Predators: Pekka Rinne 2020-21 OPC Platinum

Continuing one of my recent Predators posts, I have a couple more awesome OPC Platinum pickups to share. These both come from eBay and help get me a little close to completing my newest rainbow project. They of course feature Predators goaltender Pekka Rinne.

The first and my favorite of the two is the Yellow Traxx parallel. This one is serial numbered /249 and adds some color to the recent Traxx designs. I love the look of the yellow borders, especially with the Preds colors. Another cool feature is how on the backs of these cards the entire perimeter has been changed to yellow to match the front.

The other one is the standard Rainbow parallel. This one is not numbered and is the same as previous versions where the chrome foil just has a nice rainbow effect added to it. While these are not the rarest, they do look amazing in hand, especially under natural light.

These two bring my Rinne rainbow total to 5 out of a possible 18 versions. Below is an updated look at my visual checklist grid for this one. I really love the look of these things. Being able to see all the different versions at once is great.

Not a bad start considering this product was just released. I'm on the lookout for the remaining versions, but will only pull the trigger on them when the price is right. I feel like some listings are way overpriced, so these might take a while to finish up.

Goaltending Gallimaufry: COMC Pickups

Gallimaufry [gal-uh-maw-free] - A hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley.

Having not gone to many card shows lately, pickups for my favorite side project have been few and far between. They have mostly been add-ons to COMC orders, which themselves have been few and far between. I've only placed two such orders in the last year.

With my latest order, I was able to snag three new cards for this project. The first takes us all the way back to 1992-93 Upper Deck and arguably the greatest goaltender of all-time. Here is card #408 featuring Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils.

Brodeur is shown wearing New Jersey's beautiful red, white and green home uniform, but he is sporting a blue glove and a blue blocker. Definitely a perfect candidate for this project. These are carryover from his time in the QMJHL with the Saint-Hyacinthe Laser.

Fast forward a couple of decades and our next candidate is a Young Guns rookie card from 2015-16 Upper Deck featuring Jean-Francois Berube of the New York Islanders. He is shown playing with the Islanders, but is still wearing his gear from LA.

Last but not least we have a Marquee Rookies card from 2017-18 O-Pee-Chee featuring Dylan Ferguson of the Vegas Golden Knights. He is pictured playing in the Golden Knights road white uniform, but is wearing blue, white and orange gear. This is from his time with the Kamloops Blazers of the WHL, where he spent four seasons.

While I probably could've found some more like this on COMC, I like only having three to scan, research and post three at a time like this. These bring the project total to 206 unique cards. Not bad for a fun little side project like this. Finding stuff like this is right up there with my favorite parts of card collecting. These are for pure enjoyment of collecting.

Goaltending Gallimaufry Count: 206

Predators: Pekka Rinne 2020-21 OPC Platinum

O-Pee-Chee Platinum has become one of my favorite products from Upper Deck lately with all the cool base card parallel designs every year. I love trying to put together the rainbow for any of these sets. They look amazing when completed. While I know I'll probably not get the Golden Treasures 1/1's, it is still a fun chase and relatively attainable.

In the case of 2020-21 Platinum, of the Predators included in the checklist, I've decided to chase the rainbow for Pekka Rinne. He was always one of my favorite Preds to watch the last few seasons along with Viktor Arvidsson, who is not a part of this set.

Knowing that there are 18 different versions of Rinne to go after, this seemed like a fun project. To get things started I picked up a Red Surge parallel from eBay. These are exclusive to the Target blaster boxes and fall 1:7 packs. Definitely a nice looking card.

Up next is the new Aquamarine parallel numbered /499. This one I picked up in another Twitter trade. While the idea is a bit out there for the background, it actually turned out pretty nice. I would think these are a must have for any Sharks collectors out there.

Last we have the returning Violet Pixels parallel, which is numbered /399. These have been one of my favorites the last few years. They just look amazing in hand when the light hits the surface. In the past they weren't even serial numbered, so this is an upgrade.

Similar to what I've been doing with some of my Jimmy Howard cards, I put together a cool visual checklist grid for these Rinne parallels. I find this is a neat way to look at the cards all together and quickly see what I'm missing from my rainbow.

As you can see, I'm only just getting started here. I've got three out of a possible 18 different versions of this card. For now I'm making the assumption that the Color Wheel design will be back like the last four years. If not, then I will update accordingly.

Jimmy Howard: BeeHive Signature Scrapbook

When your main PC player's rookie season is 2005-06, finding some of the inserts and numbered parallels becomes somewhat difficult 16 years later now. While I do have a good number of rookie year cards in my Jimmy Howard collection, there are quite a few missing.

One of the cards I've been after for years now is his Scrapbook Signatures card from 2005-06 BeeHive. I was lucky enough to find one last week for just $5 on eBay and I'm really happy to knock this one off the want list. The best part is it's hard signed.

I love this design. They even went as far as including the scotch tape holding the corners of the photo and the set name/logo onto the "scrapbook" surface. I think this is the only time I can ever say I'm happy to see scotch tape on a card.

Howard's got a great looking signature on his older cards like this. This is one of the nicer examples I've got in my collection now. While the blue does look really nice, I wonder if it would've looked better in black or red to tie in with the overall look.

Jimmy Howard: Miscellaneous Pickups

My favorite part about player collecting has to be chasing parallels, especially the serial numbered versions, in the hopes of completing those full rainbows. With 15 years worth of cards out there, Jimmy Howard has a decent number of these things for me to chase.

I'm not very picky about what I'm looking for. Other than some of the unlicensed and show stamped type stuff, I usually pick up anything Howard as long as the price is right. He's got over 1,600 different cards to there is still plenty of stuff for me to chase.

While this first one is not serial numbered, it is one that I've been after for a while now. It is a red border parallel from 2019-20 O-Pee-Chee. These things look great for any of the teams with red uniforms and equipment, especially the Red Wings.

Up next is an awesome gold parallel from 2013-14 Panini Rookie Anthology. While the idea of the set itself isn't my favorite, my main PC player was included so I wanted to have it. Plus, the photo on this one is amazing and makes this card look very nice overall.

Here we have another gold parallel, this time from 2011-12 SP Game Used. This one was another great deal from eBay and goes nicely with the regular base card I already have. Now I just need the Silver Spectrum /10 and the Gold Spectrum /1 for the rainbow.

Moving onto O-Pee-Chee, this is the first of three Black Rainbow parallels I was able to snag from eBay recently. This one is the 2014-15 version and goes very nicely with the O-Pee-Chee Platinum rainbow I'm working on from the same season.

Going back a season, I was also able to get one from 2013-14. Overall this is a bit of a downgrade over the one above. My favorite part about this one is how they used a full body image. It gives the card a nicer overall look in my opinion.

Going back even further we have this one from the 2012-13 edition of O-Pee-Chee. I think this is equivalent to the design above where I'm not overly thrilled by it, but am happy to add it to the collection. You almost can't even see the O-Pee-Chee text on there.

Up next is one of several cards out there serial numbered to Howard's jersey number: 35. This one is from 2014-15 SP Game Used and is numbered 12/35. I love the overall look of this set. It is one of the better SPGU designs if you ask me. Definitely glad to have this one.

Last but not least we have this awesome Gold Script parallel from 2014-15 MVP, which is numbered 021/100. While it is not one of my favorite MVP designs, this one isn't too bad. I do like how they have the more original MVP font behind the player name at the bottom.

Well that's it for this stack of miscellaneous pickups for my main player collection. If I had to choose a favorite of these it would probably be the Rookie Anthology. I'm just happy to be able to knock these eight off the master want list. Slow and steady, right...?