Tuesday, September 26, 2017

Try A Pack #9: 2017-18 OPC Hockey

To be honest, I don't remember buying any O-Pee-Chee for the 2016-17 season.  I decided to rectify that this year by grabbing the first packs I saw on the weekend during my Target run.

I wasn't disappointed at all.


The non short printed portion of the set is the usual 500 cards.  I like the design this year, it doesn't take too much away from the photo in my opinion.  The packs I bought were the rack pack 32 card variety, so plenty of base in each.


Cards 501-550 are the rookies, while cards 561-590 are team checklists, which I was very happy to see when I pulled them.


The other pack I bought contained the exact opposite of what I showed above, 2 rookies and one team checklist. 

Cards 551-560 are Season Highlight cards while #'s 591-600 are league leaders.   Good excuses to get more star players in the set (like Auston Matthews).


An old favorite, the retro parallels are back as well.  I only pulled one out of the two packs, but from what I'm reading the hobby boxes are netting about 32 of these. 


I missed the playing cards last year, so I'm looking forward to seeing these this year.  I've always loved players on the playing card idea, and I'd like to try and build this year's set.  There are 3 Maple Leafs in the playing card set; their young stars Matthews, Nylander and Marner.  I have a feeling this might be an expensive proposition.

I don't recall ever being disappointed by O-Pee-Chee; each year that I've bought a pack I've enjoyed the rip.  I've got a couple of modern OPC want lists on the blog now, and I have a feeling that I'm going to try and build more OPC sets before too long. 

Thanks for reading, Robert

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Inbound and Down #23: Night Owl Cards

We've been doing this a long time.  One of us sends an envelope, the other sends one back in kind.  There's no real trading between myself and the Night Owl, we just send each other envelopes with cards that are on the other's want list. 

This time I received cards from 4 different want set want lists...


Greg actually sent me more Series 1 Topps cards than this, but while this package was in transit I had already placed an order from Sportlots and knocked my want list down to 6.  So these 2 drop the needs to just 4.


I should be able to finish this years Heritage set sometime in 2022, based on the length of previous Heritage set completions. 


I still don't have 10% of the 1980 Topps set in hand, but these 5 cards surely provide a bit of room in the Night Owl's Dodgers duplicates box.  Sometime soon I'm going to try and find a starter set of these on ebay to get this set going.



I didn't bother to scan all the 1989 Upper Deck cards that Greg sent; there were 48 in total putting a nice dent into the want list.  I still need almost 600 more, a long way to go for sure, but it's been great seeing these come in. 

Check out the first scan.  I scanned these cards in numerical order, but the first scan wound up with 6 left handed pitchers on it.  Not intentional for sure, just a happy coincidence. 

The second scan also reminded me that Willie Upshaw wound up in Cleveland after being replaced at 1st base in Toronto by Fred McGriff.


5 out of 6 base cards from the Opening Day set, plus the Jays mascot Ace also found their way to this Jays fan.


Some other miscellaneous Jays needs came my way.  The two Allen & Ginter cards I need for my set build, so I'm going to put them in there.  I need the Bautista Bunt Blue parallel, and the Tulo Programs card from this year's Bunt also.  The Tony Fernandez card is an interesting one; it has a 1985 front, and the back is in the 1975 style. 

What a great envelope of cards, thank you very much Greg, they are very much appreciated!!

Thanks for reading, Robert

Saturday, September 23, 2017

Try A Pack #8: 2017-18 MVP Hockey

It appears as if Upper Deck has reduced the size of this years MVP set to 250.  I know in some of the years past it was 300 cards, and the cards #'d 201-300 were SPs, which didn't please a lot of collectors.

There's nothing worse for a budget conscious collector than a 1/3 of a set being short printed.  How does that help keep costs down? 

The cards # 201-250 are short printed this year, and I pulled one of them in my pack (John Tavares).


The base set is roughly the same, nothing flashy, just some standard shots of players in the midst of a game somewhere.  There usually isn't any multi-player shots in this set, which is fine for those looking for something simple.


What got me hooked on this release many years ago was the silver signature parallels.  In my rack pack I managed this silver signature card of Calle Jarnkrok.  This is typical of today's athlete, the 2 letter signature.  I actually passed right by this card the first time through the pack, that's how inconspicuous the card is. 

There's also the Gold Script (#'d to 100) and Super Script cards (#'d to 25), similar to past years.   There's also a Black super script parallel, #'d to 5 copies. The John Tavares SP black super script already has an auction on ebay if you want to check it out here.


I also pulled a puzzle back card, featuring Tanner Pearson on the front.  I like how Upper Deck slipped these in as an insert (they've actually been doing it for a few years now), the only difference that I'd like to see is that the photo on the puzzle back card could be different.  Tanner Pearson's card #82 in the base set has the exact same photo. 


That appears to be the left arm of Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon.  I always liked the idea of the puzzle back cards, but never had the desire to finish any of them.  Maybe I'll try one some day...


The player credentials access cards are a neat idea.  There's 4 levels of them, with level 4 being a case hit autograph.

I didn't pull any of the color and contour parallels unfortunately; I really would have liked to have had one of those to show on this post.

Not sure if I want to chase the set this year, as I've bought a couple of OPC packs already and am already hooked on those.  That post will be coming in the next few days...

