Sunday, January 29, 2012

Ryan Walter TTM Success


Another topps success! This one came with a note about Mr. Walters new book and a link to the site. I figure since he signed my card, I should at least promote his book. I checked out the site and the book looks pretty interesting. I wonder if my library will be getting it!


Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Hockey Card Trading Group: Anyone Interested?

I'm looking for members to join a trading group. The idea is simple each month everyone will complete one trade. I will select who trades with who each month. You can pick a theme each month, say you want all Leafs cards and the person your trading with wants all Habs stuff. You then agree that you will send 30 cards each. You would then make the trade via mail.

Anyone interested in joining must be a blog member and post on a regular basis. To join, simply comment on this post.

For the first month, everyone will be guaranteed a trade by me. Please let me know what your theme is for the month and I will send out a package to you!

TTM Autograph Mail Day: Doug Lidster


Not the prettiest signature in the world, but I'm not complaining! Another 90-91 Topps to cross off my list.

I have been working on this Topps set for around four years now and I have approximately 35% of the 396 card set done. Luckily I got most of the easy guys done early, although now I'm stuck with the tougher cards. I have no idea how I will get guys like Gretzky, Roy, Lemieux, Bourque. For those I'm sure I will have to pay a considerable amount. Maybe I'll get lucky and somehow manage to get them for free. Not likely.

It would be nice to get to 50% for this set by the end if the year.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Moneyball Film Review


For a movie that is pretty straight forward and should be based around a true story, I found some things to be completely off. While I did enjoy the film at the time of viewing, I pretty much ruined it for myself by doing some research after the film.

In the movie some of the key players are Carlos Pena, Jeremy Giambi, Chad Bradford and Scott Hatteberg. Some of the biggest discrepancies in the movie are based around Pena and Bradford. The movie revolves around the 2002 season.


A key storyline in the movie revolves around submarine throwing, Chad Bradford. In the off season the A's are going after the service for Bradford, who apparently has not had a real shot at the majors. Too bad in real life, Bradford was already on the A's and pitched pretty well for them appearing in over 30 games.

Another side story line in the movie revolves around how Beane wants Art Howe the A's Manager, to play Hatteberg at first base, while Howe keeps playing so called superstar rookie Carlos Pena. But wait, is this the same Carlos Pena who at the time of the trade was batting just .218 and played a big chunk of the season in the minors? I think so.

I'm starting to get angry, so I won't even get into the real players. The biggest issue that really bothered me was that no where in the movie do they mention that the A's had an incredible pitching rotation. The only time you see any of the pitchers in the movie is when the A's are about to win there 20th game in a row and Tim Hudson is seen getting lit up when the Royals start making a comeback against the A's.

While these parts of the movie really bothered me, I really did like that a major storyline revolved around the A's setting there major league record of 20 wins in a row. I vaguely recall this happening at the time and it was neat to see them use this storyline to reach the climax of the movie.


My actual favourite part of the movie though was how they showcased the rise and fall of Billy Beane as a top playing prospect in the 80's. The flashbacks of Beane's playing career throughout the movie were very short, although they really highlighted the highs and lows of finding your way as a pro athlete. Beane was offered a nice amount of money to enter pro ball and turned down a full baseball scholarship to a prestigious school. Later in the movie, Beane was shown being offered a large contract to join the Boston Red Sox. He turns this down after learning from his past mistake over making a decision based on money. At one point in the movie Beane talks about (and expresses disappointment) only having a High School education. For any aspiring ball player, I think this movie can be a great influence.

Moneyball is quite long (about two hours) and while the movie is not entirely accurate, it is a must for any true baseball fan.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Terrific Montoya Mail Day


Starting off with some of the smaller Montoya pick ups and then I'll move on to the big boys! I picked up two major cornerstones for the PC.


This is the last ITG auto that I needed of Montoya and it's only the second one that I've seen pop up. I like the yellow design on the left.

Time for the two major pick ups:


10-11 ITG BTP He Shoots He Scores redemption! I thought I would never see this card as it's only numbered to 20, most likely not all got redeemed and I would imagine most people would keep the card in there PC if they did redeem it.


If you look in the bottom right corner, the card is hand numbered 9 of 20. This is the only copy I have seen on eBay and I imagine that the other 8 are already in PC's.



This is another card I thought I would never see. It's numbered to just /10 copies and features a piece of game used jersey, emblem, number and tie down from a Hartford Wolf Pack jersey. Another amazing card from ITG!

Todd Elik TTM Mail Day


After a lengthy pro hockey career playing for plenty of teams, I tracked Elik down to working Real Estate. He has been out of pro hockey for just two years now after a career that spanned over 23 season! Incredible.


I'm the most happy about landing this Topps card for 90-91 Topps set that I am slowly working on still.

A very happy mail day indeed!

Bob Froese TTM Mail Day


I pulled this card as a kid from one of those mixed clam shell card packs of 100 assorted hockey cards. These packs mainly featured a mixture of mass produced early 90's product. When I pulled this card I always thought it was worth a lot of money considering it's age.

This card has been sitting around and I thought it would look a lot better autographed, so I tracked down an address for Froese and got this card back pretty quick!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

2003-04 Pacific Exhibit Box Break


I have really wanted to bust a box of this product for a long time and I really like the one per box time warp card featuring an autograph of an NHL legend with a game used piece for an at the time, present NHL'er. My mom gave me this box for Christmas.


