Thoughts: Visibility

I was looking at the stats for Card Boarded the other day and noticed something interesting. If you're familiar with Blogger stats, you know you can look at an overview of a blog's all time stats, which gives a summary of the most view posts, traffic sources, and total views.

When I look specifically at the most view posts, in first place was this post about Jimmy Howard's DocOc mask from early this season with 4,815 views. In a distant second was this post about a 2010-11 Victory Rack pack from Walmart with just 327 views.

Interesting, right?

This got me thinking about just how visible my blog is.

When I type "jimmy howard" into Google, nothing having to do with my blog pops up right away as part of the 3,100,000 results. That's to be expected though, as there's news, videos, pictures, and all kinds of other Jimmy Howard information out there. The first mention of my blog isn't until the 51st page of results.

When I type "jimmy howard mask" into Google, out of 196,000 results, Card Boarded shows up on the third page of search results. Not bad, but not really enough to get noticed, relatively invisible.

When I type "jimmy howard new mask" into Google, out of 179,000 results, Card Boarded is the third link on the first results page. That's what I would call visible.

When I type "jimmy howard collection" into Google, out of  6,030,000 results, Card Boarded takes the first, second, and third links. Add to that the eighth link to my Photobucket album for the collection. It's pretty neat to have the first result, let alone the next two. 

Keep in mind that these results are as of right now and will probably change over time, but it's still neat to take a look at where my blog stands in terms of visibility at the moment.

So, if you want something along the lines of a blog like mine to be visible, it's all about where it falls as part of search results, whether it be Google, Yahoo, or any other search engine.

Do any of you guys using blogger keep track of the stats? Do you notice anything odd within your stats?

Pack Break: 2010-11 Pinnacle x2

It's seems like it's been forever since I've busted any retail packs just for the sake of checking out base cards. Well, I decided to change that yesterday and picked up a single pack of 2010-11 Pinnacle from Target for $2.99 and a rack pack for $4.99.

The single pack contained 10 cards and the rack pack had 40, so for just two extra dollars, I got 30 more cards in the rack pack, and when you're just looking for base and parallels (like I am with Jimmy Howard), I think the rack packs are the way to go.

I was looking forward to getting some of this product, as I've seen a bunch of breaks already and really like the photography on the base cards. The inserts aren't the greatest, but that's not why I went for this, as I know there's little chance of real "hits" from retail packs.

Between the two packs, I ended up with one insert, one rookie, and a bunch of base cards including five dupes. Here's some of what I got:

First, a few base cards that stood out:

Overall, the photography in this set is awesome for the most part, a lot of unique shots with a few generic one's thrown in here and there. How often do you see a player holding a video game controller? Pretty cool if you ask me.

I also love how the back of the card talks about where the photo was taken and the context of it, something I've never really seen on base cards before. It adds something unique to this set.

Other than that, the design is pretty solid. I've always liked the Pinnacle logo and it works well with the border design on these cards.

Now, the one rookie and one insert I pulled:

The Ice Breakers are simply base cards with the logo added to the bottom right. I think this is one of the rink collection parallels (somebody correct me if I'm wrong), and I really like the look of this thing when the light hits it.

I don't know what to think about the Saving Face insert. It's a good idea for a set, but the execution isn't up to par. I wish they would have just brought back the Mask cards and been done with it. Oh well, maybe next year.

So that's my foray into this year's Pinnacle release. I think I'm done busting any of it until prices come way down, as I'm just looking for the Howard singles at this point (drop me a line if you've got any available, I'd love to work out a trade).

Thoughts: ITG Masked Men Redemption Program

I was browsing the hockey card talk forum over at SCF the other day and came across a thread regarding ITG's redemption program for the misprinted 1/1 Emerald Masked Men III inserts.

Before I give you my take, here's the basics of the redemption program:

Redemption Program 1: Send in 17 Emerald Mask Men Cards for any individual player listed below and receive a Masked Men Game-Used Memorabilia card numbered to ten of the player you have redeemed.

