Box Break: 1999-00 MVP Stanley Cup Edition

The first thing I'm going to say here is I'm glad my latest eBay gamble didn't backfire on me. If you saw my last "Thoughts" post then you know I bought this box on eBay for just $9.99 plus a few bucks for shipping. That's about 25% of what I paid for the last one, the seller only had 80 some total feeback, and the listing showed the box was slightly damaged.

Well, when I got home yesterday there was a large shipping box waiting for me. I knew it was this box and was kind of nervous to see what was actually in there. I opened it up to find the box far more damaged than shown in the listing, which definitely worried me. I mean one end of the box was completely ripped open. I was worried packs were going to be missing or have been tampered with.

Luckily, that was not the case as I counted them up and all 28 of them were there and seemed pretty safe. That was a huge relief because the last thing I wanted was to have to start a mess with the seller and open a complaint and all that jazz.

This is technically the third box I've busted, but the second since I started Card Boarded. The first was way back when this stuff came out and I was like 12 years old. Man that seems like such a long time ago now. Anyway, since it was such a steal at $9.99, I figured it was worth it to make a dent in my master set needs. Plus who doesn't love busting a fresh box full of packs? I know I do. Here's what I got:

249 Base Cards

15 Silver Scripts (1:2)

5 Stanley Cup Talent (1:5)

4 Cup Contenders (1:9)

2 Golden Memories (1:14)

2 Clutch Performers (1:28)

1 Second Season Snipers (1:28)

1 Playoff Heroes (1:84)

1 Gold Script

That last one is the best of the bunch, and the first Gold Script I've actually pulled myself, from any of the three boxes or other loose packs now. Other than that I feel like this was a pretty good box, especially looking at some of the odds on the inserts.

Here's a look at some of the stuff I needed for my master set project:

Out of this first group, the Yzerman Golden Memories is probably my favorite, along with the Kariya Playoff Heroes. These bring me to 2/10 for Playoff Heroes, 8/10 for Golden Memories, 6/10 for Clutch Performers, 4/10 for Second Season Snipers, and 18/20 for Cup Contenders. Not a bad group of inserts if you ask me.

 

This time around I ended up only getting 15 Silver Scripts, 10 of which I needed for the master set. That's perfectly fine with me though, as the one Gold Script more than made up for that fact. When it was all said and done, I was pretty impressed with this box. I didn't really expect to get this many cards that I actually needed for my master set.

I am definitely glad I went for it on this one despite the sketchy eBay listing. This just goes to show you that sometimes you have to take a bit of a risk for any kind of reward. In this case the risk being damaged cards and the reward being a heck of a steal for a box that rarely appears for sale. By the way, stay tuned for the Gold Script...

My Picks #82: Blaine Lacher

This pick is just another one of those cards that caught my eye when I was sorting through my base card collection. It's a Blaine Lacher (anyone remember him?) base card from the 1995-96 Fleer Metal set. This card is probably more about the mask than anything, as it's one of the better ones from the 90's.

 

Lacher went undrafted and after two superb seasons with Lake Superior State of the NCAA was signed by the Boston Bruins. There he took over the starting job during the shortened 1994-95 season, helping the Bruins into the playoffs. For a little more about Lacher, click here to check out a great "Absurd Goalie Monday" post over at The Strangest One of All.

This set was the precursor to the Metal Universe set I've been working on building. The biggest difference between the two is that every card in the 1995-96 version had the same background design. While it's nice, it's not even close to the Metal Universe design.

As far as the mask on this one, it's pretty cool and one of my favorites of the 90's.  Here's a better look at the mask itself. I couldn't really find a decent closeup of either side of the mask, but that's alright as the most important part of the design is prominently displayed.

It's hard to beat having a nickname that can be represented like this on a mask. Can you guys think of any other goalies who've had anything similar in the past. The first one that comes to mind is Ed "The Eagle" Belfour and his famous mask design.

Stop SOPA/PIPA

Like a lot of others in the world of sports card blogs, I try to stay away from any kind of political or social issues and stick to what it's all about, the cards. However, when something comes up that could affect every one of us, I don't want to remain silent. 

