The Great Zo
Verified Trader,
I'll begin this post with a tiny bit of mail, but most of the post will contain cards from a recent card show. After that, I'll share my favorite items that I added to my collection in 2013.
The Final Mail/Show Post (#23) for 2013
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12-13 SP Authentic J.T. Brown RC (/999) (Redemption)
Here's a redemption card from the lockout year's SP Authentic set. This card was redeemed quickly through Upper Deck.
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12-13 SP Authentic J.T. Brown RC (955/999) (Redeemed)
Here is the J.T. Brown autograph card. There seem to be plenty of these on the market.
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2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football 3 Jerry Tubbs
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football 16 Steve Zabel
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football 22 Kyle Davis
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football 50 Jamelle Holieway
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football 83 Lee Roy Selmon / '75-'76 Orange Bowl
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football All-Time Alumni Trios ATAT-BLC
-- Brian Bosworth / Teddy Lehman / Rocky Calmus
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football All-Time Alumni ATA-WH Jason White
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football National Champions NC-JE Jimbo Elrod
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football National Champions NC-RC Rocky Calmus
These Oklahoma football cards were shipped as extras with the next item.
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12-13 SP Authentic Cody Goloubef RC (589/999) (Redeemed)
Here is the only other RC I needed from the 12-13 SP Authentic set. Like the J.T. Brown card above, this was a redemption. I purchased this card in redeemed form, so I don't have the original redemption card.
Unlike the Brown, this card is definitely a short print. There is absolutely no way that 999 copies of this card made it into packs. I'd compare its scarcity to the 08-09 SP Authentic card of Nikita Filatov, though Goloubef's certainly not as popular a player as Filatov was back then. This Goloubef card regularly sold in the $25-$40 range for a long time, even after redeemed copies began making it to the open market. I got very lucky, purchasing this copy for about $15 delivered on November 16. Since then, a month and a half ago, I have yet to see another one.
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On December 28, I attended the Gibraltar Trade Center show in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. I had not been to a Gibraltar show since August 14, 2010 -- well over three years ago. Things at Gibraltar had been going downhill even then, but I was hoping that a really awesome batch of signing guests (Darren McCarty, Tomas Holmstrom, and Nicklas Lidstrom) would help this show at least be decent. It really didn't seem to help much at all. There were only 4 or 5 dealers with more than a tiny amount of modern hockey, though there were plenty more still trying to sell 92-93 Paul Kariya RCs and mid-90s Wayne Gretzky base cards. Two wax dealers were set up, as usual, but with very few products opened up for packs. I didn't see any single cards from Select, Black Diamond, or Dominion on the show floor.
While it was disappointing to see just how far the Gibraltar show has fallen, I was at least able to find a few dealers with cheapo bins and card stacks, making the most I could of a questionable situation. First, here are the cards I purchased as traders.
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97-98 Upper Deck Ice Power Shift Brian Leetch
96-97 Ultra Power Paul Coffey
97-98 Donruss Canadian Ice Dominion Series Chris Chelios (NNO /150)
97-98 Crown Royale Lamplighters Cel-Fusion Die-Cuts Michael Peca
99-00 Aurora Championship Fever Silver Ed Belfour (138/250)
99-00 Stadium Club First Day Issue Ray Whitney (087/150)
99-00 Stadium Club First Day Issue Tim Connolly (037/150)
The Paul Coffey insert from 96-97 Ultra doesn't come across that great in this picture, but the edges of the card are covered in green foil speckles, almost like glitter. It looks very nice in person. I also love the gaudiness of the Mike Peca insert. Pacific really had some crazy designs (for better or worse) in their first year of production.
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99-00 Pacific Omega Copper Brian Campbell (81/99)
00-01 BAP Memorabilia Ruby Bates Battaglia (018 of 200)
00-01 BAP Memorabilia Sapphire Tyson Nash (060 of 100)
03-04 SP Authentic Christian Ehrhoff RC (Signed) (229/900)
07-08 Be A Player Player's Club Platinum J.P. Dumont (12/25)
07-08 Be A Player Player's Club Platinum Keith Ballard (06/25)
As usual, I tend to look for numbered cards and parallels when I visit a card show.
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10-11 Panini All Goalies Stopper Sweaters Craig Anderson
11-12 SP Game Used Significance Autograph Alexander Burmistrov (38/50)
09-10 SP Authentic Jay Rosehill RC (Signed) (521/999)
13-14 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Craig Anderson (049/100)
13-14 Upper Deck UD Exclusives R.J. Umberger (042/100)
13-14 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Brendan Smith (003/100)
13-14 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Francois Beauchemin (050/100)
New UD Exclusives are always a good addition to my tradelist. The Craig Anderson jersey (with a burgundy swatch) is card #6 in the set -- I believe it's just the first five from the set that are short prints.
