ExpZo 2011: Part 1 -- The Breaks

[The Great Zo]

The Fall 2011 Toronto Sportcard and Memorabilia Expo was held from November 11 to November 13. It was my second trip to the expo, after a successful first expo in fall 2010.

This is the first part of a four-part series of posts I'll be doing to detail the weekend's events and purchases. I brought home way too much stuff to cram it into one post (or even a few). This post will focus on the box breaks and giveaways from the three card companies in attendance, with brief reviews on their expo presence.

Post #23 for 2011
ExpZo 2011: Part 2 -- The Traders
ExpZo 2011: Part 3 -- The Rookies
ExpZo 2011: Part 4 -- The Player Collections

-------------------------------------------------------

This is the entrance to Hall 5 at the International Centre, home of the expo. The expo hall is just north of (and adjacent to) Toronto Pearson International Airport (identifier YYZ, for the Rush fans).

-------------------------------------------------------

Besides the HI booth, the upstairs window overlooking the floor is my second-favorite place at the expo to catch my breath. It also provides an outstanding overview of the size of the event!

-------------------------------------------------------
PART 1A -- IN THE GAME
-------------------------------------------------------

Here's a few views of "In The Game Land." Tucked in the back corner of the expo hall, it's the single largest plot of floor space used by any exhibitor. The Memorial Cup was on display, as were a number of All-Star jerseys from Brian Price's collection.

-------------------------------------------------------

Two Packs -- 02-03 ITG All-Star Edition
ITG again ran their "Wheel of Fortune" promotion, available to a set number of people entering the expo each day. I was disappointed to see that this promotion was scaled back a bit from last year's show. In 2010, each person coming by received four packs of older ITG product. This time, the only packs available were as a prize for spinning the wheel. The nearly hit-less ITG All-Star made for some less-than-exciting breaks.

One of the other prizes available this year was a miniature Stanley Cup. I won packs on Friday and Saturday, and then won the cup on Sunday. I was glad to find a home for it with Cyril (cmcdonald1), as I knew it would just collect dust somewhere in my possession.

I was also disappointed that ITG did not produce a low-end expo-exclusive set like they did last year. The ITG VIP set proved to be pretty popular after the 2010 expo, but there was no replacement this year. As is usually the case, ITG focused their redemption programs on mid-to-high-end products.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 ITG Heroes and Prospects 5x7 Autograph (in-person) Joey Crabb
Where ITG stepped things up this year was with the addition of free autograph guests. Crabb, a member of the Maple Leafs organization, was the guest on Friday night.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 ITG Heroes and Prospects 5x7 Autograph (in-person) Mark Scheifele
Scheifele was the guest on Sunday. There's no questioning his popularity right now, especially with some of the Jets fans in attendance!

The free signings were an outstanding idea by ITG, and provided everybody (young and old) an opportunity to meet a player and get a signature. Both players were friendly and gracious to the expo attendees.

"Miracle" participant Mark Wells was supposed to sign autographs as well, but I never heard about what happened with him. If he was there, I missed it.

Ultimate, Decades, and Canada vs. the World seemed to be pretty popular breaks. Ultimate's a bit too much of a gamble for me, and the latter two aren't really at my interest, but clearly there's a crowd ("niche" might be too weak a word) that enjoyed all three products. The Ultimate redemptions were significantly improved over last year's bland "Top 10" picture-less cards. This year's featured four memorabilia pieces from four pictured players. I did have fun watching Brett (bamlinden) open two packs of Ultimate, pulling a true 1/1 right before my eyes.

My only hope is that another low-end set comes back for 2012, but overall it was a good showing.

-------------------------------------------------------
PART 1B -- PANINI
-------------------------------------------------------

Panini's second trip to the fall expo was similar to their first -- and that's a good thing. Less mop-headedness, as Al Muir wasn't in attendance, but Scott Prusha's got enough energy to go around for the whole show.

