Dominik Hasek: New Additions

Dominik Hasek was my favorite player growing up and I am always on the lookout for new cards of his. He has a ton of cool base cards and inserts so I tend to focus on those. Any higher end stuff I will leave for the hardcore Hasek collectors.

My newest Hasek insert comes from COMC and is part of the Stonewalled set from 2018-19 Upper Deck. This is an awesome looking set with a cool brick wall texture in the background. It reminds me of those old Stoppers cards from Score back in the day.

Up next is a Greats of the Game card from 2008-09 Between The Pipes. This one has an excellent look at Hasek's painted mask, which was an upgrade over the plain red one he wore when he started with the Wings in 2001. He won the Cup in 2002 with this mask.

So that's two cool new ones for my Dominator collection. I honestly have no idea how many cards of his I have at the moment. The sidebar on here has said TBD for a while now and I really need to update it. It will be fun looking at all of them to get an accurate total, I just need to find the time to do it.

Red Wings: Color Wheels

I think I've made it pretty clear that I really like the various parallels from O-Pee-Chee Platinum lately. One of them that I have never bought until now was the Color Wheel. I've seen these all over COMC and finally decided to add some to my order back in the summer.

Since Howard doesn't have one of these, I figured why not go for some of the other guys on the Red Wings. Up first is Dylan Larkin from the 2018-19 edition. This is probably my favorite of all the color wheel designs so far. It looks even better in person.

Up next is another Larkin, this time from the 2016-17 set. The actual color wheel part of the design is a bit different here in the distribution of colors and the lack of a physical division between each of the sections. Still a really nice looking card though.

Last but not least we have this 2017-18 version featuring Henrik Zetterberg. I like the radial look to this one as it gives is a bit of a different feel than the other two designs.

Anyone else a fan of the color wheel parallels from O-Pee-Chee Platinum? I love these and would like to maybe someday build the entire team sets. They look great in scans and are even nice looking in person. I just wish they had included Jimmy Howard in some of them.

Jimmy Howard: eBay Pickups

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Red Wings lot I bought on eBay for $9 included some cards for my Jimmy Howard collection. Now that I've had a chance to sort through it and check everything against my lists, this was probably my biggest eBay steal ever.

There were 44 total cards in the lot and 27 ended up being Jimmy Howard. Some of them are duplicates for me, but the ones that weren't made this more than worth the $9 cost.

We'll get things started with the best card of the lot, this NHL Game Gear dual jersey card from 2005-06 Upper Deck SP Game Used. I've had my eye on this card for years now, but never found a good enough deal to grab one. It is serial numbered 061/100 and looks awesome having two different color swatches. I love the gear design too.

Another rookie year card was this 2005-06 ICE Premieres serial numbered 360/999. This is the second one of these I have now. Even after just these two cards I would've been happy for the $9 I spent on the full lot. Everything after this is just icing on the cake.

Up next are several Upper Deck base cards, the first being this one from 2011-12. I love the low-angle shot on this card. I've seen quite a few cards with similar photos takes at Joe Louis Arena. Definitely miss that place, went to a lot of games there as a kid.

See what I mean about those low-angle shots from Joe Louis, here is another one on Howard's base card from 2014-15 Upper Deck. While this one is more of a close-up, I prefer the first one as it isolates Howard from the other players on the ice at the time.

Up next is another Upper Deck base card, this time from 2015-16. This one has a nice horizontal shot of Howard in what looks like Edmonton from the fans in the stands. Talk about perfect placement of the UD logo, its almost as if he is catching it with his glove.

Rounding out the Upper Deck base cards is this nice one from 2018-19. I really like the design of this set and it makes the card even nice that Howard is the only player visible in the shot. This is the same card that I got as a buyback 1-of-1 from the 30th anniversary set.

Going back in time a little bit we have this retro rainbow parallel from 2010-11 O-Pee-Chee. I picked one of these up years ago, but it is nice to have two copies. This one also has a nice look at one of Howard's early mask designs with the '67 Shelby Mustang.

Up next is another duplicate, from 2013-14 Score, but still one of my favorite Howard base card photos. One of these days it would be fun to see if I can determine whether or not this play was actually a goal or a save. I'm guessing save, but I might be a bit biased.

Speaking of awesome base card photos, this one from 2011-12 Pinnacle has always stood out to me when sorting through my stack of Howard cards. This is not an angle you see on many cards. What makes it even better is the lack of other players in the photo.

Moving onto another new card for me, this one is a base card from 2015-16 O-Pee-Chee. A lot of white on this one as Howard almost blends into the ice in the background. This one might have been a bit better if he were shown in the home jersey.

Another new base card for me is this one from 2014-15 MVP. I like the overall look of this set with the odd shaped cutout for the photo window. Another cool touch is the old school MVP logo in the background of the design at the bottom.

This next one has me feeling a little bit of deja vu. If you look closely at the photo, it is the exact same as the one on the 2011-12 Upper Deck card above. I think I even did a whole post on those two cards years ago about how they used the exact same image.

