My Picks # 67: Eric Fichaud

Sometimes these picks are more about the photo on the card than the actual card itself, and that can be for a number of reasons, anything from a unique action shot or in this case the jersey being worn in the photo. This pick is an Eric Fichaud of the Islanders from 1997-98 Score, of course featuring the famous 'Fisherman' jersey from back in the day.

As much as people in general don't like this thing, I can honestly say I love it and would have to put it near the top of my replica jersey want list. I don't know what it is, but I just like the overall color scheme and it was something different, which is usually a good thing. 

Speaking of (supposedly) horribly designed Islanders jerseys, head on over to Icethetics for a look at the latest monstrosity to come out of Long Island. Most would say it makes the 'Fisherman' jersey look like a work of pure genius. 

The other neat part about this card is that it gives a pretty good look at Fichaud's mask also featuring the fisherman logo. I believe Tommy Salo and Wade Dubielewicz were the only other Islanders' goalies to do this, but I'd be interested to see if I've missed anyone that's done so. Dubielewicz even did so long after these jerseys were retired.

Jimmy Howard: Prized Prospects Auto Patch

It's only taken 15 months at this point, but I've finally been able to add some kind of memorabilia card to my Jimmy Howard collection, a Prized Prospects auto patch from the 2005-06 Fleer Hot Prospects set. This one's been on my radar for a while now, I just never wanted to pay $60+ for a BIN on ebay. 

It's a beauty, except for the sub-par auto, at least compared to what I normally see with Howard's signature. I love the fact that it's a nice, almost 50-50 split two-color patch. Most of these that I see are plain white. Anyway, check it out:

Luckily, I was able to snatch this one up for a nice $35. Isn't it weird that my last two Howard purchased have each totaled $35? As far as where it came from, I was contacted by a fellow member of SCF who was looking to sell off some stuff to fund his education. The best part was the guy ended up being local, so I just met up with him during my lunch break at the office on Friday for a quick and easy exchange. 

This is probably my second favorite card in the collection now, behind the Black Diamond 1/1 from a few months ago. I'm still kind of amazed that it's taken my this long to finally get any kind of jersey/patch card, as there are plenty out there.

What do you think, was $35 a good deal for this one? Another thing I want to know is have you had any good/bad experiences meeting in person with a complete stranger for a trade or purchase like this? I had no problem at all, but I'm sure we've all heard the Craig's List horror stories. 

Cardboard Creations: Frontmen

Just from the title of this post, something might seem a little off. That's because this one has nothing to do with hockey, well almost nothing. If I had to choose my second passion beyond hockey, it would be music. I love all kind of music, but I'm particularly fond of modern rock, and what doesn't go better with hockey than some good hard rock music?

That said, I thought it would be cool to create a custom card set featuring the lead singers of some of my favorite rock bands, hence the set name 'Frontmen.' Plus, it's Friday, so I though why not change things up a bit for once?

Here's a look at one of the 'Frontmen' cards I came up with:

The overall design is pretty simple. Aside from the obvious task of identifying who the card features, there were a few other things I was looking to do. First, I wanted to have a nice large color picture right in the middle, check. Next I wanted to somehow work in the little singer silhouette, check. Lastly, I wanted to use actual logos/artwork from each band, rather than simply using plain old text for the band names, check.

You may also notice I included the name of a city on the front of the card as well. That city would be the one in which the band was formed, and I thought it would be neat to include that as part of the design.

Here are the rest of them together:

A few of the band have some ties to the game of hockey. First off, my favorite band, Dry Cell, was the feature artist on the commemorative DVD put together by Warner Brothers for the Red Wings 2002 Stanley Cup Championship.  Also, Chad Kroeger of Nickeback is a known Wings fan and has been spotted at Joe Louis Arena during recent playoff runs.

Not really sure if the other bands have ties to the game, but they all play great rock music and like I said earlier, what's better to go with hockey than some good hard rock?