Panini's redemption program focused on the new Score product and a few of last year's late offerings. Their "Silver Pack" redemption program gave box-breakers another pack to open. Most of the cards were base cards from a set specifically created for the expo, but redemptions were available for significantly better items (including the expo-exclusive cards seen in the case above). Aside the specially-stamped expo cards were signed hats, photos, commemorative draft tickets, and the awesome sketch cards done by the players at the rookie showcase event a couple months ago.

-------------------------------------------------------

2011-12 Panini Sticker Album
Panini was also giving away free albums for the 11-12 NHL sticker collection. This was a great way to ensure that anyone visiting the booth would be able to walk away with something collectible.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Panini Stickers Promos Steven Stamkos
11-12 Panini Stickers Promos NHL Logo
11-12 Panini Stickers Promos Corey Perry (All-Star)
11-12 Panini Stickers Promos NHLPA Logo
...see next picture...

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Panini Stickers Promos Alex Ovechkin
11-12 Panini Stickers Promos Tim Thomas
11-12 Panini Stickers Promos Jonathan Toews
11-12 Panini Stickers Promos P.K. Subban
11-12 Panini Stickers Promos Nicklas Lidstrom
11-12 Panini Stickers Promos Henrik Lundqvist
The sticker albums all come with the same batch of 10 promo stickers included. It find it very important to note that these are special, promotional stickers available only in the album. The pack-pulled versions of these stickers are printed with holo-foil, and are thus substantially different.

While I plan to keep all of the stickers, I'll probably cut out the Thomas to put in my player collection. Consider this a singular early entry to the player collection portion of my expo post!

-------------------------------------------------------

ONE BOX -- 2011-12 Score
On Friday, I opened a box of Score for the redemption program. Score was more expensive this year than in 2010. Whereas last year's boxes were selling for $20 to $25, this year's went for anywhere between $25 and $35. I thank Chris (DogfoodSoup) for offering me a box at $25, which he had just picked up from a dealer on the floor.

Here are the base cards from my box break.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Score Glossy:
Shane Doan, Lanny McDonald, Mark Recchi, Corey Perry
Matt Beleskey, Bryan Bickell, Niklas Hjalmarsson, Brandon Yip
T.J. Galiardi, Steve Mason, Steve Ott, Stephane Robidas
Andrew Raycroft, Johan Franzen, Justin Abdelkader, Jacob Markstrom
Dustin Brown, Matt Cullen, Marek Zidlicky, Colin Wilson
Colin White, Matt Moulson, Mark Katic, Martin Biron
Evgeni Malkin, Mikkel Boedker, Pascal Dupuis, Ryane Clowe
Jaroslav Halak, Dion Phaneuf, Mason Raymond, Dan Hamhuis
Cory Schneider, Jason Chimera, Braden Holtby, Ondrej Pavelec
The glossy parallels come one-per-pack, so here are all 36 from my box! These are improved over last year. The glossy coating is even easier to see, and the cards are marked "Glossy" on the backs (near the card numbers). Also, the collation was much better. Last year, the glossy cards were inserted in groups of three. This year, they were all mixed up.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Score Rookies:
Lance Bouma, Greg Nemisz, Colton Sceviour
Teemu Hartikainen, Aaron Palushaj, Blake Geoffrion
Mark Katic, Colin Greening, Roman Wick
...see next picture...

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Score Rookies:
Stephane Da Costa, Brian Strait, Cam Talbot
Carl Klingberg, Ben Scrivens Joe Colborne
Adam Henrique, Drew Bagnall, Devante Smith-Pelly (SP)
RCs from Score are inserted one in every two packs. The final card in this batch is a SP -- one of the high-numbered cards (551-570) that are inserted one per box. I actually thought I had a dud box until re-sorting the cards on Saturday night -- I guess I just passed right by Smith-Pelly, who is probably one of the weakest players in the high number subset.

I also pulled one Blue Jackets rookie in my break, which will be pictured separately in a future post.