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08-09 Upper Deck MVP Gold Script Jarome Iginla (035/100)
08-09 Upper Deck MVP Super Script Tobias Enstrom (06/25)
08-09 Upper Deck MVP Super Script Robyn Regehr (10/25)
08-09 Upper Deck MVP Super Script Brett McLean (14/25)
08-09 SP Authentic Shawn Matthias RC (Signed) (136/999)
09-10 SP Authentic Jason Demers RC (Signed) (433/999)
Super Script parallels are awesome, and not easy to find!
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05-06 ITG Heroes and Prospects Game-Used Jersey Gold Keith Ballard (/10)
I know Ballard isn't a hobby star, but this is still a very nice card, with a large four-layer jersey swatch (red/white/grey/white). The jersey is from the 2005 AHL All-Star Game.
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11-12 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Spectrum Mikael Backlund (07/10)
Here's a nice one! After one Tim Thomas card in my collection, this is the second 11-12 UD Exclusives Spectrum card I own. I don't know if Backlund has much of a following, but I don't mind keeping cards as rare as this.
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05-06 Upper Deck UD Masterpiece Press Plate Yellow Mikael Samuelsson (1/1) (Signed)
My final tradelist item may be a keeper, and it's certainly a little bit bizarre. I'll never turn down the chance to pick up one of the UD plates from 05-06, but this one is adorned with something extra -- somebody actually got Samuelsson to sign the plate! I guess I have no way of knowing for sure that this wasn't faked, but who would fake a signature on a 1/1? Simply having a player sign a 1/1 is strange enough. The autograph does seem to match a couple of Samuelsson's signed 10-11 Panini cards.
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2013 Topps Baseball Making Their Mark Zack Cozart
I'll start the "keeper" part of the show post with a baseball item -- a cheapo card that goes along with this Todd Frazier item I picked up a few months ago. This Zack Cozart card describes his first career home run on July 17, 2011, in a win against the Cardinals. Todd Frazier also hit his first home run in July of 2011, on the 31st of the month.
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98-99 SP Authentic J.P. Dumont (0049/2000)
98-99 SP Authentic Eric Brewer (0388/2000)
Progress continues toward my 98-99 SP Authentic set. I only need seven more cards from the Future Watch subset to complete the whole thing. Vincent Lecavalier is the best player remaining, but none of the remaining cards are likely to cost more than a dollar or two.
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1997 Bowman CHL O-Pee-Chee Parallel Vincent Lecavalier
00-01 Upper Deck Ice Serge Aubin RC (0248/1500)
03-04 Crown Royale Retail Nathan Horton RC (891/899)
03-04 Parkhurst Rookie Sean Bergenheim RC (134/180)
The Sean Bergenheim rookie card is an upgrade for my collection, as my original copy only had a plain white swatch. This one has two colors -- white and dark blue.
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05-06 Parkhurst Valtteri Filppula RC (SP)
05-06 Hot Prospects Brett Lebda RC (Signed) (639/999)
09-10 O-Pee-Chee Premier Stitchings Vincent Lecavalier (023/199)
10-11 UD Artifacts Green Kyle Wilson (07/50)
The Lecavalier item here commemorates his selection as #1 overall at the 1998 NHL draft.
I was asking around for Filppula rookie cards, but most of the dealers said they didn't even bother to bring them from home to the show!
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11-12 SPx John Moore RC (258/799)
11-12 Panini Contenders John Moore RC (045/800)
Finding two nice John Moore RCs was a stroke of good fortune! The SPx card has a dark blue swatch.
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13-14 UD Overtime Cory Conacher
13-14 O-Pee-Chee Radko Gudas RC (SP)
13-14 O-Pee-Chee Richard Panik RC (SP)
13-14 Score Mark Letestu / Fedor Tyutin / Sergei Bobrovsky / Jared Boll (Team Leaders)
13-14 Score Los Angeles Kings (Season Highlights)
13-14 Score Vincent Lecavalier (Season Highlights)
Here are a few easy cards for my collection, including the last two 13-14 OPC RCs on my wantlist. I got almost everything I needed from 13-14 Score, but I still need the Lightning team leaders card.