As far as getting this set done, from concept to finished product, this set took me less than a day, which is probably the fastest I've ever come up with a nine-card custom set to date. I was just playing around with a design in Inkscape and somehow it just came together the way it did. The hardest part was probably finding just the right picture for each card followed by finding useable logos/word art for the bottom of each card. 

So there you have it, a little insight into something else I'm into other than hockey cards. What do you guys think? Do any of you share the same musical interests as me?

Cardboard Creations: Fractal Masks Part II

Michael's mask design contest over at Collecting for Kicks got me thinking that I haven't done any mask related customs lately. It's been quite a while now since I rolled out the first nine cards in my latest goalie mask themed custom set, so I thought I was overdue for another installment of Fractal Masks.

I've been sitting on six completed designs for the last two months, so I just decided to power my way through the last three in about two hours to get another complete nine-card page. I've got the process pretty well honed in at this point, it's just a matter of finding the time.

This time around, all of the masks are painted by David Gunnarsson and can be found in his mask gallery. It's hard to find a better source for usable mask pics like these on the web. I do miss some of the cooler masks this way though, but that's alright as Gunnarsson's page showcases masks from around the world, and not just the NHL.

Here's a look at my favorite from this group:

How can you not love this mask? I'm pretty sure it's my new favorite mask in general, I mean come on it's got Homer Simpson on it. How cool is that? In case you're wondering, this mask was created for Thomas Halasz of HC Kosice in Slovakia. Check it out here.

Here's a look at all nine of them together:

As you can see, I tried to get a nice mix of masks from both the NHL and other leagues. This time around I've got two from the AHL, five from the NHL, and two from Europe. Other than the Halasz, my favorite would be a toss up between Valiquette's Spidey mask and Smith's Milwaukee Admirals mask. 

With this set, I've also continued using a different 'fractal' with each design. I think doing this makes each one kind of unique, plus it makes for a really cool looking nine-card page when it's all said and done.

So what do you guys think? Which one is your favorite?

My Picks # 66: Pat LaFontaine

This pick actually comes from the huge garage sale lot I picked up last summer, it's just taken me this long to get to it. It's a 1993-94 Leaf Studio Signature Series featuring Pat LaFontaine of the Buffalo Sabres. First, here's a look at the card:
 

 

Now, let's take a closer look. The first thing I noticed was the embroidered Sabres logo taking up most of the background, a neat concept that I haven't seen on all that many cards. It looks to be from some kind of miniature patch version of the Sabres logo set on some kind of mesh material. The stitching just looks to big to be an actual crest, doesn't it?

I like that it has a decent upper body closeup picture, as a full body image seems like it would be overshadowed by the giant logo in the background. It's also nice that they used a pic of him in the white jersey, as opposed to the blue which may have blended in with the background a little too much.

Other than that, you've got the old Leaf logo in gold foil in the upper left hand corner. The text at the bottom along with the facsimile auto are in a kind of rainbow foil, although it's kind of hard to tell from the scan.

I did find one more of these, Wayne Gretzky, but I thought the blue and gold looked better than black and silver, plus LaFontaine is a local guy growing up only miles from where I live, so that's cool. It's a real shame the Wings missed out on him by one pick and got stuck with some guy whose name is always mispronounced, oh well, what are you gonna do? ;)

Speaking of the 1983 draft, did you know that was the only one in which I team did not participate? Apparently the Blues tried relocate to Saskatchewan, but were blocked by the NHL so they were not a part of the draft. Never knew that before today, I really love learning random facts like this.

Thoughts: It's All In The Name

Here's an issue I'm sure not a lot of collectors have to deal with on a regular basis, at least when it comes to hockey. As you know I'm currently collecting Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard, so what's problem you ask? Well, it's the fact that for all intents and purposes, he has gone by two different names, at least on cardboard, since his career began. 

I say on cardboard because in his rookie year, 2005-06, Upper Deck decided to go with 'Jim Howard' on all of his RC's, not a big deal, right? Well it wasn't, not until around 2009-10 when UD changed all of his cards to say 'Jimmy Howard' instead.

