Predators: 18-19 Upper Deck

This post wraps up my Predators pickups from the first card show of the year. Even though they have been primarily base cards, its still fun to add them to one of the newer projects in my collection. These are all from 2018-19 Upper Deck and came from 10 cent boxes. 

My favorite of this group is card #107 featuring Ryan Johansen. It's got an awesome shot of him celebrating another goal in Smashville. I do like that the main Upper Deck set mixes in horizontal cards with the standard vertical ones. This gives the set some nice variety and an opportunity for some excellent photography. 

Up next we have another great horizontal card. This one is #102 and features Calle Jarnkrok. Gotta love photos like this one that showcase the intensity these guys play with.

The last of the horizontal cards is #106 featuring Mattias Ekholm. While I understand they are trying to mix things up with a photo like this, I've seen this exact same type of shot on quite a few cards. By that I mean the knocking over of the stack of pucks during warm ups.

Card #101 featuring Kyle Turris is another example of a type of shot that's been on plenty of cards. While its neat to see some of the players shown during warm ups like this, I would almost prefer in-game action shots over something like this.

Roman Josi is featured on card #104. As I'm posting more and more of these, I'm starting to really like the overall design of this set. The curved shapes on either side of the team logo are a nice touch and I really like the way the images all fade out to white at the bottom.

The recently traded Kevin Fiala is featured on card #105. This is another good in-game shot, the centering looks perfect too. If it weren't for Zdeno Chara taking up some of the background, this would have had a really clean look to it.

So that's it for this run of additions to my Predators collection. I'm pretty happy with the progress so far. I've got a nice variety of sets represented and its been nice to actaully get out to a show and find these things the old fashioned way.

Luckily the show that I got these from happens monthly and is only a few miles from my house. I definitely plan on hitting it up a few more times this year as new sets are released. Once the dealers have finished busting their boxes and cases, the leftover and mostly unwanted base cards can be had for a pretty good price. Definitely beats paying around $0.50 a piece from places like COMC.

Predators Collection Total: 34

Predators: 17-18 Upper Deck

I'm finally getting close to the end of my first card show pickups of the year. Even though these have all been simple base cards, I'm really enjoying the whole process of finding, sorting and scanning them. I know they're not the most exciting things to show off on here, but they are part of my collection and represent the teams that I enjoy watching the most.

For today's post, I've got two cards from the 2017-18 Upper Deck base set. 

The first one has an awesome shot of Nick Bonino about to take a face-off. Its really neat how they captured him staring right at the puck in the official's hand as it is about to be dropped. Close ups can be hit or miss. This one on card #354 is definitely a good one.

Up next is card #356 featuring Ryan Johansen. This one's got a great action shot of Johansen playing the puck along the boards with a Calgary player in pursuit. One thing I've noticed about this set is the blueish green trim that Upper Deck went with seems to go well with any team's color. All in all, I really like the look of this set.

Hopefully posting these will bring the Preds some better luck in their next game as they were shut out 5-0 by the Avalanche last night. After this I've got at least one more post of Preds stuff from the show to get to. Now I just need to work on populating my collection website with all these new scans. 

Predators Collection Total: 28

Predators: 18-19 O-Pee-Chee

My first card show on the year is definitely one that keeps on giving. Even though I only picked up cards for two of my projects, its been nice breaking things up into multiple posts. I enjoy writing these things and its a bit easier to fit in several smaller posts instead of one extremely long one with dozens of cards.

Continuing with my Predators pickups from the 10 cent boxes, I've got a half dozen cards from 2018-19 O-Pee-Chee. These are the first OPC cards I've gotten in a couple of years now. I have to say this design is pretty nice. Its definitely an improvement over some of the designs I remember from recent years.

The first one of the group is #141 featuring Ryan Johansen.

Up next is card #159 that features Scott Hartnell.

Kevin Fiala is featured on card #173. This one appears to have been cut slightly wrong. You can see some of the next card on the left hand side.

Card #357 is Colton Sissons. I will always remember him for scoring a hat trick in Game 6 of the 2017 Western Conference Final against the Anaheim Ducks. That was one of the highlights of that run for me as a new fan of the Preds.

Nick Bonino is on card #399. There is definitely a lot of gold in this photo between the Preds uniform and the top and bottom of the boards. The only thing that bugs me about that watching on TV is the slight difference in the color between top and bottom.

Last but not least we have one of the newer Preds, Ryan Harman, featured on card #419.

I like how for all of these cards the photo focuses solely on the featured player. This just gives them a cleaner look in my opinion. Sure, they may not be the most exciting action shots, but they at least make for a nice overall look.

Since this is O-Pee-Chee after all, I'm still going to need quite a few more cards to complete the Preds team set. There are 20 of them in the main set, so I've got a ways to go. At least it gives me something to look for at the next card show.

Predators Collection Total: 26

Predators: 17-18 SP Authentic

It's been a bye week for all three of the teams I follow (DET, VGK and NSH), so I haven't really been all that focused on hockey. It was nice to see some players from each team at the All-Star Game though. All three teams are back in action tonight, so it felt like a good time to get another one of my card show pickups posted. 

These two cards set me back a whopping 20 cents. I'm kind of liking this whole out of town team thing at the local shows. I feel like I'll be able to build all the NSH base sets for next to nothing. I just need to find the time to get to the shows.

 

Both of these cards from from 2017-18 SP Authentic. They are the first cards I've gotten from that set. The Bonino above is card #52 in the set and the Johansen below is #76.

The overall design of the set is pretty nice. The various geometric shapes make for an interesting background. I just wish for the Johansen they would've used a photo of him in the home jersey. With the away jersey and socks there is just too much white.

Predators Collection Total: 20