It is interesting to note that Mark Katic has a card in the rookie subset as well as the base set.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Score First Goal Marcus Johansson
11-12 Score The Franchise Patrick Kane
11-12 Score NHL Shield Die-Cut Henrik Sedin
11-12 Score Making an Entrance Alex Ovechkin
11-12 Score Making an Entrance Marc-Andre Fleury
11-12 Score Making an Entrance Miikka Kiprusoff
I really like the inserts from Score -- most of which are themed to specific on-ice occurrences. Getting two goalie "entrance" cards from outdoor games was an interesting coincidence.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Score Net Cam Antti Niemi
11-12 Score Net Cam Martin Brodeur
11-12 Score Net Cam Corey Crawford
11-12 Score Sudden Death Brandon Sutter
The Net Cam and Sudden Death inserts return from the 2010-11 edition, and there's no reason to think about removing either. Both are effective and entertaining; exactly what you'd want from a low-end insert card.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Score Gold Line Alex Ovechkin
11-12 Score Snow Globes Jeff Skinner
Here are my two "better" inserts from the Score break. The gold Ovechkin parallel came out of the first pack -- a very quick start to the box! The gold and black parallels for Score are much better than the 20th Anniversary and French Back parallels from last year. The Black Ice cards are very hard to find. Over the course of the entire expo, I doubt I saw enough black parallels in dealer showcases to count on my two hands.

I also pulled two other inserts from Score that are not pictured -- both were traded to Wes (PenaltyMan) for Score cards that will show up in a future post. Wes and I busted our Score boxes together, which was lots of fun.

One other thing to add about Score -- I have no idea if I pulled any of the base photo variations or not. There's a rumor floating around that these will be revealed at some point in the future, so keep your eyes peeled.

-------------------------------------------------------

2011 Panini Fall Expo Steven Stamkos
2011 Panini Fall Expo Stamped Pinnacle NHL Draft Martin Havlat (/5)
Finally, here are the two cards I received from my "Silver Pack" redemption break. The Stamkos is definitely a keeper. While there are no specific print runs for the expo base set, I was told by the Panini folks that there are a few hundred produced.

The second card is an "Expo 2011" stamped version of the Pinnacle card produced for the NHL Draft in Minnesota. Panini confirmed that there are five or less copies of each "Expo 2011" stamped card available.

Aside from the break, I genuinely enjoyed meeting Karvin Cheung and Scott Prusha. I got to discuss some products and plans with Karvin, and I must say that he got my attention with a good idea or two. Karvin also expressed his appreciations for some of the discussions on the forums, including the rookie debut stuff -- and I'll give credit here to Jon (numbern9ne). Our hobbyist discussions may be helping out more than just collectors! Panini's committed to getting new rookies in sets as soon as possible.

Score was a huge hit, as it was last year. I think it very nearly competes with O-Pee-Chee, and at about half the price, that's saying something. Let's not even discuss Victory, shall we not?

The lack of Certified did seem to dampen things just slightly. It's a really ambitious product for such an early-season release, so I understand why there might be delays. Even if that ambition was scaled back just a little bit (in order to ensure it's out for the show), it could still deliver in unique ways that UD's traditional releases won't be able to directly compete with. So, here's my challenge to Panini -- get 2012-13 Certified out for next year's expo, and I'll break tradition and bust a box at the show!

 

[The Great Zo]

-------------------------------------------------------
PART 1C -- UPPER DECK
-------------------------------------------------------

Upper Deck's booth was similar to last year's version, perhaps with a few more "UD Authenticated" signed items on hand to sell. Upper Deck's formula hasn't changed much -- the Priority Signings redemption program is still very popular, guaranteeing an autograph with every box of UD1 opened. Is it a more popular redemption program than the ones run by Panini and ITG? I'm not sure, since UD only allowed a two-hour window on each day for redemptions, and the other companies allowed them to be done at any time. That led to some very long lineups -- likely an hour's wait or more at times on Saturday. I stuck with what worked for me last year -- busting a box when the lines are shortest on Sunday afternoon (5 minutes).

-------------------------------------------------------

ONE BOX -- 2011-12 Upper Deck Series 1
Boxes of UD1, with redemption tickets, were quasi-price-fixed at $75 across the floor. I only paid $65 last year, so it was a slight increase.

Folks looking forward to drama, pitchforks, torches, and angry mobs probably left the expo disappointed. I recall hearing of one or two minor incidents regarding the redemption process and the little yellow tickets, but overall things moved smoothly.

