The Return-To-College Mailpost - Jan 11, 2006

The Great Zo

The Great Zo

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Welcome to 2006's first entry into my favorite hobby tradition - the picture-laden, story-filled mail post. There's plenty more on the way, but I need to clear out the first batch before I pick up a slew of mail from home this weekend. More on that later... for now, enjoy the first nine card pictures of the new year.

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97-98 Upper Deck Blow-Ups 3 x 5 Sergei Samsonov
99-00 Pacific Omega Ice Blue Sergei Samsonov (/75)
I'll start with the Ice Blue. It came from ebay, and is another one off the never-ending Pacific Parallel portion of the wantlist. The good news, though, is that it completes my requirements for 99-00 Pacific Omega. That's all five parallel versions of Sergei Samsonov, Kevin Weekes, Steve Martins, Stan Drulia, Ben Clymer / Nils Ekman, and Travis Brigley / Robyn Regehr. 30 cards in all!

The Samsonov comes from John (Ovechkin05), and is only the second copy of the card I've ever seen. Thank you for your help, John! For a little more on this one, read the next section below.

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97-98 Upper Deck Sergei Samsonov
97-98 Upper Deck Blow-Ups 3 x 5 Sergei Samsonov
97-98 Upper Deck Blow-Ups 5 x 7 Sergei Samsonov
For the sake of comparison (and an interesting photograph), here's all three versions of the 97-98 Upper Deck Sergei Samsonov base card (not counting the Game Dated parallel, of course, which I've yet to acquire). Both blow-up versions were issued as box toppers, but I'm not sure their exact distribution. What I do know is that I was lucky enough to pull the 5 x 7 myself from a cheapo retail box I opened way back in 1998. Now that the trifecta is complete, I think it looks pretty cool.

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05-06 UD Trilogy Honorary Swatches Sergei Samsonov
This card was another in a long string of ebay purchases. I turned down a rather ridiculous offer I received for one of these cards (with a slightly nicer swatch -- emphasis on slightly) and picked this one up for a quarter of the price. I'm very happy with it, as it's my first Samsonov card with that black/white/black layering. It seems that the "jagged-edged" third jersey was used for the Trilogy Samsonov swatches.

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02-03 UD Honor Roll Grade A Jerseys Peter Forsberg
I received this card in trade from R.J. (avalanchefan21). I have to say, I really like the "shiny" burgundy Avalanche jersey cards. Thanks for the deal!

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04-05 German Weiden Blue Devils Samuel St. Pierre
04-05 Swiss Top Hockey Stickers Thomas Ziegler
These two came from German trader Andre Kima. Both are important additions to my player collections, and items I may never have seen again had I not been given help by Andre! For St. Pierre, it leaves me with only one card to go, so I think that collection will be wrapped up pretty soon. For Ziegler, it's now two down and six to go in terms of his Swiss items. I think that Switzerland may be the hardest European country to get cards out of, for some reason. If anyone has any good Swiss contacts that might be able to help me out, please let me know!
 
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04-05 Turkish Chewing Gum Sergei Samsonov
What a story I have to tell from this item! First, I'll explain what I know about the card: solely what's in the description above. Literally, all I know is that it came packed with gum in Turkey. It's interesting to note that the card's picture and design is almost an exact copy of Samsonov's 03-04 Upper Deck base card. I'm not sure that's legal...

I worked out a deal to receive this card in late September of 2005, from a seller in the Czech Republic. The payment was received a few weeks later, but the card never showed up. I gave up on it by the time I went home for winter vacation, but came back to find that it had been delivered here at college literally hours after I left for the break! It was delivered on December 16, with a postmark from mid-November. Sure, the whole thing raises more questions than it answers, but the fact of the matter is this -- I did get the item, and it's certainly a strange addition to the collection!

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01-02 Stadium Club Master Photo Jarome Iginla (/100)
This card came in trade from Paige (devsjunkie). The trade went quite smoothly, as did a sale we worked out the week prior. Thanks for the deals, Paige!

Here's an interesting note on the card itself. The last few Upper Deck sets have had High Gloss parallels, which feature a noticably glossier surface finish than the regular base cards. Upper Deck's "High Gloss" finish is nearly exactly the same as the base card finish from the 1999-2002 Stadium Club releases. However, this Master Photo parallel actually uses a lower quality finish, perhaps to create a more "unfinished" effect to coincide with the "in-production" theme of the parallel set. The finish on the card is very similar to the finish on base Upper Deck cards. It's interesting to see how two different companies take the concept of card gloss, and use two opposite takes on the subject in creating rare parallel sets.

