roaddogg1718
Verified Trader,
Hey all,
Thanks for the kind messages from a few of you recently. I'll try not to ramble too much, but it's been awhile. Just been a little busy with life. Got married in 2015. Bought a house later that year. Enjoyed paying it off quickly and investing rather than dumping thousands into the hobby when I saw the interest on a mortgage. For those of you that don't remember, I collected every RC and every parallel of them of every player who had ever played for the Avs. I made it through Landeskog in 11-12. But MacKinnon in 13-14 broke me. I grabbed all of the true RCs except for the Cup and Ice I think. But almost no parallels. Not being complete anymore just made me not care as much about all of them. Thankfully, or maybe not, I didn't dump millions into Rantanen and eventually Makar. I still searched and collected all of my existing PCs and pre-2015 RCs. Mostly through eBay now, and massive COMC binges each Thanksgiving. I sold enough on there that I was looking for new things to chase that weren't so crazy expensive. The hard parallels are the fun part, not spending the money. Jaccob Slavin was a side project since he went to my high school (as much as a travelling hockey player goes to any one school I think). I kept the Avs OPC project going for a little bit, but I kinda lost interest there too.
I kept all my mail sorted by month like I was going to eventually catch up and post it all like I used to. Didn't give up that dream until January 2024 and start sorting it away, mostly because I found I was buying cards I already had too often with my shoddy record keeping. The small portion of my company sold to a private equity firm in 2019, with me being second in command and buried with work now that we didn't have our own accountants or HR or IT team of a large company anymore. My son was born a month later. And then the pandemic in 2020. So I was pretty busy with all of that. Adding a daughter in 2021 took any remaining time completely. But kinda revitalized this year as the kids grow up and want to see things. Getting my office and collection much more organized, but it's daunting.
Those Thanksgiving COMC binges have been a lot of non-hockey stuff. A couple baseball collections for players who debuted the days my kids were born, just like Kevin Dineen did on my birthday. Players who made the NFL from Colorado State University, where I finally finished a Masters in 2020, and much smaller lists for the NBA, MLB, PGA, Olympics, etc. Shane Carwin from the UFC went to my undergraduate alma mater the Colorado School of Mines. Always had my Helton/Walker collection, and so freaking stoked they finally made the HOF and kicked the Coors Field stigma enough. Same with Steve Atwater into the Football HOF. Breaking the bias against the two coasts and the aging writers there is a real issue for us in the middle of the US. Kicking around the idea of a Logan O'Connor PC now, since he kinda fits my M.O.
Spent more of my money on having Avs season tickets since 13-14 again too. Don't make it down a ton during the regular season, but try not to miss playoff games. Saw games 1 and 2 of the Cup, but got Covid from them, so missed Game 5 thankfully. One day we'll win a home playoff series again and see some handshakes. I think the last I saw in person might be the day Ray lifted the Cup in 2001, since we only win on the road now. But honestly after seeing that live, I can never complain. Much less watching the insane talent of MacKinnon and Makar these days.
Anyway, I have hundreds of awesome additions for everything, but I have to start with Deadmarsh, because he was always my primary collection and because they started releasing stuff of him again.
Super annoyed that Photobucket went all crazy on me, sending me dozens of emails a month about how my account is cancelled until I pay, but never actually shutting it down or anything. So sad the pictures aren't my usually quality, but obviously camera phones have come a long way too. Way more pissed about freewebs shutting down, since I didn't have all of that backed up and now it's just poof. I probably missed an email or something, but that really irked me, because it was the most current record I had for a lot of stuff.
I'm a number nerd, always looking for fun serial numbers. 18 was his Avs number and 28 his Kings, so couldn't pass this one up. Probably one of 20 or so copies I have of this.
Was very excited to see these released. Obviously still want the Black 1/1, but not expecting to ever find it. Paid $100 or something stupid for the Green and it's the only one I've seen.
Messed up and bought two redemptions for this one. Only ever entered one of them, and was very surprised to see it ship from UD earlier this year. So redeemed the second after I received this, but it's just pending with UD now.
And very recent stuff now. Again, $100+ for the /10 version, but not looking back at all. Totally worth it. The /65 case is a little scratched, so will probably replace it soon. And I do want the 1/1 here too. Good lucking cards, even if the foil between the name and the player bleeds a little.