• Cam Ward
• Carey Price
• Corey Crawford
• Dwayne Roloson
• Henrik Lundqvist
• Ilya Bryzgalov
• James Reimer
• Jaroslav Halak
• Jimmy Howard
• Marc-Andre Fleury
• Martin Brodeur
• Michal Neuvirth
• Miika Kiprusoff
• Pekka Rinne
• Rick DiPietro
• Roberto Luongo
• Ryan Miller
• Semyon Varlamov
• Sergei Bobrovsky
• Tim Thomas

Redemption Program 2: Send in any 17 Emerald Mask Men Cards and receive a random Masked Men Game-Used Memorabilia card numbered to twenty from the players listed below.

• Alex Auld
• Andrew Raycroft
• Antero Nittymaki
• Antti Niemi
• Brent Johnson
• Brian Boucher
• Brian Elliott
• Chris Mason
• Cory Schneider
• Craig Anderson
• Curtis McElhinney
• Dan Ellis
• Devan Dubnyk
• Jason LaBarbera
• Jean-Sebastian Giguere
• Johan Hedberg
• Jonas Enroth
• Jonas Hiller
• Jonathan Bernier
• Jonathan Quick
• Kari Lehtonen
• Marty Turco
• Mathieu Garon
• Niklas Backstrom
• Ondrej Pavelec
• Pascal Leclaire
• Patrick Lalime
• Peter Budaj
• Tomas Vokoun
• Tukka Rask

What I want to know, is how did ITG determine who was going to be a part of which list? I don't think it's right that 20 of the cards are numbered to 10, while the other 30 are numbered to 20.

For me, as a Jimmy Howard collector, I'm glad he is part of the first group where you at least know what you're getting after somehow managing to acquire 17 of these things. I'd be angry if I was a player collector of someone in the second group, as you could go through the effort of getting 17 of them, and end up with someone else.

I thought about trying to get 17 Howard's, but at around $5 a piece, that would put me out of my current card budget, even if it would give me a nice memorabilia card limited to just ten copies. That said, I plan on keeping my "1/1" as a reminded of this screw up from ITG.

Also, assuming all ten of the Howard cards are redeemed and 170 of the 340 Emerald versions are returned to ITG, that makes the one I have twice as hard to come by, which is kind of neat if you ask me.

So, what do you guys think about this redemption program?

My Picks # 59: Theoren Fleury

Here's another pick I've chosen just because of the picture on the front of the card. It's a Theoren Fleury from the 2002-03 Pacific base set, which features a kind of unique action shot. 

One of the first things I notice about this one is the fact that Fleury is helmet-less, followed by the fact that he is batting the puck straight up in the air, obviously during warm-ups. 

I like this one because you don't see a ton of cards that feature warm-up shots, especially ones where the player is working on hand-eye coordination like this one. The ones you do see usually feature players stretching, which is unique in itself, but not as cool as this. 

Even though I chose this for the photo alone, I still really like the design of this set. Kind of makes me miss all of the old Pacific sets as they were usually pretty sharp like this. They always have a simple design that's easy on the eyes, something I wish there was more of in base card design nowadays. 

Jimmy Howard: Check Out My Cards

As the title of this posts suggests, my latest Howard pickup came from CheckOutMyCards.com, a great site for buying single cards, as long as you're getting several at a time.

I only got five different cards this time, but they're a decent mix, and I got all of them delivered for around $12.

The first was this one from the 2005-06 UD Rookie Class set. I like this one because it's one of the few from his rookie year to not feature his Maine mask.

The second was this one from this year's Upper Deck set. Love the photo on this one, not a shot you see on cards very often, especially with the entire starting lineup in the background.

The third was yet another one of the many pesky parallels from this year's Certified set from Panini. It's hard to tell from the scan, but this is actually a Platinum Red parallel, numbered to 999. 

The fourth one, like the third, is another parallel from Certified. This time it's a Platinum Blue numbered to 250. 

The last was just another base card to add to the collection, a Limited numbered to 249. 

So, there's five new ones for my growing Jimmy Howard collection. I now have 28 unique cards and 30 total, not a bad start if you ask me.

Now that I've been at this for a little while now, I'm really getting into the whole player collecting thing, as I find myself paying more attention to new Howard listings on ebay than anything for my MVP master set project. I think it's because a player collection provides some variety, where a set project is the same thing over and over. 

