The Great Zo
Verified Trader,
This post is several months in the making, but it's been worth the effort. I'm admittedly indifferent about Tim Thomas' return to the NHL (in part because I do not like the Florida Panthers at all). However, my quest to collect his cards continues along anyway, and these are the most recent additions to the stash.
I have a few other items to clear out at the beginning of the post.
Mail Post #19 for 2013
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00-01 Titanium Hobby 131 Marian Cisar (71/99)
Here is another addition to the slowest-building set I've ever worked on. This isn't a true rookie card, as Marian Cisar's only RC was in 97-98 Beehive. Of the 50 cards in the Titanium Hobby #/99 subset, I now own 27 of them!
Unfortunately, the most common scenario for these cards being listed on ebay is for a starting bid in the $15-$25 range (even for common players and non-RCs). These cards just aren't worth that much anymore. I have to be patient and wait for the listings with cheap starting bids.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 UD Artifacts base cards
12-13 Panini (Basketball) base cards
Here are some base cards that were included with one of the Tim Thomas items later in the post.
-------------------------------------------------------
10-11 O-Pee-Chee Matt Taormina RC (SP)
10-11 O-Pee-Chee Alexander Vasyunov RC (SP)
These two OPC rookie cards will be added to my rookie collection. They are part of an eight-card purchase -- these two, and the next six cards in the mail post.
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11-12 SP Game Used Tim Erixon RC (627/699)
11-12 SP Game Used Tomas Kubalik RC (576/699)
Here are a couple of SPGU RCs, which will also be added to my rookie collection.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Pinnacle Foundation Tandems West Rick Nash / John Moore
This card is amusing. What was once a "foundation tandem" in the Western Conference for the Blue Jackets is now a pair of teammates for the New York Rangers in the east!
-------------------------------------------------------
2012 Panini Toronto Fall Expo Steven Stamkos
2012 Panini Toronto Spring Expo Steven Stamkos
For some reason, I like getting expo-promo cards of Steven Stamkos. I think I like the unique designs.
-------------------------------------------------------
2012 Panini Toronto Spring Expo Tim Thomas
Tim Thomas was also in this All-Star Game set, which was released at the 2012 Spring Expo in Toronto. Thus begins the Tim Thomas portion of the mail post!
For some reason, this card had slipped past me, and I never picked one up after the expo. However, I do already own the autographed parallel of the card. According to Panini, there are only five copies made of the autographed version! It's nice to have the base and autograph together.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Dominion Tim Thomas (149/199)
This base card from Dominion is one of just a few Tim Thomas entries I own from the set. I do already have the gold parallel #/25.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Panini Luxury Suite (Rookie Anthology) Tim Thomas (Game-Used Stick)
Here is the first-ever card to feature Tim Thomas as a member of the New York Islanders!
Of course, that's sort of a ridiculous claim, since he never actually played for the Islanders. Instead, I plan to appreciate it as a nice game-used stick card, with a wood grain stick swatch. The card has no stated print run, and as with the rest of the Luxury Suite product, it's intended to be seen as part of the base set.
Those Artifacts and Panini Basketball base cards from earlier in the post were included with this Luxury Suite card.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 UD Artifacts Tundra Sixes Jersey (DAMAGED)
-- Bill Ranford (Yellow) / Brad Park (Black)
-- Phil Kessel (Black) / Joe Thornton (Black)
-- Ray Bourque (White) / Tim Thomas (Yellow)
Here's the only bad news for this mail post. This swatch-laden six-jersey card was an ebay purchase from user ken6380 (Kenny's Sports Cards). The card was shipped in a plain envelope with no padding, and arrived as pictured above -- creased badly in several locations.
Had I only searched around, I'd have found that I was far from the only person to have a bad experience with this particular ebay user.
When I requested a refund, I found Kenny's communication skills to be rather tactless. I was promised a refund upon returning the card, and it should be arriving back to him soon.