I won't get into too much detail, but SOPA/PIPA are both bad news for us bloggers, so do yourself and the rest of us a favor and first find out what it is, and second do something about it and contact your congressperson.  

Night Owl said it best, "I like my blog ... please let it live."

Click HERE for more information.

Goaltending Gallimaufry: A Few Wild Ones

Gallimaufry [gal-uh-maw-free] - A hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley.

The last post in this series had a common theme, and this one is no different. As you probably deduced from the title, they all feature goaltenders from the Minnesota Wild. I found four of them grouped together in my stack of cards awaiting to be scanned.

The first one is this Manny Fernandez from 2001-02 Upper Deck. Fernandez was traded to the Wild from Dallas in June of 2000. If you look closely, you can see Stars logos on the side and chin of his mask. I believe the pads/gloves are also from his days in Dallas, but they don't contrast the Wild green all that much.

 

This one is pretty much the exact same thing, only from another angle this time. One thing I will say is I really miss those jerseys. Before the edge-ification at the hands of Reebok, the Wild had some of the coolest jerseys in my opinion. I even had a home white version when I was younger and loved it.

Here we've got a bit of a lesser known goaltender, Derek Gustafson, who went undrafted and only played in five NHL games over two seasons with the Wild between 2000-2002. The reason he's included here is the mask he's sporting on this one from 2001-02 Pacific. It's from his time with St. Lawrence University (ECAC), where he is best known for a record setting four-overtime win against Rick DiPietro and Boston in the 1999-00 playoffs.

 

Not sure if anyone else noticed this, but isn't it kind of odd that Gustafson has Eagle leg pads and blocker, but then a Koho glove? I'm sure it was just a personal preference thing at the time, but for some reason something always seems off when the brands don't match like this. I mean, don't these things usually come in sets? Here's one from 2001-02 Topps.

That's it for now. These four were welcome additions to the project from a collection of cards that would otherwise never see the light of day, let alone their own post on the blog. They also bring me four closer to my goal of 100 cards for the project. Only 44 to go.

Goaltending Gallimaufry Count: 66

Thoughts: You Win Some, You Lose Some

How many times have you been sitting on an eBay auction until the very end with the highest bid, only to be outbid at the last possible second, even when you though your max bid was enough to ensure you don't lose? Well, this happened to me the other day with a lot of MVP Stanley Cup Edition cards I stumbled upon during one of my daily searches. 

The title of the auction was not very descriptive of what the lot actually contained. It said something along the lines of "Lot of 11 MVP SCE Inserts/Parallels." It mentioned nothing about the five Super Script "parallels" that were actually listed in the full description. I thought this was great, it was a mislabeled listing that not many people would likely come across, plus it was at $0.99. The only problem was the six days left in the auction. 

Fast forward to the other night. I was watching the dwindling auction time on my mobile eBay app and thought I was in the clear with only several minutes left and no other bids above my initial $0.99 opening bid. Well, that all went out the window sometime between 1s and 0s left on the auction clock. I was "sniped" and outbid by the typical $0.50 increment.

Here's a look at the auction: 

Not sure if it was a legitimate bid or not. I'm leaning towards not because it popped up with half of a second left, although I guess it could just be someone with quick hands on the mouse, right? What do you think? And how often does this happen to everyone else?

This post isn't all about the bad, like I said you win some and you lose some. After losing the lot of Super Scripts, I was back searching the bay and came across something I've been looking for now for quite a while. It's another box of MVP Stanley Cup Edition. At this point I've opened two of them and have nearly two complete base sets (one for the master set and one for my Inkscript project). I know it's not the smartest idea to buy a box like this hoping to hit a decent insert or parallel (i.e. Gold/Super Scripts or any of the Game Used Souvenirs) but I can always hope, right?

Anyway, last time I purchased a box of this stuff on eBay it cost me $29.99 plus $15 shipping, a bit much but well worth it for the fun of opening it and making a decent dent in my master set project. This time, I found one listed for only $9.99 plus $4 for shipping. Fast forward to around 3:45 AM today and I won the auction with my one initial bid of $9.99, awesome. Now I'm just waiting for it to show up.

