Dominik Hasek: New Additions (Part 1)

Time for another update on my Dominik Hasek collection. This will be the first of several posts detailing more of the contents from the box of PC stuff I got the other day. These posts are not broken up into any specific groupings or anything, they are just in the order in which I scanned everything. I will say this first grouping is probably the most diverse.

Let's get things started with my favorite new Hasek card, a "Freeze Out" die-cut from 1997-98 Pacific Crown Royale. This is not just a plain die-cut either, its jagged all around the edges making it that much cooler. I love the icy blue background along with the glowing gold foil bursts coming from behind the picture. This one really makes me miss the 90's.

Now let's jump forward about a decade and take a look at my second favorite Hasek from the box. This one is a Mask IV card from 2006-07 Between the Pipes. The nice thing about this one is that it has his 2002 Olympic mask from the Salt Lake City games.

This next one is from an insert set that I've never even seen before. It a "Freeze Frame" card from 2003-04 Pacific Invincible. I like this one because it shows Hasek in his first and most important season with the Red Wings and doesn't show him with the plain red mask he wore for the beginning of that season.

Here's one depicting Hasek's short time in Ottawa, from the "Rising to the Occasion" insert set in 2005-06 MVP. Again, this is a set I've never even seen before, so it's kind of nice to add a bit of variety to the collection.

This one goes way back to Dom's time with the Chicago Blackhawks, coming from 1992-93 Upper Deck. I don't really remember him there because I didn't really get into hockey and start following Hasek until later in the 90's.

Time for another leap forward back to 2005-06. This one is a base card from 2005-06 Artifacts showing Dom in a photo shoot with his new (at the time) Senators jersey. There seems to be quite a few of these photo shoot cards of his early that season.

The next one is from a set that I always thought was really cool as a kid. It's a base card from 1994-95 Topps Finest. Back in the day, you knew something was "high quality" when it had the protective film on the front of the card. I think I'll keep it on for now, but who knows, maybe I'll get bored one day and decide to remove it.

This one comes from 1995-96 Pinnacle Zenith and has a great looking picture of Hasek in the old school Sabres jerseys. I always love seeing cards of him with this jersey along with the blue helmet and matching equipment.

This next one comes from 1999-00 Ultimate Victory, which actually is nothing more than the regular Victory set from that season with a full foil front and the word "Ultimate" added to the Victory logo in the upper left corner.

I don't really know much about the set that the next one comes from, other than it was released by Upper Deck for the 2005-06 season. On the back it talks about voting for the "All Time Greatest" for a chance to go to the 2006-07 All-Star game.

The last one I have in this group comes from an international set, 1995-96 Semic World Championship. I've never seen this one before either and I find it interesting that they seem to have an older picture of Hasek in his Chicago gear while representing the Czech Republic.

That's it for now, but stay tuned for more. I have at least three more posts worth of Hasek cards scanned and ready to go. There's definitely a great variety of stuff in those three posts, so hopefully they are at least nice to look at visually.

MVP Stanley Cup Edition Update

It's been quite a while since I've had an update on any part of this project other than the script parallels, so it's nice to finally get one in. Previously I posted several card from the Game Used Souvenirs set, but all of those were just single pieces of game used sticks.

This one is part of the Super Souvenirs portion of the set, all of which feature a piece of game used puck in addition to the game used stick. It features Kris Beech, who is actually one of the three single piece cards I already have.

There are a few slight differences between the two designs aside from the obvious inclusion of the puck shown above. The maple leaf design behind the player is new here, along with a slight change in the grid pattern on that side of the card. They also removed the team name and player position, then added the "Super Souvenir" text between the two swatches.

There are actually only four of these "Super" souvenir cards, the other three being Denis Shvidki, Pavel Brendl, and Milan Kraft. I've seen all of them at on eBay, but never really felt like paying what they were listed for. Some day I will get them all, when the price is right. 