How this guy has 100% positive feedback on ebay is beyond me. How anyone can believe that it's a good idea to ship a card with six jersey swatches in an unpadded envelope is baffling.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 UD Artifacts Tundra Sixes Jersey
-- Bill Ranford (Black/White) / Brad Park (Black)
-- Phil Kessel (Black) / Joe Thornton (Black)
-- Ray Bourque (White) / Tim Thomas (Yellow)
The story ends with good news, though! I went out and purchased the next copy of the card to hit ebay, and it even has a multi-color swatch on it. This one arrived in perfect shape.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Panini Limited Net Presence Tim Thomas / Rick Nash (24/99)
This is my second net card from 11-12 Panini Limited (I already have the one with Thomas and Corey Perry). However, of the four pairings, this one is my favorite. I don't know what connection Thomas and Nash have (other than playing in the same All-Star Game), but as Nash was a long time captain of my second-favorite NHL team, I don't mind seeing them on the same card together.
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12-13 Panini Limited Net Assets Jonathan Quick / Tim Thomas (44/99)
The 12-13 edition of Panini Limited brought the "net card" concept to the next level, adding jersey swatches to the matchup! This is an extremely thick card -- roughly the size of eight standard base cards.
The Jonathan Quick jersey swatch is white, and the Tim Thomas jersey swatch is black.
I do have one complaint about this card, and it's a common one with many of Panini's memorabilia cards. I have absolutely no idea where the net piece came from! All the card says is that the net is "event used." For all I know, it's from the Rookie Showcase, or a Prusha/Barr pickup game, or some other event that is not connected to Thomas or Quick in any way. It's probably more likely that it is from some sort of special event, and I just can't understand why that wouldn't be made clear on the card.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Panini Certified Masked Marvels Mirror Gold Tim Thomas (13/25)
Here's one of the many 11-12 Certified parallels that I just couldn't keep up with when the product was new. This one goes nice with the Black 1/1 version I acquired last year.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 The Cup Jerseys Tim Thomas (16/25)
This unspectacular card hasn't exactly been at the top of my wantlist, so I waited for a cheap one to get listed on ebay before making my purchase. The card has an all-black jersey swatch. It's similar to the base set from The Cup (here's the Black 1/1 for reference), but features a different picture of Tim Thomas.
-------------------------------------------------------
10-11 Crown Royale Blue Tim Thomas (07/10)
Stepping back to Panini's first year in the hockey business, here's a tough parallel from Crown Royale! The foil color on the card is interesting. It's not the classic "ice blue" we're familiar with from Pacific, nor is it the darker blue foil used in sets like 02-03 Pacific or 12-13 UD Artifacts. It actually has a faint bit of purplish color, like a soft periwinkle. I'm not sure I've ever seen this particular foil color used on a card before.
This one gives me near-completion of the 10-11 Crown Royale rainbow! In addition to the Blue #/10 card pictured above, I also have the base and Premiere Date #/100, Premiere Date Autograph #/100, Purple #/25, and Red 1/1 versions. The only one I'm missing is the Red Autograph 1/1, which has been on ebay for years with an asking price higher than all but a couple of Tim Thomas card sales in history.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Crown Royale Silhouettes Tim Thomas (12/25)
When 11-12 Crown Royale was released, it took me a long time to even see a single copy of this card. I knew they existed, though, because Panini posted a video of the cards being autographed!
When a few copies finally hit ebay, they sold very well. Patience paid off again, as this one arrived to me for a reasonable price. I doubt I've seen more than five or six copies of this card. The jersey swatch has three layers -- yellow jersey, a huge black seam, and white jersey. It's a really impressive design, and I think just about everyone in the hobby enjoys the Silhouettes cards that Panini ingenuously designed. If I'm going to knock them for some of their missteps, I certainly have no problem giving credit when they get it right.
Just five cards left in the post, with scarcity reaching its logical end!
-------------------------------------------------------
08-09 Upper Deck Printing Plate Yellow 181 Tim Thomas (ONE-OF-ONE)
I like my UD Printing Plate cards!
I also like that I now own three of the four plates from 08-09 Upper Deck (including Cyan and Magenta). I would absolutely love to find the Black plate and complete the set of four!
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 The Cup Masterpieces Printing Plates Magenta Tim Thomas (1/1)
One plate isn't enough for this post -- here's a second! This is my first of the four plates from 11-12 The Cup. I don't recall seeing any of the others.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Dominion Printing Plates Magenta Tim Thomas (1 of 1)
Two plates are not enough -- I need to go for three! Like the Cup plate above, this is my first from 11-12 Dominion, and the first I have seen on the secondary market.
-------------------------------------------------------
10-11 Between The Pipes Game-Used Emblem Gold Tim Thomas (1/1)
Finally, because three 1/1s in one post is still not enough -- I went for four!