Here's a look at this auction:

So, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. I may have missed out on a nice lot of inserts, but I think I won big with a great deal on another hobby box that should be a load of fun to open. Stay tuned for another box break post once it arrives.

Edit (12:41 PM): I feel even better about the $9.99 price tag on this one now, as I just found another one listed on eBay with a starting bid of $47.99 or BIN at $84.99, wow...

Goaltending Gallimaufry: Mismatched Masks

Gallimaufry [gal-uh-maw-free] - A hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley.

Back when I started this project, the first thing I did was sort through all of my three-ring binders and monster boxes of base cards looking for the perfect candidates. Well, I ended up with a stack of about 40 cards, a lot of which I've already shared as part of the project. Without anything else to post for today, I decided to take a look through what's left of the stack and found three cards that have one thing in common: mismatched masks.

I know that's stating the obvious when it comes to this project, but there's something to be said about three random cards for which the only discernible reason they're here is the exact same thing. If you look at all three, the mask is the only piece of equipment that doesn't match, although I guess that could be questionable with the second one.

Anyway, the first one is this Rick Tabaracci from 1997-98 Score. As you can see, he's playing for the Flames in the picture, but the mask from his time in Tampa Bay remains. Other than that, he's got matching glove and blocker, and I'm guessing the all black pads were just a carry over, but I can't find any pictures to confirm that. 

 

The second is this Mike Dunham from 2006-07 OPC. As you can tell from the mask in the picture, Dunham played in Atlanta before signing with New York in September of 2006. The only other minor mismatch would be his glove, as the rest could go with either Atlanta's or New York's color schemes.

The third, and most blatantly obvious of the three, is this Robert Esche from 1999-00 Upper Deck. I really like this one because it's got a close up of the mask, yet you can still clearly see the Phoenix uniform and know that something isn't right. That's because he's wearing a Plymouth Whalers mask from his days in the OHL. Here's a little something fun: my high school graduation was held in the same ice arena (Compuware) where the Plymouth Whalers play. Kind of cool that I shared the same venue as this mask for a day.

That's it for now. I've got one more of these posts lined up with a few more cards from the original stack I have left, so look for that in the coming days. Until then, I'm just glad it's the weekend and I have another roller hockey game to look forward to on Sunday, plus I get to try out my new Reebok 5K stick and 7K gloves for the first time.

Goaltending Gallimaufry Count: 62

New PC Project: 05-06 UD Showcase

I thought two weeks of vacation over the holidays would've given me more time for this blog, but in reality it gave me less (travel, family gatherings, etc.) so I want to get caught back up on a few posts I started before the break. This one adds another PC project to the blog, which as you can tell by the title is going to be the 05-06 UD Hockey Showcase set.

A while back you may have noticed one of "my picks" featured the Chris Osgood card from this set. It's a great looking set, especially considering it was a NPN (no purchase necessary) redemption program UD held around the beginning of the 2005-06 season. I think is was meant to be a nice gesture by UD to fans of the game, or something like that.

You may have also noticed that my latest Jimmy Howard pickup came from the Rookie version of this set. The only difference between the two is the outer border color and the title. Here's a look at the two of them side by side:

There are 36 cards in the Rookie Showcase set and 40 in the Hockey Showcase set. Where this will get interseting is the parallel promo versions that are out there. Apparently, you could get the promo versions in copies of Beckett Magazine. The only difference between a promo and regular card is the color of the inner background. I've read in several places that the darker "bronze" is the regular and the lighter "pewter" is the promo. Any of you guys know anything about it?

You may have also notices that I added another tracker to the sidebar of the blog for this project. It looks like it's just for the Hockey Showcase set, but I'm lumping in the Rookie Showcase set so I don't need to mess with two separate trackers.

At this point I have 20 or so of the regular Hockey Showcase cards, plus a handful of duplicates. See, I had the bright idea of entering the NPN two or three times each week, having the cards shipped to different family members. This way I got around the one-per-household limit. Shhhh, don't tell UD that ;)

One of these days I'll scan in the one's I have so you guys can get a bit of a better look at the set, plus that way I'll be able to know all that I've got and what's left on the wantlist.