Another new one for me is this Stars of the Game card from 2012-13 Between the Pipes. I love the honeycomb design elements on this one, plus it also has a nice look at one of his mustang mask designs. I always thought those were really nice looking masks.

Up next is a nice base card from 2014-15 SP Authentic. I like the overall look of this set with the lines going every which way and how they use the team colors. SPA usually has a really clean look and this is a perfect example of that.

This next one has something you don't see on a card everyday, and that would be the camera mounted on top of Howard's mask. This shot on this one from 2012-13 Score was from the 2012 All-Star skills competition. Man that seems like forever ago now.

From the same set, we have Howard's season highlight card. This one features an in-game action shot. The only difference between this and the main  base card is the addition of the "Season Highlight" text just above the Western Conference text at the bottom.

Going back a bit we have one of Howard's early cards from 2007-08 Between the Pipes. After his debut in 2005, he spent most of his time with the Grand Rapids Griffins. This one also has a great look at his cool mask design with the octopi on either side.

Net cam shots on cards have always been cool and Panini took it one step further with their Net Cam sets a few years ago. This one is from 2012-13 Score and has a great look at Howard playing against the Canucks in Vancouver. Gotta love the ice on the lens. 

Here's a cool one with a great look at the Vezina trophy from 2012-13 Panini Contenders. Yes, Howard was actually in the conversation for this trophy back in the day.

Another awesome one was this ruby parallel from 2012-13 Black Diamond. This one is numbered out of 100 and looks great with the red and white of his uniform and equipment. The interesting thing about this one is the photo appears to be from this rookie season rather than the previous year. I wonder why they chose to do that.

Here is another one that is a duplicate for me, a gold parallel from 2011-12 Panini Contenders. This one is serial numbered 073/100 and will look great along side the other copy I picked up recently. Not bad for just being another part of the lot.

Then there was this awesome one from 2013-14 Panini Prizm. It is cards like these that make me miss the days of more than one card manufacturer. Panini put out some really cool designs back then and I would love to see more of their parallels in the hockey market.

Up next is the red parallel of the same card. I think this one looks even better as it works perfectly with the Red Wings colors. These will go nicely with the others I already have. 

Onto another sweet parallel, we have this Platinum Traxx from 2014-15 O-Pee-Chee Platinum. This is the first of these cards I've ever had and I have to say the pattern on them looks awesome. For whatever reason it actually decided to show up very nicely in the scan.

Last but not least, we have my favorite parallel of the lot, this Red Prism from 2014-15 O-Pee-Chee Platinum. This one also turned out surprisingly well in the scan, although it looks ten times better in person, as is the case with most every card that I scan.

These two bring me closer to completing the 2014-15 OPC Platinum rainbow. Now I just need the base, rainbow, blue cube and golden treasure versions. While I'm hopeful about finding the 1/1 someday, I understand realistically that will never happen and I should be happy with it once I find the other three missing cards. Below is my updated rainbow grid.

Well, that has to be the single longest Jimmy Howard related post I've made on here. Not a bad haul for a simple Red Wings team lot from eBay. This is one of the best deals I've gotten since I started collecting Howard stuff. I'm not sure I can beat this in today's card market, but I guess you never know. Sometimes you just get lucky, right?

Red Wings: eBay Pickups

I'm not one to usually buy many team lots from eBay, especially Red Wings stuff. I do still however regularly check eBay for Red Wings stuff in general and actually found a lot that I had to have for the right price. The reason I was interested in this lot: more stuff for my Jimmy Howard collection of course. Plus, some new Wings stuff is always nice too.

The title of the listing was simply "Detroit Red Wings Hockey Card Lot" but it also said "mostly Howard extra/duplicates" in the description and had this photo included.

As you can see there is quite a mix of stuff in there including a number of Howard cards. Those will be the focus of a separate post on here. This post is all about the miscellaneous Red Wings stuff I was able to snag for a great deal.

The winning bid for this entire lot: $0.99, not bad right? Even factoring in taxes and shipping I was able to bring this lot home for just $9 total. I'll take 44 cards like these for $9 all day every day, it works out to just $0.20 per card. On top of that there was one sticker and several Grand Rapids Griffins arena giveaway autographs also included.

Sticking with the standard cards that were part of the lot, the best of the bunch was this Ryan Sproul SPx autographed rookie jersey serial numbered out of 399.

Up next is another Ryan Sproul jsersey card, this time from 2014-15 UD Premier. This is a silver spectrum rookie jersey card numbered /125.

Apparently whoever put this lot together was a fan or Sproul as the next one is his Rookie Materials jersey card from 2014-15 Upper Deck. This one has a small red swatch that stands out nicely from the rest of the card. It is not serial numbered.

Rounding out the rest of this mini Sproul collection is another jersey, this time a white swatch from his 2014-15 SP Game Used card.

Moving on from the memorabilia cards, the lot also included an awesome UD Exclusives card or Frans Nielsen from 2017-18 Upper Deck. This one is serial numbered 058/100.