I don't have the Silver #/3 version of this card, but I do have the Black #/6 version. This one-of-one is my third from the 10-11 Between The Pipes release, and comes from a time when I was cursing Brian Price's name for constructing the BTP sets in the absolute least player-collection-friendly way possible. Now, I'm cursing his name for doing the same with Sergei Samsonov, but that's another story for my next mail post!
This card has a four-layer swatch -- black patch, yellow patch, black patch, and white patch.
Although that's the last 1/1 for now, it's not the final card in this mail post. My favorite new Tim Thomas card is one that highlights what may be the happiest day(s) of his career.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Upper Deck Day With The Cup DC20 Tim Thomas
I knew when they were first hitting the market at the 2011 Fall Expo that the Day With The Cup inserts would be a big hit. They have scarcity going for them -- I'd guess that print runs are under 50 copies each -- but they also celebrate a theme that all fans can appreciate. The prices for these cards have been consistently high, and most copies of the Tim Thomas card sold into the three-digit range. Thankfully, patience was again my friend, as this copy was listed with a poor picture, poor title, and almost-empty auction description. I had no problems with the seller at all, but I guarantee the poor listing led to the cheapest-ever sale for this Tim Thomas card -- by far.
Because one giant trophy isn't enough, Thomas is seen boating with the Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe, and Vezina. According to the card, he actually spent two days with the Stanley Cup -- one in Michigan and one in Vermont. There is one minor error on the card back, as his hometown is listed erroneously as "Davidson" (it's actually Davison).
No matter where Tim Thomas goes from here, this card shows the end of his hard-working rise to the top -- from journeyman goalie for the IHL Detroit Vipers in 99-00 to Stanley Cup Champion in 2011.
-----------------
News and notes:
** Although I'm getting closer to getting all my wantlists and tradelists caught up from this summer, I am about two years behind on Tim Thomas, and he's had hundreds of cards released since I last updated my database. Because of that, I really don't know how my collection stats are looking. I believe I'm up to 67 Tim Thomas 1/1 cards in total.
** Thomas cards are in a bit of a hiatus right now, but I'd expect him to earn his first cards as a member of the Panthers within a couple months.
That'll be it. Thanks everyone!
--Andy
http://www.thegreatzo.com/cards/
-------------------------------------------------------
I have a few other items to clear out at the beginning of the post.
Mail Post #19 for 2013
-------------------------------------------------------
00-01 Titanium Hobby 131 Marian Cisar (71/99)
Here is another addition to the slowest-building set I've ever worked on. This isn't a true rookie card, as Marian Cisar's only RC was in 97-98 Beehive. Of the 50 cards in the Titanium Hobby #/99 subset, I now own 27 of them!
Unfortunately, the most common scenario for these cards being listed on ebay is for a starting bid in the $15-$25 range (even for common players and non-RCs). These cards just aren't worth that much anymore. I have to be patient and wait for the listings with cheap starting bids.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 UD Artifacts base cards
12-13 Panini (Basketball) base cards
Here are some base cards that were included with one of the Tim Thomas items later in the post.
-------------------------------------------------------
10-11 O-Pee-Chee Matt Taormina RC (SP)
10-11 O-Pee-Chee Alexander Vasyunov RC (SP)
These two OPC rookie cards will be added to my rookie collection. They are part of an eight-card purchase -- these two, and the next six cards in the mail post.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 SP Game Used Tim Erixon RC (627/699)
11-12 SP Game Used Tomas Kubalik RC (576/699)
Here are a couple of SPGU RCs, which will also be added to my rookie collection.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Pinnacle Foundation Tandems West Rick Nash / John Moore
This card is amusing. What was once a "foundation tandem" in the Western Conference for the Blue Jackets is now a pair of teammates for the New York Rangers in the east!
-------------------------------------------------------
2012 Panini Toronto Fall Expo Steven Stamkos
2012 Panini Toronto Spring Expo Steven Stamkos
For some reason, I like getting expo-promo cards of Steven Stamkos. I think I like the unique designs.
-------------------------------------------------------
2012 Panini Toronto Spring Expo Tim Thomas
Tim Thomas was also in this All-Star Game set, which was released at the 2012 Spring Expo in Toronto. Thus begins the Tim Thomas portion of the mail post!
