The Great Zo
Verified Trader,
Finally, I've returned to college, and can begin working on trades again! However, the return to college also meant that I'd have to collect all of my mail that had been held back from the past week and a half. When all was said and done, I picked up 14 packages of hockey cards, as well as a few ebay payments (and a letter from my grandparents!!!)
From here on out, I'm available for trading again, and would love to work on some deals, especially from cards people had been waiting on from the past couple of mail posts. However, I may still be a bit slow over the next few days, as I have a stack of cards I still need to organize and put away. By "stack", I mean it's about eight inches tall. Needless to say, while juggling homework and the rest of my life, it may take a while to get back on track!
Anyway, let's get on with this mail post -- #13 on the year -- which should get through the first half of what's come in over break.
-------------------------------------------------------
200 USPS Customs Forms
I have to thank Chris (hockeyguy2006) for telling me about this. Apparently, you can order customs forms free from the USPS website, so I ordered 200. Why? Well, now I won't run out, for at least a year!
Plus, owning 200 customs forms just seems excessive... which, of course, is fun!
-------------------------------------------------------
04-05 SP Authentic Rookie Review Stanislav Chistov (/100) (NICE!!!)
...and POW, there's a card you wouldn't expect to see in one of my mail posts! So, I thought I'd lead off with it (well, behind the customs forms, haha!)
This card came in trade from Paul (BostonBruinsFan25)... as did the next two pictures below. Of course, the Chistov was the centerpiece of the deal. The patch is dark purple and appears to be part of a letter, with thick white jersey below it. Not a bad piece at all!
-------------------------------------------------------
00-01 Pacific Copper Derek Morris (/40)
01-02 Pacific Retail Limited Mathieu Schneider (/149), Keith Carney (/149)
01-02 Parkhurst Kristian Huselius RC (/500)
02-03 Atomic Hobby Parallel Alexei Smirnov (/775), Anton Volchenkov (/775)
...see next picture...
-------------------------------------------------------
02-03 Titanium Red Dmitri Bykov (/299)
02-03 Parkhurst Bronze Anton Volchenkov (/100)
03-04 Titanium Retail Jersey Number Parallels Sergei Zinovjev (/225)
05-06 Black Diamond Andrew Alberts RC (Triple), Kevin Dallman RC (Triple)
The last two pictures contained the rest of my trade from Paul. Again, this is the kind of fun, low-print stuff I enjoy picking up. I still think the Chistov beats all of these, though. Thanks again for the deal, Paul!
-------------------------------------------------------
03-04 Swedish Elite Silver Parallel Mikko Kuparinen
I can't say enough good things about Vic (Howe1850), who has come through for me on some European issues about a million times. He picked this one up for me off of Tradera, and it's the first time I have ever seen a copy of this card! It's so rare, in fact, that I have never even seen a copy of the base card. With the parallel out of the way, hopefully I'll be able to find the base card eventually too. If I do, it will bring the Kuparinen collection to semi-completion, with the only missing item being a 1/1.
Thank you very much for your help, Vic!
-------------------------------------------------------
96-97 Black Diamond Gold Adam Foote, Kevin Hatcher
97-98 Black Diamond Quadruple Jan Bulis (/50)
97-98 Zenith Vaclav Prospal RC
98-99 O-Pee-Chee Chrome Refractors Bob Probert, Keith Tkachuk
02-03 UD Victory Silver Martin Havlat, Wade Redden
02-03 UD Victory Gold Phil Housley (/100)
This lot of cards came from Leonard of pronhl.com, in trade. I have to say that his packaging wasn't great, and both Victory Silver cards are a bit damaged. Otherwise, though, I was very happy with the trade. The Bulis is only my second Black Diamond base-set quad, and it would take a heck of an offer to get it out of my hands. 97-98 Black Diamond is one of my favorite sets of all time.
There was one more card in the package to me, though...
-------------------------------------------------------
02-03 UD Artistic Impressions Retrospectives Gold Sergei Samsonov (/25) (NICE!)
...and it's a very rare Samsonov card! I've only seen maybe a couple other copies of this one, and they all sold fairly nicely on ebay. Unfortunately, this card's got a little edge damage too, but as a player collector I'm fine overlooking that. What matters is that I've finally got a copy of this one.
You'll hear me complain about oversized cards now and then, but what about undersized cards? They aren't quite as bad, I suppose...
-------------------------------------------------------
05-06 Ultra Fresh Ink Kevin Weekes
This card came from Ben (Creme Brule) in trade. It was sent a bit late, but I am glad to own it. That is... even though I don't like the sticker autos, and will probably grow absolutely sick and tired of chasing these types of Weekes cards very soon. Anyway, thanks for the card!
