richie.rocket.cards
Verified Trader,
Hey everyone,
Some cool cards came in during November, which was, overall a pretty slow month once again. Nevertheless, happy with the few pieces I was able to add to the Canucks collection:
Quite like the look of these ARPs from this year's Panini Dominion. Actually, for the most part, have to say I like them more than their UD Cup counterparts.
11-12 Panini Dominion Rookie auto patches Eddie Lack:
11-12 Panini Dominion Rookie auto patches Zack Kassian /99
From 11-12 UD Cup...I wanted this card so badly so early that I ended up paying a lot more than what they are going for right now. Haha, we Canucks fans
11-12 UD Cup Limited Logos Trevor Linden patch auto
Only three things came back in the mail over the whole month. Yes, record low for me:
Two from Rory Fitzpatrick!
Two from Brad Moran over in Europe:
And this next one, I should probably count as 3 returns disguised as one because I managed to complete the triple in one go...a first for me!
It was Lucas Makowsky that I was primarily in contact with over email. He told me that the three of them (who, in case you were wondering, won the Gold in Vancouver 2010 Team Pursuit long-track speedskating) were all participating in the World Cup trials in Calgary in late October.
Originally, I had nothing even designed yet, so I pulled an all-nighter to get this thing done and to the printer, and it was expedited to Calgary the next morning. Talk about efficiency, but it had to be done as Mathieu Giroux normally trains in Quebec.
Anyhow, here it is, (I sent 3 extra copies for each of them to have one, but they sent all 4 back):
So now, the reason for the title. I wasn't actually able to make it to the Fall Expo, but I heard a while back that Pavel Bure would be there for his HHOF induction and also to sign autographs for AJ Sports at the Expo.
I remember in 2008 when I thought long and hard whether I would fly all the way to TO to meet one of my childhood hockey heroes...and in the end, decided not to go, and procrastinated on making a card to have signed and really regretted it.
Fast-forward to 2012: I knew I had to take advantage of this opportunity to get at least one one-of-a-kind item signed. I have to say the project was quite a big undertaking (at least, for an amateur designer like myself).
Anyhow, I'll describe the details of it AFTER I show off the card! I am wayy happy about how this turned out (not perfect, but pretty darn close), you be the judge:
Pavel Bure 05-06 Ultimate Endorsed Emblems patch auto /1?
Here, I took a few shots from different angles to show the full effect (still best to see it in person):
So I began working on this in mid-September. The photoshop elements were no problem, and the draft was finished within 2 days. Then I had to find a company who would create a custom stamp for the foil printing. Many companies I have come across in the past require a minimum order of like...1000 copies before they will stamp anything.
I was very fortunate to find a printing company in my own backyard (Hillside Printing) to do the job. I'll admit the manager looked at me funny when he asked how many copies I needed and I replied: "two."
So anyhow, many many back-and-forth emails regarding measurements, file types, detail portions, logos, stock type, etc. I also had to get the patch window cut out professionally because there was no way I would be able to do it by hand without wrecking the stamped foil. We decided to go laser route instead of creating a custom die for the cut (which would have been double the price). You might be able to see on the finished product that the laser actually has left some burn marks on the foil.
Then I was told that this "rainbow" gold foil I requested is so scarcely used that they don't even carry one roll of it. I was pretty discouraged at this point, thought about scrapping the project, thought about replacing rainbow gold with solid gold...
Thought about it some more and just realized I had gone too far to stop now. I was going to get rainbow gold foil, one way or another. Contact a company down south and so happens they have a roll that is half-used they can give to me for way cheaper than a new one. As I only needed 2 good copies of the final thing, even a 1/10th roll would have been enough.
Smooth sailing from there? Hardly. Then was the problem with the actual jersey piece. I had bought a yellow/black swatch from an ebay seller, only to have him tell me "Sorry, I can't find the card." If the EXPO was in January 2013, I would not have had any problems using some of the ITG emblems from Superlative. But in October, there was barely ANY Bure memorabilia around. Had to settle for the black/white all star jersey you see above. Could be nicer, but it is, either way, game used.