For some reason, this card had slipped past me, and I never picked one up after the expo. However, I do already own the autographed parallel of the card. According to Panini, there are only five copies made of the autographed version! It's nice to have the base and autograph together.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Dominion Tim Thomas (149/199)
This base card from Dominion is one of just a few Tim Thomas entries I own from the set. I do already have the gold parallel #/25.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Panini Luxury Suite (Rookie Anthology) Tim Thomas (Game-Used Stick)
Here is the first-ever card to feature Tim Thomas as a member of the New York Islanders!
Of course, that's sort of a ridiculous claim, since he never actually played for the Islanders. Instead, I plan to appreciate it as a nice game-used stick card, with a wood grain stick swatch. The card has no stated print run, and as with the rest of the Luxury Suite product, it's intended to be seen as part of the base set.
Those Artifacts and Panini Basketball base cards from earlier in the post were included with this Luxury Suite card.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 UD Artifacts Tundra Sixes Jersey (DAMAGED)
-- Bill Ranford (Yellow) / Brad Park (Black)
-- Phil Kessel (Black) / Joe Thornton (Black)
-- Ray Bourque (White) / Tim Thomas (Yellow)
Here's the only bad news for this mail post. This swatch-laden six-jersey card was an ebay purchase from user ken6380 (Kenny's Sports Cards). The card was shipped in a plain envelope with no padding, and arrived as pictured above -- creased badly in several locations.
Had I only searched around, I'd have found that I was far from the only person to have a bad experience with this particular ebay user.
When I requested a refund, I found Kenny's communication skills to be rather tactless. I was promised a refund upon returning the card, and it should be arriving back to him soon.
How this guy has 100% positive feedback on ebay is beyond me. How anyone can believe that it's a good idea to ship a card with six jersey swatches in an unpadded envelope is baffling.
-------------------------------------------------------
13-14 UD Artifacts Tundra Sixes Jersey
-- Bill Ranford (Black/White) / Brad Park (Black)
-- Phil Kessel (Black) / Joe Thornton (Black)
-- Ray Bourque (White) / Tim Thomas (Yellow)
The story ends with good news, though! I went out and purchased the next copy of the card to hit ebay, and it even has a multi-color swatch on it. This one arrived in perfect shape.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Panini Limited Net Presence Tim Thomas / Rick Nash (24/99)
This is my second net card from 11-12 Panini Limited (I already have the one with Thomas and Corey Perry). However, of the four pairings, this one is my favorite. I don't know what connection Thomas and Nash have (other than playing in the same All-Star Game), but as Nash was a long time captain of my second-favorite NHL team, I don't mind seeing them on the same card together.
-------------------------------------------------------
12-13 Panini Limited Net Assets Jonathan Quick / Tim Thomas (44/99)
The 12-13 edition of Panini Limited brought the "net card" concept to the next level, adding jersey swatches to the matchup! This is an extremely thick card -- roughly the size of eight standard base cards.
The Jonathan Quick jersey swatch is white, and the Tim Thomas jersey swatch is black.
I do have one complaint about this card, and it's a common one with many of Panini's memorabilia cards. I have absolutely no idea where the net piece came from! All the card says is that the net is "event used." For all I know, it's from the Rookie Showcase, or a Prusha/Barr pickup game, or some other event that is not connected to Thomas or Quick in any way. It's probably more likely that it is from some sort of special event, and I just can't understand why that wouldn't be made clear on the card.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Panini Certified Masked Marvels Mirror Gold Tim Thomas (13/25)
Here's one of the many 11-12 Certified parallels that I just couldn't keep up with when the product was new. This one goes nice with the Black 1/1 version I acquired last year.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 The Cup Jerseys Tim Thomas (16/25)
This unspectacular card hasn't exactly been at the top of my wantlist, so I waited for a cheap one to get listed on ebay before making my purchase. The card has an all-black jersey swatch. It's similar to the base set from The Cup (here's the Black 1/1 for reference), but features a different picture of Tim Thomas.
-------------------------------------------------------
10-11 Crown Royale Blue Tim Thomas (07/10)
Stepping back to Panini's first year in the hockey business, here's a tough parallel from Crown Royale! The foil color on the card is interesting. It's not the classic "ice blue" we're familiar with from Pacific, nor is it the darker blue foil used in sets like 02-03 Pacific or 12-13 UD Artifacts. It actually has a faint bit of purplish color, like a soft periwinkle. I'm not sure I've ever seen this particular foil color used on a card before.