I pulled a few inserts. All of them are pretty simple but I really enjoy the basic look of them. If anyone has any inserts from these sets, maybe we can work out a trade.



I hit three regular sized blue backs: Tommy Salo, Brad Richards and Mike Fisher, all numbered to /275.



I also scored two more blue backs, these are the jumbo sized ones: Jaromir Jagr and Martin Biron, both numbered out of 425.



On top of the time warp card, you get one game used, I pulled an Osgood and I'm very happy with it. This card is a larger size then a regular card.



I was really hoping for the Johnny Bower/Mario Lemieux card, however I'm pretty happy with landing a Glenn Hall autograph. This card will most definitely be kept in the PC for a long time to come.

I also hit 97/150 regular base cards for 65% of the set. If anyone can help me out with the rest, please let me know!

2001-02 Pacific Vanguard Box Break


I got this box as a Christmas gift and as you can see by the box, you get two guaranteed game used cards per box. I was really hoping for the the dual Turek/Brathwaite patch.


I pulled a base parallel of Heatley numbered to /89. A nice looking card! I hit this near the start of the box.


I pulled this Naslund premiere date /83 in one of the last packs of the box. I also pulled a Jiri Dopita rookie card numbered to /404. Other inserts I hit were a Brendan Shannahan Quebec Tournament Heroes, Dominik Hasek V-Team and Daniel Sedin Prime Prospects. It's been a few weeks since I busted the box so I forgot I pulled these and did not scan them.



When I saw the Turek I got excited, turned the card around and saw that it was with Marc Savard. Oh well, I still had fun busting the box and the base set looks really nice.

Amazing Ultimate Pick Up!



This years ITG Ultimate had some amazing cards and I managed to pick up my most coveted card in the set. This card was a MUST for my McLean collection. His save in the '94 cup finals is what made me like Kirk McLean. As a kid I thought this was an amazing final and I'm happy to own a large piece of it.

What makes it even sweeter is that I got this card for a MAJOR steal. Another auction where the seller charged sales tax. I tell you, the best way to not get the best money for your cards on ebay is to charge sales tax, not many people want to pay extra on top of the final price. Even with the sales tax on this card, I still got a major discount form the normal selling price.


I also added this nice McLean autograph. It took me a while to add this card as I'm not overly enthusiastic on adding a plain McLean autograph considering I already have one. Set builders, team and player collectors must have already gotten there copies because I got mine for pretty cheap!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Large Mailday With Some Gems!

Still getting caught up on mail for this last little while. I still have Christmas box breaks to post as well!

Starting off with a nice little lot of Scoring Kings for my set:






I always wanted to start working on this set and to this point I just owned Kirk McLean, got these for a steal at a little over $2 each including shipping for a seller liquidating a large amount of game used cards on sportscard website:





Next up some Irbe stuff, the quad game used was part of deal I got for the liquidated game used and the All-Star card was part of a trade. It was nice to not have to overpay for some nice Irbe PC pieces:



Next up some random goalie stuff for the goalie PC:





I love picking up journeymen goalie cards and I'm happy to add guys like Wade Flaherty and Maxime Ouellet to my pc!

I am saving one really amazing addition to my Kirk McLean PC to post at another time. My best pickup of the year by far! Coming soon..

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Secret Santa Exchange

I am back after a very lengthy absence due to a very busy holiday season. There is a lot to catch up on and I'll get started with the best Secret Santa package I have ever received! This was set up on another site and requirements were to send your secret Santa: five through the mail/in-person  autographed cards and ten other cards of your choice. Everyone stated what they liked and the person who got me did really well!


I'll start off with the five autographs. I asked for goalie stuff and I got pretty much all goalie cards. The autographs are not what makes the secret Santa, but they are still pretty decent. I got three current NHL goalies in Hedberg, Hiller and Ellis. I don't have a Toivonen IP/TTM autograph and I'm a sucker for the early 90's classic cards so these two cards were easily my favourite.

Now onto the inserts:


I always loved these metal cards and I'm happy to get one of the second best goalie of all-time.


I was really happy to see a Brodeur game used card in the lot. It's the first game used of him I have and it goes straight into the PC!


I LOVE glove cut cards from the 90's. I only have a few from this set, so getting this Hebert is a big help.


These score artist proofs are tough to find and it's nice to get one of a future hall of famer in Osgood, even if it's a weak photo of him drinking water.


What a GREAT card of the best goalie of all time and one of the most iconic masks in the game, not to mention it's coming from a really nice mid 90's insert from UD.


Another awesome Roy card! I didn't have this one and would have had to pay $5-$10 on the open market for this card. I miss seeing those old Koho goalie pads.


This is the final lot of the cards I got, except for the gem of the lot that I will show a scan of at the end. The Boucher is a double, so it's available for trade. I never understood those stadium club goalie cam cards, they always looked funny on the side like the card wasn't glued together properly. The Tugnutt was loose and I realised it opened up to see this great shot inside:


A pretty cool card, I tried to get the Dafoe open but it was glued shut and I didn't want to damage the card just to get it open.

The best for last, I have ALWAYS wanted one of these cards and it's nice that it's of a goalie I really liked as a kid:



Ed Belfour UD SP game film from 1996-97! These cards are really awesome and it's one of my favourite pick ups of the year, most likely a top five pick up!


That's my secret Santa for this year. I hope next year is just as good! Hopefully I can find more of the game film cards in 2012.