Jimmy Howard: Ultra Gold Medallion

Like my previous post, this is another pickup that proves patience pays off. I've been on the lookout for some of Howard's rookie year cards for 10 years now. Similar to the Parkhurst facsimile auto, I've seen several copies of this card for sale over the years, but the price was always too high for me. I'm talking in the $40 to $50 range for some of them.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and this copy popped up via BIN on eBay, for less than $10. Needless to say, I was all over that and clicked the buy button immediately. Add a few more days for shipping and then this awesome card was finally in my possession.

Here is card #270 from 2005-06 Fleer Ultra, specifically the Gold Medallion version.

This card looks awesome in person, although that's kind of hard to tell from bottom of the scan. Foil like this tends to not scan very well for me. I really like how the player image stands out from the gold background. The large last name font is pretty cool too.

So this means I am two thirds of the way there on completing the 05-06 Fleer Ultra rainbow for Howard. I've got a few copies of the base version to go along with this Gold. Now I just need to track down the Ice Medallion, which is numbered to just 25 copies.

Jimmy Howard: Parkhurst Facsimile Auto

Here's another rookie year card for Howard that's been on my want list for ten years now. I've seen several copies of it on eBay and COMC over the years, but they were always priced way more than I wanted to pay. Some were listed for almost $50, which is nuts.

Luckily being patient paid off again as I was able to grab this one from eBay for just $5 including shipping. Not bad for a rookie year card numbered out of 100.

Here is 2005-06 Parkhurst Facsimile Auto #625 (38/100).

Other than the obvious addition of the facsimile signature and a serial number on the back, this is the same as the base rookie card. I actually like the look of this set with the light colors and the burst effect in the background. The green Parkhurst logo stands out, but does not feel out of place. Definitely one of his nicer looking rookie year cards. 

The other thing I really like about this one is the fact that he is not shown wearing his old college equipment. The Maine blue did not look good with the Wings uniforms and unfortunately most of his rookie cards have it. This must have been released later in the year as they had time to get photos of Howard with his first Wings setup.

Cardboard Creations: OPC Platinum

O-Pee-Chee Platinum parallels are one of my favorite parts of player collecting. Honestly I wish there were more of them every year, kind of like how Topps does their Chrome baseball set. I checked the list for 2020 and there are almost 20 different parallels for each card. While that may sound insane to some hockey collectors, I think it would be awesome. I've seen some almost complete rainbows of cards from this set and they look amazing.

Lately Upper Deck has generally done the same set of OPC Platinum parallels such as Red Prism, Orange Checkers and Blue Cubes. While those are great on their own, the more recent additions of the Sunset and Pond Hockey parallels are even better if you ask me. 

I like those two a bit more as they crop the player from the background image making it stand out better against the custom background. Since they only have these two though, I thought it would be fun to come up with some of my own custom designs.

The first one I'm calling the Lunar version as it's got an awesome image of the moon as the background. In my custom set of parallels this would be the 1/1 version.

Obviously these customs are based on the 2019-20 O-Pee-Chee Platinum design. I got my inspiration from the new Sunset parallel so this made perfect sense as a place to start. I took a scan from one of those and went to town re-creating it to the point where swapping the backgrounds was all that I needed to do for any additional design I wanted. 

As far as the re-creation process, I used my go-to design software: Inkscape, which I've used for every one of the custom card designs I've posted on here.

One of the more subtle features of that I wanted to capture in my version is the way the player is cropped to be layered behind the bottom portion of the card and layered above the top portion. That required a little extra work in the software, but was well worth it.

Once I had the basics in place and fine tuned to they way I liked, all I had to do was come up with additional backgrounds. That was probably the hardest part for me. After thinking of the Lunar idea a few more ideas popped into my head and I just went from there. 

Here are eight more designs to round out my first entire page:

Top Row: Lunar, Dragon Scale, Nebula
Middle Row: Matrix, Forest, Lava
Bottom Row: Amethyst, Steampunk, Tie-Dye

Even though the Lunar was my original idea, I think the Dragon Scale ended up being my favorite. It just stands out more than the others. I think something like that would look amazing printed on the OPC Platinum card stock.

Beyond that I just tried to come up with a nice variety of colors and textures. The Matrix one ended up looking pretty cool. And I know Upper Deck already has the Color Wheel version, but the Tie-Dye wound up looking so good I had to include it.

I wasn't completely sure the Steampunk design idea would work, but after some searching I found this image that worked pretty well with what I was trying to do. I'm not sure if anyone's ever done a steampunk themed parallel. The closest might be Metal Universe.

