History of Hockey ITG 2012-13 art cards update and confirmation

[zackmak]

I'm obviously late to the party, but I only now got interested in these 1/1 art cards by In The Game's History of Hockey 2012-13 set. Only through reading these message boards, and some google searching on the topic, was I able to piece together how these ITG art cards were designed.

There is still one question though:

Reading blogs on the 'According to Dr. Price' website , it states the following under his July 30, 2012 blog about what's to come (a few months before the actual release of the History of Hockey boxes on Dec 17, 2012):

There will be 145 cards in the checklist depicting Great Moments in Hockey History including:

• Henderson’s Goal in ‘72

• Gretzky’s 802

• Dryden’s Rookie Stanley Cup

• Orr’s Flying Goal

• Barilko’s Stanley Cup Winner

• Lemieux’s return after battling cancer

• George Hainsworth 22 Shutouts

• Miracle on Ice

• Crosby Scores to win Olympic Gold

• Mosienko’s Three Fastest Goals

• Richard’s 500th Goal

The first group of cards in the checklist will feature the on-card artwork of Jared Kelley. Each card will be a unique 1/1 hand-painted card with nine silver versions and one gold version. In addition, each card will include a piece of authentic game-used memorabilia.

Another group of cards in the checklist will feature the artwork of Mike James. Each card will have nine silver versions and one gold version along with vintage authentic game-used memorabilia.

The last 85 cards in the checklist will also feature artwork along with authentic game-used memorabilia. Each of these cards will be out of 30 silver versions and 10 gold versions.

The finished product was similiar but not exact to the details above. Cards #1-40 were by artist Jared Kelley, all 1/1 on-card handpainted art (therefore, each card was slightly/not-so-slightly different). Cards #41-80 were #/10 and were painted by artist Mike James. His artwork was only scanned and copied ten times over (therefore, each card art detail is exactly the same). Cards #81-144 had another artist (name not made public) and likewise, their artwork was only scanned and copied. It was broken down as either Gold versions (#/10) or Silver versions (#/40), with both versions having the exact same art detail...but the card's title of 'Great Moments in Hockey History' and the 'fancy' arch border that is around it was either 'gold or silver, respectively)

So, in the end, the final product for art cards had:

144 cards instead of 145
No Gold or Silver versions for 1/1 cards #1-40; all were just labelled 1/1
All cards from #41-80 were labelled Gold, with no Silver versions.
Cards #81-144 only equalled 64 cards (not 85; meaning the artists that did #1-80 (or, at least one of them) got more cards to their credit)
Silver version cards increased to #/40, from #/30

If I am mistaken on any of the above details, someone please correct.

What's confusing is that before the actual product was dropped in Dec 2012, Dr. Price showed a bunch of previews of 1/1's in a blog a couple months before (Oct. 27, 2012). Here, he shows a few 1/1 cards with the 'Gold' term, on the grey encasement sticker/label

But in the Dec. 12, 2012 blog, of all the 1/1 previews he showed (three of them with the same 'moment' cards depicted in the Oct 27 blog), NONE of them had the term 'Gold' on the yellow metallic encasement sticker/label. AND, there is no mention in the blog literature of the 1/1's having Gold and Silver versions, now.

So did the Gold/Silver idea for 1/1s get scrapped at the last minute? I've searched ebay, done google image searches, read the 'ITG History of Hockey' posts on here, etc, and Gold/Silver versions of 1/1 never showed up, or even mentioned. The only images are from one 'preview' posting on Dr. Price's website blog.

Without Dr. Price confirming (or someone that pulled/bought one of these Gold 1/1 cards posting a pic), these cards could TECHNICALLY exist...but with other proven last minute changes to the final History of Hockey product - and no luck finding evidence through my own online searching - the opposite has a strong chance of being true, too.

Maybe a couple years ago, when this product was in the spotlight, more pics including Gold 1/1's, were talked about and posted on the internet...but now, in 2016, have disappeared from the web. I don't know.