Jimmy Howard: New Additions

In my last post I mentioned there was some Jimmy Howard stuff included in the box of cards I got from Brett over at My Hockey Card Obsession. These were the the primary focus of the deal we made and I'm happy to be able to add all of these to my collection. 

The first and my favorite is this 2011-12 Certified Mirror Gold Prime Jersey. It's numbered 14/25 and has a super thick seam running right through the middle. I don't think you could ask for a better two color split for a jersey swatch.

Next there was a 2011-12 BTP Stars of the Game Goaliegraph. This is another one of your typical ITG sticker auto cards where you can barely tell its a sticker thanks to the design of the autograph window. The only downside to this one is it looks like Jimmy has gotten a bit sloppy with his auto recently.

The last of the auto and game used stuff was this 2011-12 UD Game Jersey, which is an upgrade over the one I already have. Now I can say I have both possible single color swatches for this one, I just need to track down a two color red and white swatch to complete a kind of rainbow of possible swatches. 

The first of a few inserts and parallels was this one from 2010-11 Panini All Goalies. It comes from the Up Close parallel set where the only difference from the main set is the black and white close up sketch looking image in the upper right corner.

 

Up next we have another parallel, this time a Retro from 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee. I love how simple this design is with nothing more than the player picture, player name, team logo, and team name. All of this on a white background makes it that much better.

This next one is a good example of something I don't have much of in my Howard collection: multi-player cards. This one is great considering its got three great goalies in Howard, Osgood and Mrazek. McCollum was way over-hyped and doesn't seem to be going anywhere great anytime soon.

Who doesn't love die-cut base set designs? I remember I used to think any of the late 90's Crown Royale designs were awesome as a kid. This one is pretty nice too, although the only thing I would change about it is the large 2011 on the left and the 2012 on the right. They are kind of distracting from the rest of the design if you ask me.

Last but not least there was this base card from 2011-12 Panini Contenders. This one has a great action shot which is made better by the fact that he is the only player you can see on the card. Its also nice how there are no ads to be seen on the boards in the background.

So that's eight new cards for my Howard collection, bringing the total to 140. This one has been coming along a bit slower than I would like. I've tried to rely on trades and bulk deals like this one lately to help save on combined shipping. I'm hoping to get to the 200 mark this year, but who knows if that will happen.

A Box Full of PC Goodness

Thanks to a deal I made with Brett over at My Hockey Card Obsession, I literally have a box full of cards to show off for my various PC projects. Here's a look at what I will be organizing, scanning, and posting in the next few weeks. 

There is a ton of great stuff in there and it has something for each of the following projects: 

     - Jimmy Howard

     - Dominik Hasek

     - Patrik Stefan

     - MVP SC Edition

     - Detroit Red Wings

     - Goaltending Gallimaufry

     - Duplicity

This is probably the biggest diverse influx of cards I've had in a while now. I will try to go through the list above in order to show everything off, but we'll see. Some things are cooler than others and may get pushed to the top of the list. 

Thanks again Brett for a great deal!

Jimmy Howard: New Mask for 2012-13

This post is way overdue at this point, but you can never go wrong with showing off another cool goalie mask design, am I right? Most of the time goalies will have a new mask design each year and Howard has done just that for the last few seasons. This year's design is fairly similar to the previous one, so I didn't really even notice the differences until recently after a few Google image searches. 

I did find a great post about his new mask over on In Goal Magazine, click here to check that out. It was once again created by Ray Bishop of Bishop Designs out of Michigan. He's done other masks for guys like Ryan Miller, Ty Conklin, and Nikolai Khabibulin. Some really nice looking masks if you ask me.

Now that I see the differences from last year's mask to this one, I have to say the new one is much better. I love the '67 Ford Mustang which has been his go to the past few seasons. This being the Motor City, you can't go wrong with a car like that. Another nice touch is the retired jersey numbers around the bottom and the old school "D" on the chin.

