Predators: 18-19 Upper Deck

This post wraps up my Predators pickups from the first card show of the year. Even though they have been primarily base cards, its still fun to add them to one of the newer projects in my collection. These are all from 2018-19 Upper Deck and came from 10 cent boxes. 

My favorite of this group is card #107 featuring Ryan Johansen. It's got an awesome shot of him celebrating another goal in Smashville. I do like that the main Upper Deck set mixes in horizontal cards with the standard vertical ones. This gives the set some nice variety and an opportunity for some excellent photography. 

Up next we have another great horizontal card. This one is #102 and features Calle Jarnkrok. Gotta love photos like this one that showcase the intensity these guys play with.

The last of the horizontal cards is #106 featuring Mattias Ekholm. While I understand they are trying to mix things up with a photo like this, I've seen this exact same type of shot on quite a few cards. By that I mean the knocking over of the stack of pucks during warm ups.

Card #101 featuring Kyle Turris is another example of a type of shot that's been on plenty of cards. While its neat to see some of the players shown during warm ups like this, I would almost prefer in-game action shots over something like this.

Roman Josi is featured on card #104. As I'm posting more and more of these, I'm starting to really like the overall design of this set. The curved shapes on either side of the team logo are a nice touch and I really like the way the images all fade out to white at the bottom.

The recently traded Kevin Fiala is featured on card #105. This is another good in-game shot, the centering looks perfect too. If it weren't for Zdeno Chara taking up some of the background, this would have had a really clean look to it.

So that's it for this run of additions to my Predators collection. I'm pretty happy with the progress so far. I've got a nice variety of sets represented and its been nice to actaully get out to a show and find these things the old fashioned way.

Luckily the show that I got these from happens monthly and is only a few miles from my house. I definitely plan on hitting it up a few more times this year as new sets are released. Once the dealers have finished busting their boxes and cases, the leftover and mostly unwanted base cards can be had for a pretty good price. Definitely beats paying around $0.50 a piece from places like COMC.

Predators Collection Total: 34

Predators: 17-18 Upper Deck

I'm finally getting close to the end of my first card show pickups of the year. Even though these have all been simple base cards, I'm really enjoying the whole process of finding, sorting and scanning them. I know they're not the most exciting things to show off on here, but they are part of my collection and represent the teams that I enjoy watching the most.

For today's post, I've got two cards from the 2017-18 Upper Deck base set. 

The first one has an awesome shot of Nick Bonino about to take a face-off. Its really neat how they captured him staring right at the puck in the official's hand as it is about to be dropped. Close ups can be hit or miss. This one on card #354 is definitely a good one.

Up next is card #356 featuring Ryan Johansen. This one's got a great action shot of Johansen playing the puck along the boards with a Calgary player in pursuit. One thing I've noticed about this set is the blueish green trim that Upper Deck went with seems to go well with any team's color. All in all, I really like the look of this set.

Hopefully posting these will bring the Preds some better luck in their next game as they were shut out 5-0 by the Avalanche last night. After this I've got at least one more post of Preds stuff from the show to get to. Now I just need to work on populating my collection website with all these new scans. 

Predators Collection Total: 28

Predators: 18-19 O-Pee-Chee

My first card show on the year is definitely one that keeps on giving. Even though I only picked up cards for two of my projects, its been nice breaking things up into multiple posts. I enjoy writing these things and its a bit easier to fit in several smaller posts instead of one extremely long one with dozens of cards.

Continuing with my Predators pickups from the 10 cent boxes, I've got a half dozen cards from 2018-19 O-Pee-Chee. These are the first OPC cards I've gotten in a couple of years now. I have to say this design is pretty nice. Its definitely an improvement over some of the designs I remember from recent years.

The first one of the group is #141 featuring Ryan Johansen.

Up next is card #159 that features Scott Hartnell.

Kevin Fiala is featured on card #173. This one appears to have been cut slightly wrong. You can see some of the next card on the left hand side.

Card #357 is Colton Sissons. I will always remember him for scoring a hat trick in Game 6 of the 2017 Western Conference Final against the Anaheim Ducks. That was one of the highlights of that run for me as a new fan of the Preds.

Nick Bonino is on card #399. There is definitely a lot of gold in this photo between the Preds uniform and the top and bottom of the boards. The only thing that bugs me about that watching on TV is the slight difference in the color between top and bottom.

