Jimmy Howard: 2004-05 Maine Black Bears

This year has been really great for my Jimmy Howard collection. I've managed to pick up some really nice cards including some that I didn't even know existed. In the case of my latest pickup, I knew it existed, but I had never seen a copy of it for sale or knew what it looked like. Then out of nowhere, it was listed on eBay with a Buy it Now option.

The card I'm referring to is this awesome college team card featuring Howard in action with the Maine Black Bears. It was sponsored by a car dealership based in Bangor, Maine. A quick check of the map shows the dealership was within 10 miles of the university. They're even still in business, albeit minus the Pontiac part. Fun fact, my first car was a '97 Pontiac Sunfire. I definitely had a lot of fun with that thing back in high school.

Here is a look at the front of the card. It is pretty simple with a nice solid white border and a large action photo. The text at the bottom is nice and neat. The team logo in the upper left corner is a nice touch and really stands out when you first look at the card.

In the past I haven't typically scanned or posted the backs of cards, unless they were a 1/1 or something special. Now that I've been using the Trading Card Database (TCDb) to catalog my Howard collection, I've found myself wanting to have the scans of the backs so I can upload them to the site and fill in some of the missing scans for Howard cards.

Given this was a promotional type team set, the back actually looks pretty nice. There is plenty of good information and a decent amount of stats. Even with all the ads at the bottom, it still has a decent overall look to it.

According to TCDb, this is Howard's only college card, so I guess I can consider that part of the collection complete now. This is nice because I've been on the lookout for this thing for years now. That's the fun part about player collecting though, isn't it?