So then, there's the really money card. Spent more on this than any other card ever, by quite a bit. Not totally sure what was in second place. Maybe my Stastny or Duchene Cup RC /99. Or probably something from MacKinnon's RC year. Even had to see the new eBay authentication thing where they inspect it first. Didn't know about that yet. Annoyed that this is sticker autos, but I had to grab one.
Oh yeah, when I said more than I'd ever spent on a card, I guess it's not technically true. Since I bought something like 85 boxes of 02-03 Victory around 2012 I think trying to pull a Deadmarsh silver. Didn't pull it, but found this on eBay for solid $0.99 BIN in March 2023. I bought the base card he had listed for $0.99 just in case he made a mistake, and because I felt so bad not paying more. And I think I snagged a second silver of some other scrub. I wrote him an email thank you after the fact, offering to send him or his kids a thank you package or hunt down something tough for them, but they never responded. So I guess I'll have to continue to pay it forward to other's I know in the hobby, like I've always enjoyed.
So here it is, probably my favorite card, or at least the one I've thought about most. They're rarer than the /100 Golds from the set in my opinion (and experience from 100+ total boxes over the years). But it sure seems to me like only 5-10 of each the silver and gold have ever seen the light of day for the entire set. I have about half of each set by the way if you know any other hardcore player collectors.
So here it is...
That leaves my just needing the similarly frustrating 03-04 Victory Gold /25 as the only major release, non-oddball or 1/1 card I need of him from his playing days. And there's a couple newer ones I haven't seen yet.
20-21 Cup Championship Etchings /15
22-23 Synergy Rink Ink Blue 1/1 (even though he isn't listed on the non-1/1 version of the checklist)
So keep an eye out for those for me. Thanks if you read the whole thing too.
I'm sure I have more to say, so feel free to ask questions. No idea when I'll get some other mail posted, but I'll sure try. I hope all of you are doing well and maybe I'll hear from some of the old crew on here. Seems like a few others have faded into the background as well. If there's any new Avs peeps on here, I have an ungodly amount of doubles I'll eventually organize. And I probably have doubles of 60-70% of Deadmarsh cards, since I can't help but buy them for a buck or two here or there on COMC and eBay.
Cole
Thanks for the kind messages from a few of you recently. I'll try not to ramble too much, but it's been awhile. Just been a little busy with life. Got married in 2015. Bought a house later that year. Enjoyed paying it off quickly and investing rather than dumping thousands into the hobby when I saw the interest on a mortgage. For those of you that don't remember, I collected every RC and every parallel of them of every player who had ever played for the Avs. I made it through Landeskog in 11-12. But MacKinnon in 13-14 broke me. I grabbed all of the true RCs except for the Cup and Ice I think. But almost no parallels. Not being complete anymore just made me not care as much about all of them. Thankfully, or maybe not, I didn't dump millions into Rantanen and eventually Makar. I still searched and collected all of my existing PCs and pre-2015 RCs. Mostly through eBay now, and massive COMC binges each Thanksgiving. I sold enough on there that I was looking for new things to chase that weren't so crazy expensive. The hard parallels are the fun part, not spending the money. Jaccob Slavin was a side project since he went to my high school (as much as a travelling hockey player goes to any one school I think). I kept the Avs OPC project going for a little bit, but I kinda lost interest there too.
I kept all my mail sorted by month like I was going to eventually catch up and post it all like I used to. Didn't give up that dream until January 2024 and start sorting it away, mostly because I found I was buying cards I already had too often with my shoddy record keeping. The small portion of my company sold to a private equity firm in 2019, with me being second in command and buried with work now that we didn't have our own accountants or HR or IT team of a large company anymore. My son was born a month later. And then the pandemic in 2020. So I was pretty busy with all of that. Adding a daughter in 2021 took any remaining time completely. But kinda revitalized this year as the kids grow up and want to see things. Getting my office and collection much more organized, but it's daunting.
Those Thanksgiving COMC binges have been a lot of non-hockey stuff. A couple baseball collections for players who debuted the days my kids were born, just like Kevin Dineen did on my birthday. Players who made the NFL from Colorado State University, where I finally finished a Masters in 2020, and much smaller lists for the NBA, MLB, PGA, Olympics, etc. Shane Carwin from the UFC went to my undergraduate alma mater the Colorado School of Mines. Always had my Helton/Walker collection, and so freaking stoked they finally made the HOF and kicked the Coors Field stigma enough. Same with Steve Atwater into the Football HOF. Breaking the bias against the two coasts and the aging writers there is a real issue for us in the middle of the US. Kicking around the idea of a Logan O'Connor PC now, since he kinda fits my M.O.