Last but not least we have one of the newer Preds, Ryan Harman, featured on card #419.

I like how for all of these cards the photo focuses solely on the featured player. This just gives them a cleaner look in my opinion. Sure, they may not be the most exciting action shots, but they at least make for a nice overall look.

Since this is O-Pee-Chee after all, I'm still going to need quite a few more cards to complete the Preds team set. There are 20 of them in the main set, so I've got a ways to go. At least it gives me something to look for at the next card show.

Predators Collection Total: 26

Predators: 17-18 SP Authentic

It's been a bye week for all three of the teams I follow (DET, VGK and NSH), so I haven't really been all that focused on hockey. It was nice to see some players from each team at the All-Star Game though. All three teams are back in action tonight, so it felt like a good time to get another one of my card show pickups posted. 

These two cards set me back a whopping 20 cents. I'm kind of liking this whole out of town team thing at the local shows. I feel like I'll be able to build all the NSH base sets for next to nothing. I just need to find the time to get to the shows.

 

Both of these cards from from 2017-18 SP Authentic. They are the first cards I've gotten from that set. The Bonino above is card #52 in the set and the Johansen below is #76.

The overall design of the set is pretty nice. The various geometric shapes make for an interesting background. I just wish for the Johansen they would've used a photo of him in the home jersey. With the away jersey and socks there is just too much white.

Predators Collection Total: 20

Predators: 17-18 Parkhurst

Continuing the Parkhurst theme from my last Golden Knights post, I was able to grab some Predators cards from the same set at the show. I guess good things do come in three's because that's exactly how many Preds I ended up with. 

The first card was #137 in the set and features defenseman Mattias Ekholm. Interestingly, this one has a photo of Ekholm from the 2016-17 season as evident by Nashville's old road jersey. I actually really liked that set of uniforms and was kind of bummed that they completely overhauled them for the switch to Adidas. 

Up next was card #138 featuring Nick Bonino. The photo on this one is from the 2017-18 season as evident by the new road jersey. In this case, the green elements of the Parkhurst design make for a nice contrast against the gold on the Preds uniforms.

The last one is #132 and features defenseman and team captain Roman Josi. We're back to the old road jersey with this one. This is also the first horizontal card I've grabbed from the Parkhurst set. Now I'm not sure which orientation I prefer as they both work pretty well.

That's it for now. Not a bad haul for just 30 cents. I have a few more to find to complete this team set, so I'll be on the lookout for those now. After some quick research, I found that there are also red border and black border parallels for this set. I'll have to get some of those too. Black seems like it would make for a nice sleek and simple looking design.

Predators Collection Total: 18

Golden Knights: 17-18 Parkhurst

Looks like I chose a good time to be in the middle of posting my Predators and Golden Knights pickups as they just played one another last night in Vegas. Its not every day that I can root for both teams about equally. If anything, I would've been slightly more inclined to go with Vegas as they were the home team. Even though the Preds came out on top, I thought I would show off the beginning of my VGK collection today. 

Surprisingly, I was only able to find a handful of Vegas cards in the 10 cent boxes at the show. The first group all came from 2017-18 Parkhurst. With their green accents, they really stood out when flipping through stack after stack of singles. 

The first card for the collection is #232 in the set and features Reilly Smith. This one has a great look at Vegas' awesome home jersey. I absolutely love these things. I even bought one of the Adidas replicas and have been wearing it out and about a lot recently.

The next one of now former Golden Knight David Perron is #235 in the set. Here we get a good look at Vegas' road jersey. I might be in the minority on this, but I love the white gloves. They just work so well with the overall look.

The last of the group is card #236 featuring defenseman Nate Schmidt. Despite the fact that he was suspended to start this season, he is one of my favorite Knights. He bring a ton of skill and seems to always be a great source of positive energy both on an off the ice.

So there you have it, the start of another new team collection for me. I'm excited to keep building this project representing my newest favorite team. I've got a few more cards to get so I can complete this team set, so I'll be on the lookout for those in the near future. 

Golden Knights Collection Total: 3

Predators: 18-19 MVP

Back when I started my Nashville Predators collection after their run to the 2017 Stanley Cup Final, my primary focus was cards featuring pictures from home games that season. I've been following and rooting for the Preds since then, so I figured I would expand the collection to include any card showing anything from the 2016-17 season onward. 