I'm not saying this is something to complain about, but it's slightly annoying when I'm on eBay, Zistle, or COMC and I have to sometimes search twice just to make sure I don't miss anything. When it really get's confusing is when people don't properly label their auctions, unless they straight up write something like 'Jim (Jimmy) Howard' in the description.

Here's a look at what I'm referring to, you've got Jim Howard on the left and Jimmy Howard on the right.

Relatively speaking this is only a minor issue, what I would really like to know is are there any players out there who legally changed their name during their career, meaning cards would've been produced before and after the switch.

The only case of this I know of is Mike Danton. He was born and drafted by the Devils as Mike Jefferson, but according to Wikipedia changed his name to Mike Danton when he became estranged from his family while with New Jersey.

As you can see below, you've got Mike Danton on the left and Mike Jefferson on the right. Now that seems like it would get interesting for a player collector, although I doubt there are any Danton/Jefferson collectors out there, as he was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder, but who knows.

 

There was one other similar switch I could think of off the top of my head, and that was Varlamov's first name switching from Simeon to Semyon. This is more like what I see with the Howard cards, as it wasn't really an actual name change.

What are your thoughts on the subject? Can you think of anyone else this would apply to? It would be interesting to see how many players have actually had cards produced for more than one name.

Jimmy Howard: Card Show Pickups

Going into the show this time around, I was really only hoping to add some singles to my Howard collection and maybe a few cards for some other projects. Well, I managed to do pretty well on the Howard front, but not so well on the others. I ended up with 15 new cards, 13 of which were Howard's, for about $35. Now that's just a coincidence. 

Let's start with the base cards. First, I got this 2011-12 Victory (that's right, the first 2011-12 product is out even before the last of 2010-11, pretty stupid if you ask me) as a toss in when I bought ten or so of these cards from the first table. It's not the best Victory design, but I've definitely seen worse, they really need to stop using the huge Victory text behind the player images. Regardless, this one kicks off another year of player collecting. 

What do you know, another Victory (see what I mean about the huge Victory text, it's just awful). This one is from 2009-10 and helped me complete my first Howard rainbow. What I like about this one is that it shows one of his older masks, and any Wings mask that uses an octopus is cool in my book. Either way, it's still another one off the want list. 

Card number three, mask number three, I'm kind of liking this trend. Anyway, this one from 2008-09 Between The Pipes is probably my favorite Howard base card from ITG. There's just something about the design I can't get enough of. It's not overly complicated and the colors work well with the picture, and all the red really pops on the lighter blue background. 

The next one is from 2010-11 Panini All Goalies (I almost bought a box of this stuff for $13, but decided against it). I actually like the look of this set, especially the way the background fades to white all around the picture. Now I just need to track down the up-close parallel. 

This one's a bit different. It's a base card from 2010-11 Adrenalyn XL, the card game from Panini. Now, I have no clue how this game works, I'm not even sure why I bought this, I mean it's not really a card, right? Or is it? I'm leaning toward yes, because unlike a sticker, it's the same size of a normal card and on regular card stock. I don't know, what do you guys think of Adrenalyn XL, does it belong in player collections?  

Now onto the inserts. This one's a Netminders from 2010-11 Upper Deck. I'm not a huge fan of the design on the front, as it looks like it was thrown together in like five minutes. Regardless, its another card I'm glad to add to the collection for a decent price, especially not having to deal with shipping charges. 

This one's kind of neat. It's a 2010-11 Certified Mirror Red that doesn't seem all that special on the front. The neat thing, which I didn't even notice at first, is the fact that it's numbered 035/250. Sweet, my first jersey numbered parallel for the Howard collection, or as some would call it, an eBay 1/1. 

Earlier I mentioned the 2009-10 Victory base helped me complete my first rainbow, well here's the third and final part of the rainbow (I've had the black for a while now). 

To add to the Adrenalyn XL debate, I picked up this 'Special' parallel as part of the same lot. It's not serial numbered or anything, but I guess they're twice as rare as the base with odds of 1:2 packs. One thing I do like about this one is the fact that a completely separate photo is used for the parallel version as compared to the base. 

