Inbound & Down: The collector

A few weeks back I received an email from Chris at the blog The Collector letting me know he had a few cards that were on my want lists.  I sent him a few vintage baseball and hockey cards, and in return I received a super envelope full of cards that hit all kinds of needs.

John Ogrodnick's Detroit Red Wings team leaders card from the 1983-84 OPC set was the sole card from the set, but it reminded me just how much I miss cards such as this.  Companies are so focused on inserts/parallels today that they forget what really worked back in the old days.  Hey Upper Deck, instead of pumping out the same short printed cards of veterans each year in your OPC set, how about team leaders and league leader cards?  Would be fine by me....

A handful of 84-85 OPC cards also came my way, and seeing them reminds me just how big a mistake it was to see my completed set in the past.  It was a different time for me then, and I did need the $$ that it brought, but in hindsight I'm sure I could have found a way out of my difficulties without getting rid of one of the best 1980's hockey sets. 

A Hurricane sighting!!  Eric Staal's Hot Commodities card in the upper right corner finally breaks the ice (bad pun) for Carolina in the SNIH set, as all 30 teams are now represented.  The old and the new titanium cards are also welcome additions, as I have never really bought any of that product over the years.  However, the next scan is indicative of the cards I really like for the SNIH set...

Serial #'s and die cuts = another weakness for me

I love the die cut cards!  Pacific did come up with some good gimmick cards back in the day, especially the Titanium all-star card of Fedorov on the left.  I hope that Doug Weight knows what he's got himself into as coach of the Islanders, because in my opinion they made a mistake in the off-season not resigning their free agents.  To me it destroyed a bit of the chemistry they had, and now they're paying the price as they're going to have to come from the back of the pack to make the playoffs again this year. 

This is the smaller half of the envelope, as tomorrow I'll show off the stack of Blue Jays cards that came in the envelope.  A healthy stack...

Thank you the cards Chris, they really are appreciated!!  Hopefully we'll see some posts from you soon.

Thanks for reading, Robert