My Picks # 18: Mike Vernon

This pick gets back to goaltenders, as it is a 1995-96 Pinnacle Masks Mike Vernon. It was the first Mask card in my collection and I've liked them ever since.

This edition of Masks is one of the sharper looking in my opinion, with the lighting background and all. It had some of the cooler masks from the late nineties including Lacher and Carey. As far as Vernon's mask, it was one of the best Red Wings masks at the time.

This set is one that I hope to complete as part of shifting my collection focus to goaltenders. How can you have a goalie collection without the Masks cards?

TTM Success: Patrik Stefan

This is another one of my past TTM successes from several years ago that has just been sitting around. I sent this card to Patrik Stefan because he was the big rookie at the time and I got really into collecting his cards.

I had a neighborhood friend who sent another card to Stefan which also resulted in a success, both had a fairly quick turnaround time as well.

While it's not the best looking signature in the world, it works. I can make out the "P" at the beginning, but the rest is kind of a mess. I also liked the addition of the huge number after the signature. At least that part was pretty easy to read.

My Picks # 17: Pat LaFontaine

This pick is also from the 1995-96 season, its a Topps Marquee Men Power Boosters featuring Pat LaFontaine of the Buffalo Sabres. The 1995-96 Topps set is special to me because it was the first ever full box of unopened cards I received.

This set has a unique look to it, as the entire card is made to look like a marquee, hence the name of the set. There were also regular versions of the Marquee Men cards, the only difference being the holographic effect.

The overall design in fairly simple, with text for the player name, the set name and the Topps logo. Its nice to see so much open space on a card. I also like the font chosen for the player names, it may be a little hard to read but it still looks cool.

TTM: A New Chapter

I decided to rummage through my boxes of duplicates and found plenty of worthy candidates. Of the cards I found, I have sent out two to Olaf Kolzig and three to Sean Burke.

I have decided to focus on goalies for now. I am doing this mainly because I want to focus my collection on something a little more specific than just hoarding new cards all the time.

I want to get an autograph for each different mask each goaltender has worn. I will post the results of these first two before I get too far into this. After all, stamps are not cheap.

TTM Success: Steve Yzerman

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I would share some of my past TTM autograph successes and I thought where better to start than with The Captian? These were sent on three separate occasions several years ago, back when I was in middle school.

First is a base card from 2002-03 Upper Deck MVP. I really liked this set back when it came out and if I remember correctly I bought a full hobby box of it at one time.

The second one is from another full hobby box I bought back in the day: 2001-02 Topps. For whatever reason, I really liked the blue bordered design of this set.

The last one is a Mr. Hockey's Greats card from 2001-02 Victory, yet another set that I distinctly remember getting a full unopened box of. Can't go wrong with a card that features the two greatest Red Wings of all time.

All three are pretty nice looking signatures. The Topps one has to be the best in my mind, the sharpie seemed to work best on that one.

I have no idea when these were sent or of the turnaround time, but I plan on keeping track of that for any future TTM's. What I do know however, is that these were sent directly to Joe Louis Arena c/o the Detroit Red Wings.

Cardboard Creations: Masked Men Part I

I've done plenty of work the last few weeks on my Masked Men project and have decided to stop the project at 198 different cards. This is mainly because its becoming more and more difficult to find high quality images for all of the masks I'm looking for. The 198 is simply because it works out evenly to 22 nine-card pages.

Here are the first 99 of them:

There is definitely no denying that goalie masks are the most artistic pieces of sports equipment. Just look at the range of designs seen in these 99 different masks. Its so hard to pick a single favorite from this first set so I will come up with my top three. 

My number three would have to be Brian Elliott's newest mask featuring Casey Jones from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

My number two choice would have to be Jimmy Howard. How can you go wrong with the old school D on the chin and the speedometers on the sides?

My number one would have to be Curtis McElhinney's second entry in this list. There is just something awesome about flames and a cowboy hat wearing skull pointing a gun at you.

Part II coming soon...

My Picks # 16: Sean Burke

This pick goes way back to 1995-96. It's a Stoppers Sean Burke from the Score set that year. Gotta love seeing the whale once again, one of the cooler logos in recent history.

One of the things I like about this card is it reminds me of back when I was a kid and collecting cards because it was just fun. It's definitely an interesting design. I can't think of many cards that make use of a brick wall and graffiti. The font on "Stoppers" is just perfect, same goes for the player name.

I also like the large team logo right on the center of the brick wall background. The one weird thing about the card is the blank space to the right of the player image.

Pack Break: 2006-07 O-Pee-Chee

I just finished my last final exam for the term this morning and thought it would be a good idea to reward myself with some new hockey cards. I went to one of my local card shops, Extra Innings in Mason, MI, and looked for something I could afford with the change in my pocket and ended up with a pack of 2006-07 O-Pee-Chee.

This pack came with six cards and even thought it was a hobby pack, I did not expect to pull anything spectacular. After opening it I was the proud owner of six non-spectacular new base cards, the best of which is listed in the rundown below.