Seeing that I've got 28 different Howard cards now, my first goal for the collection will be getting that number up to 50. I don't really have a timeline set for this goal, so we'll see how long that takes. 

It shouldn't be too difficult, as Jimmy has a ton of new cards this year, especially with all of the ridiculous parallels that Panini sees the need to put out in all of their sets. 

Jimmy Howard: Seeing Emerald Again

Now that I've begun making a conscious effort to add to my Jimmy Howard collection lately, the cards just keep coming in. It just happens that this and my last pickup included some kind of emerald parallel. This time, it's a 2010-11 Artifacts Emerald numbered 18/50:

Here's the obligatory scan:

The emerald foil looks great on this card, just not when you scan it for some reason. In reality, it's a much brighter shade of emerald and looks even better when the light hits it. 

Even though the only difference between this and the gold foil base version is the color, I like the emerald a lot more for some reason. It just goes better with the background, giving it a nicer overall look.

This gives me two parts of a pretty much impossible Artifacts rainbow. I've only see a few of the others pop up lately, but I've got plenty of time to go after them. 

Jimmy Howard: BTP Masked Men III

To continue the mask theme around here, with all the talk about ITG's Masked Men printing error, I found myself wanting to get an emerald Jimmy Howard and now I've done just that, and then some.

First, here's the "1/1" emerald version:

I must say I really like this year's Masked Men design, which is nice because I wasn't a huge fan of the first two when they got rid of the Mask cards. I miss the cropped mask pictures, as those were more about the design of the mask, and not so much the guy wearing it. 

Now, here's the silver version numbered to 100:

Between the two, I have to say I like the silver version more, as it kind of pops a little more in the scan than the emerald version, but to each their own.

I got both for $15 together. Maybe a little too much, but hey now I know for sure I've got one of each for my Jimmy collection. Now I just need to track down the elusive gold version numbered to 10.

As much as I like ITG products, especially the stuff from Between the Pipes, I really wish they would use actual serial numbering on their cards. I mean, it wouldn't be asking too much as they don't have the insane number of parallel versions of everything like UD and Panini.

Not that I'm doubting ITG or anything, but how do I know there are actually 100 of these out there? Although, I guess one could argue that even with serial numbering, who's to say there isn't an extra of a given card here and there, I mean that has to have happened at some point right? What do you think?

Cardboard Creations: Fractal Masks

It's been almost four months since I've been able to share any of my custom card designs, and almost a year since my Masked Men custom set. I think you can see from the title why that's significant.

I love goalie masks and my Masked Men set was an attempt to showcase some of the cooler masks over the years in the NHL.

That being said, since I finished that set I've wanted to do more custom goalie mask cards. That's where the idea for my new custom set, Fractal Masks, comes from.

The biggest difference between Masked Men and Fractal Masks is the focus placed on the masks themselves. With this set, I decided to crop out the masks, kind of like the old Pinnacle and BAP Mask cards.

As far as the fractal part of the name, that's what I used for the background of each card. However, unlike the Pinnacle and BAP cards, I wanted to find a fractal that worked with each mask, rather than have the same generic background for all of the cards.

Fractals come in all kinds of shapes and colors, so they work perfect for this kind of project. Most of the ones from this set from Caedes, a site I've been using for years to get desktop backgrounds.

Here's a look at my favorite of the first nine:

The first thing you might notice that's different than other Masks sets is the inclusion of the goalie's name and the logo of the team with which the mask was worn. 

This particular mask, worn by former NHL goaltender Scott Langkow with the Krefeld Pinguine of the DEL, features a theme from one of my all-time favorite movies, Transformers. I love the use of the Bumblebee Camaro and nothing beats the Autobot logo. 

Now, here's the first nine together: 

 

As you can see, there's a nice mix of old and new masks here. If you look close, you can see that the Miller and Tellqvist are the only two that include the straps. This is because those are the only two I cropped from actual photos of the masks in action. 

The straps are absent from the others because they all came from well-known mask artist David Gunnarsson's website, where he has a nice photo gallery of each mask before the straps are added. 