I've got several more ideas in the works, so I will hopefully be able to put together a second full page at some point. I'm open to any suggestions for new designs too. I just need a high quality image to work with and the rest is pretty quick work now.

One last thought on these: I think it would be really cool if Upper Deck held some kind of contest to come up with a new parallel design/background for an upcoming version of OPC Platinum. Maybe it doesn't need to be full on fan designs, but at least opening up the background selection to fan submissions/voting would be awesome.

Jimmy Howard: Panini Prime Holo Silver

After a long streak of Howard pickups earlier this summer, I've actually gone over a month without posting one. Even though nothing's been posted, I've been slowly adding to my main player collection since, just haven't had much time to organize and scan everything. 

One of these eBay pickups adds a card that I didn't even know existed until I saw the listing for it. Here is a Holo Silver parallel from 2013-14 Panini Prime. This one is card #32 in the set and serial numbered 26/50 on the front, which is hard to see in the scan below.

While I vaguely remember the Panini Prime set, I never knew there was a silver parallel set. Apparently there are two other parallel versions as well according to TCDB: Gold numbered to 10, and Black numbered to 1. Hopefully I can track those down someday. 

Another neat thing about this card is it shows Howard playing in his pink mask and equipment for breast cancer month back in 2013. It's too bad they cropped out his pads though as those were the coolest part of the setup. Click here for a better look at them at InGoal Magazine. Those iceberg graphics were always one of my favorites.

SCE Super Script Update

After picking up what seemed like a ton of these last year, I am only now getting my second Stanley Cup Edition Super Script of 2020, and we're into October now. I guess with a set as old and limited as this you're going to have some up years and some down years.

If price wasn't a consideration I would've gotten at least half a dozen more this year, but I'm not going to drop over $100 on singles for this set, at least not right now. I've been watching several of them listed for obscene amounts (Peter Bondra for $175, Steve Kariya for $200, Darius Kasparaitis for $180). Those are just a bit too much if you ask me.

Thanks to another more affordable eBay find, I have one more for my set. Here is card #69 featuring Pat Verbeek of the Detroit Red Wings. This one is serial numbered 07/25.

 

Sometimes I forget that Verbeek even played for the Wings. He was here from 1999-2001 and played in in 135 games putting up 37 goals and 78 points. Now that I think about it I almost remember him more from his time as a broadcaster with Fox Sports. 

If I remember correctly this will be my fourth Red Wings Super Script. I'm still missing two of the bigger names in Yzerman and Fedorov. Hopefully I'll be able to track them down someday and complete my Red Wings team set. Now that would be awesome.

SCE Super Script Total: 84/220

MVP Super Script Update

When it comes to Upper Deck's MVP sets, if I had to choose a favorite after the Stanley Cup Edition it would be the regular set from 1999-00. I'm not really sure why, but I've always like the look of that set. I liked it when I was a kid and still do now.

My latest pickup for this set is card #95 featuring Donald Audette of the Los Angeles Kings. This one is serial numbered 14/25. The grey border for these looks great here with the Kings purple. Anyone else think they should go back to this logo and color scheme?

While this isn't my primary MVP set, I still keep an eye out for these and try to grab them when the price is right. In this case it was listed for $3.75 plus shipping so I couldn't click the buy it now button fast enough. I just wish these would show up more often like this.

MVP Super Script Total: 3/220

Topps Rails and Sails Update

Time for an update on my new favorite train related set. In addition to the first four cards I posted recently, I was lucky enough to win another lot from eBay with 13 new cards for my set. There were 16 total, but the last three I already had. Even with the duplicates, I couldn't pass on such a great deal for cads for this many cards from a set like this. 

We'll get thing started with card #1 featuring Locomotive 999 from the New York Central Railroad. This one is the same locomotive featured on the reprinted version from the Topps 75th anniversary set that I posted recently. This one is in great shape considering its age.

Up next we have card #70 featuring an electric locomotive from the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. This one is another great example of the excellent card backs these have. I never knew a lot of the facts on the backs of the cards, like in this case how these trains ran on two different types of power depending on which tracks they were on.

Here is another one for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad that happens to be one of my favorite cards in the set. I've always been more into diesel locomotives and since this set is about the history of railroads leading into the 1950's, they are not as common as in more recent sets.

Up next we have card #33 in the set featuring a 2-8-0 Consolidation type steam locomotive from the Lehigh Valley Railroad. I love the industrial background artwork on this one.

