Gold Script Update

It's been a little while since I've been able to land any cards for my Gold Scrip set, since February actually when I got a lot of six for around $10. Today I only have a single card to show, but hey at least it's one more off the wantlist, right?

This time it's a Randy McKay numbered 091/100. I will always remember McKay from his time with the Devils when they won the Cup in 2000, but I did learn from the back of this card that he started his career with the Red Wings. Never knew that before. 

I ended up getting this one for less than a dollar before shipping, so the total came in around $3, not all that bad if you consider how old these things are getting. It's the 43rd one I've been able to add to the project, which brings me to the 19.5% mark for the Golds.

Jimmy Howard: Authentic Fabrics

This is probably the longest I've gone between Howard pickups in a while now. For some reason, I kind of lost some of my interest in the whole player collecting thing the last few weeks and have been preoccupied with a few of my set projects.

Lately it seems like the demand for Howard stuff is going up, which I guess is to be expected given the circumstances. That said, it's getting harder to land any of the nice stuff at rock bottom prices anymore, so when this steal came along I had to jump on it. 

First, here's a look at the card. It's an authentic fabrics jersey from 2011-12 SP Game Used. 

The cool thing about this set is that each player has their own unique "rainbow" if you will. For example, there are four versions of Howard's card in this set. Together they spell out "JIMH" which is a neat way to get collectors chasing more than one of the same card.

I call this one a steal because I ended up bringing it home for just $1.50 including shipping. I saw this and similar cards at my last card show priced at sometimes $10 or more, so I would think it would be considered a steal, am I right?

Card Show Pickups: Best of The Rest

I've got one last show and tell post from my Gibraltar show trip. This one is all about the miscellaneous junk I picked up to fill out the purchases I made at the various dime, quarter, and dollar boxes. I thought about turning some of these into "My Picks" posts, but that would've just taken too long, so here's a look at all of them together.

This first batch came from two separate tables. The first six were all from a quarter box and they went along with some Metal Universe and MVP SCE pickups so I ended up with even dollar amounts. The rest came from a dime box of commons from the last two seasons.

Next we have a nice six pack of quarter box pickups. I was kind of surprised to find a stack of about 50 gold script cards from various seasons in this box. I grabbed some of the better ones I could find like the Thornton. The Tootoo was a nice surprise because I got it before it came out that he signed with Detroit back on July 1st.

So it wasn't the biggest card show haul ever, but it was still a good day for me and some of my PC projects. Plus, who doesn't love sorting through box after box of singles hoping for that hidden gem you come across once in a while.

Captured on Cardboard #10: Bobby Orr

I think it's pretty obvious by the title where this post is going. I was lucky enough to come across a nice Bobby Orr from UD Masterpieces at the Gibraltar show for less than $1, so I made sure to grab it just for this project.

I've always read a lot about this set, but never really saw any of the cards in person. Now that I have one of them, I have to say this set is pretty awesome. I love the canvas look that these cards have as it goes perfectly with the painted image on each one. 

This will be the first time you'll get to see one of these "Captured on Cardboard" moments in reverse. I happened to come across one of those history will be made commercials that everyone seems to love and thought I would use one for a change. Right about the 17 second mark is where the painting on the card comes from.

It's about time I get one of the iconic moments of the game into this series. I know it's the easy way out in a sense, but there's no denying the awesomness of this card, right?

Red Wings: Card Show Pickups

One of the things I decided to do lately was be more on the lookout for any Red Wings cards to add to my collection. I've been a Wings fan my entire life and that was the only thing I "collected" back when I was younger. Since I have several specific set and player projects, I thought it would be nice to have a more general project like this. 

This means I always have something to look for when I'm sorting through dime, quarter and dollar boxes at card shows. The fire card I have today came from the dollar box, well kind of. It was marked $1.50, which was a bit of a surprise considering the show was in metro Detroit and it's Nicklas Lidstrom.