Here's one I've been looking to add for quite a while now. When these came out, I really like the look of the set, but wasn't lucky enough to pull one in the box I broke (I ended up with Vokoun instead). I know the idea is the newest in the world, but Panini managed to pull it off quite well this time around. 

This is another one I really like, although I've seen plenty of people call these 'pointless' or 'useless' inserts. Maybe to the ones all about the money, but not to me as they give me more cards to chase. I'm sure most of you player collectors would agree, am I right? 

That's it for the inserts, now it's time for a couple of autos. The first is this one from 2008-09 Between The Pipes. One thing I will say first is that ITG is pretty good about hiding the fact most of their stuff like this has sticker autos, you can barely tell it there with the border job they've done. Despite that, it's still another nice looking auto from Jimmy, unlike the next one, you'll see.

Here's the one that doesn't look so good, I guess this was one of the last stickers in a batch because it looks rushed, but hey another auto is another auto for the PC, right? One thing I don't like about this one is I wish they used a picture that better shows Jimmy's mask. 

That's it for now, 13 new cards for the collection, bringing me to 63 overall (61 unique). Looks like I might be able to get to 100 quicker than I thought, we'll see though...

Jimmy Howard: Collection Stats

In my last post I mentioned the Masked Marvels Gold made for a milestone in my Howard collection. Well, that card happens to be the 50th in the collection. That may not seem like much, but it's higher than I thought the number would've been at this point.

Now that I've hit a bit of a milestone at the 50 card mark for my Howard collection (including duplicates), I thought I would take a look at some stats of the collection.

Here's a look at what exactly the collection is comprised of at this point:

10 of 50 (20%) are Rookie Cards
17 of 50 (34%) are Base Cards
18 of 50 (36%) are Inserts of Parallels
5 of 50 (10%) are Autos / Memorabilia

Now, here's a look at where everything's come from:

2 of 50 (4%) have come from packs/boxes
9 of 50 (18%) have come from trades/purchases
14 of 50 (28%) have come from card shows/shops
25 of 50 (50%) have come from ebay/online

Another way of looking at things in a more macro kind of way is determining exactly how often I add to the collection. I've got 50 cards now, and it took me 455 days to get there, so that's a new card every 9.1 days. Not a bad pace considering I'm not collecting to my full potential yet, as I've got student loans to worry about for the foreseeable future.

On a completely different note, I think the worst part about this collection (and my other projects for that matter) is the percentage of overall money spent that goes toward shipping. I know it's bad when some of the time I'm paying nearly 3x the price of the card itself for shipping.

I'll try to do another recap like this when I hit the next big milestone of 100 cards. 

Jimmy Howard: Recent Pickups

July was a pretty slow month as far as collecting goes, with a lot of other stuff going on (i.e. roller hockey, travel, etc.), but thanks to ebay I did manage to make several new additions to my Jimmy Howard collection. 

The first is this 2010-11 Luxury Suite Private Signings auto I picked up for just $11.56 delivered, not bad considering a lot of them have been going for at least $15 lately. These cards are actually pretty sharp if you ask me, and the best part is that they are hard-signed. 

The second is a base card from 2010-11 Playoff Contenders. Got it for $1.19 delivered, which definitely beats driving to a show around here and getting ripped off just because it's a Red Wings card in metro Detroit. Pretty neat idea for a base card, I just wish the borders were set equally distant from the top and bottom edges. 

The third is yet another base card, this time from 2010-11 Zenith. I got this one for just $1.00 delivered. The overall design of these cards is pretty boring if you ask me. The only thing they have going for them is the semi-painted look some of the player images have. 

Now for the best of the bunch, and the biggest surprise. It's a Masked Marvels Gold from 2010-11 Certified. A pretty nice looking insert from Panini if you ask me. The surprise though, I ended up winning the auction for only $0.95, less than I paid for the base cards. The only downside was the $3.50 shipping charge as this one came straight out of Germany. 