-------------------------------------------------------
01-02 Upper Deck Exclusives Jiri Slegr (/100)
02-03 Upper Deck Exclusives Mathieu Garon (/75)
02-03 Pacific Calder Silver Curtis Sanford (/299)
02-03 Stadium Club Photographer's Proof Doug Weight (/250)
03-04 Pacific Blue Ziggy Palffy (/250), Simon Gagne (/250)
03-04 Pacific Blue Aleksey Morozov (/250), Sebastien Charpentier (/250)
...see next picture...
-------------------------------------------------------
03-04 O-Pee-Chee Topps Blue Ryan Miller (/500), Ryan Smyth (/500)
05-06 UD Victory Silver Stephen Weiss (/250)
05-06 UD Victory Silver Brian Rafalski (/250)
05-06 UD Victory Silver Ruslan Fedotenko (/250)
I got all of these in from Rene (mcflash2005). Again, these are yet another addition to my ever-growing supply of parallels. I have two observations about this batch. First, I've found that the 02-03 Stadium Club Photographer's Proof cards are almost always chipped. I don't blame the other traders at all, but these cards must have all come out of the packs looking mauled. That's a shame, as they're so hard to find! My second observation is more anecdotal: I now own the Silver and Gold parallels of Brian Rafalski from 05-06 UD Victory. That's more than I can say for Sergei Samsonov, who I'm actually TRYING to look for!
-------------------------------------------------------
02-03 McDonalds Pacific Glove-Side Net-Fusions Evgeni Nabokov
03-04 Private Stock Reserve Retail Eric Staal RC (/1299)
03-04 Crown Royale Retail Marek Zidlicky RC (/899)
These cards came from Justin (JRD19) in trade. Nothing wrong with any of these, especially the Staal RC! Thank you very much for the deal!
-------------------------------------------------------
05-06 Upper Deck MVP Platinum Kevin Weekes (/25) (NICE!!!)
To close things out, is a very holographic Weekes autograph... of course, I actually prefer this printed-on foil stuff to the sticker autos, but I'm a parallel guy, so it's only natural! This one came from ebay, and it's a vital addition to my Weekes collection. It's actually doing a little better at the moment than I expected it to, due to all the new products... though the release of UD2 will probably force that luck to change.
-------------------------------------------------------
News and notes:
**Due to the huge amount of packages I received upon my return from spring break, I'm already about halfway towards my next mail post. As such, I will probably need to do another one within a couple of days!
**Too much work to do, so let's cut this one off here...haha!
That'll be it. Thanks everyone!
LINKS:
http://www.beckett.com/userpages/hatzosman6.html - Homepage/Wantlist/Tradelist
http://pipsey.net:8080/~thegreatzo/players/players.html - Player Collection Website
http://pipsey.net:8080/~thegreatzo/vipersrc/vipersrc.html - Vipers Best-RCs Project
From here on out, I'm available for trading again, and would love to work on some deals, especially from cards people had been waiting on from the past couple of mail posts. However, I may still be a bit slow over the next few days, as I have a stack of cards I still need to organize and put away. By "stack", I mean it's about eight inches tall. Needless to say, while juggling homework and the rest of my life, it may take a while to get back on track!
Anyway, let's get on with this mail post -- #13 on the year -- which should get through the first half of what's come in over break.
-------------------------------------------------------
200 USPS Customs Forms
I have to thank Chris (hockeyguy2006) for telling me about this. Apparently, you can order customs forms free from the USPS website, so I ordered 200. Why? Well, now I won't run out, for at least a year!
Plus, owning 200 customs forms just seems excessive... which, of course, is fun!
-------------------------------------------------------
04-05 SP Authentic Rookie Review Stanislav Chistov (/100) (NICE!!!)
...and POW, there's a card you wouldn't expect to see in one of my mail posts! So, I thought I'd lead off with it (well, behind the customs forms, haha!)
This card came in trade from Paul (BostonBruinsFan25)... as did the next two pictures below. Of course, the Chistov was the centerpiece of the deal. The patch is dark purple and appears to be part of a letter, with thick white jersey below it. Not a bad piece at all!
-------------------------------------------------------
00-01 Pacific Copper Derek Morris (/40)
01-02 Pacific Retail Limited Mathieu Schneider (/149), Keith Carney (/149)
01-02 Parkhurst Kristian Huselius RC (/500)
02-03 Atomic Hobby Parallel Alexei Smirnov (/775), Anton Volchenkov (/775)
...see next picture...
-------------------------------------------------------
02-03 Titanium Red Dmitri Bykov (/299)
02-03 Parkhurst Bronze Anton Volchenkov (/100)
03-04 Titanium Retail Jersey Number Parallels Sergei Zinovjev (/225)
05-06 Black Diamond Andrew Alberts RC (Triple), Kevin Dallman RC (Triple)
The last two pictures contained the rest of my trade from Paul. Again, this is the kind of fun, low-print stuff I enjoy picking up. I still think the Chistov beats all of these, though. Thanks again for the deal, Paul!