Anyone have confirmation? I'm sure it would be nice to know for all those 1/1 owners that, either, all 10 cards are part of the same collectible/ratio/value level, OR, there is one Gold version per 'moment' that was produced and stands out more from a 'value' level.

As an FYI, the Beckett online checklists show cards #1-80 all out of 10, with no mention or distinction of Gold or Silver status


UPDATE Dr. Price returned my PM, and he said that Jared Kelley, Ken Joudrey, Mike James, Gary Kezele and Chuck Gillies were all the artists that contributed to the History of Hockey art cards. On what level and which specific cards they did, he didn't specify, but at least there are more names now to associate the card art with. A fan could contact each of them to ask about details, if really interested. I did this already, and got my answer to who painted my 1 of 1 card I own!

 

[BillInDallas]

Having put together (almost) the whole set, short of Dr. Price, I think I'm qualified to answer your questions. I will come back when a little less busy and do so. I'm down to just 2 of the /1 cards and two of the /10s to complete the set (not chasing the /10 parallels of cards 81-144)

 

[BillInDallas]

A quick note on what was written above, Jared Kelly only did a handful of the #1-40 cards as confirmed by Mr. Kelly himself.

 

[odjickfan]

I can confirm that the Richard Riots Original Art Cad 1/1 exists. I pulled a sweet 2 colors copy of that card and still have it in my PC.

 

[zackmak]

In speaking with one of the artists, Jared Kelley, over the last few weeks via email (He also gave me permission to share any and all information he talked to me about with the collectors in this forum., I can re-confirm what BillInDallas said, in that he only did a handful of the 1/1 cards.

More specifically, Jared stated he only did 14 or 15 out of the 40 he was scheduled to do. That's quite the drop! He doesn't know who did the other 1/1 cards. He also, regrettably, didn't keep a list of which 1/1 moments he actually painted, and the reason he painted so few was because he was pressed for time (whether that was because ITG didn't give him enough time, or pushed the release date earlier, or because he had too much on his plate with other projects too, he didn't elaborate). Thus, ITG outsourced another artist (or more artists).

I'm trying to get in touch with the other artist ITG mentioned in their preview ads - Mike James - but no luck, so far. I don't know if he would have done the remaining 1/1 cards, though, as he was already scheduled to do cards #40-80.

Other artists are not mentioned, but it would have been nice for the credit to be shown on the back of the card....or at least in some press release. Actually, that's one thing that Jared was disappointed about, that he didn't get a chance to sign the cards, as he's done with other work he's completed for sportscards companies.

Jared also did not do anything different between the ten 1/1 cards to distinguish a gold or silver version for this History of Hockey set. Nor, did he paint on a card canvas that had a different pre-set design on it from the others. All card canvases were the same. He actually sent me over the picture of the card templates ITG gave him to paint on. So this further strengthens the notion that ITG never went through with gold and silver versions for the 1/1 cards, since no encasement stickers/labels state Gold/Silver on them for these 1/1s (or at least, I haven't found any pics online showing otherwise), either.

On the contrary, the 2011 Parkhurst Champion Masterpieces set also had ten 1/1 on-card (though, they were non-memorabilia) art cards that Jared did (for Gretzky, Messier, and Howe), and in that set, there WAS a gold, and nine silver versions. For the gold version, he painted the DEPTH border around the card in gold paint (the cards were pretty thick, so the 'thickness was paintable). The others were left as silver versions (but the borders were left unpainted). He signed all 10 cards. All 10 cards were not encased. The cards were then shipped back to the the card company, where a staff member hand-numbered the gold version 1/10, and the nine silver versions were sequentially hand-numbered out of 10.