Here's a look at the other side of the mask. Another thing I like is the symmetry of this mask. A lot of time guys will go with something different on either side, which is nice once in a while, but this is just perfect. Then there is the backplate, which is another great tribute to the three former Red Wings lost in the Locomotiv tragedy.

This is by far my favorite mask in the NHL right now. There are just so many cool features to it like the 1926 on the front grille of the Mustang or the Wings logo ghosted behind the retired numbered. What do you guys think of it?

MVP Stanley Cup Edition: A Few Rainbows

Time for a different kind of show and tell for my primary master set project here on Card Boarded. Ever since deciding to go after all of the parallels along with the base set, getting a full base "rainbow" has always been a great accomplishment for this project. 

In this case, a "rainbow" is comprised of the regular base card, the unnumbered Silver Script, the Gold Script numbered to 100, and the Super Script numbered to just 25. So far I've been able to put together 10 of these, here is a look at them.

Pretty cool, huh? I am a huge fan of rainbows for any set, especially those that have at least four cards like this one. It's also kind of neat how you've got bronze, silver, gold, and basically platinum for the four different levels of cards. Even though this isn't like the rainbows of today with all the 1/1's out there, it's still quite an accomplishment to find the same card numbered to 100 and 25 for a set that's almost 15 years old now. 

What are your thoughts on rainbows? Are there any you are working on right now. If not, what are some that you have seen and liked? Of all the ones out there now, I would say my favorites are probably from Black Diamond and Certified.

Gold Script Update

I love when trades bring in such a variety of stuff for my PC projects. This will be the last show and tell from the two trades I made recently on SCF. I saved these for last because they were my favorites and the most important of all the pickups. They are of course from my MVP Stanley Cup Edition Gold Script project as you can tell from the title of the post.

The first was this Ray Ferraro numbered 066/100.

The other was this Chris Drury numbered 055/100.

I'm glad to get these in exchange for a few cards I no longer had use for, normally they would cost me at least a few bucks each plus shipping. They bring my Gold Script total to 60. That's 22.7% of the entire set, so I'm at least almost to the quarter mark.

Metal Universe Update

Just one card to show off today. In my last post I mentioned there would be more to come from the two trades I made on SCF recently. Along with the other Fedorov's I picked off one of the trade lists, I was able to grab another important piece for my Metal Universe project.

 Here is the third card from the Lethal Weapons insert set.

This is the sixth one of these I've been able to get now, leaving only 14 more to complete the set. I will say that it does look much better in person. For some reason, the scanner does not really like this set, along with a bunch of other sets. Maybe its time for a new printer/scanner. After all I have had this old HP since high school. Any suggestions for one that's good at scanning cards?

Red Wings: SCF Trade Pickups

I love when I can work a bunch of my PC projects into a trade and I was able to do that with the two I made recently over on SCF. One of the traders had a bunch of cool Wings cards on their list, so I sent a bunch of unwanted Rangers stuff their way in return for them.

The first and my favorite is this Diamond Cut Sergei Fedorov from 1999-00 Black Diamond. Gotta love the hair! As far as the card itself, I knew these were out there but never actually owned one until now, so that's kind of cool.

Up next is another cool insert from the mid-90's. It comes from the 1995-96 SkyBox Impact Ice Quake set. Try saying that five times fast. Its got a cool silver foil background that is blurred to isolate the player photo, which is actually a pretty neat looking effect.

This next one comes from a set that I haven't seen before, 1998-99 SPx Lasting Impressions. The card features Sergei Fedorov, but the picture is pretty crowded with Anders Eriksson on the left and Steve Yzerman on the right.

Here's another insert set that I had never seen before. Its a Sergei Fedorov from the 1994-95 Fleer Ultra Speed Merchant set. I like how they incorporated the checkered flag effect on the left side of the card along with the blur effect on the right. Definitely makes you think of speed, doesn't it?

Finally, we have something a bit more modern with this Niklas Kronwall rookie card from 2003-04 Topps. I kind of miss Topps being in the hockey card world, as they had some rather nice set designs back in the day before the first lockout.

That's it for now. I do have a few more things to show off from these two trades, but that will have to wait for another day. I'll give you a hint, one of them is another Wings card, but I chose to put that with the project I associate it with more.

Dominik Hasek: SCF Trade Pickups

Along with all the Jimmy Howard cards I showed off in my last post, the recent trades I made over on SCF brought in some cool new base cards for my Hasek collection. I've found that trading like this is a good way to get a bunch of base cards you're looking for instead of trying to buy them as singles. On the plus side, swapping base for base is a good way to get rid of unwanted cards that have been sitting around for years now.

Let's start things off with one from 2003-04 Topps C55. I don't really know all that much about this set other than it's based on one from way back in 1911-12. Click here to see an example of one of these originals.

The next one comes from 2007-08 ICE from Upper Deck. This is definitely one of the less impressive ICE designs if you ask me. I miss the days when this set was actually printed on the acetate material, which made so much more sense with the name of the set.

Here's one from a set that I know almost nothing about, 2003-04 Upper Deck Classic Portraits. That said, it's a really nice looking base design. The only thing I don't like about this particular card is that it seems like Hasek's picture is a bit off-center, which is really noticeable with the darker red background in the middle of the card.

Next is one from one of the Titanium sets I was into back in the day, the 2003-04 edition in this case. I like the simpleness of the design with the text at the bottom, the logo in the upper left, and a large team logo splashed on the background.

Last we have one from 2012-13 Black Diamond. I like how they decided to use a picture of Hasek from back in the day on this one. Other than his time with the Wings, I will always remember him wearing this Sabres look during the late 90's when he was my favorite player.

Definitely got a nice variety out of these five cards. A couple of them are the first cards I've ever gotten from their respective sets, so that's always cool. My favorite is probably the Topps C55 just because of the old school looking air brush effect on it. These five bring the Hasek base card total to 89, which is the most among my three player collections.

Jimmy Howard: SCF Trade Pickups

Along with the cards I showed off in my last post, I managed to pick up some nice new base cards for my Jimmy Howard collection through a couple of trades over on SCF. For whatever reason, I haven't been that into this part of my collection the last few months or so, maybe the lockout had something to do with it, or just the fact that prices have gone up on Howard's stuff over the last few seasons. 

The first one and my favorite of the bunch comes from 2011-12 SP Authentic. This is one of the mid-range sets from Upper Deck and these cards definitely have a "mid-range" feel to them. The design is simple allowing the player image to be the main focus.

The next one also comes from 2011-12 SP Authentic, specifically the SP Essentials subset. Nothing spectacular here, but I do like how the Wings home uniform stands out against the white and grey background of the card.

Then there was this one from 2011-12 SPx, which is one of my least favorite SPx designs of the last few years. Remember way back when this set was actually cool (i.e. 96-97, 97-98, 99-00)? The biggest complaint I've seen with this that the tops of the player's heads are cut off, which makes no sense whatsoever. Why couldn't they have just shifted the bottom of the card down, I mean look at all the dead space below the player name.

Next was one from 2011-12 Panini Rookie Anthology. Again nothing spectacular here, but its still another one to cross off the want list. I do like that they went with team colors for the right and left sides of the card.

Here's a set I had been looking forward to ever since Panini announced they would be bringing it back to life. I really liked the Titanium base set designs back in the day and this one is no different, I just wish they used the rainbow foil card stock for this set too.

And last but not least we have one from Upper Deck's 2011-12 Biography of a Season. This one is kind of neat because it chronicles a specific achievement, a seven-game in streak in this case. The only downside to this one is the way the picture looks as if the Wings logo is missing with Howard's white pads over top of his white road jersey.

So there you have it, six new base cards for my main player collection. Getting these has actually got me a little more back into player collecting. I love the variety that you can achieve by going over a specific player throughout many sets, rather than a bunch of players from one specific set.