The LA Kings card features the Stanley Cup Champs banner raising on January 19, 2013. The Lecavalier card highlights his 1000th NHL game, on January 21, 2013.
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13-14 Upper Deck Richard Panik RC (SP)
13-14 Upper Deck Boone Jenner RC (SP)
My first two Young Guns from 2013-14 are two players who both remain in the NHL this season. Panik played some games in early 2013, but Jenner debuted for the 2013-14 season.
The backs of the Young Guns cards are very orange.
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13-14 Score Alec Martinez
The last single card from the show is the only player collection item I was able to find -- a simple base card that finishes off 2013-14 Score for Alec Martinez.
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SIX PACKS -- 2013-14 Upper Deck Series One (Tin Configuration)
Base Cards
I also purchased six packs of UD1. These packs came out of a tin, meaning that there aren't any UD Exclusives parallels or some of the higher-end inserts inside. The jersey odds are also adjusted to 1:24 packs. Everything else, including the Young Guns, remained at the same odds. These packs were inexpensive -- $2.50 each -- so I picked up six and hoped for the best.
How, in six packs, do I not pull a single base card of any Lightning or Blue Jackets player?
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13-14 Upper Deck Game Jersey Lars Eller
13-14 Upper Deck MVP Adam Henrique
13-14 Upper Deck UD Canvas Max Pacioretty
13-14 Upper Deck Hockey Heroes 1980s Mike Bossy
I only hit one dud pack, and pulled four inserts along the way! I also hit the only jersey in the box, though it's a Lars Eller card (with a blue swatch), and isn't worth more than a couple dollars.
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13-14 Upper Deck Vladimir Tarasenko RC (SP)
My best pull came out of the first pack, and I was thrilled when I first got it! I thought that perhaps Tarasenko was one of the best YGs in the entire set! I was hoping this would be a $20-$30 card, more than covering the cost of the six packs! I was wrong -- painfully wrong. So, maybe it's a ten-dollars-delivered card at best. I still think it's a decent pull. Maybe I'm better off holding on to this one for a while.
That's all from the show. I was hoping to include a little bit more mail, but the incoming deliveries I had on vacation hold at the post office have yet to be delivered, even though I told them to resume delivery on Monday the 30th. Oh well -- I'll get to that stuff in early 2014.
The Final Mail/Show Post (#23) for 2013
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 SP Authentic J.T. Brown RC (/999) (Redemption)
Here's a redemption card from the lockout year's SP Authentic set. This card was redeemed quickly through Upper Deck.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 SP Authentic J.T. Brown RC (955/999) (Redeemed)
Here is the J.T. Brown autograph card. There seem to be plenty of these on the market.
-------------------------------------------------------
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football 3 Jerry Tubbs
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football 16 Steve Zabel
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football 22 Kyle Davis
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football 50 Jamelle Holieway
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football 83 Lee Roy Selmon / '75-'76 Orange Bowl
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football All-Time Alumni Trios ATAT-BLC
-- Brian Bosworth / Teddy Lehman / Rocky Calmus
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football All-Time Alumni ATA-WH Jason White
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football National Champions NC-JE Jimbo Elrod
2011 Upper Deck Oklahoma Football National Champions NC-RC Rocky Calmus
These Oklahoma football cards were shipped as extras with the next item.
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12-13 SP Authentic Cody Goloubef RC (589/999) (Redeemed)
Here is the only other RC I needed from the 12-13 SP Authentic set. Like the J.T. Brown card above, this was a redemption. I purchased this card in redeemed form, so I don't have the original redemption card.
Unlike the Brown, this card is definitely a short print. There is absolutely no way that 999 copies of this card made it into packs. I'd compare its scarcity to the 08-09 SP Authentic card of Nikita Filatov, though Goloubef's certainly not as popular a player as Filatov was back then. This Goloubef card regularly sold in the $25-$40 range for a long time, even after redeemed copies began making it to the open market. I got very lucky, purchasing this copy for about $15 delivered on November 16. Since then, a month and a half ago, I have yet to see another one.
-------------------------------------------------------
On December 28, I attended the Gibraltar Trade Center show in Mt. Clemens, Michigan. I had not been to a Gibraltar show since August 14, 2010 -- well over three years ago. Things at Gibraltar had been going downhill even then, but I was hoping that a really awesome batch of signing guests (Darren McCarty, Tomas Holmstrom, and Nicklas Lidstrom) would help this show at least be decent. It really didn't seem to help much at all. There were only 4 or 5 dealers with more than a tiny amount of modern hockey, though there were plenty more still trying to sell 92-93 Paul Kariya RCs and mid-90s Wayne Gretzky base cards. Two wax dealers were set up, as usual, but with very few products opened up for packs. I didn't see any single cards from Select, Black Diamond, or Dominion on the show floor.