 

I'll take just about any gold script for $1.50, let alone one like this. I think I would consider this a bit of a steal. The rest was just a bunch of base cards that helped fill out some of my other purchases. Here's a look at the rest of my Wings pickups:

The Coffey is a pretty cool looking die cut insert and the Hossa's I grabbed because I was a huge fan of his while he was a Red Wing. I think one of the dumbest decisions the organization made lately was choosing to sign Johan Franzen to a gargantuan contract instead of Hossa. Then there were the three Ozzie's that I grabbed because I like goalies, specifically Red Wing goalies.

Pack Break: 2010-11 Upper Deck Series 1

Time for another one of these pesky pack breaks. This time its another wrapper with Crosby all over the front of it: 2010-11 Upper Deck Series One. I've busted a few packs of this in the past and I think there was a blaster box in there somewhere too. 

While this version of UD was not my favorite design of all, it could have been much worse. I like how they use the smaller, second picture of the guy's head in the lower right side of the card. That's something that hasn't been around much since the days of Pacific Invincible.

Let's take a look at the eight cards that came from this pack:

Nothing spectacular there, but I did manage to get a Young Gun from a single pack, so it's not all bad. Interesting that all seven of the skaters in this pack were left hand shots, bet you didn't notice that. Anyway, off to the monster box these will go until someday I decided to either complete the set or just sell all of my unwanted singles in a garage sale.

Pack Break: 2008-09 Victory

I definitely did not save the best for last in case anyone was wondering now that I'm onto the last of the twelve pack breaks from the Target value box. Today we've got a pack of 2008-09 Victory with who else, Sidney Crosby on the wrapper. It's got six cards including a guaranteed rookie or insert.

 

Let's take a look at the five base cards plus the guaranteed insert:

 

Not really much to get excited about here, not even a single Red Wing or anything for any of my side projects for that matter. Off to the traders box these will go. One thing I will say is that I actually really like the Stars of the Game inserts from that year.

Goaltending Gallimaufry: Card Show Pickups

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

Other than my existing surplus of base cards when I first started this project, the best place I've found for good candidates is any dollar, quarter, or dime box at card shops and card shows. Today I've got seven new additions to the project from my recent Gibraltar show. 

This first card is a cluster if I've ever seen one. Almost on the same level as the Jeff Hacket that Brett from MHCO was nice enough to send over a while back. It's got Hutton pictured with the Flyers in his gear from UMass Lowell, hence the red, white and blue. On top of that, the card itself lists him with the Sharks.

This next one is a bit interesting too. Not sure where the orange and white pads are from, but the bright yellow mask does not seem to go very well with them, not to mention the black, white, and blue color scheme of the Lightning uniforms.

Here we've got another minor league mix up. You can clearly see the mismatch between Lack's mask and the rest of his equipment. The blue and green of the Vancouver color scheme definitely clash with the maroon and gold of the Chicago Wolves uniforms.

Next is a guy I had never heard of before seeing this card. It set me back about $1, just because it's a Young Gun I guess, but that's ok. This one has a pretty obvious mismatch between Coleman's London Knights gear and the Tampa Bay Lightning practice jersey.

Here we have an obvious mask mismatch with a not so obvious pad/glove/blocker mismatch. You can easily see that Al's mask is meant for a Phoenix Coyotes goalie, which is what he was prior to playing for New York. And if you look closely, you can see the Phoenix maroon as the accent color on his pads.

This next one is another Jose Theodore to add to the list picturing him with the Canadiens in the gear from his time with the Hull Olympiques in the QMJHL. The black and grey equipment is a bold contrast to the Canadiens red, white and blue color scheme.

Here's another guys that's made a few appearances on this list. Michaud looks like he would fit right in with the Oilers jerseys of the early 2000's with the copper and blue, but when it comes to the Canadiens jerseys, it just makes for an awful color combination.

Not a bad haul for only getting to go through a few tables of commons boxes. I'm getting closer and closer to 100 cards for this project and would really like to get there. I love this project as it always gives me a reason to thumb through card show monster boxes, even if they are ten for a dollar cards.

Goaltending Gallimaufry Count: 86

Box Break: 1996-97 Metal Universe

Finally, after a few years of searching, I was able to track down an unopened hobby box of this stuff. I may have overpaid a little bit at $34 plus shipping from eBay, but that's perfectly fine with me. They are almost impossible to come by and it helped me knock most of the base set off my want list. Now I only need a handful of cards to finish it. 