-------------------------------------------------------
03-04 Swedish Elite Silver Parallel Mikko Kuparinen
I can't say enough good things about Vic (Howe1850), who has come through for me on some European issues about a million times. He picked this one up for me off of Tradera, and it's the first time I have ever seen a copy of this card! It's so rare, in fact, that I have never even seen a copy of the base card. With the parallel out of the way, hopefully I'll be able to find the base card eventually too. If I do, it will bring the Kuparinen collection to semi-completion, with the only missing item being a 1/1.
Thank you very much for your help, Vic!
-------------------------------------------------------
96-97 Black Diamond Gold Adam Foote, Kevin Hatcher
97-98 Black Diamond Quadruple Jan Bulis (/50)
97-98 Zenith Vaclav Prospal RC
98-99 O-Pee-Chee Chrome Refractors Bob Probert, Keith Tkachuk
02-03 UD Victory Silver Martin Havlat, Wade Redden
02-03 UD Victory Gold Phil Housley (/100)
This lot of cards came from Leonard of pronhl.com, in trade. I have to say that his packaging wasn't great, and both Victory Silver cards are a bit damaged. Otherwise, though, I was very happy with the trade. The Bulis is only my second Black Diamond base-set quad, and it would take a heck of an offer to get it out of my hands. 97-98 Black Diamond is one of my favorite sets of all time.
There was one more card in the package to me, though...
-------------------------------------------------------
02-03 UD Artistic Impressions Retrospectives Gold Sergei Samsonov (/25) (NICE!)
...and it's a very rare Samsonov card! I've only seen maybe a couple other copies of this one, and they all sold fairly nicely on ebay. Unfortunately, this card's got a little edge damage too, but as a player collector I'm fine overlooking that. What matters is that I've finally got a copy of this one.
You'll hear me complain about oversized cards now and then, but what about undersized cards? They aren't quite as bad, I suppose...
-------------------------------------------------------
05-06 Ultra Fresh Ink Kevin Weekes
This card came from Ben (Creme Brule) in trade. It was sent a bit late, but I am glad to own it. That is... even though I don't like the sticker autos, and will probably grow absolutely sick and tired of chasing these types of Weekes cards very soon. Anyway, thanks for the card!
-------------------------------------------------------
01-02 Upper Deck Exclusives Jiri Slegr (/100)
02-03 Upper Deck Exclusives Mathieu Garon (/75)
02-03 Pacific Calder Silver Curtis Sanford (/299)
02-03 Stadium Club Photographer's Proof Doug Weight (/250)
03-04 Pacific Blue Ziggy Palffy (/250), Simon Gagne (/250)
03-04 Pacific Blue Aleksey Morozov (/250), Sebastien Charpentier (/250)
...see next picture...
-------------------------------------------------------
03-04 O-Pee-Chee Topps Blue Ryan Miller (/500), Ryan Smyth (/500)
05-06 UD Victory Silver Stephen Weiss (/250)
05-06 UD Victory Silver Brian Rafalski (/250)
05-06 UD Victory Silver Ruslan Fedotenko (/250)
I got all of these in from Rene (mcflash2005). Again, these are yet another addition to my ever-growing supply of parallels. I have two observations about this batch. First, I've found that the 02-03 Stadium Club Photographer's Proof cards are almost always chipped. I don't blame the other traders at all, but these cards must have all come out of the packs looking mauled. That's a shame, as they're so hard to find! My second observation is more anecdotal: I now own the Silver and Gold parallels of Brian Rafalski from 05-06 UD Victory. That's more than I can say for Sergei Samsonov, who I'm actually TRYING to look for!
-------------------------------------------------------
02-03 McDonalds Pacific Glove-Side Net-Fusions Evgeni Nabokov
03-04 Private Stock Reserve Retail Eric Staal RC (/1299)
03-04 Crown Royale Retail Marek Zidlicky RC (/899)
These cards came from Justin (JRD19) in trade. Nothing wrong with any of these, especially the Staal RC! Thank you very much for the deal!
-------------------------------------------------------
05-06 Upper Deck MVP Platinum Kevin Weekes (/25) (NICE!!!)
To close things out, is a very holographic Weekes autograph... of course, I actually prefer this printed-on foil stuff to the sticker autos, but I'm a parallel guy, so it's only natural! This one came from ebay, and it's a vital addition to my Weekes collection. It's actually doing a little better at the moment than I expected it to, due to all the new products... though the release of UD2 will probably force that luck to change.
-------------------------------------------------------
News and notes:
**Due to the huge amount of packages I received upon my return from spring break, I'm already about halfway towards my next mail post. As such, I will probably need to do another one within a couple of days!
**Too much work to do, so let's cut this one off here...haha!
That'll be it. Thanks everyone!
LINKS:
http://www.beckett.com/userpages/hatzosman6.html - Homepage/Wantlist/Tradelist
http://pipsey.net:8080/~thegreatzo/players/players.html - Player Collection Website
http://pipsey.net:8080/~thegreatzo/vipersrc/vipersrc.html - Vipers Best-RCs Project
with the Chistov patch. 