That's it for now. I will say one thing though, this last card marks a bit of a milestone in my Jimmy Howard collection. I'll share that in my next post, stay tuned...

Thoughts: Keeping Track of Your PC

In this case when I say PC, I'm referring exclusively to player collections and/or specific set collections, not one's entire collection. That said, this is going to be a two part topic:

• Physically tracking your PC
• Digitally tracking your PC

When it comes to physically keeping track of and organizing my Jimmy Howard collection, I currently have every card in the collection stored in top loaders, including the base cards. I even have my prized 1/1 in just a simple top loader for the sake of consistency. I know some people like to put base and simple insert cards into binders, but I prefer the top loaders as it's more enjoyable to look through a stack of cards rather than flipping through page after page. I also believe my cards are safer in top loaders, what do you guys think? Also, how do you physically store your PC?

For some people, simply tucking their PC away in a box or desk drawer would be enough, but for those of us not living in the stone age (especially those of us with blogs, PC websites, etc.) it's not. This is where digitally tracking a PC comes in. Specifically in regards to my Howard collection, I've taken a three-prong approach to digitally keeping track of it:

• Front and back scans of every card
• Excel spreadsheet (for tracking acquisitions by date/source/cost/quantity)
• Card Boarded (Blog) and The Jimmy Howard Collection (PC Website)

I use my Excel spreadsheet to track not only the cards I have, but the cards on my Howard want list. Aside from using it as a checklist, I like to track where each new addition comes from, how much it cost, and if applicable how much I paid to have it shipped to me. This lets me know how much I've sunk into the project, which I can use to determine whether or not I'm sticking to a kind of self-imposed card spending budget. 

The scans, as well as blogs and PC websites, are something most all of us do as that's pretty much the core of sharing/interacting with other collectors online nowadays. What I want to know though, is what do you guys do as far as any kind of 'book keeping' when it comes to your PC's, whether it be player or set specific, or both all rolled into one.

Card Show This Weekend

I was really hoping to make it to the National in Chicago this past weekend, but my plan never materialized, so another local card show this weekend will have to suffice for now. 

The show I'm planning on attending is again at the Gibraltar Trade Center, although this time it's at a different location that the previous show (they've got two locations on the north and south sides of town). I've heard that this location isn't as good as the other one, but we'll see as I haven't been to this one in quite a few years now. 

Again I want to go into this thing with specific needs in mind, rather than taking money with me and simply picking up random boxes and what not. I think this time around I'm going to spend some more time looking through the large boxes of $0.25 cards to see if I can make another dent in either my MVP Stanley Cup Edition or Metal Universe set projects.

And of course I'll be on the lookout for Howard stuff, but I'm always hesitant at these shows because there's always the hometown premium placed on Wings players, so it could actually be cheaper to take the hit on shipping from eBay.

Other than that, I'm kind of finding myself wanting to bust some late 90's - early 00's wax after seeing some breaks on the various forums and blogs. Who knows, maybe I'll get lucky and find a box of Metal Universe or Stanley Cup Edition, we'll see...

My Picks # 65: Paul Kariya

This pick is yet another card that caught my eye when flipping through some of my base card binders recently. It's an Artist's Proof of Paul Kariya from 1997-98 Score. There's just something about this set I can't get away from (TTM's, Customs, etc.) maybe I should add a quaternary PC project to the sidebar. Now, that's a word you don't get to use everyday. 

This is another one of those instances where the scanner just cannot capture the true look of a card. Here it just looks like a funny shade of bluish-green, when in reality it's got so much more to it. For those of you that have one of these, you know what I'm talking about. 

Now, as far as the design. I touched on it in my last Cardboard Creations post, and all I really have to say is that simple is better. There's just something I like about the combination of simple text and nice geometric features. Sure, some of the photography isn't great, like this one, but I think it's a pretty cool set overall. 