Beyond Langkow's Transformers mask, it's hard to pick a favorite from this group. How cool is Lehtonen's Chuck Norris mask, or Ellis' new zombie duck mask? They're all awesome. 

I'm definitely glad I chose to use a different fractal background for each mask, as it gives the set a bit of variety and color when you put a bunch of them together like this. 

Now that I've seen these first nine together, I plan on making more, maybe not as many as the Masked Men set, as these take a bit more work. I also plan on including more masks from the European and minor North American leagues, like the Langkow, because awesome mask art is not limited to just the NHL.

So what do you guys think? Are these an upgrade over my Masked Men customs from last year? Have any design suggestions or mask recommendations?

My Picks # 58: Shjon Podein

Sometimes cards are cool because of the picture and overall design on the front of them, regardless of the player being featured. This Shjon Podein from 1997-98 Upper Deck is no exception. 

I've shown a few cards from this set in the past, and while it's not the best design in the world, I still like it. It's simple and leaves plenty of room for awesome photos like this one. 

As far as the picture itself, I love it. It's another one of those out of the ordinary shots, in this case another wide angle shot like the Messier I highlighted in my last pick.

It's kind of neat that the picture is such a good closeup that you can read Podein's name on the top of his glove. Other than that, this picture gives you an ice-level perspective of an NHL arena, something most cards don't even come close to doing. 

This just goes to show that it's hard to find better photography than in Upper Deck's main set year after year. I just wish all card companies put a little more effort into finding decent pictures for base cards, because after all, some people actually still collect base cards, although you wouldn't know it in this hobby anymore. 

Pack Break: 1994 Classic Pro Hockey Prospects x18

This is another flea market find and something I've haven't really seen in the past. I know of the Classic sets, but have never come across any unopened packs like these. 18 of them for only $3, not bad.

Right away, these were unlike any pack I have ever opened in the past as the nine cards in each one come pre-arranged in a cheap nine-pocket page. One thing I didn't understand though was that the packs, or sleeves, say "9 cards per sleeve, 1 bonus card in every sleeve," but every pack only had the nine cards. What's up with that?

Anyway, here are some of the cards from the break: 

For the most part, all of the cards have the same basic design, and that would be the base version like the Barnaby card. In addition to that, all of the subsets have the same design plus a unique red foil stamp depicting which subset is which. 

There are actually quite a few subsets, as you can see from the scans. There are things like "The Bonk File" dedicated to one of that year's top prospects Radek Bonk. According to the back, Bonk was the first to play pro hockey at 17 years old since Gretzky and Messier. 

Some of the other subsets included Class of 94, Best of the ECHL, Honors Grads, and a few others. There was even a subset for the women of pro hockey. I'm not sure if there are any more cards in that one, as the Granato is the only one I got, although I'm assuming there would be a Manon Rheaume in there too. 

Here are a few more:

The middle three cards here are the "Ice Ambassadors" set mentioned on the front of the wrapper, although the actual cards don't have those words anywhere. It's kind of weird that I didn't get a Team Canada card as I got quite a few of USA, Finland, and Russia. 

The last card is the "Rookie of the Year" card also mentioned on the wrapper. It's got the exact same thing on the back, except with Jason Arnott instead of Alexei Yashin. 

These 18 packs were terrible as far as collation, as I have doubles of probably half of the cards I got, and I think even one or two triples. Overall though, this break was kind of fun. I never realized some of the guys in this set actually played for these teams.

My Picks # 57: Mark Messier

This pick is yet another card that caught my attention just because of the photography and not necessarily the design. This Mark Messier is from 2001-02 Topps Stadium club and features a great action shot.

The first thing I notice about the photo on this card is the camera angle, as it's got a kind of panoramic look to it. It's one that isn't used on the front of cards all the time, although I think it should be.

It's really neat to kind of see the play develop on a card like this, when most cards simply feature closeups of single players. In this picture, I can see half the ice and at least eight different players.

Now that's an action shot.

The design almost takes away from the photo a little on this card, but I guess you're not always going to get the best of both worlds with base cards like this.

Despite that, it's beginning to look like this particular set has some of the better photography from that time period. Just take a look at this Scott Gomez I featured as my 51st pick back in December. 