(1) Stat Leaders Martin Brodeur # 608

Not too bad for only paying $1 the six card pack. It's not the greatest set in the world, but hey what's wrong with cheap hockey cards. Check out MY HOCKEY CARD OBSESSION for an excellent review of this particular set.

My Picks # 15: Martin Erat

This pick is a 2002-03 Pacific Game Jersey Martin Erat. The reason I chose this as one of my picks is the jersey swatch used in this card. Nashville is one of the very few teams to use the silver metallic jersey material in the NHL and I thought it was cool to pull a jersey card with this particular type of swatch in it.

Aside from the silver swatch, this particular set is actually a pretty sharp looking one at that. I like how all four corners of the card converge right to the centered swatch.

The white background works well with this design, especially with the black lines and gold foil trim. Another nice touch was the team colors filling in the background of the areas above and below the swatch.

The Pacific logo is small and nicely placed in the upper left hand corner, although just barely missing Erat's head. The standard "authentic" logo and team logos are also nicely placed on either side of the swatch against the white background.

Pack Break: 2009-10 Upper Deck Series 1

While I was picking up another USB keyboard for my laptop last night, the third one now, I noticed all of the trading cards were marked 20% off. I couldn't resist and grabbed one pack of 2009-10 UD Series 1. That turned out to be a good idea, here is the rundown.

(1) Young Guns #239 Jhonas Enroth

My Picks # 14: Patrik Stefan

Continuing the trend of players wearing the number 13 in this series, this Patrik Stefan card comes from Pacific's 2000-01 Private Stock Reserve insert set. 

This card is somewhat unique because it's printed on a very thin paper like card stock, so it's fairly flexible, and because the back is entirely blank aside from the manufacturer information and card number.

Although it does not scan all that well, the intricacy of the gold foil on the front of the card makes its that much more appealing. All of the text and borders are done in the same gold foil as well making for a nice overall look. 

The smaller player image works well for this design, especially with the faint team logo in the background of the design. Also, the Private Stock and smaller Thrashers logos are perfectly sized and do not distract from the overall design.

Thoughts: Goalie Masks

I was doing some searching for masks for the Masked Men set I'm working on and came across some really neat information about goaltenders and their masks. There are two .pdf files, one for the eastern conference and one for the western conference, that show goalie masks from each team along with a description.

It's a great read if you're interested in the stories behind these particular masks.

Here are the links:

http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2007/12/Western.pdf

http://blog.mlive.com/snapshots/2007/12/Eastern.pdf

My Picks # 13: Patrik Stefan

This pick comes from the 1999-00 Upper Deck Ice Gallery insert set. It's kind of fitting that Patrik Stefan, who wore number 13 for the Thrashers back in the day, is pick number 13 in this series. Stefan was the first overall pick for Atlanta in the 1999 entry draft, which made any of his cards a must have at the time.

For some reason, I decided to go along with the hype and began collecting Stefan cards left and right, and this one has to be one of my favorites.

I have to say this was one of the sharper looking insert sets from any base Upper Deck set of the early 2000's. The elongated octagonal window for the player image is interesting, better than going with a simple rectangle with rounded corners or something.

The pattern around the border of the card adds a great effect to a rather simple and uncrowded design. The player name is nicely placed vertically on the left side out of the way, which gives the card a slightly asymmetric look.

The Upper Deck logo is nicely placed in the upper left corner, where it doesn't really take away from the overall look of the card. The Ice Gallery text is pretty sharp, especially with the spiderweb design surrounding it.

Thoughts: Top Loaders vs 9-Pocket Pages

I've been debating what I should begin storing several of my collections in from this point forward, mainly the Super Script, Gold Script sets and any future TTM autographs.

In the past I have gone with the 9-pocket pages for all of my cards except for the special ones (i.e. jersey cards and autographs) to differentiate them from the commons. Now I've begun to wonder if there is really a difference in long term effects between the top loader / penny sleeve combination and the 9-pocket pages.

I think it would make more sense, economically and spatially, to go with the pages for the Gold and Super Script sets and the TTM autographs, mainly because they are standard card stock, although I have them in top loaders right now because I have so few of them.

This should slowly begin to change here soon when I fully get back into the hobby after college. I think I am leaning towards the pages for the autos, simply because I can neatly keep them all in one binder. Same goes for the Gold and Super Script sets.

Has anyone noticed any major differences between the two storage methods?

Cardboard Creations: Masked Men Preview

I've been making quite a bit more progress on the Masked Men custom set and wanted to preview the set with the first page. I've gone with the 9-card page setup because it makes the most sense, and it worked for the OPC customs from a few weeks ago.

One of the cool things about this project is seeing how a particular goaltender's mask design changes over time and from team to team. There are so many different masks out there, and the hardest part is finding decent quality images for each of them.

As you can see, this page is in alphabetical order, which will be the case when the entire set is finished. I'm going to sort it this way because I'm more interested in the individual goaltenders than the teams they play for.

There's a long way to go with this project, but I think it will be worth it in the end. As of today, I have 150 custom cards completed. I'm guessing the final count will end up somewhere between 200-300, but only time will tell.