Other than the obvious bluish-green tint, the only difference between this and the regular base card is the red foil "Artist's Proof" stamp in the lower left-hand corner. It's a nice touch as along with the full-color tint it helps differentiate the two cards from one another, too bad Panini didn't utilize something similar in their Pinnacle release this year.

My Picks # 64: Sergei Fedorov

Growing up a Red Wings fan in the mid-90's (I really miss those days) means I have tons of base and insert cards of Red Wings from that time period. This next pick is just one of them that caught my attention when sorting through my Wings collection. 

This 'Ultra Cool' Sergei Fedorov comes from 94-95 Fleer Ultra, hence the 'Ultra Cool' set name. If it were from any other set, the name would be a lot more cheesy if you ask me.

Now 'Ultra Cool' is not the greatest name for an insert set, but hey what else could you expect from that era, as pretty much every other idea had been used on overproduced cards at some point during the 90's. 

Beyond the name, this card has a pretty interesting design. The first thing I notice is the layered images. Too bad they're both road jerseys as I believe a home/road combo would've looked much better and provided better contrast. In this case it's even worse because the two pictures are almost identical, except for the way Sergei is facing. 

The border around the pictures is a bit gaudy but it works here. All of the text is done in gold foil except for the 'Ultra Cool' text which is done in a glowing blueish color. 

Thoughts: PWE's

Most people immediately think something bad when they hear PWE and cards in the same sentence, I know because usually I do the same thing. That said, with one of my recent ebay pickups, I found myself gladly accepting a PWE as the preferred method of shipping. 

Why did I not have a problem with it? The card in question cost me $1 on a BIN and the shipping cost me exactly $0. How can I complain about something that doesn't cost me a thing (keep in mind that the card did show up undamaged in a top loader wrapped in the ebay shipper)? 

Now, I'm not saying I would be ok with a PWE when I'm getting charged $3.50 or more for shipping. In that case I would be pretty upset, but this time I could care less as long as the card arrived in good shape. 

What are your thoughts? Are PWE's ok for a purchase like this?

Another Garage Sale Mystery Bag

Last time I showed off a simple 25-card grab bag that only cost $0.50. This time the bag was a bit bigger, contained more than just hockey cards, and cost a few dollars more. Here's what this one looked like:

As you can see, it's all baseball and hockey, which is fine with me. Any baseball cards I acquire like this simply go into the black hole I call my lower desk drawer, as I still have all the non-hockey cards from my first big garage sale pickup in there.

Anyway, onto what was in this one. This next picture will give you an idea of the proportions of both the baseball and hockey cards.

From the looks of it, there's more hockey than baseball, but that's deceiving as you'll see in a minute. Here's a look at the hockey cards that came out of the bag: 

There were probably 50 cards from 2003-04 SPx in the bag, so I'm guessing whoever had these must have busted a box at some point. That said, I love these cards. The design is pretty sharp and I like the hologram use this time around. As a plus, there was the Kovalev gold spectrum numbered /50 and the two lasting impressions inserts. 

In addition to the SPx, the bulk of the hockey was taken up by cards from 1995-96 Zenith (which are pretty thick, hence there being deceivingly more baseball). I really like this set too, as the players really pop from the background.

This is pretty much indicative of the miscellaneous junk that made up the rest of the hockey in the bag. Interestingly enough, there was an auto in there, albeit creased right through the middle. My favorite of the bunch is the Vipers card. It looks like a team issue set from the late 90's. If you've never heard of them, they were Detroit's IHL team from 1994-2001. It's kind of special for me because I remember going to a bunch of games at the Palace of Auburn Hills when I was a kid. 

That's pretty much it on the hockey side of things. When it comes to the baseball, I don't know much at all about the cards. These are some that just stuck out to me. 

Overall, it wasn't all that bad, except for the fact that because all of the cards were simply rubber banded and thrown into a bag, the corners were downright horrible on most of them. Oh well, that's ok as I'm not looking to sell these or anything.

What do you think, was it worth it for a few bucks? I do because when it comes to garage sales, you never know what you might stumble upon.