This next one is my first card featuring some rolling stock instead of a locomotive. I really like that the included some cards like this to show off other parts of the railroads. This card featuring a three-dome tank car is #13 in the set.

Card #40 features an experimental locomotive nicknamed Holman's Absurdity. Definitely a different looking steam engine. The odd wheel configuration is something I had never seen before looking at this card. Here is a link to some more information about this loco-motive.

The next one takes us all the way back to Civil War times. Card #56 features a locomotive that was part of some wartime shenanigans that involved Union soldiers sneaking into Confederate territory and stealing it. The best part is their plan failed because they ran out of fuel and water. I love that I keep learning new stuff from this set.

 

Card #8 features another electric locomotive. These were built by the General Electric company and the American Locomotive works and operated on 3000 volts of electricity.

 

Back to some more rolling stock with card #10 featuring a ballast dump car. This one was built by the Clark Car Company in 1924 and has a capacity of 100,000 pounds.

 

Card #62 features something a little bit different with the McKeen Motor Car. I never even knew what these things were before learning about them from this card.

 

Up next we have card #44 featuring another odd looking locomotive: the Muddigger. These were built starting in 1844, so its kind of fitting that it matches the card number.

 

Getting back to more rolling stock we have card #11 featuring a stock car for the Missouri Pacific Railroad. I used to have a bunch of cars like these on my model train layout as a kid.

 

Bringing up the rear of this post is the caboose of course. Here we have card #9 featuring a steel caboose from the Clinchfield railroad that was built way back in 1942.

I have to say I am really enjoying my first vintage set project. These cards are awesome and knowing they are 65 years old makes them that much cooler. They've all been in relatively nice condition too, which is surprising considering I've haven't paid a ton for them yet.

I still have a ways to go before I get anywhere close to full set, but that's ok as this is more of a fun side project that gives me something to search for between other PC pickups.

Rails and Sails Set Progress:  17/130 = 13.1%

Cumulative Cost (including shipping): $24.10

Average Cost per Card: $1.42

1995 Sparta Mountain Train Cards

Now that I am more actively looking for train related cards, I'm finding there are a lot more sets out there than I ever thought possible. Most of what I see on eBay are tobacco type cards and stuff from the Topps Rails & Sails set from the 1950's. Other than those the stuff I do find is pretty random, like those All Aboard sets I posted about several years ago.

Today's post is all about another one of these oddball sets that I had never seen before. It is simply called Train Cards and was produced by Sparta Mountain Trading Cards back in 1995. I wasn't able to find very much information about this set or the company for that matter. The best I could find was this listing from non-sport.com.

The eBay listing was for the complete set of 53 cards, but only a few of them were actually pictured. This made me want it even more as I would be able to open it up and not really know what was all in there. So a mystery pack of train cards from the 90's. Sign me up.

Here is a look at the title card, which is technically not counted as part of the 53 cards. This actually works out perfectly though when filling up nine-pocket pages. I just put this one in the very last spot, theoretically #54, to maintain a proper numbering throughout the set.

As far as the base cards go, there were several different designs. I prefer the horizontal versions as they allow for some excellent photography to be showcased on the cards. The best part is the full bleed with the minimal trim offset slightly inward from the edges.

The first example features an awesome shot of an Algoma Central passenger train on a curved bridge. This could've been an even more spectacular shot if more of the bridge was shown. If I am correct, this is located at the Montreal Falls hydroelectric dam in Ontario. Click here for an example of what I am referring to.

Up next we have the Green Mountain Railroad with a great shot of oe of their green and yellow locomotives. This is a high hood EMD GP9 that was originally built in 1956.

Another railroad I was familiar with beforehand was the Alaska Railroad featured on this next card. The locomotive shown, #1802, is an EMD GP7 that was originally built in 1951. My favorite part of this shot is the barber poll looking crossbuck with the stop sign.

Back to the Green Mountain Railroad, which is based in Vermont, for a look at one of their passenger trains. The locomotive shown here is an Alco RS1 that was originally built in 1948 and is in the same paint scheme as the other one. You can actually still ride these trains, here is a link to the railroad's website for more information.

 

Lastly we have a cool shot from the Grand Canyon Railway. This one is card #50 in the set and features Alco 2-8-0 #18 at the South Rim station. There is not much decoration on the front of this one allowing the photo to take center stage.

This one was cool to see as I was in that exact location last spring. We took a long weekend trip to see the canyon and ride the train from Williams, AZ to the South Rim and back. Obviously, the canyon itself was amazing to see in person and I am really looking forward to going there again someday. There was just too much for us to see in a single weekend.