My base cards are pictured. For the most part, I like this year's base set design, but I do think the player names are a little too small.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Upper Deck Justin Faulk RC (SP)
11-12 Upper Deck Raphael Diaz RC (SP)
11-12 Upper Deck Craig Smith RC (SP)
11-12 Upper Deck Joe Vitale RC (SP)
11-12 Upper Deck Alex Stalock (SP)
11-12 Upper Deck Joe Colborne RC (SP)
Here is my crop of Young Guns cards -- but only five are rookies. More on Stalock in a bit.

Craig Smith is likely my best pull here! Not bad for a Predator.

I pulled three YGs in my first three packs, and then a fourth just five packs in. I think I almost had Grant Sandground of UD concerned that I had hit a hot box (note that those don't actually exist) -- but not really.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Upper Deck UD Canvas Brad Marchand
11-12 Upper Deck UD Canvas Dustin Byfuglien
11-12 Upper Deck UD Canvas Miikka Kiprusoff
11-12 Upper Deck UD Canvas Craig Smith (SP)
UD Canvas is clearly one of the best ideas of the young hockey card product year. To clarify a common misconception -- it's not a parallel set. It's a large insert set (120 cards), the likes of which UD hasn't done since 93-94 Upper Deck's SP inserts. With only four in a box, and 120 in the set, each individual card is going to prove to be a little on the scarce side.

I was fortunate to pull one of the Young Guns SP cards. Those fall just one in every two boxes. Yes, it's Smith again -- but I can't complain, since he's selling decently.

Walking around the expo floor, UD Canvas cards were some of the cards dealers were being asked about the most. There were lots of people building the full set, and checking off their wantlists as they went. The scarcity, combined with the set-builder and player-collector demand, will keep these cards popular for quite some time.

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Upper Deck All-World Team Jonas Hiller
11-12 Upper Deck All-World Team John Tavares
11-12 Upper Deck Ultimate Team Drew Doughty
11-12 Upper Deck Clear Cut Honoured Members Stan Mikita (035/100)
I won't be so kind to the other inserts in Upper Deck (the last of the four discounted). I'm no fan of the All-World Team cards, which will undoubtedly end up in quarter bins by next fall's expo. It's a theme that doesn't work all that well when the players are pictured in NHL uniforms (not that they could feasibly be pictured in national colors).

The fourth card here, on the other hand, is one I like quite a bit. The Clear Cut Honoured Members set was designed to partially mimic the plaques at the Hockey Hall of Fame in downtown Toronto. Grant mentioned that he thinks they'll look great when lined up together in a card sheet. Good luck with that, though -- there's only one Clear Cut card (from any of the tiers) in each case -- so I beat the odds to pull this one!

-------------------------------------------------------

11-12 Upper Deck Hockey Heroes 1950s Terry Sawchuk
11-12 Upper Deck Hockey Heroes 1950s Milt Schmidt
11-12 Upper Deck Game Jersey Semyon Varlamov
11-12 Upper Deck Game Jersey Tyler Ennis
The Hockey Heroes concept is a good one -- it adds a bit of history to UD's benchmark product. The decade-based approach (which will apparently run for the next few seasons) is a good refresher for the program.

My jersey cards could not be more dull -- both of lower-end players from the easiest insertion tier, with white swatches. I have seen quite a bit of praise for this year's UD jersey design, but I'll dissent -- I think it's too busy, and I don't like the strange angles.

UD Exclusives cards are not guaranteed to fall in each box, and I got the short end of the stick on that one. However, I clearly made up for it with the Clear Cut insert.

-------------------------------------------------------

2011 Upper Deck Fall Expo Priority Signings Redemption Pack
With my box of UD completely opened, it was time to pull my pack for the Priority Signings redemption. The cards are distributed in soft sleeves, surrounded by two UD Victory base cards. I picked a player I like -- Victor Hedman -- and hoped for the best.