Until then, if you've got any of these you are willing to part with, drop me a line and I'm sure we can working something out. By the way, did any of you guys take part in this NPN?

Thoughts: Double Duty

Have you ever been in a situation where you've got a player collection and a set collection project that overlap? I am right now with one of my recent Jimmy Howard pickups, from the 2005-06 Upper Deck Rookie Showcase set. 

I should back up here for a second and say I've started, or really continued, another PC project and by that I mean I'm building both the 05-06 Hockey and Rookie Showcase sets from Upper Deck. I'll explain more about that in another post here soon. 

So back to the dilemma. I bought the Howard Rookie Showcase card for my Howard player collection, before I decided to add the Rookie Showcase to the set build. Now that I've added that set, do I let this one card do double duty and hold a place in each project? Or do I go out and get another one for the set? 

Anyone run into this problem before? I know whatever I want to do is all that matters when it comes to my personal collection, but I wanted to get some feedback on this issue anyway before proceeding.

Box Break: 2011-12 Score Blaster

What better way is there to close out another year of collecting than with a good old fashioned box break? I happened to have half of a $25 Target gift card left over from Christmas yesterday, so I decided to use it on a $9.99 blaster box of 2011-12 Score, just on the off chance that I pull a Howard base for my PC. Well, that didn't happen, but I did manage to get a few nice ones from the box, more than I expected for sure. 

First, here's a look at the box itself. This is something I want to do for this and any future box breaks, to differentiate from pack breaks. Plus the box top is something that most people don't show with their posted breaks, so it's something else to look at.

I won't bore anyone with scans of all the base, highlights, or glossy parallels. Let's just say I ended up with a nice mix of  the following:

52 Base Cards

10 Glossy Base Cards

2 Season Highlights

3 Playoff Highlights

1 Glossy Playoff Highlight

6 Hot Rookies

1 Making an Entrance

1 Sudden Death

1 NHL Die-Cut

I did end up getting at least two duplicates of base cards that I can remember from just 11 packs, so that's not all that bad I guess. Anyway, here is one of the Hot Rookies I pulled and the rest of the inserts.

Hot Rookies: 

While it's not "The Nuge," this Cody Hodgson was the only name I recognized out of the six Hot Rookies I pulled. I have to say that the design of this set is about on par with last years the more I look at it, but could still use a bit of work for next year. 

Sudden Death:

I really like the idea of the Sudden Death set, but I think the execution was a bit off the mark. I don't know what it is, but there's just something off with this design in my mind. Maybe it would look better as a vertical set. Who knows? Since there isn't a Howard card in it, I'm not all that concerned with it at the moment.

Making an Entrance:

This next insert is also a neat idea and the Lidstrom that I pulled looks great and is a nice addition to my general Red Wings collection. 

NHL Die-Cuts:

As I mentioned earlier I got one of the NHL Die-Cuts and me being a Wings fan, take one guess at who I managed to pull. None other than Sidney Crysby, err I mean Crosby ;)

If only this were the Ovechkin. Oh well, what can you do. If anyone wants this, I'm willing to trade it for pretty much any Jimmy Howard card I don't already have, including base cards. This should be it for me as far as packs/boxes of Score for this year, as now I'll just focus on tracking down the Howard singles I still need for the PC. 

Happy New Year!

My Picks #81: Dmitri Mironov

It seems like it's been forever since I've done one of my picks, so here goes nothing. This is another one of those cards that I thought was the coolest thing as a kid in the late 90's. It's a Dmitri Mironov from the 1998-99 Upper Deck SPx Finite set. 

This one happens to be the Radiance version as evident by the "Radiance" text on the left side. You can't tell from the scan, but that this thing is numbered out of 4750. That's insane compared to some of the print runs in today's world. I should also note that the "base" versions were also numbered, to 9500.

As far as the design of the card, I definitely like the fact that they went with the horizontal setup, as it allows for the massive ice rink shaped gold foil stamp on the left side. The stamp itself is probable the only downside, as it takes up I would say at least 1/8 of the total surface area of the card front.