Thoughts: ITG Masked Men Mishap

Recently, it came out that In The Game made a huge mistake with their 2010-11 Between the Pipes Masked Men III set, specifically the emerald versions. There are supposed to be 340 of each emerald version, but each emerald card has "1/1" written on the back.

Here's some of what Dr. Price of ITG had to say on his blog:

"There is an explanation for this event but not an excuse. The card went through the normal proofing process that all our cards do before they are released and no one caught the small 1/1 designation. Probably because they were not looking for it. There never was supposed to be a 1/1 Masked Men III card in the product."

"I know that there still will be issues to deal with. We made a mistake for which we are truly sorry and apologize profusely." 

First of all, it's nice to see that ITG came out and let collectors know about the mistake, even if it was just before the product went live.

While that's all well and good, it still doesn't help the problem we as collectors are going to deal with on the secondary market with all of these illegitimate 1/1's out there.

Hopefully, now that this information is out there, nobody will be ripped off by sellers still claiming these are actually real 1/1's.

All that being said, do you think collectors would pay a premium for these over any other card similarly numbered (i.e. /340), just because of the novelty factor? I definitely want a Jimmy Howard "1/1" emerald version for my collection just for the novelty of it.

Gold Script Update

This will be the most substantial Gold Script update since I picked up the first ten a while back. These next five are actually parts of two different purchases from ebay.

The first two came with the Joe Thornton Super Script I posted earlier, and the other three I won in a package deal for $0.99 each.

The first is this Miroslav Satan numbered 016/100.

The second is this Ed Ward numbered 070/100.

The cool thing about this one is that it completed the first 'rainbow' for my master set project. Check it out here.

These next three came together in the other ebay purchase I was referring to. All three plus shipping only cost me about $8.

The third is this Wayne Primeau numbered 048/25.

The fourth is this Dean Sylvester numbered 005/100.

Finally, the fifth is this Sami Kapanen numbered 012/100.

Recently I mentioned it was odd that I had come up with nearly twice as many Supers Scripts as Golds Scripts, but this changes things as I now have 19 Golds and 21 Supers.

SCE Super Script Update

In terms of today's NHL, as opposed to when this set came out in 2000, this is one of the better cards in the set and I got it for what I believe is a steal on eBay. This Joe Thornton Super Script numbered /25 was less than $10. 

I'm not a fan of Thornton by any means, but I'm definitely glad to be able to cross this one off the list. I thought for sure it was going to go for much more than the $9.99 opening bid, but I was wrong and ended up winning it with just that one bid. 

This is the seventh Super Script I've been able to acquire this year, compared to the nine that I picked up all of last year. That would put me on pace for 20 by the end of this year. 

It's also the 21st I've gotten for my set. While I'm making much more progress than I expected since I started this, I still have a ways to go even before getting to the 25% mark, let alone completion. 

Awesome Jersey Find

I try to keep my non-card related posts to a minimum, but this was just something I had to share. Yesterday, I was at Perani's Hockey World looking for some roller hockey pants when I came across a rack of older replica jerseys and I just could't pass on one marked 50% off.

I've got a decent replica jersey collection, consisting of somewhere around 20-25 at this point. Most of them are Wings jerseys, but I like to vary things a bit, so I try to get other teams jerseys too.

There are a few jerseys I've always wanted, and this one was near the top of the list. As you can see by the picture, it's a Dallas Stars replica third jersey from the pre-Reebok era when jerseys were actually cool.

 

I love this jersey because they tried something different and unique, something you just don't see much of with jerseys today. I really like the color scheme too, it just works. The logo is great too.

Here's a picture of this baby in action from a few years ago:

A lot of people consider this to be one of the worst jerseys ever, but I really like it for some reason. Same goes for the Islanders fisherman jerseys, the Bruins bear head third, and the Coyotes desert-scene third. I hope to someday have all of these jerseys in my collection. 

As far as my newest addition, right now it's blank on the back, but I'm thinking about having Mike Modano's name and number put on somewhere down the line. 

So, is anybody else into any of the "worst" jerseys ever like me?