This one gives me near-completion of the 10-11 Crown Royale rainbow! In addition to the Blue #/10 card pictured above, I also have the base and Premiere Date #/100, Premiere Date Autograph #/100, Purple #/25, and Red 1/1 versions. The only one I'm missing is the Red Autograph 1/1, which has been on ebay for years with an asking price higher than all but a couple of Tim Thomas card sales in history.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Crown Royale Silhouettes Tim Thomas (12/25)
When 11-12 Crown Royale was released, it took me a long time to even see a single copy of this card. I knew they existed, though, because Panini posted a video of the cards being autographed!
When a few copies finally hit ebay, they sold very well. Patience paid off again, as this one arrived to me for a reasonable price. I doubt I've seen more than five or six copies of this card. The jersey swatch has three layers -- yellow jersey, a huge black seam, and white jersey. It's a really impressive design, and I think just about everyone in the hobby enjoys the Silhouettes cards that Panini ingenuously designed. If I'm going to knock them for some of their missteps, I certainly have no problem giving credit when they get it right.
Just five cards left in the post, with scarcity reaching its logical end!
-------------------------------------------------------
08-09 Upper Deck Printing Plate Yellow 181 Tim Thomas (ONE-OF-ONE)
I like my UD Printing Plate cards!
I also like that I now own three of the four plates from 08-09 Upper Deck (including Cyan and Magenta). I would absolutely love to find the Black plate and complete the set of four!
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 The Cup Masterpieces Printing Plates Magenta Tim Thomas (1/1)
One plate isn't enough for this post -- here's a second! This is my first of the four plates from 11-12 The Cup. I don't recall seeing any of the others.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Dominion Printing Plates Magenta Tim Thomas (1 of 1)
Two plates are not enough -- I need to go for three! Like the Cup plate above, this is my first from 11-12 Dominion, and the first I have seen on the secondary market.
-------------------------------------------------------
10-11 Between The Pipes Game-Used Emblem Gold Tim Thomas (1/1)
Finally, because three 1/1s in one post is still not enough -- I went for four!
I don't have the Silver #/3 version of this card, but I do have the Black #/6 version. This one-of-one is my third from the 10-11 Between The Pipes release, and comes from a time when I was cursing Brian Price's name for constructing the BTP sets in the absolute least player-collection-friendly way possible. Now, I'm cursing his name for doing the same with Sergei Samsonov, but that's another story for my next mail post!
This card has a four-layer swatch -- black patch, yellow patch, black patch, and white patch.
Although that's the last 1/1 for now, it's not the final card in this mail post. My favorite new Tim Thomas card is one that highlights what may be the happiest day(s) of his career.
-------------------------------------------------------
11-12 Upper Deck Day With The Cup DC20 Tim Thomas
I knew when they were first hitting the market at the 2011 Fall Expo that the Day With The Cup inserts would be a big hit. They have scarcity going for them -- I'd guess that print runs are under 50 copies each -- but they also celebrate a theme that all fans can appreciate. The prices for these cards have been consistently high, and most copies of the Tim Thomas card sold into the three-digit range. Thankfully, patience was again my friend, as this copy was listed with a poor picture, poor title, and almost-empty auction description. I had no problems with the seller at all, but I guarantee the poor listing led to the cheapest-ever sale for this Tim Thomas card -- by far.
Because one giant trophy isn't enough, Thomas is seen boating with the Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe, and Vezina. According to the card, he actually spent two days with the Stanley Cup -- one in Michigan and one in Vermont. There is one minor error on the card back, as his hometown is listed erroneously as "Davidson" (it's actually Davison).
No matter where Tim Thomas goes from here, this card shows the end of his hard-working rise to the top -- from journeyman goalie for the IHL Detroit Vipers in 99-00 to Stanley Cup Champion in 2011.
-----------------
News and notes:
** Although I'm getting closer to getting all my wantlists and tradelists caught up from this summer, I am about two years behind on Tim Thomas, and he's had hundreds of cards released since I last updated my database. Because of that, I really don't know how my collection stats are looking. I believe I'm up to 67 Tim Thomas 1/1 cards in total.
** Thomas cards are in a bit of a hiatus right now, but I'd expect him to earn his first cards as a member of the Panthers within a couple months.
That'll be it. Thanks everyone!
--Andy
http://www.thegreatzo.com/cards/
-------------------------------------------------------
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