I think there is one more tier of this set, the spectrum version, numbered to just 300 copies of each. That definitely tells you what era these things are from, when the lowest print run of a rainbow is 300, compared to the bazillion 1/1 parallels that are out there today. 

Dmitry only played 11 regular season and 7 playoff games with the Wings after being traded from Anaheim during the 1997-98 season. He would go on to win the Stanley Cup that year and move onto Washington, the team the Wings swept in the finals. Since he only played a handful of games in Motown, I wonder how many cards were actually made featuring him in a Wings jersey, like this one.

So there you have it, a bit of a blast from the past that shows where this hobby has gone as far as parallels and serial numbering. What are your thoughts? 

Jimmy Howard: UD Rookie Showcase

Now that Jimmy is becoming one of the better goaltenders in the league (22-8-1, 1.95 GAA, and 0.927 SV%) there is a lot more competition when it comes to collecting his cards. This is a double-edged sword, because on one hand I want Jimmy to succeed and get better, while on the other I'd like his cards to stay in my price range.

Gone are the days of 1-2 years ago when I could sit on an eBay auction until the last minute at $0.99 and either win outright or maybe deal with a few last minute bids. Now, if I'm lucky I can get away with a so-called "steal" like the one I believe I have here at just $5. 

This one is from the 2005-06 UD Rookie Showcase set. I believe it was released in parallel with the Hockey Showcase (shown here) set that could be obtained through the mail from Upper Deck around the beginning of the 2005-06 season. I've read in several places that there were only 1000 copies of these produced, but they're not serial numbered.

 

I love the look of this set, there is just something about the blue edges and the bronze/black combo that go together well. Not sure if this one is considered to be a true rookie card, as it was not part of a widely available base set. Either way, a card from Jimmy's rookie season is always a welcome addition to the collection. 

This one brings the collection to 106 cards total including duplicates. Now that I've got a bit of Christmas cash to play with on the bay, I'm hoping to add a few more cards here soon as gifts to myself, but we'll see. 

Hockey Cards Make Great Christmas Gifts

When it comes to Christmas gifts for me every year, people usually go with the generic gift card kind of stuff, which is perfectly fine with me, as I'm always in need of new music, movies, etc. However, there is one gift that I always love receiving, and that is anything to do with hockey cards.

This year was no different and I came home with a couple of nice singles for the PC and a few packs to bust. Here's a look at the card related stuff I received: 

These four were wrapped together as a single package and I must say they were definitely a nice, unexpected addition to the collection, especially the Yzerman jersey. In addition to these I also received four packs of 2010-11 Pinnacle.

Here's some of what I got from the four packs:

As you can see, nothing too spectacular. The Saving Face is a nice set, but I still wish they would've brought back some incarnation of "The Mask" like the old Pinnacle sets. Other than that there were just a lot of 'unique' photos like the ones shown here.

Now I have a question, did you receive cards as gifts? How do you feel about people buying cards as gifts, as most of us collectors have very specific wants and collecting needs?

Goaltending Gallimaufry: Two From The Old IHL

Gallimaufry [gal-uh-maw-free] - A hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley.

Hope everyone one had a good holiday weekend. I know I did by spending the last four days in Michigan's Upper Peninsula with family and friends. It was nice to get away from things like work, television, and even blogging and the hobby in general to some extent. Now I'm back and have a few posts lined up that I want to get out of the way before my vacation time is over come January 3rd.

Now for what you came here to read. A little while back I logged into to Blogger and found a comment awaiting approval from Jon over at JonWayne's Autographs. He informed me of two cards he had that I could use for my Goaltending Gallimaufry project

The two cards arrived the other day and fit perfectly with this project. The first is this Bob Essensa from the 1995-96 Edge Ice set. Essensa, a former Red Wing as evident by the mask, is pictured with the Fort Wayne Komets. He played 45 games there in 1995-96 before returning to the NHL with Edmonton the following season.