While it was disappointing to see just how far the Gibraltar show has fallen, I was at least able to find a few dealers with cheapo bins and card stacks, making the most I could of a questionable situation. First, here are the cards I purchased as traders.
-------------------------------------------------------
97-98 Upper Deck Ice Power Shift Brian Leetch
96-97 Ultra Power Paul Coffey
97-98 Donruss Canadian Ice Dominion Series Chris Chelios (NNO /150)
97-98 Crown Royale Lamplighters Cel-Fusion Die-Cuts Michael Peca
99-00 Aurora Championship Fever Silver Ed Belfour (138/250)
99-00 Stadium Club First Day Issue Ray Whitney (087/150)
99-00 Stadium Club First Day Issue Tim Connolly (037/150)
The Paul Coffey insert from 96-97 Ultra doesn't come across that great in this picture, but the edges of the card are covered in green foil speckles, almost like glitter. It looks very nice in person. I also love the gaudiness of the Mike Peca insert. Pacific really had some crazy designs (for better or worse) in their first year of production.
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99-00 Pacific Omega Copper Brian Campbell (81/99)
00-01 BAP Memorabilia Ruby Bates Battaglia (018 of 200)
00-01 BAP Memorabilia Sapphire Tyson Nash (060 of 100)
03-04 SP Authentic Christian Ehrhoff RC (Signed) (229/900)
07-08 Be A Player Player's Club Platinum J.P. Dumont (12/25)
07-08 Be A Player Player's Club Platinum Keith Ballard (06/25)
As usual, I tend to look for numbered cards and parallels when I visit a card show.
-------------------------------------------------------
10-11 Panini All Goalies Stopper Sweaters Craig Anderson
11-12 SP Game Used Significance Autograph Alexander Burmistrov (38/50)
09-10 SP Authentic Jay Rosehill RC (Signed) (521/999)
13-14 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Craig Anderson (049/100)
13-14 Upper Deck UD Exclusives R.J. Umberger (042/100)
13-14 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Brendan Smith (003/100)
13-14 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Francois Beauchemin (050/100)
New UD Exclusives are always a good addition to my tradelist. The Craig Anderson jersey (with a burgundy swatch) is card #6 in the set -- I believe it's just the first five from the set that are short prints.
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08-09 Upper Deck MVP Gold Script Jarome Iginla (035/100)
08-09 Upper Deck MVP Super Script Tobias Enstrom (06/25)
08-09 Upper Deck MVP Super Script Robyn Regehr (10/25)
08-09 Upper Deck MVP Super Script Brett McLean (14/25)
08-09 SP Authentic Shawn Matthias RC (Signed) (136/999)
09-10 SP Authentic Jason Demers RC (Signed) (433/999)
Super Script parallels are awesome, and not easy to find!
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05-06 ITG Heroes and Prospects Game-Used Jersey Gold Keith Ballard (/10)
I know Ballard isn't a hobby star, but this is still a very nice card, with a large four-layer jersey swatch (red/white/grey/white). The jersey is from the 2005 AHL All-Star Game.
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11-12 Upper Deck UD Exclusives Spectrum Mikael Backlund (07/10)
Here's a nice one! After one Tim Thomas card in my collection, this is the second 11-12 UD Exclusives Spectrum card I own. I don't know if Backlund has much of a following, but I don't mind keeping cards as rare as this.
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05-06 Upper Deck UD Masterpiece Press Plate Yellow Mikael Samuelsson (1/1) (Signed)
My final tradelist item may be a keeper, and it's certainly a little bit bizarre. I'll never turn down the chance to pick up one of the UD plates from 05-06, but this one is adorned with something extra -- somebody actually got Samuelsson to sign the plate! I guess I have no way of knowing for sure that this wasn't faked, but who would fake a signature on a 1/1? Simply having a player sign a 1/1 is strange enough. The autograph does seem to match a couple of Samuelsson's signed 10-11 Panini cards.
-------------------------------------------------------
2013 Topps Baseball Making Their Mark Zack Cozart
I'll start the "keeper" part of the show post with a baseball item -- a cheapo card that goes along with this Todd Frazier item I picked up a few months ago. This Zack Cozart card describes his first career home run on July 17, 2011, in a win against the Cardinals. Todd Frazier also hit his first home run in July of 2011, on the 31st of the month.