Then, finally after all the headaches, we are at November 1st, and the completed prints come in. They actually stamped 8 copies for me (though, I'd say only 4 were acceptable), and this was from a stack of 30 that I gave the printing company. So, now I had to gun the construction because AJ Sports had given me a deadline for getting the mail-in-order to them by Nov. 4.
I was using Instant Krazy Glue for construction because I was afraid of card-separation during transit if I used glue-stick. I overestimated the amount of time I had to adjust the backside over top the decoy core...and well, the back side just stuck a milimeter off the edge of the decoy. It was 2 am or something, I wasn't going to be able to print another back, or find another decoy (oh yea, all the printing was done in Vancouver at the only place I know that has a Xerox DocuColor 5000, which, when the cards come out, look like they've been embossed the ink's so nice).
So I start sandpapering down this decoy till my hand blisters lol. Good thing I made the mistake on the backside and not the front with the gold-stamped card, or I would've cried.
Anyhow, whirlwind card-making. This really makes me wonder how much it actually costs for Upper Deck to make all the cards they do. Think now: they have to pay their designers, they need to create custom stamps for every single card that involves foil, they have to create die cutters for every shape of patch window you can think of, and one thing I still haven't figured out yet...how they are able to produce "layered" foil-stamping.
If you look at the foil around the patch window of my card, you may be able to see a few lines in the foil, mimicking the true Endorsed Emblems cards. I designed these as "slits" in the stamp blueprints...and it just so happens that when they stamped it, the slits were so small that some rainbow-gold filled in those areas and it "appears" layered. It is not.
Upper Deck's layered stamping is much more prominent. I dont' know how they do this, but it can't be cheap. Even if they own all their own machinery for stamping/cutting, it's a lot of material and possible error (the company I used made about 4 passable good copies from a stash of 30 I sent them).
Anyhow, enough about that. I love this card, and I put a lot of love into this card. Never imagined I would go this far in custom card-making. Till next time!
Some cool cards came in during November, which was, overall a pretty slow month once again. Nevertheless, happy with the few pieces I was able to add to the Canucks collection:
Quite like the look of these ARPs from this year's Panini Dominion. Actually, for the most part, have to say I like them more than their UD Cup counterparts.
11-12 Panini Dominion Rookie auto patches Eddie Lack:
11-12 Panini Dominion Rookie auto patches Zack Kassian /99
From 11-12 UD Cup...I wanted this card so badly so early that I ended up paying a lot more than what they are going for right now. Haha, we Canucks fans
11-12 UD Cup Limited Logos Trevor Linden patch auto
Only three things came back in the mail over the whole month. Yes, record low for me:
Two from Rory Fitzpatrick!
Two from Brad Moran over in Europe:
And this next one, I should probably count as 3 returns disguised as one because I managed to complete the triple in one go...a first for me!
It was Lucas Makowsky that I was primarily in contact with over email. He told me that the three of them (who, in case you were wondering, won the Gold in Vancouver 2010 Team Pursuit long-track speedskating) were all participating in the World Cup trials in Calgary in late October.
Originally, I had nothing even designed yet, so I pulled an all-nighter to get this thing done and to the printer, and it was expedited to Calgary the next morning. Talk about efficiency, but it had to be done as Mathieu Giroux normally trains in Quebec.
Anyhow, here it is, (I sent 3 extra copies for each of them to have one, but they sent all 4 back):
So now, the reason for the title. I wasn't actually able to make it to the Fall Expo, but I heard a while back that Pavel Bure would be there for his HHOF induction and also to sign autographs for AJ Sports at the Expo.
I remember in 2008 when I thought long and hard whether I would fly all the way to TO to meet one of my childhood hockey heroes...and in the end, decided not to go, and procrastinated on making a card to have signed and really regretted it.
Fast-forward to 2012: I knew I had to take advantage of this opportunity to get at least one one-of-a-kind item signed. I have to say the project was quite a big undertaking (at least, for an amateur designer like myself).