This opens up quite a few more possibilities for the collection and means I can keep adding cards from new releases as they come out. 

The best thing about beings a Predators collector in Michigan is the lack of inflated prices for the local team. All of the cards I'm going to show in this post came from 10 cent boxes at a couple of different dealers. If I were to try and buy the same cards for the Red Wings, I'd probably be looking at five to ten times that price. 

The first group of new Preds comes from 2018-19 MVP. I'll start things off with card #161 featuring Pekka Rinne. I really like the look of this set, which is something that I can't say for most of the recent MVP designs. Those new Preds road jerseys look great here.

Up next is card #77 featuring one of my favorite current Predators: Viktor Arvidsson. Its always fun watching a smaller guy speed around the ice scoring a lot of highlight reel goals in the process. This one also has a nice look at the Predators new home jerseys.

 

I'm really liking the design on the left side of these cards. Its pretty simple, but it works somehow. Not sure what the five dots are for though, but they do look good in this case. Here is card #20 from the set featuring P.K. Subban, another one of my favorite Predators.

These and other ecent MVP sets make me miss the original MVP logo from the late 90's and early 00's. While the large script logo looks alright at the bottom of these cards, I feel like it would look better with the original logo. Up next is card #48 featuring Filip Forsberg.

We're back to the Predators new road jersey with card #114 in the set featuring Ryan Johansen. These cards also have the newer, full color, Upper Deck logo in the upper right corner. While I don't mind this logo, I feel like these would have been that much nice with some foil on there somewhere.

Predators captain Roman Josi is featured on card #129. Another thing I just noticed about this set is the slight fade to white around the Upper Deck logo. This is a nice touch and helps the logo stand out from the rest of the image.

Card #178 in the set features one of the newer Preds that wasn't part of the Stanley Cup Run. Kyle Turris was acquired from the Ottawa Senators in November of 2017 as part of a three team trade that also included the Colorado Avalanche. 

The last card for this post is #195 set and features one of the newer Predators: Ryan Hartman. He's only been with Nashville since February of 2018 after being acquired in a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks. While he wasn't a part of the 2017 Stanley Cup Final run, he was a good pickup and I'm glad to have this card as part of my collection now.

I think these eight cards are most of the Nashville cards from the set, but I'll have to track down a checklist to be sure. I'm also on the lookout for the script parallels and the 1998-99 20th Anniversary Tribute cards. Those look pretty sweet. That original MVP set is one that I remember collecting as a kid and that design will always stick with me.

Predators Collection Total: 15

First Card Show of 2019

Today was the first time I've been to a card show in well over a year. For whatever reason, I decided to get more active with my card collecting this past week and have been on the lookout for local shows. Some quick searching online and I found a relatively new local show that I've never been to. 

The card shows I usually went to were all at a local trade center, but that has closed since my last visit there. This new show was a bit smaller, but still had some of the same dealers I've bought from in the past. On the plus side, it was only 15 minutes from my house in an area I know pretty well. Another good thing about this show was the free parking and admission, which I always had to pay for separately at the trade center shows. 

I went in with a plan to hopefully find some cards for my newly started Vegas Golden Knights collection as well as some stuff for my Nashville Predators collection. I figured if anything was available, it would be priced decently with neither of these teams being local. Even the lowest end cards of any Red Wing is always overpriced at the shows in Michigan. 

While I didn't spend a lot of time or money at this particular show, I was at least able to grab some stuff to get my Golden Knights project going along with a few things to grow my Predators collection. Here's a quick look at the haul: about 30 cards all together. 

It was definitely nice getting back out to one of these shows again. I've been going to them since I was a kid and it's always fun to see what's there. You never know what you'll stumble upon. Now I just need to get started scanning this stuff so I can post some updates for these two projects. Stay tuned for that.

New Side Project: Vegas Golden Knights

Wow, I can't believe we're already ten days into 2019. I just realized that I only posted on here once in all of 2018, and it wasn't even related to my card collection. I'd like to change that this year and be a little more active on here if possible. 