Since the ten History of Hockey 1/1 cards (per moment) was the EXACT same idea as the ten Parkhurst Champion Masterpiece 1/10 cards (per player), I asked his opinion on why the different set of numbering, and what his thoughts were on it. He said the choice of numbering style was decided by the card company, not him. Quoting him:

"Regarding the 1/1 dilemma - That is a long standing issue with collectors and I’m afraid I don’t have much control over that. Yes, if I had painted the same portrait 10 times, technically, each painting is slightly unique. But when each card looks nearly identical, it seems odd to label each one 1/1. I think the best solution for multiple portraits of the same athlete would be to have a different background for each portrait. That way the companies could label each one 1/1 with more confidence since they’d look much different than the next one (even if the athlete’s portrait is identical in each card). Collectors would probably like the fact that their card looks completely different from the next too.

However, like I said, the companies don’t involve me in these kind of decisions. I’ve seen companies do both numbering methods to my cards. Some number all of my cards 1/1, and some number them sequentially (1/10, 2/10, 3/10, etc.)

The problem for the artist is the limited time frame to complete the art cards. It takes more time to do different backgrounds for every card. I’ll try to do that in the future though so that all my art cards appear like true 1/1’s".

He also mentioned that, although differences between each 'moment' artwork exists, he didn't purposely try to paint each of the ten 'same-moment' cards a bit different to make them more 1/1-like.

Lastly, he provided me a general step-by-step on how these cards were created:

"I generally determine what image I want to use of the athlete to be painted and print out that image to exact size on some thin paper. Then I trace that printout onto the surface of the art card. After that I like to use ink to do a B&W rendering of the outlined tracing. Once that’s complete, I start adding the color. I first use an airbrush to block in the main colors and then from there it’s just using tiny brushes. The brushwork obviously takes the most time. When it’s done I put a varnish coat on the painting so that they can be touched and wiped in the future without the paint getting damaged. The varnish also has UV protectant mixed in to ensure the colors won’t fade through the years.

I do have to use head gear that has magnifiers attached to see the small brushstrokes. I also like to use bright fluorescent lighting to see everything clearly. Last step is to sign the back".

As mentioned earlier, he didn't sign the backs of these cards. The reason being, ITG didn't send the backing with the canvas cards, since ITG still needed to cut out the spot for where the memorabilia piece was to go.

Overall, I learned a lot from emailing back and forth with Jared, and I'm glad he was generous with his time to make a fan more aware of how these on-card art cards are/were made. For lack of a better phrase (yet appropriately), it puts you more 'in the game'.

 

[odjickfan]

Thank you for this information. Very interesting.

 

[zackmak]

You're welcome, odjickfan. This set had a lot of questions that needed answering. And still does.

I guess only Brian Price can answer who the other artists are. He's good at communicating with collectors on this site. Maybe he will see this thread and let us all know.

Or maybe I'll send him a PM. As an interactive president, the guy is no doubt swamped with messages from fans (and not).

My guess as to why he chose to label the ON-CARD ORIGINAL art cards 1/1 instead of #/10 is because he labelled the second set of cards (i.e. #41-80: the REPRINTED art cards) as #/10.

If the on-card art cards were released on their own, then a #/10 would have been sufficient and probably more appropriate.

But when packed with #/10 and #/40 reproduction art cards, I think also labelling the on-card art cards as #/10 would have de-valued the sheer uniqueness and ownership-exclusivity of an original painting, and an identical numbering style wouldn't do its job in announcing the "hey, I'm different from the rest. I'm an original!" thing. It therefore needed something that separated itself from the rest, and ITG felt a 1/1 stamp would do the job without technically being incorrect.

That's my guess, anyways.

Like Jared Kelley said, though...ITG could have avoided the whole numbering debate by each card simply having a differently coloured border, background, lettering, etc. (whether that difference would have been through the artist painting it, or the card having a preprinted graphic on it).

A secondary measure could have been to put on the encasement labels something like 'Hand-painted original. Version 1 of 10'

 

[zackmak]

I sent a PM to Dr. Price to confirm the artists, but no response yet.

Update: I DID get a response and I put my update in the first post, at the bottom of the page: