Viktor Arvidsson: OPC Platinum Seismic Gold

The hockey collecting community has been very great to me over the last ten plus years I've been doing this whole blog thing. Between fellow bloggers on here and collectors on the message boards and Twitter, pretty much everyone I've dealt with has been awesome.

The latest example of this was an amazing RAK from a fellow Predators fan and collector on Twitter. @PeeryNotPerry sent me a package with some OPC Platinum Seismic Golds for my Viktor Arvidsson collection. Like I said, the hockey card community is great!

This one from 2019-20 is my new favorite Arvidsson card. While it looks pretty nice in the scan here, this thing looks even better in hand. The gold goes very nicely with the Preds colors and I love that Arvidsson is isolated from other players in the photo.

The other awesome Seismic Gold was from 2017-18 OPC Platinum. I like that this one has the older style of Preds jerseys, those were the ones they wore during the run to the Cup Final back in 2017. The gold looks just as good with this as the other one.

I love all the parallels from OPC Platinum in recent years and hope they continue to expand and come up with new ideas for them. As far as Arvidsson stuff goes, I'll be focusing only on his Preds cards so I at least have a few years of his cards to chase for these rainbows.

I actually have a few more versions of these two cards from my most recent COMC order, but I am saving them for a separate post. Once I get around to that I'll put together updated visual checklist grids so I can see how the rainbows are coming along.

Viktor Arvidsson: SPx Auto

This is my first Arvidsson pickup since he was traded to the Los Angeles Kings. While I'm not sure about his future cards, I still plan on picking up his Nashville stuff when the price is right. Hopefully that happens more often now that he's moved onto another team.

As far as specific sets, I've really wanted to pick up some of the more recent SPx designs. There is just something about them. Just like the Subban Radiant Materials I posted, the design of this set is really what caught my eye when I first saw the listing on eBay.

This one comes from the 2019-20 edition of SPx and is card #2 in the set. It is a sticker auto and not serial numbered. Not bad for just a few dollars including shipping.

Back to the design, this thing looks amazing in person. I love when designs crop the player out of the photo background and place them on top of a cool design like this. It's got a lot going on (hexagons, curves, bursts, foil, etc.) but it all works somehow. Definitely one of my favorite SPx designs out there. The only thing it's missing is a hologram.

Now I just need to track down some of the other versions of this card. There is the regular base version numbered to 149 as well as some others including jerseys, patches, autos and the Finite die-cuts. Those things look pretty cool too, but they're pretty limited.

Viktor Arvidsson: OPCP Orange Checkers

As I've mentioned on here several times lately, I've become a huge fan of the many O-Pee-Chee Platinum parallels that UD makes year after year. These are some of the best looking cards out there and I am always on the lookout for more that fit my various PC projects.

Thanks to another great eBay deal I have another nice one to add to my growing Viktor Arvidsson collection. This one is an Orange Checkers parallel from 2018-19 and is serial numbered 14/25 and only ended up setting me back about $5 including shipping.

Somehow my scanner actually made this one look pretty good, but it does still look much better in person as is always the case with the parallels. Now I just need to work on the rest of the Arvidsson rainbow for this set, although the 1/1 might be impossible.

Completing that rainbow would require the following: Base, Rainbow, Violet Pixels, Red Prism (/199), Arctic Freeze (/79), Seismic Gold (/50), Emerald Surge (/10) and the Golden Treasures (/1). A lot of work, but it would look amazing on display together.

Viktor Arvidsson: More Trade Pickups

Thanks to another Twitter trade I have five new cards for my Viktor Arvidsson collection. We'll get things started with a base card from 2020-21 MVP. I really like the look of this set, especially the opposing curved lines on either side at the bottom.

Sticking with MVP, up next is a blue factory set card from 2019-20. This one is another great example of the photo isolating the player from the rest of the action.

Going back a few seasons we have a regular base card from 2017-18 MVP. This one has a good look at the previous set of Predators jerseys, which I think are actually better than the current set. Plus these are the ones they wore on their run to the Stanley Cup Final.

Up next is one of Arvidsson's rookie cards, this time from 2015-16 O-Pee-Chee. He definitely looks like a young rookie on this one. It even shows the time when Nashville still wore their blue helmets with the gold jerseys. I never did like that look.

Last up is a base card from 2019-20 Upper Deck. This one has a cool shot of Arvidsson and Ryan Johansen celebrating a goal. From a distance the two almost blend together into one mass of blue and gold. On the plus side, it looks like they scored on Chicago.

So that's five new ones for my latest player collection. Now I just need to work on chasing down some of the parallels of these as each one has several to go after. If I had to choose one to top that list it would be the UD High Gloss for the flagship base card.

Viktor Arvidsson: Trade Pickups

In addition to the Patrik Stefan auto I posted recently, the trade I made with The Real DFG brought me some other great cards for my other projects. Today's post is all about my newest player collection: Viktor Arvidsson. I was able to grab two new cards in the trade.

Up first is one of Arvidsson's rookie cards, #166 from 2015-16 Champs. These sets always had a cool look to them and stock they were printed on made them even better. Apparently there are gold and silver parallels of this set for me to chase down.

The other one was 20-21 MVP 20th Anniversary 3rd Star #56. This one is done up to look like the old MVP design from 2000-01. I love these MVP tribute cards because they make use of the far superior MVP logo from back in those days. I'm still not sure why they ever changed it. The sharp corners and squared structure just look better in my opinion.

 

Now that I have this 3rd star version of the anniversary card, it just leaves me needing the 2nd and 1st star versions. While these are neat on their own, I was never a fan of UD's departure from the script parallels for 2000-01 MVP. It is interesting that they added the facsimile signatures to this anniversary edition even though they weren't on the original.

Viktor Arvidsson: The Cup Gold Spectrum

If there is one thing I don't have much of in my collection, it is stuff from The Cup. I'm pretty sure the only two cards I even have are the two Howard RPA's that I bought this summer. While they aren't the first thing I look for, since they're usually pretty expensive, I am always open to grabbing some for my PC if the price is right.

One of my recent eBay pickups would be one of these situations. Somehow I was able to grab this awesome Viktor Arvidsson The Cup card for just $0.99 plus shipping. It is card #47 from 2017-18 The Cup, specifically the Gold Spectrum version, serial numbered 3/12.

What a gorgeous piece of cardboard. You really have to have one of these in your hand to appreciate it. The scan looks good, but when the light hits the actual foil it looks amazing.

This is now my lowest numbered Arvidsson card besting the MVP Super Script I picked up recently. Not sure why they are numbered to 12 though. I would love to hear the reasoning for that. Its probably something obvious, but I don't follow The Cup closely so who knows.

Viktor Arvidsson: Young Guns

When I started my Viktor Arvidsson collection, one of the cards I knew I wanted to have relatively soon was his Upper Deck Young Guns rookie. It seems like most collectors would agree that it and maybe the SPA Future Watch are the two key rookie cards to have.

Considering this is only my third new Arvidsson post on here since I started this, I would say this is soon enough for me to have a copy. The best part is I was able to find a great deal on eBay from a local seller. This one only ended up costing me $2 including shipping.

Here is card #222 in the 2015-16 version of the flagship Upper Deck set.

I actually really like the look of this Young Guns set. While the design at the bottom lacks any bright colors, it looks great and doesn't distract from the rest of the card above it.

Now I just need to work on finding the Silver Foil, UD Exclusives, High Gloss, Canvas and Acetate versions to complete the Young Guns rainbow. Some of those will definitely be hard to find. So far I've only see copies of the Canvas version for sale.

Viktor Arvidsson: OPC Platinum Sunset

In my recent Cardboard Creations post about my ideas for OPC Platinum designs, you may have noticed that all the cards featured the same player. That would be Viktor Arvidsson. I actually decided to start collecting his stuff around the same time I started that custom set, so he was the perfect choice as the player to be featured.

I also mentioned in that post that I got some inspiration from the new Sunset parallels from Upper Deck. Well, it just so happens that Arvidsson was the first one I actually bought for myself. The name bar on the bottom of my customs was actually taken right from the scan of this card. That ended up being easier than recreating it from scratch.

Here is card #36 from 2019-20 O-Pee-Chee Platinum.

While this thing looks nice in the scan above, it is even better in person. Definitely one of my favorites of all the OPC Platinum cards I have so far. Now I just need to start working on the rest of the Arvidsson rainbow for this set. I definitely have quite a bit to track down.

Viktor Arvidsson: MVP Super Script

Now that I have another player to collect with Viktor Arvidsson, I wanted to see what kind of good deals I could find on eBay to get things started. I'm not exactly going after his high-end stuff right now, so I'm focusing on cards that I like and can get relatively inexpensively.

It just so happens that I was able to find a 2020-21 MVP Super Script, just like the Jimmy Howard from my last post. This one is card #29 in the set and is serial numbered 09/25. The best part is this one only cost me $5 including shipping. Now I need the black version.

I have to say this is one of my favorite MVP designs of the last few years. The only thing I would change about this set is the Upper Deck logo in the upper right corner. I wish they would've made it the same foil as the signature and the other areas. The original few MVP sets did this and they look much better for it.

The other thing about these Super Scripts is my scanner does not like them. You can barely see the rainbow foil here. These things look amazing when you hold them up to the light. Definitely one of my favorite types of cards to just pull out of my PC box to look at.

New Player Collection: Viktor Arvidsson

How many player collections is too many? I'm not sure. I have three at the moment and it does not feel overwhelming at all. In reality I've been focusing mostly on one of them, but they're all there and always give me something to search for on eBay and what not.

The only real limitation for any of them is the time period in which the players were active. Hasek has me covered for most of the fun 90's sets that I've always enjoyed collecting. Patrik Stefan has a good number of cards between 1999 and 2006 for me to chase. Jimmy Howard has regularly had cards from 2005 onward so I'm pretty well covered until now.

With Howard's future uncertain and Hasek being included in newer sets only occasionally, I'm missing someone that will allow me to chase some of the cool new cards being released right now. I'm talking stuff like the newer OPC Platinum parallels.

I know I already have team collections going for Detroit, Vegas and Nashville and I could always just grab cards for those as they come along, but there is just something more fun about player collecting for me. It seems to make collecting more enjoyable. 

That said, I've decided to add Viktor Arvidsson to my group of player collections. He is still my favorite current Predator and he's always been fun to watch. While he isn't in the realm of McDavid and Matthews as far as cards go, he seems to be included in most of the sets I've been interested in lately. If anything, his stuff appears to be pretty affordable too.

This works nicely with my already started Nashville Predators collection. I will just pull the few Arvy's I already have from there to get me started. After a quick search through my Preds binder, I was able to find six. My favorite is probably the 18-19 Upper Deck base.

A quick check of the Trading Card Database shows that Arvidsson has just shy of 500 total cards so far. That's quite a few less than my other PC players. Howard is around 1500, Hasek is around 5500 and Stefan is around 700 total. I know I will never have all the cards for any specific player, but at least I'll know how many are out there to chase.

I've also been checking eBay and COMC lately to see where I can get started. There are some really cool Arvidsson cards available. Hopefully he continues to improve with Nashville and will be featured in plenty of new card releases in the coming seasons.