That being said, I've decided to add another side project to my collection: the Vegas Golden Knights. I've been a fan since October of 2017 when they came into the league. Before that I'd been following their development pretty closely since the franchise was awarded. It was really neat to see the whole process play out.

With my Red Wings out of the playoff picture again for 2018, I went into the first round rooting for both Vegas and my other favorite team the Nashville Predators. Like in 2017 with the Predators, it was a great ride to watch one of my teams get all the way to the Stanley Cup Final in 2018. It's been 10 years now since the Wings were there. 

At least this time, the my team lost to a team that I did not despise. I've always been a fan of Ovechkin as an individual player, so it was nice to see him finally get his Cup in 2018. 

Now, as far as collecting, I'm not going to be as specific as I was with my Predators side project. I'll be on the lookout for cards from both their inaugural season as well as this year. I don't have anything to show yet, so here's an example from Upper Deck.

I'm sure there are a ton of cards out there for the Golden Knights by now, so hopefully I'll be able to grab at least a few this year and show them off here. I'll be happy if I can surpass my post total from last year, which shouldn't be all that difficult.

Outside the Box: Movie Posters

It's been a while now since I've done one of these posts, but I am once again borrowing the "outside the box" idea from My Hockey Card Obsession. I've mentioned before that I have other interests outside hockey cards and one of those is the reason for today's post. 

I love my card collection and all, but 99% of it is stored out of sight in my basement, whether it be in boxes or binders, so it isn't something I see immediately when I enter the man cave. That's where having something to hang on the walls comes in handy. I've got a couple of interior walls in my man cave that are perfect for hanging something, so I figured why not buy some full size posters of some of my favorite movies? 

I've always thought movie posters were cool, but never really thought of buying any for myself until recently. There are a ton of them available on sites like eBay and Amazon. I decided to start with two of my favorite movies: Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane. They are both full size (27" x 40") and double sided so they can be properly back lit.

Cloverfield (2008) is a found footage monster movie produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by Matt Reeves. Today is actually the 10th anniversary of its release. I thought it was a great movie when I saw it in the theater back then and still enjoy watching it at home every now and then. The other cool thing about this movie is the viral marketing campaign that went along with it. While I didn't follow it in real time, because I didn't know about it until long after the fact, it was still fun to read about.

The poster itself is pretty sweet with the headless Statue of Liberty. If you've seen the movie or even just the trailer then you can see the significance of this. I like that it is not cluttered up with a lot of text, there is just the title and the release date.

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) is the second film in the Cloverfield universe, or Cloververse. It was produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by Dan Trachtenberg. It's not a direct sequel to the original, but has been described as a blood relative by the creators. It is actually a great thriller with a bit of a twist at the end. This movie also had a great viral marketing campaign which I actually followed along in real time.

The post for this one is pretty cool too, but does have a bit more text all over it. I really like how they used the L from the word lane to represent the bunker where most of the movie takes place. Its also pretty neat how that same line works as the I in Cloverfield.

Neither of these were all that expensive, both were less than $20 including shipping. The frames to display them in actually cost more than the posters themselves.

Now that I have these two I'm thinking about buying a few more. The next one on my list is another J.J. Abrams project: Super 8. That was another one with a great viral marketing campaign, which helps establish a much stronger personal interest in a such a film.

Does anyone else collect movies posters? What do you think of these two and what are some of your favorites? 

The Card Boarded Collection (Update)

All the way back in November of 2012 I posted about a PC collection website I created called "The Card Boarded Collection" where I could share all of my scans in one place. Well, five years later I am still using it, but have made a ton of minor tweaks along the way.

I am now in the process of updating it to include my latest pickups and a lot of other things that have been shown on the blog but not uploaded to the site. It is a pretty basic looking site and I wanted to keep it that way since it's purpose is just to show off my collection.

I set up each collecting project with it's own page. Beyond that there is only a quick description at the top and then a gallery filling up the rest of the page. I think this is the best way to do it so I don't have to get into pages and pages specific to inserts, autos, etc. It's a nice way to be able to take a quick look at my collection without actually having to physically be in my basement where all the cards are stored.

This site was built using the free Weebly service. Anyone else still use this or a similar type of site to show off their collection all in one place? I highly recommend it since it's free (at least for now) and relatively easy to use. Click here for more info.