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83-84 O-Pee-Chee Mike Krushelnyski RC
90-91 Upper Deck French Frank J. Zamboni
91-92 Score Canadian English Jeff Reese, Brad Shaw
These four came from Beckett marketplace dealer Just Hockey Cards. The Krushelnyski is for the Best-RC collection, and was picked up mainly because he's got a undeniably great name. Next up: arguably the "rookie card" of the Zamboni machine's inventor, Frank J. Zamboni. Well, regardless of whether or not it's actually worth a RC tag, it's worth a spot in my collection.

The final two items are for my player collections. A week or two ago, while completing a re-analysis of my player collections, I came across yet another 91-92 Score variation that I hadn't yet known about -- the Canadian English versions. The good news is that they were dirt cheap to pick up, and really easy to find.

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03-04 Alaska Aces Mike Jones (/250) (100%!!!)
This card has raised many philosophical questions in terms of player collecting. First: can I say I collect a certain player if he has no cards out? That was the case from 00-01 through 03-04, as Mike Jones had nothing produced... yet I was determined to add him to my list of players I collected. Second: can I say I collect a player if I don't own any of his cards? That was the dilemma after this miserably difficult single was produced. Third: how cheap is it to claim completion on a one-card player collection? :D Given the difficulty in acquiring this one, I'd vote for "not cheap at all".

As I've mentioned before, there were four 03-04 RBI Sports ECHL cards I needed for my collections, and each of them had to be tracked separately as they were issued locally in team sets, with only 250 copies printed of each. I thought I might eventually find this one in Alaska, but minor-league specialist John O'Mara on ebay came through once again. With all four cards now landed, it's a set I'd rather not think about any further ;)

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News and notes:

**With the Mike Jones collection now complete, I'm back up to ten completions altogether. Something tells me I've got completions for two more players on the way, though...

**Over the second half of my winter break, an absolutely obscene number of cards I needed for my collection seemed to come out of the woodwork all at once. I may have drained my paypal, but I'm sure that'll rebound once I go through another stretch of not being able to find a darn thing. One of the biggest deals I've got coming in is an absolutely gigantic trade/purchase from Berlin, as well as something white and whaley coming in from Canada. With luck... and before more sets are released and kill my percentages again... I'll top 90% for the first time within a week or two.

**If anyone has any information regarding an 03-04 Tampa Bay Lightning 4x9 team set, please let me know. I saw a few cards on ebay and believe there are probably many more, but I've got nothing else to go on as of yet.

**As mentioned, there's an insane number of cards coming in, so the next two mail posts will come fast and furious. There's nothing wrong with that, of course!

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
 
Great cards andy ! that Turkish sticker is so cool ! Of course, you can provide us a complete CL ? :eek: :D :D :D just kidding but .....

Always a pleasure to read your topics and mail

Olivier
 
The 97-98 Upper Deck Sammy's sure look nice together. Was the set checklist to the Game Dated cards, ot something?

I've been wondering those Turkish stickers as well. The exact same photos with the UD cards. :rolleyes:

Congrats on the nice haul overall!

- Sauli
 
Andy - as usual with your mail posts, I find myself humbled by your dedication to your habit.... errr.... hobby. :)

Nice pickups and thanks for the interesting read!

You should do an ebook of all your mail posts and title it obsessive collecting 101 - could become a new psychology text. ;)

Cory
 
Thank you everyone!

Oliber and Sauli - You know what, I think that Samsonov is the only one of the Turkish cards I've ever seen (to be honest). So much for being able to provide a full checklist ;) Sauli, if you've seen more, I'd definitely be interested to see who! Oh, and they're actually made of regular card stock, and aren't stickers.

As for the blow-ups... I believe there were something like 20 different 3x5 blowups and 10 different 5x7 blowups... but they were numbered (# of ten) and (# of five) respectively. Odd? You bet. Mostly, the set just featured some of the more popular players at the time, and I don't think they were all from the game-dated subsets.

Cory - A psychology text? Now THAT'S an interesting thought!
 
OC disorder much? LOL

As for the Turkish cards, I'm pretty sure I've seen both the Nagy and the Tanguay cards, so they're not too difficult to find.....Your best bet is to check eBay stores....I think that's where I saw them....

Rob
 
Andy

A very nice 'Turkish Delight!' :D LOL!

As for the Hat-trick of Sergei's! I'm liking it. It's really good to hear that you were able to pull one of themself! :cool:

Congrats! And again thanks for taking the time to post up these Stellar mail narrative's & the like! :D

Brian
 
Thanks friends :)

Rob -- I found that ebay seller, and they have 14 more of them up for auction. I'm starting to fear that the checklist was an exact rip of 03-04 UD, which would imply Weekes is in the set. Well, if I don't find one, it doesn't exist, right? ;)
 

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