The other one, from the same set, is this Allan Bester. He finished his playing career with the Solar Bears from 1995-98. What I don't get is why he still wearing a Red Wings mask at this point. He last played for Detroit in 1991-92 then the Adirondack Red Wings in 1992-93. After that it was a stop in Dallas Stars after two seasons with the San Diego Gulls. Did he have this mask through all those stops?

 

Anyway, these two additions bring the Gallimaufry project to just under 60 cards. Not bad considering I only started this project a little while ago. I'm really hoping to be able to hit the 100 mark with this thing, then we'll see what happens from there.

Goaltending Gallimaufry Count: 59

Jimmy Howard: More eBay Pickups

Now that I'm done working for the calendar year and I finally got around to getting a new computer, I have some time to get a few more things posted here. I'll start today with a couple of eBay pickups for my Jimmy Howard collection. They're nothing spectacular, just some base and inserts, but still something to show.

The first one was this Masked Marvels insert from 2011-12 Certified. It set me back all of $0.01 plus $2.50 for shipping, which isn't all that bad considering that card would cost me at least around $3-5 at any local card shop or show anyway. Plus this saves me the cost of driving anywhere to get it.

Much better than last year's design if you ask me, although I still think they could have done a bit better job of capturing the mask in the upper photo, but I guess its close enough. I also really like the upgrade on the "Masked Marvels" logo at the bottom.

The  other purchase I made was for a lot of eight cards, some of which were duplicates. I also already had a few cards in the lot, but I needed the others and I couldn't go wrong at $0.99 plus $2.25 for shipping, especially when one of the cards was another RC.

The first new one was this base card from 2010-11 Donruss. This is one of those sets that was just ok when it comes to the design. Nothing fancy here, but it's still another one to cross of the want list. Now I just need to find the proof and die-cut auto versions of it.

The next two have been on the radar for quite some time now, I just could never find a good enough deal to justify picking them up, plus they're not exactly easy to track down. The first is this AHL Top Prospects from 2005-06 produced by Choice Marketing.

The other one was the same set, this time from 2006-07. This one has a much better design and the picture looks just that much nicer with Jimmy's Red Wings colored gear instead of his old college gear shown in the other one.

The others, which I already have copies of in the collection, were a red border parallel from 2005-06 Beehive and a base card from 2010-11 OPC. I don't mind having doubles like this, because I might eventually send some of these out for some TTM action.

The most important part about this pickup is crossing the 100 mark when it comes to total number of cards in the collection, including duplicates. These nine bring that number to 105. I'd have to go back and look to see how many of those are dupes, but I would guess at least ten by now, so I've got around 95 unique pieces in the collection.

Goaltending Gallimaufry: A Pair from BTP

Gallimaufry [gal-uh-maw-free] - A hodgepodge; jumble; confused medley.

If there's one set I would expect to find stuff for this project in, it would be any of the Between the Pipes sets from ITG, because well, they're all goalies and feature a lot of minor league goalies that seem to change teams quite a bit between all the different levels and leagues, so you never know what you'll find. 

Before anything else, I have to thank Rob over at Rob's TTM Graphs for poiting this one out to me in the first place. I looked at a pic of it, then realized I busted a box of the same stuff and sure enough, it was in my "recent box/pack breaks" row of my primary monster box. That led to one more too, but that was all. Kind of surprised I didn't come across any others, but hey two is better than none, right? 

This one's got a lot going on. The first thing I notice is the set of yellow pads Neuvirth's sporting. They don't go at all with the Spitfires look. I'm not really sure where they come from, because before playing with Windsor, Neuvirth was with the Plymouth Whalers, as evident by the Whalers mask he's wearing. So that's three teams in there: Windsor, Plymouth and some mystery yellow/white/black team.

Here's the other one I thought I would share. This time it's Ondrej Pavelec of the Chicago Wolves. It's a bit less obvious here, as I almost missed it myself, but if you look at the side of Pavelec's mask you see the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles logo. It also looks like he's wearing pads that go with the mask, but they could be for Chicago, hard to tell.

So there you have it, two more new additions to the project that were found by someone other than me. That's what I love about this hobby, people are always looking out for and willing to help others, well for the most part at least. Thanks again for the heads up Rob!

Goaltending Gallimaufry Count: 57