-------------------------------------------------------

2011 Upper Deck Fall Expo Priority Signings Keith Aulie (42/59)
Well, no big hit like last year's Crosby #/5, but I could have done worse than Aulie. At the very least, I can say that I didn't pull one of the #/75 tier. Aulie's card is numbered to his jersey number.

Upper Deck also ran raffles throughout the weekend, giving away products, Priority Signings cards, and a few signed items. While these were fairly popular, the quantity and quality of items being given away paled to last year's version. I won a Priority Signings card last year, and noted that they gave away a tin of The Cup just a few prizes later. There was nothing above a box of Artifacts this time around.

Speaking of Artifacts, I talked with Grant about it a bit, expressing some relief that the jersey parallel sets actually made sense in the 11-12 product. We were both in agreement about that, and maybe ended up with a little bit of common ground regarding the excessive base parallel program this year (horizontals, patches, tags, autographs, and so on). I know why they do it, but there's room to scale it back.

I also asked about Alex Stalock -- the San Jose Sharks second-product-year goalie who is appearing in UD's rookie subsets. For those of us who may have thought they overlooked his Panini RCs (including myself), we probably didn't give UD enough credit. It was an intentional decision to include Stalock, who UD feels has serious potential. Grant mentioned a few cases in other sports where a player debuted with a low-end RC late in a season, but UD chose to include him in higher-end second-year subsets the following season (and successfully watched the cards experience great demand). I'm not sure if Stalock is the kind of guy to elicit that sort of response, but at least I know why it's been done. With that said, if he's in every set straight through The Cup, it'll be a horrendous excess!

-------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to Grant, Karvin, and Scott for the conversations over the weekend, and to the representatives from all three companies for putting together a big part of the 2011 Fall Expo. I may have some more stuff I'll throw into the mix regarding this part of the experience, and the good folks behind the cards we collect, but I'll have to save that for later...

-------------------------------------------------------

News and notes:

** I'm working on parts 2, 3, and 4, and hope to get a section posted every two days. I figured I'd better be thorough with it, so it's taking a bit of time. Part two will contain pickups for my tradelists, sets, and a few other random items.

That'll be it. Thanks everyone!

--Andy
http://www.thegreatzo.com/cards/

-------------------------------------------------------

 

[cfind]

Thank you for the detailed post and pictures! I've never been to an Expo so I really enjoy these types of threads.

 

[PenaltyMan]

It's always a treat when Andy posts. Thanks bud and look forward to all future parts.

 

[cb4rules]

Can't wait for your next post!!

 

[Jags16]

Awesome show and tell! Thanks for sharing!

 

[bonnev659]

great read Andy!!

some nice posts, wish I was at expo but it seems that you had fun

 

[bto3105]

Great seeing you Andy and beauty show of cardboard

Congrats
Dean

 

[BlindThomen]

I must say this gave a lot of great insight on the Expo. Thank Andy for all the typing.

- Sauli

 

[TanguayFan]

Really UD? Really? Alex Stalock is number five on San Jose's goalie depth chart behind Niemi, Greiss, Sateri and Nittymaki, and is currently rehabbing from a near career ending injury....LOL

But aside from that, very imformative and enjoyable read Andy. Thanks very much for the post.

 

[canucksfreak19]

Great stuff Andy, really like your opinion and insight.

 

[steveottfan]

Thank you for the detailed post and pictures! I've never been to an Expo so I really enjoy these types of threads.

+1, Especially enjoy the pictures of the whole arena with all the booths.

 

[Bugjam]

Excellent Post Andy, nice to see some photos of the actual show. Thanks for taking the time to share your experience. :beer:

 

[detroitfan1]

Thank you for the detailed post and pictures! I've never been to an Expo so I really enjoy these types of threads.

Pretty much sums it up for me as well! Thanks for the read!

 

[The Great Zo]

Really UD? Really? Alex Stalock is number five on San Jose's goalie depth chart behind Niemi, Greiss, Sateri and Nittymaki, and is currently rehabbing from a near career ending injury....LOL

I report. The rest is up to you.



Thanks for the replies and for reading. I was hoping to bring a little bit of the expo experience to those who couldn't make it, and the manufacturer's presence (and an overview of the show) is such a big part of it.