Up next is another Nielsen, this time a green parallel from 2017-18 MVP. While the printed facsimile signature, as opposed to the usual foil, doesn't look so great here, I like the overall look of this card with the green MVP logo and background elements.

Continuing with some more MVP, there was also this nice base card of Gustav Nqyuist from the 2016-17 set. MVP may not be one of the best sets out there, but for being one of the low end products, some of the base designs like this are actually pretty nice.

The next one takes us back a few years to 2008-09 with a Nicklas Lidstrom base card from Upper Deck Victory. Somewhere I have this card as part of a sealed blister pack team set I bought at a local mall shop years ago. Can't go wrong with too many Lidstrom's, right?

Last but not least we have a nice base card from 2013-14 Score featuring Jonas "The Monster" Gustavsson. I always liked him during his time with the Wings. He spent three seasons here alongside Jimmy Howard from 2012-2014.

Not bad considering these cost me just $0.20 each. The Wings will always be my hometown team so it is always nice to add cards to the collection, especially the older guys like Lidstrom that I grew up watching on TV. The new generation of players is nice to add here and there as well, but it just doesn't feel the same for whatever reason.

SCE Gold Script Update

While the Super Script counterparts to these cards have always been the priority, I am always on the lookout for these hard to find Gold Scripts. They are pretty difficult to come by these days so it isn't very often that I get a chance to post them on here.

In fact, I've only had one other update on this set so far this year and that was thanks to a fellow collector on Twitter. That same person (@OTB_Cards) was awesome enough to send a couple more of these my way a little while back to help chip away at my want list.

The first was card #162 featuring Roman Turek of the St. Louis Blues. This one is serial numbered 046/100 and has a nice look at one of Turek's awesome mask designs.

The second was card #116 featuring Ted Drury of the New York Islanders. This one is serial numbered 030/100 and I believe is the final piece to another complete rainbow for my set.

These two bring me to a total of 81 out of 220 for my Gold Script set. These are just about caught up with my 85 Super Scripts so that's cool. I wonder if these will take the lead at some point. You would think the less rare of the two would be easier to accumulate.

SCE Gold Script Total: 81/220

SCE Super Script Update

While 2020 has seen quite a few more additions than normal to my collection as a whole, my main set project has only seen two new pickups thus far. I am always searching eBay for deals on cards from this set and was lucky enough to finally grab another one recently.

Here is card #181 featuring Steve Kariya of the Vancouver Canucks. He is the younger brother of Paul Kariya. This one is serial numbered 09/25.

The best part about this pickup is it came as an absolute steal compared to another version I have been watching on eBay for months. That seller had this same card listed for $199 that last time I checked. I understand listing something high and then taking offers, but that seems crazy to me. I only paid $8 for my copy. Another instance of patience paying off.

This one brings me to 85 out of 220 for my set, or just under 39% of the way there. Kariya joins Cassels, Aucoin, Messier and Naslund for my almost complete Canucks team set. I'm only missing Brad May and Artem Chubarov now.

SCE Super Script Total: 85/220

Jimmy Howard: Trade Pickups

Well, this is the end of the road for an awesome trade with The Real DFG that spanned quite a few of my collection projects. If I had to pick a centerpiece of the trade for me it would've been the Jimmy Howard stuff I was able to bring home. These six new cards are a nice mix and help me knock of some more of the master want list.

Up first is my favorite photo of the group. This is card #314 from 2017-18 Upper Deck and has an awesome low-angle shot of Howard at The Air Canada Center in Toronto. I'm assuming this is a shot from warm-ups right before the game is about to start.

 

Up next is a card that features one of my favorite Jimmy Howard mask designs. This 2016-17 O-Pee-Chee Retro parallel has a great head-on look at Howard's awesome lion mask design. I believe he only wore this one for that one season, which is too bad because it was one of the coolest Red Wings masks I've ever seen.

Sticking with the retro theme, this one from 2014-15 O-Pee-Chee is quite a bit different from the one above. I love the contrast between the red of the uniform and the yellow and green design. One of my favorite features is how the cropping of the photo is offset inward just a bit so there is green all the way around.

Jumping forward in time a bit, this next one is a regular base card from 2017-18 O-Pee-Chee. Sometimes I forget that Howard wore the full red gear that season. It is definitely a different look for him as his gear usually had a good amount of white to it.

Switching gears again, we're back to 2013-14 with a base card from Panini Select. This is one shiny set and the scan does not show how nice this thing looks.

 

If I had to choose a second favorite photo, it would be the one on this 2013-14 Score Gold parallel showing Howard making a diving save against the Colorado Avalanche. This will go nicely with the base version I already have. Now I just need to find the Red, Red Back and Black version to complete the rainbow. That would look awesome when completed.

 

 

With these six additions, I am getting close to 200 unique cards in my Jimmy Howard collection. I'm not really sure if that's a huge accomplishment though as he's got over 1500 cards according to TCDB. I've got quite a ways to go if I want to really make a dent in that master checklist. Thanks again for the awesome trade DFG!