There were 24 packs in the box with 8 cards per pack, so not too bad of a deal for the $34 I mentioned earlier. That works out to just under $1.50 per pack. Given the rarity of these boxes and the age of the product, I'd say that's pretty reasonable, wouldn't you?

Base:
Here's nine of my favorite base cards from the box:

How can anyone not love this set? There are so many different designs that you have to go through about 50 cards or so to find one that repeats itself. I just wish they scanned a little bit better, these things look so much better in hand.

Lethal Weapons:
While I didn't get any of the Armor Plate cards I was hoping for, I did manage to pull two of the Lethal Weapons inserts: Mark Messier and Keith Tkachuk. 

Other than these two I was just glad to get both of the checklists cards from the box, because I need them to complete the set and people tend to not have random checklist cards for sale or trade. Overall though, I really enjoyed this box. A lot of the guys in this set were in the prime of their careers back in the 90's when I was just getting into hockey and collecting, so that's kind of neat. 

Box Break: Inkworks Lost Season One

Bet you didn't expect this when I said I picked up an unopened box at the show over the weekend. It was something a bit different and the price was right at only $15 for 36 packs. That's less than $0.50 per pack, not bad right?

Entertainment cards are something I've known bits and pieces about over the last few years, but I never really got into them until I found that some of my favorite shows (Jericho, Lost, Heroes, etc) had their own sets of cards. 

Lost is a show that I never go into when it was on TV, but after hearing about it so much I decided to give the DVD's a shot and was hooked after the first few episodes and it's probably my second favorite show now. I'm still in the middle of season three now that it's available through streaming on Netflix, so I don't know how it ends just yet. Can't wait to find out, so don't spoil it for me. Anyway, here's a look at the box top:

 

Here's a look at the front and back of the header card, which is an excellent idea when it comes to storing a full set in a 100 ct clear plastic case.

Before I get to the rest of the good stuff, here's a look at the checklist, which was the last one in the 90 card set. As you can see, there are several subsets of base cards, which is nice because this gives you a bit of variety, even if there are only four subsets. 

The first subset of the base set was comprised of 49 episode cards, with each one featuring something from one of the first season episodes. Here's a look at a few of them:

Then there were 28 character cards with each of the 14 main characters having two cards. Once card focuses on their life before the island, and the other focuses on their life on the island. Here's a few examples of these:

Then there were three "hidden" cards. Here's a look at one of them:

The last of the subsets were eight "Island Alliances" cards focusing on the many alliances that were formed throughout the first season. Here's a look at some of them:

That's it for the 90 card base set, which I somehow managed to not complete through 36 packs. I guess that was the risk I ran buying a repack box. At least the dealer was nice enough to mention that before I bought the thing. Oh well, can't complain. I got a bunch of cards for one of my favorite shows for far less than the price of a factory sealed box. 

Now onto the inserts. The first inserts I hit were part of a large 9-piece puzzle set that comes together when you get all nine cards into a single binder page. I only got 2 of the 9, so it doesn't look so great yet:

These next two were my favorite two cards of the entire break. They come from the "Numbers" insert set which focus on the all important 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. The coolest thing is the way that the numbers are die-cut at the bottom of each card.

The back of each of these cards has a little blurb about the number. For this one it says, "These mysterious numbers appear in the lives of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815, but do they hold some special significance or are they merely coincidence? Claire Littleton, who was 8 months pregnant when she arrived on the island, dreamed of 4 tiny planes hovering over an empty cradle."

And for this one, the description says, "Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes played the lottery using the numbers and won big. Local television stations, including Channel 8, interviewed him."

That's it for this adventure in box breaking. What do you guys think? Its nice to see something different than you're used to once in a while isn't it? By the way, are any of you guys Lost fans and have you ever collected cards for the show or for other shows?

