only would I get to witness some of the best youngsters outside the NHL in a single showdown, I would also get a chance to meet/see tonnes of NHL scouts, many former players and even legends of the game!
Guys like Adam Foote, Ron Hextall, Tomas Holmstrom were walking around the concourse amongst the slew of fans. It was pretty fun leading up to the event going through all the scouting staff per team to prep custom cards. Most people brought stacks of items for the big guns Bobby Orr, Don Cherry, Joe Sakic..
I did meet Joe Sakic =)
But me? I was looking for guys like Scott Lachance, Steve Tambellini, and Robert Nordmark haha
Actually, Steve Tambellini was the first guy I ran into out in the parking lot:
And met the Assistant Coach for the night, Colby Armstrong:
Met Jim Benning:
And Thomas Gradin:
But the BIG success of the night was a guy I was really not expecting would be there. Good thing I was prepared. He is currently a European scout for the LA Kings…hence, I thought he’d be stationed in Helsinki. What do you know, I caught him just as he was exiting the building:
Christian Ruuttu!!
In February, I rotated out at the UBC Sports Medicine Clinic and what do you know, the Canucks practiced twice at Thunderbird Arena. I managed to catch some of them post-practice in the parking lot:
Finally got a picture with both Sedins. They certainly aren’t getting younger, and they are certainly, going to have both their numbers retired at the end of their careers. I’ll show the autographed stuff from them later in the thread! Can you tell who’s who?
Derek Dorsett:
Chris Higgins:
Brandon Sutter:
Matt Bartkowski:
Luca Sbisa:
Yannick Weber:
Alexandre Burrows:
Bo Horvat:
Markus Granlund:
Alex Friesen:
Chris Tanev upgrade:
Andrey Pedan!!
Jacob Markstrom:
Sven Baertschi (thanks Kev for picking up the patch all the way across the border for a number of these)
Emerson Etem:
Stan Smyl to complete this double!!
Radim Vrbata:
Jared McCann:
Ryan Miller:
Love these old spaghetti jerseys!
Ben Hutton (Mr. Barbie Girl himself!):
I originally thought with this Brilliance card, it’d be easy to buy a Canucks hologram sticker to use in the shadowbox window…but these are impossible to find, if they even exist. So I had to buy some crappy medallion to use instead:
A quick funny story on one Peter McNab: the Avs were visiting Vancouver a bunch through the late regular season, and as you know, McNab, a former Canuck who played briefly with us in the mid-80s, was their colour commentator. I had tried mailing him a few cards twice in the past, but had no success. Other TTMers also cited no luck with McNab via mail. So of course, here was my chance to get him in person!
So it was a Sunday game-day and luckily, I had the day off. I decided to take no chances on missing the guy, so I followed the local autograph-seeking crowd the entire morning through evening. They went to Rogers for the morning skate, they were there after the morning skate, they went to the hotel to catch the incoming bus, and they were also there for the outgoing bus a few hours prior to puck-drop. I’ll tell you, the life of a professional autograph seeker is really not very glamourous…there are a few moments of action (chaos even), and a lot of standing around. Of course, everybody wanted the likes of Duchene, Landeskog, Iginla, Patrick Roy…the crowd swarmed each of these guys as they came out of the hotel to get on the bus. I have to say I was genuinely impressed, most players were very polite, and signed for everyone, posed for pictures, even signed multiples. I even got a picture with Landeskog himself:
But…no Peter McNab.
I was worried that I was just not recognizing the guy and that he could have in fact, walked right past me. Somebody else suggested he wasn’t apart of the Avs organization any more. I went home dejected to be shut-out 0 for 1 that day.
Only to then turn on the American broadcast for the game, and low and behold, at the intermission, was Peter McNab providing analysis on the preceding period! I was in business! I ended up figuring out the autograph-seeking locals had gone to the airport post-game to try to score more autos..and well, crazy as it may sound, I hopped on a train and got myself out there. Hilarious. Same story. Everybody wanted more Patrick Roy, more Iginla, more Duchene. Then, the last guy off the bus, totally unsuspecting that anyone would even know his name, much less want his autograph…was Peter McNab. He was very nice in person. I shook his hand, we introduced ourselves, we spoke for a moment. Then he signed my cards. And, well, there was a day’s work =)
I think really, I am crazier than any autograph hound…I don’t make any money doing this, I don’t have extras…in fact I probably lost money going home on the train lol. But for that checkbox beside a name..well, y’know
And found this thing at the monthly Bonsor Show:
Yes, signed by Corey Hirsch, it can’t get better than that:
Alright, let’s park the bus on all the events for a sec. In early March, a number of envelopes long-outstanding actually began to trickle in through the mail!