Anyhow, I'll describe the details of it AFTER I show off the card! I am wayy happy about how this turned out (not perfect, but pretty darn close), you be the judge:
Pavel Bure 05-06 Ultimate Endorsed Emblems patch auto /1?
Here, I took a few shots from different angles to show the full effect (still best to see it in person):
So I began working on this in mid-September. The photoshop elements were no problem, and the draft was finished within 2 days. Then I had to find a company who would create a custom stamp for the foil printing. Many companies I have come across in the past require a minimum order of like...1000 copies before they will stamp anything.
I was very fortunate to find a printing company in my own backyard (Hillside Printing) to do the job. I'll admit the manager looked at me funny when he asked how many copies I needed and I replied: "two."
So anyhow, many many back-and-forth emails regarding measurements, file types, detail portions, logos, stock type, etc. I also had to get the patch window cut out professionally because there was no way I would be able to do it by hand without wrecking the stamped foil. We decided to go laser route instead of creating a custom die for the cut (which would have been double the price). You might be able to see on the finished product that the laser actually has left some burn marks on the foil.
Then I was told that this "rainbow" gold foil I requested is so scarcely used that they don't even carry one roll of it. I was pretty discouraged at this point, thought about scrapping the project, thought about replacing rainbow gold with solid gold...
Thought about it some more and just realized I had gone too far to stop now. I was going to get rainbow gold foil, one way or another. Contact a company down south and so happens they have a roll that is half-used they can give to me for way cheaper than a new one. As I only needed 2 good copies of the final thing, even a 1/10th roll would have been enough.
Smooth sailing from there? Hardly. Then was the problem with the actual jersey piece. I had bought a yellow/black swatch from an ebay seller, only to have him tell me "Sorry, I can't find the card." If the EXPO was in January 2013, I would not have had any problems using some of the ITG emblems from Superlative. But in October, there was barely ANY Bure memorabilia around. Had to settle for the black/white all star jersey you see above. Could be nicer, but it is, either way, game used.
Then, finally after all the headaches, we are at November 1st, and the completed prints come in. They actually stamped 8 copies for me (though, I'd say only 4 were acceptable), and this was from a stack of 30 that I gave the printing company. So, now I had to gun the construction because AJ Sports had given me a deadline for getting the mail-in-order to them by Nov. 4.
I was using Instant Krazy Glue for construction because I was afraid of card-separation during transit if I used glue-stick. I overestimated the amount of time I had to adjust the backside over top the decoy core...and well, the back side just stuck a milimeter off the edge of the decoy. It was 2 am or something, I wasn't going to be able to print another back, or find another decoy (oh yea, all the printing was done in Vancouver at the only place I know that has a Xerox DocuColor 5000, which, when the cards come out, look like they've been embossed the ink's so nice).
So I start sandpapering down this decoy till my hand blisters lol. Good thing I made the mistake on the backside and not the front with the gold-stamped card, or I would've cried.
Anyhow, whirlwind card-making. This really makes me wonder how much it actually costs for Upper Deck to make all the cards they do. Think now: they have to pay their designers, they need to create custom stamps for every single card that involves foil, they have to create die cutters for every shape of patch window you can think of, and one thing I still haven't figured out yet...how they are able to produce "layered" foil-stamping.
If you look at the foil around the patch window of my card, you may be able to see a few lines in the foil, mimicking the true Endorsed Emblems cards. I designed these as "slits" in the stamp blueprints...and it just so happens that when they stamped it, the slits were so small that some rainbow-gold filled in those areas and it "appears" layered. It is not.
Upper Deck's layered stamping is much more prominent. I dont' know how they do this, but it can't be cheap. Even if they own all their own machinery for stamping/cutting, it's a lot of material and possible error (the company I used made about 4 passable good copies from a stash of 30 I sent them).
Anyhow, enough about that. I love this card, and I put a lot of love into this card. Never imagined I would go this far in custom card-making. Till next time!