Pack Break: 2008-09 OPC

Getting closer and closer to the last of these twelve packs now. Next we have another OPC pack, this time from 2008-09. I know I've done at least one pack of this stuff in the past, because I remember getting one of the really cool 79-80 retro cards. 

Gotta love seeing Mr. Hockey on the wrapper too. OPC seems to stick with the old timers on their packaging (i.e. Gretzky, Orr, Howe, etc) which is a refreshing change from the usual Crosby fest when it comes to the wrappers.

 

Here's what came out of this pack:

The base cards are pretty plain and again the problem with this set is the size of the O-Pee-Chee text on the card. It's more noticeable than the team logo, the player name, and the team name. On the other hand, this pack had one of my favorite cards of the entire value box, the King Clancy Memorial trophy card. I've never seen this set before and the cards are amazing looking in hand.

Pack Break: 2008-09 Collector's Choice

Time for another one of these "extreme value box" pack breaks. I've only got a few left to get to at this point. This time we have another pack of something I've never opened before: 2008-09 UD Collector's Choice. I believe this was the first version of this set since 1998-99, somebody please correct me if I'm wrong here.

It's definitely one of the lowest of the low end sets, great for kids and team/set collectors. Other than all of the Wings cards, I would really have no other interest in this set. It doesn't seem to get that much love on the hobby boards, what do you guys think of it?

Here's a look at what came out of the pack:

Not a bad pack at all, at least for me with the Choice Reserve Rookie of Darren Helm. Other than that not too much to write home about. I like the simplicity of the design as it leaves a ton of room for focus on the picture and not the other elements like some designs.

Pack Break: 2007-08 OPC

Since I don't have anything else to post at the moment, I thought I would knock another one of these pack breaks off of the draft list. This time we have a single pack of 2007-08 OPC. I can't say that I ever remember opening a pack of this stuff before, so that's kind of neat. 

The design for this edition of OPC is actually not all that bad in my opinion. The only thing wrong with it is really just the huge O-Pee-Chee logo on the bottom of the card. The name of the set should not be more prominent than the player name or team identification, right?

Here's a look at what came out of this pack:

Notice anything common to all three cards in the top row? Talk about an accomplishment, they were able to get the logos for six different teams all onto three different, single player, base cards. Other than that there was nothing to write home about in this one.

Pack Break: 2007-08 MVP

Time for another one of the twelve pack break posts resulting from the value box I bought at Target a while back. This time we have a single pack of 2007-08 MVP. Nothing spectacular, but at least it wasn't another pack of Pro Set, right? Also, I've decided to make these posts a bit easier on myself by posting all the cards as a single picture. 

 

Here's a look at what came out of this pack:

As you can see, there's nothing all that exciting there. I ended up with seven base cards and a single insert. The funny thing is I pulled this same Forsberg card way back when I busted a blaster box of this stuff. Other than that just more base to help fill one of my monster boxes.

Card Show Haul: Gibraltar Trade Center 7/1/12

Before I start showing off all the cool stuff I picked up at the monthly Gibraltar show this weekend, I thought I would do a quick recap/preview of everything. I should say that it's not the most impressive haul you've ever seen, but it was great for me as I was able to knock a few off the want lists and grab some nice pieces for a few of my side projects.

Here's a rundown of how I spent $30 at the show:

Parking / Entrance Fee = $2.00

1 Serial Numbered Single for the Wings PC = $1.50

4 MVP Gold Scripts + 1 Captured on Cardboard + 1 Goaltending Gallimaufry = $1.50

5 Captured on Cardboard + 5 Random Cards = $2.00

3 Goaltending Gallimaufry + 1 Captured on Cardboard + 2 Random Gold Scripts = $5.00

2 MVP SC Edition + 1 Metal Universe + 5 Random Cool Cards = $2.00

3 Goaltending Gallimaufry + 7 Random Cards = $1.00

1 Unopened Box = $15.00

See what I mean, nothing all that exciting, but that's perfectly fine by me. I would rather go into a show and spend just a few bucks like this on cards that I actually need and want for my PC projects, than go in an drop hundreds on boxes that yield nothing but crap.

Stay tuned to the blog in the coming days and weeks to see more about these pickups.