Gary Leeman:
Jeff Tambellini! (The two Tambellini’s seriously, took a lot longer than I thought given they are both actually active in pro hockey):
Taylor Fedun:
King Kong Jerry Korab
Curtis Sanford:
Two from EVAN OBERG (been looking for this guy since 2011)!
Marc-Andre Gragnani GU Glove auto!
Wade Flaherty (big thanks to TurcoCollector35 Tim for the help with these):
Dane Jackson
Steve McCarthy:
Alexandre Grenier from Utica:
Brandon Reid upgrade to a stellar PATCH!
MORE Corey Hirsch!
And lastly, close to record length in terms of a return TTM: Heather Mitts!! Sent Feb 22, 2012!
And also a couple cool non-Canucks cards:
Gustav Nyquist FW through a trade (my only trade on HI this year I believe =/
Luc Robitaille featured in Team Canada. Actually, I quite like the Team Canada Master Collection but they are very hard to find, especially particular players. If anyone sees Eric Staal…
Evgeni Nabokov, always liked the look of this set, and the old Sharks jerseys:
Sport Authentix also hosted a couple of private signings featuring Pavel Bure, and Sergei Fedorov!! Two super difficult signers (especially Fedorov!) I’ll save some of the better autographed pieces for later in the thread, but here are two photos, both personalized, that will be up on my future basement wall:
Bure:
Fedorov:
In April, I ventured solo across the border to attend my first ever Comic Con internationally in Lexington, Kentucky! You’re probably wondering why Lexington of all places that have Cons…over say, NY, Chicago, LA, San Diego, you name it. But being the autograph collector I am, I have to say the signing guest list at Lexington was CRAZY AWESOME, and a huge part of why I chose to go there…for a chance to meet many TV heroes of mine as a kid!
Can’t really go to one of these things without a respectable costume can you? The cab driver certainly looked at me like I was psychotic…but when I got to the show, some other fans’ costumes were so elaborate I almost felt under-dressed haha.
The first order of business was to meet Buffy the Vampire Slayer super-vampire Spike, played by James Marsters. Dang he was cool in that show, and frankly, in real life too:
Then, I went around the convention center slowly, but surely, meeting all the Power Rangers Season 3 cast:
Jason David Frank who played Tommy the White Ranger:
Steve Cardenas who played Rocky the Red Ranger:
David Yost as Billy the Blue Ranger:
Johnny Yong Bosch as Adam the Black Ranger
Catherine Sutherland as Kat the Pink Ranger (yea, she spelled Pterodactyl wrong, but I guess who writes that on a day-to-day basis)
Karan Ashley as Aisha the Yellow Ranger
Jason David Frank liked my stuff so much he actually took pictures and posted it on his Instagram account:
There was a lot of other cast from different series as well, including Walking Dead, other Power Rangers series, big films like Force Awakens, Pirates, you name it. Very well put-together signing roster!!
The last person I met, and how could you not: Ciara Hanna =) Yea, new celebrity crush right there -->
Originally, David Prowse (who played the ORIGINAL Darth Vader in Star Wars IV, V, VI) was supposed to be signing at the Lexington Con…but he canceled last minute =(
Luckily, he happened to be signing at the Greedy Goblin Con all the way in London, UK at the latter portion of April. One of the organizers was able to help me get this thing signed:
I now have all posters Episodes IV, V, VI all signed! Cannot wait to get them all framed, and up all in a row on the basement wall =)
So I was on a roll guys! Shortly after discovering the Prowse signing overseas, I found out that Amy Jo Johnson (the ORIGINAL Pink Ranger in MMPR..ok, admit it, we all had a celebrity crush on this girl growing up, no?) was signing at the Philadelphia Comic Con at the end of the month!!
After failing to get a response from any event organizers to help me obtain an auto, I scoured randomly on Facebook in the comment section under the Amy Jo announcement to find a fan who would help me out. Long story short, a fellow fan named Frank was able to help me get this signed:
(Really too bad she printed her name instead of autographing…I thought my instructions were pretty clear. But, you win some and certainly, lose some eh)
No post would be complete without some Canucks (licensed cards) pick-ups:
Starting with two small whales…these two Mika Noronen cards were dirt cheap but unbelievably difficult to find for some reason. Happy to get them off the long-time list:
A few Ronalds Kenins:
Jared McCann:
Low cost Burrows/Kesler:
Pedan’s only RC so far:
Hammer Time!
Some nice Vrbata patches (his first ever memorabilia cards I believe):
Cody Hodgson..who is going for dirt cheap now. Always liked this card though:
Jake Virtanen:
Pair of Sedins!