The train ride was awesome too. I went all in and got us luxury parlor class tickets. That meant our own personal lounge section, a private bar and access to the rear platform of the last car on the train. Below are some photos I took there. The middle is the luxury parlor car we rode in. The bottom right is the same building pictured on the card above.

Overall this was a fun set to check out. I knew most of the trains shown, but there were some I'd never heard of before this set, so that's cool. When I last checked there were still a few complete sets available on eBay from the same seller that I got this one from, just search for 1995 Sparta Trains. Not a bad deal for under $10 including shipping. 

Topps 75th: Rails and Sails Rainbow

Have you ever stumbled upon a card while shopping online that you didn't even know existed and then immediately acquired it for your collection? I'm sure it happens a lot nowadays. This post is about the latest instance of this exact scenario happening to me.

While scrolling through some recent eBay search results for train related cards, I happened to notice a listing for what looked like a chrome refractor type card that seemed out of place compared to the other vintage cards. As it turns out there was a "reprint" of the first card from the original 1955 Rails and Sails set that was included with a newer Topps set.

Here is card #7 from the 2013 Topps 75th Anniversary set. Technically, what I found is the rainbow foil parallel, which is pretty obvious from the scan. It looks even better in person.

While this is a tribute to the original set from 1955, it is a normal sized card (2.5" x 3.5") and printed on modern card stock, but replicates the look of the original almost perfectly. The biggest difference aside from the size is the Topps 75th logo in the upper left.

The back of the card has a nice write up about the original set. Interestingly, it has a note at the bottom listing the size of the original set as 2 5/8" x 3 3/4" overall.

Now I just need to work on tracking down the other three versions of this reprint. There is a standard base version, a Modern Gloss version (#/10) and a Diamond Sparkle version (#/75). This would be a cool "rainbow" to complete for my train card collection. I think this is the only train card I've seen that even has any type of parallel version, so that's neat. 

Anyone else collect anything from the Topps 75th Anniversary set? I never knew about it before and there are some pretty neat cards including The Simpsons, Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Back to the Future Part II. Those are some of my favorite franchises so I might need to try and find them too at some point.

Topps Rails and Sails

Vintage cards are one thing that I never really had any interest in, until recently. Now that I'm actively on the hunt for more train cards, I've been looking to add some stuff from the 1955 Topps Rails and Sails set. There are some really cool cards in that set and they would look great with the other train stuff I've accumulated so far, especially the tea cards.

First, a little background information. Rails and Sails was released by Topps way back in 1955. The set has 200 total cards with the first 130 depicting various locomotives and rolling stock. The remaining 70 cards feature various types of boats and ships.

Since I am a train guy and well, my collection my rules, I am only going after the first 130 cards of the set. I could even refer to it as simply "Rails" moving forward, but I think I'll keep labeling the posts with the full name of the set because why not?

As far as the design, the Rails cards have painting-like color photo taking up a majority of the card. Along the bottom there is a brief description of the equipment shown along with name of the railroad that it belongs to. The simplicity is perfect for this type of set.

The backs are every bit as good as the fronts. Unlike most cards I post on here, I am going to make sure I scan and share the back of each card. They each have something unique and the bright colors work very well with the artwork on the fronts.

To get things going for this set, I was lucky enough to find a great deal on eBay my first four cards. I paid $2.99 plus shipping, which worked out to $1.79 per card. Based on some other completed listings I've seen, this was a pretty good deal. Hopefully the first of many.

Up first is card #5 featuring the Southern Pacific Daylight streamliner.

Next is card #3 featuring a Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 type electric locomotive.

Card #4 features and S-type electric locomotive from the New York Central Railroad.

Last is card #6 featuring a camelback locomotive from the Central Railroad of New Jersey.

Now that I have officially have a good start to this set, I thought it would be neat to track my progress and overall spending on it as I go. It will be a kind of challenge to myself to see how cost effectively I can put the whole thing together.

I'm not usually a big spender on singles or small lots, so it will be interesting to see how it goes building a vintage set like this. I care more about the subject matter than condition so I won't be getting hung up on finding mint condition cards, because that would get way too expensive for me very quickly. As long as they're not completely terrible, its all good.

Since this is not just some box set I can buy outright, I'll be doing this the fun way by scouring eBay and other places for the best deals. Maybe even card shows whenever I can get back to doing that again. Its been way too long since I've been to one now.

Rails and Sails Set Progress:  4/130 = 3.1%

Cumulative Cost (including shipping): $7.14

Average Cost per Card: $1.79