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98-99 SP Authentic J.P. Dumont (0049/2000)
98-99 SP Authentic Eric Brewer (0388/2000)
Progress continues toward my 98-99 SP Authentic set. I only need seven more cards from the Future Watch subset to complete the whole thing. Vincent Lecavalier is the best player remaining, but none of the remaining cards are likely to cost more than a dollar or two.
-------------------------------------------------------
1997 Bowman CHL O-Pee-Chee Parallel Vincent Lecavalier
00-01 Upper Deck Ice Serge Aubin RC (0248/1500)
03-04 Crown Royale Retail Nathan Horton RC (891/899)
03-04 Parkhurst Rookie Sean Bergenheim RC (134/180)
The Sean Bergenheim rookie card is an upgrade for my collection, as my original copy only had a plain white swatch. This one has two colors -- white and dark blue.
-------------------------------------------------------
05-06 Parkhurst Valtteri Filppula RC (SP)
05-06 Hot Prospects Brett Lebda RC (Signed) (639/999)
09-10 O-Pee-Chee Premier Stitchings Vincent Lecavalier (023/199)
10-11 UD Artifacts Green Kyle Wilson (07/50)
The Lecavalier item here commemorates his selection as #1 overall at the 1998 NHL draft.
I was asking around for Filppula rookie cards, but most of the dealers said they didn't even bother to bring them from home to the show!
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 SPx John Moore RC (258/799)
11-12 Panini Contenders John Moore RC (045/800)
Finding two nice John Moore RCs was a stroke of good fortune! The SPx card has a dark blue swatch.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 UD Overtime Cory Conacher
13-14 O-Pee-Chee Radko Gudas RC (SP)
13-14 O-Pee-Chee Richard Panik RC (SP)
13-14 Score Mark Letestu / Fedor Tyutin / Sergei Bobrovsky / Jared Boll (Team Leaders)
13-14 Score Los Angeles Kings (Season Highlights)
13-14 Score Vincent Lecavalier (Season Highlights)
Here are a few easy cards for my collection, including the last two 13-14 OPC RCs on my wantlist. I got almost everything I needed from 13-14 Score, but I still need the Lightning team leaders card.
The LA Kings card features the Stanley Cup Champs banner raising on January 19, 2013. The Lecavalier card highlights his 1000th NHL game, on January 21, 2013.
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13-14 Upper Deck Richard Panik RC (SP)
13-14 Upper Deck Boone Jenner RC (SP)
My first two Young Guns from 2013-14 are two players who both remain in the NHL this season. Panik played some games in early 2013, but Jenner debuted for the 2013-14 season.
The backs of the Young Guns cards are very orange.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Score Alec Martinez
The last single card from the show is the only player collection item I was able to find -- a simple base card that finishes off 2013-14 Score for Alec Martinez.
-------------------------------------------------------
SIX PACKS -- 2013-14 Upper Deck Series One (Tin Configuration)
Base Cards
I also purchased six packs of UD1. These packs came out of a tin, meaning that there aren't any UD Exclusives parallels or some of the higher-end inserts inside. The jersey odds are also adjusted to 1:24 packs. Everything else, including the Young Guns, remained at the same odds. These packs were inexpensive -- $2.50 each -- so I picked up six and hoped for the best.
How, in six packs, do I not pull a single base card of any Lightning or Blue Jackets player?
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Upper Deck Game Jersey Lars Eller
13-14 Upper Deck MVP Adam Henrique
13-14 Upper Deck UD Canvas Max Pacioretty
13-14 Upper Deck Hockey Heroes 1980s Mike Bossy
I only hit one dud pack, and pulled four inserts along the way! I also hit the only jersey in the box, though it's a Lars Eller card (with a blue swatch), and isn't worth more than a couple dollars.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 Upper Deck Vladimir Tarasenko RC (SP)
My best pull came out of the first pack, and I was thrilled when I first got it! I thought that perhaps Tarasenko was one of the best YGs in the entire set! I was hoping this would be a $20-$30 card, more than covering the cost of the six packs! I was wrong -- painfully wrong. So, maybe it's a ten-dollars-delivered card at best. I still think it's a decent pull. Maybe I'm better off holding on to this one for a while.
That's all from the show. I was hoping to include a little bit more mail, but the incoming deliveries I had on vacation hold at the post office have yet to be delivered, even though I told them to resume delivery on Monday the 30th. Oh well -- I'll get to that stuff in early 2014.
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