And surprisingly, this is my FIRST Pavel Bure buyback auto…the others I’ve seen have all consistently gone for pretty big money. Happy to land this, and hoping for more in the near future:
Early in the new year, I began talking with a fellow custom card maker on another forum, who specializes in sticker auto transfers. I’ve tried my hand at this process before, but really, my percentage success has been low…wrecking the sticker altogether. Seeing that he had pretty much perfected this craft, I approached him to help me with a few for my own customs. These are great as they have helped me check off a few players that have been very difficult to otherwise find, or who don’t sign through the mail:
Brad Richardson
Benn Ferriero
Jason Labarbera (probably better that I used the sticker as the space for the
autograph is pretty small)
Bob Essensa (upgraded picture)
Jeremy Walsh (he actually did sign TTM but I had this leftover sticker)
Darcy Hordichuk (elusive, very elusive)
Kirk Muller (love these classic Young Guns)
Shane O’Brien
Cam Barker
Raffi Torres:
Keith Ballard
And the big fish: Fedor Fedorov! Who would have thought there’d be more than one Fedorov in this thread? The KHL is notoriously bad for TTM. I don’t think I’ve actually seen anyone receive autographs back from Russia proper (Slovakia yes). His autograph has to be pretty rare overall regardless:
In early mid-April, I heard about the Alzheimer's Face-off event being held in Edmonton at the end of the month, very much a parallel to the Alzheimer's event I attended back in October. Of course, the signing guests mostly featured former Oilers, including Cujo, Mike Krushelnyski, Fernando Pisani, Kelly Buchberger, Marty McSoreley, and so on.
But in addition, there were also some awesome big name invitees: Bryan Trottier, Wendel Clark, Guy Carbonneau, and...another favorite player of mine: Joe Nieuwendyk! I hadn't met any of these guys before, and none of them really have reason to come to Vancouver.
I basically contemplated until the week before, and decided spur of the moment to spend Aeroplan points for a flight over..to not only see this hockey tourney, but to visit some former colleagues as well. Can't lose to hit two birds with one stone!
The first player I met was Wendel Clark. Now, I've heard bad stories about Clark and was thus, expecting the worst, but he was actually very good with the fans. He wasn't the most talkative guy that's for sure. He shook people's hands, took pictures, signed whatever was put in front of him (yes, even the few guys who had 10 Wendel Clark photos they "needed" to have signed).
Ran into former Canuck Jason Strudwick:
And Kevin Primeau:
You know these guys:
Didn't really need to have anything signed by them, was just cool to meet some legends in person and watch them dominate on the ice once more.
And of course, how could one not meet Curtis Joseph at a tournament like this. Cujo was probably the most popular player of the day out there. He's pretty quiet in person also but was receptive to fans. Awesome:
And lastly, there was Joe Nieuwendyk. He is, AWESOME on the ice. A quick flick of the stick blade at the side wall, and he's off. Another quick flick, and it's a back-hand breakaway pass to a teammate. This guy doesn't even need to look. He just knows what's going on. And boy can he still skate. He didn't score that many points for no good reason!
Glad to finally have this classic YG card signed:
And, probably my favorite completed custom to date:
!!
Yes, the patch is actually game used too =)
There is definitely something about those old Flames jerseys...the red and yellow just stand out and really look...fiery.
To conclude this update, I decided to pick out some of the best pieces from the last few months, and save them for one (hopefully) crazy finale:
To start, we go back to when I met the Canucks at UBC, and managed to get autographs from both Sedins. These shells lay on my desk until this past Sunday when I finally found a worthy patch to place in the Daniel Sedin slot, courtesy sedinfan Dave:
And next, one of our new boys (yes, we've had a lot of them this season): Nikita Tryamkin! He was riding with Markstrom and kindly rolled down his window to sign these. I'm pretty sure he knew zero english, but he still gave me a thumbs up.
Note, the foil stamping happened "after" the card was signed...a big risk, and cost me an extra $80 set-up fee, but it turned out pretty accurate:
I also don't know why Pedan tends to sign sideways..haha
Finally, even more Pavel Bure!
The following Cup cards are actually from Cup Proof sheets that somebody cut up and put online. It is awesome because the foil-stamping was already done. The scariest part was putting these through the laser cutter because it was a one shot deal or die. Luckily they turned out quite well I think! Really happy to have these very one of a kind Bure cards:
Last but not least, here is a mind-blowing triple auto: Bure, Mogilny, Fedorov all on the same card, signed neatly and perfectly. My mind was certainly blown. I think this might be the only hard-signed card featuring these three players on the entire planet...custom or licensed! That goes to say how often Fedorov and Mogilny sign anything!
Well, that's it for this update. I don't know if my next post can live up to these last two; the trips, the hours in front of Photoshop, at the laser cutter, mailing, researching..it’s been fun. Hopefully more to come, keep you all posted. Good night!