Jimmy Howard: New Additions

It's hard to believe that I've been collecting cards of Jimmy Howard for seven years now. Time flies, doesn't it? While there haven't been a ton of new additions in the last couple of years, he is still one of my favorite players and one that I will continue to collect. Thanks to Chris over at The Collector, I have a bunch of awesome new Howard cards to show off.

The first one and my favorite is this cool die-cut card from 2015-16 Upper Deck MVP. Technically it is a Level 1 Purple Colors & Contours parallel. Talk about a mouthful there. I love base set parallels so this one was perfect for me. The die-cutting is a bit crazy and reminds me of some of the great stuff from back in the 90's.

Up next is another colored parallel from the same MVP set. This time it is the green version of the base card. From what I remember, these could be obtained by combining 20 digital copies of any given base card on Upper Deck's ePack site. The green gives a nice contrast to the red and white of the Wings uniform, perfect for the day after Christmas.

Here we have the Silver Script version of the base card. It helps that Howard has a nice signature for cards like this. The other thing I like is that they decided to go with the silver foil on the MVP logo. If only they had done the same for the Upper Deck logo in the corner.

More 2015-16 MVP, this time the regular base card. While this base design is a bit nicer than some of the other recent versions, I still miss the days of the older MVP logo and the foil on the front of these cards. They just seem cheaper to me without any of the foil.

This post is definitely heavy with MVP. Here we have another Colors & Contours parallel, this time from the 2016-17 version. This is a Level 1 Teal version. The die-cuts are just as crazy with this set. Howard is also shown with his Christmas mask, so that's cool too!

Here is the green version of the base card for 2016-17. Unlike the previous season, this time they included a green facsimile signature on the front. I just wish this and the MVP logo were done in a green foil, that would look sweet!

The last of the MVP's is this Silver Script version of the same card. Again, I wish they would've done everything in the silver foil. It just does not seem like as nice of a card without it. Does anyone else really miss the older MVP sets now?

Moving on, we have this nice card from 2014-15 SP Authentic. While there are a lot of lines going every which way on this card, I really like the overall look. The red accents really help too. This is one of the better looking base designs I've seen for SPA.

More SP Authentic, this time from the 2015-16 base set. This one is really nice too and I love the use of the team colored accents. This even features one of Jimmy's best mask designs, so it is definitely a great addition to the collection.

Up next is another base card, this time from 2015-16 Upper Deck ICE. This is a pretty cool looking set and the blue elements of the design just work really well for whatever reason. The only thing I don't understand with this one is them shortening his first name to Jim. I haven't seen that on any of his cards since his rookie season back in 2005-06.

Here is another cool one, this time from 2014-15 UD Masterpieces. I think this is the first painted design like this for my Howard collection, so that's neat. I just wish they would've done a picture with his mask on to showcase the great paint job.

Champ's is another set that I do not have much of in my collection, so it was nice to add this one of Howard. This one is from the 2015-16 version. The design is very nice overall and I love the effect of making the background of the picture black and white. It really make the player image pop against the rest of the card.

This next card is one that did not scan the best, but looks awesome in person. It is a base rainbow parallel from 2015-16 O-Pee-Chee Platinum. It's kind of like a refractor and changes color as you turn it in the light. Now I just need to find some of the other versions to go along with it. The Black Ice and Traxx versions are pretty sweet looking.

Here we have a UD Canvas parallel from 2015-16 Upper Deck. It has an awesome photo of Howard entering the rink next to a stack of pucks for warm-ups. It's kind of neat that you can see a bunch of fans taking pictures in the background.

This next card is probably one of the worst looking scans I've had in a while. It comes from the 2015-16 Upper Deck Full Force Blueprint set and actually looks pretty cool in person.

Last but not least we have a silver foil base card from 2015-16 Upper Deck. This was another one of those ePack deals where you had to collect so many digital copies to be able to redeem them for a silver foil version. I actually did quite a bit of trading on ePack back then and have one of these in my account there (along with most of the other Red Wings from the set), I just never got around to redeeming them.

This will likely be my final post for 2017. I'm not really sure what I will be doing as far as collecting in 2018 as I am still using most of my hobby time for building my model railroad. I do still plan on reading card blogs and searching for the right deals on eBay though, I just don't know how often I will be posting on here. 

Thanks for reading and have a happy new year!