Spent more of my money on having Avs season tickets since 13-14 again too. Don't make it down a ton during the regular season, but try not to miss playoff games. Saw games 1 and 2 of the Cup, but got Covid from them, so missed Game 5 thankfully. One day we'll win a home playoff series again and see some handshakes. I think the last I saw in person might be the day Ray lifted the Cup in 2001, since we only win on the road now. But honestly after seeing that live, I can never complain. Much less watching the insane talent of MacKinnon and Makar these days.
Anyway, I have hundreds of awesome additions for everything, but I have to start with Deadmarsh, because he was always my primary collection and because they started releasing stuff of him again.
Super annoyed that Photobucket went all crazy on me, sending me dozens of emails a month about how my account is cancelled until I pay, but never actually shutting it down or anything. So sad the pictures aren't my usually quality, but obviously camera phones have come a long way too. Way more pissed about freewebs shutting down, since I didn't have all of that backed up and now it's just poof. I probably missed an email or something, but that really irked me, because it was the most current record I had for a lot of stuff.
I'm a number nerd, always looking for fun serial numbers. 18 was his Avs number and 28 his Kings, so couldn't pass this one up. Probably one of 20 or so copies I have of this.
Was very excited to see these released. Obviously still want the Black 1/1, but not expecting to ever find it. Paid $100 or something stupid for the Green and it's the only one I've seen.
Messed up and bought two redemptions for this one. Only ever entered one of them, and was very surprised to see it ship from UD earlier this year. So redeemed the second after I received this, but it's just pending with UD now.
And very recent stuff now. Again, $100+ for the /10 version, but not looking back at all. Totally worth it. The /65 case is a little scratched, so will probably replace it soon. And I do want the 1/1 here too. Good lucking cards, even if the foil between the name and the player bleeds a little.
So then, there's the really money card. Spent more on this than any other card ever, by quite a bit. Not totally sure what was in second place. Maybe my Stastny or Duchene Cup RC /99. Or probably something from MacKinnon's RC year. Even had to see the new eBay authentication thing where they inspect it first. Didn't know about that yet. Annoyed that this is sticker autos, but I had to grab one.
Oh yeah, when I said more than I'd ever spent on a card, I guess it's not technically true. Since I bought something like 85 boxes of 02-03 Victory around 2012 I think trying to pull a Deadmarsh silver. Didn't pull it, but found this on eBay for solid $0.99 BIN in March 2023. I bought the base card he had listed for $0.99 just in case he made a mistake, and because I felt so bad not paying more. And I think I snagged a second silver of some other scrub. I wrote him an email thank you after the fact, offering to send him or his kids a thank you package or hunt down something tough for them, but they never responded. So I guess I'll have to continue to pay it forward to other's I know in the hobby, like I've always enjoyed.
So here it is, probably my favorite card, or at least the one I've thought about most. They're rarer than the /100 Golds from the set in my opinion (and experience from 100+ total boxes over the years). But it sure seems to me like only 5-10 of each the silver and gold have ever seen the light of day for the entire set. I have about half of each set by the way if you know any other hardcore player collectors.
So here it is...
That leaves my just needing the similarly frustrating 03-04 Victory Gold /25 as the only major release, non-oddball or 1/1 card I need of him from his playing days. And there's a couple newer ones I haven't seen yet.
20-21 Cup Championship Etchings /15
22-23 Synergy Rink Ink Blue 1/1 (even though he isn't listed on the non-1/1 version of the checklist)
So keep an eye out for those for me. Thanks if you read the whole thing too.
I'm sure I have more to say, so feel free to ask questions. No idea when I'll get some other mail posted, but I'll sure try. I hope all of you are doing well and maybe I'll hear from some of the old crew on here. Seems like a few others have faded into the background as well. If there's any new Avs peeps on here, I have an ungodly amount of doubles I'll eventually organize. And I probably have doubles of 60-70% of Deadmarsh cards, since I can't help but buy them for a buck or two here or there on COMC and eBay.
Cole