Thanks for reading, Robert

Tuesday, September 19, 2017

Try A Pack #7: 2017 Donruss Optic

For me, this is a little steep at $9.49 for a 16 card pack.  It's the Donruss version of Topps Chrome, which goes for roughly the same price per card. 


The base is no different than the regular Donruss base set.   I got quite lucky here and pulled two of the Blue Jays (Tulo and Joey Bats) for my Jays collection.  Managed to pull some decent players in my pack, including Arenado and Corey Seager. 


The pack promises 4 purple parallels.  I fared quite well here as well, even though the Chris Sale in hand looks red instead of purple.  The base purple cards scanned quite well, showing off the purple a lot better than in hand. 


Some more base cards, including a couple of Diamond Kings, and a pair of Rated Rookies.  Can't say that I've heard of either Musgrove or Giolito, so I imagine that I should be following AL games a little bit closer.


The Springer is a Prizm parallel, or Holo as the TCDB calls it.  Aledmys Diaz's card is the only insert in the pack; part of the 15 card All Star set which includes some big names like Trout, Harper, Bryant and Machado. 

This is pretty much a jazzed up Chrome version of the base Donruss set.  To be honest, I prefer the base set, largely because of the price. 

Everything is up for trade aside from the Blue Jays cards.  Comment or email (rmitchell6700 @ yahoo) if something strikes your fancy.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Monday, September 18, 2017

1249: A mixed bag

Decided to hit Target on the weekend, largely because I hadn't bought myself any packs of cards in what seemed to be quite a while.  Part of the purchase was a couple of packs of Topps stickers, something I hadn't bought any of since I posted about starting the sticker set back in July.  No doubles!  I didn't bother scanning of them however, I just went ahead and put them right in the album.

I also bought a couple of packs of cards that I'm going to show off in a pair of "Try a Pack" posts over the next few days.  One hockey, one baseball.

I did buy one 3-pack of Allen & Ginter, hitting a couple of doubles (including the SP of Adam Wainwright), but knocking 9 cards off the 2017 needs list...


I also made a small purchase on Sportlots a week or so back, but had to wait until today to get them, as we had no mailbox last week due to the hurricane.  I spent my Saturday taking a sledge hammer to the old concrete post we had (it was hideous, so I was glad to do it believe me) and myself along with the missus put up a new mailbox.

The post office caught up today and brought a nice stack of Series 1 Topps for my troubles...


Here are the 6 horizontal cards out of the block.  It's almost not going to be a Kevin Pillar card unless it's showing him diving in some form.  Usually it's for an amazing catch in the outfield, this time it's trying to beat a tag at the plate.  The entire group that I bought leaves me needing just 6 cards to finish series 1.   These numbers are the last that I need...7,20,238,283,319,341.  Hopefully by the end of the week I'll have a want list up for series 2.

I also bought a couple of Andrew McCutchen cards for that PC, I'll show those off sometime this week on my player collection blog.

I spent $35 total between the Sportlots purchase and the packs from Target, leaving me with $1249 for this year's budget.

It's going to be tough to get 1/2 way through that budget this year.  

Thanks for reading, Robert


Sunday, September 17, 2017

Inbound and Down #22: Not Another Baseball Card Blog

I've been putting this post off for the better part of two weeks now, not sure why though.  Mike from the NABCB blog sent me a bunch of cards for the goalie frankenset a few weeks back, but instead of putting the post up right away, I wanted to get the remainder of the cards I had already for the frankenset posted before I started showing off what Mike was kind enough to send.

I actually did show a couple of cards recently, and I asked the blogosphere to vote on which card they wanted to see as part of the set.   It appears that the Andy Moog card won out, so the #9 spot belongs to Andy now.

Mike sent along about 35-40 cards that would fit in the set, so I decided to split them into a couple of posts.  The first one I decided to do in my old style, the 5-4-3-2-1 method to try and fit some of the cards together.

#'s 18 20 24 29 36

These 5 were part of the same set that the Patrick Roy card came from, the 2000-01 Prizm McDonald's release.  I've missed so many good releases from Canadian restaurants since I've moved to the US. 

#'s 215 228 282 392

All of these 4 are from the original Score hockey release, back in 90-91.  Again, can't go wrong with any design that has the Red Wings logo on it, as Glen Hanlon's mask shows.  Also the Don Beaupre mask with the Capital building on the forehead is a classic design as well.

#'s 262 343 465

The 1991-92 Upper Deck set was a great one in my opinion, with a lot of great photography.  The Kelly Hrudey card is the 2nd card that features the helmet/cage combo; his along with Dominik Hasek are the only 2 that I can remember where the goalies had designs painted on the helmet.  Norm Foster's card is #465 and chances are it may last quite a while in the set, as you won't see many cards numbered in the 400's (unless they are from OPC).

#'s 78 163

One of my favorite goalie's was Grant Fuhr, as he was very acrobatic and did whatever he could to stop a puck (as most goalie's do I suppose).  There was something different about him though, and I found it quite interesting that both of these cards featured him in a kneeling position.  I also don't have a lot of Pro Set cards so far, so the card on the right featuring him in his Edmonton colors is also most welcome. 

# 106

Although a bit dinged up, this Darren Puppa card features a good shot of his Sabres mask, with the Buffalo on his forehead and the two sabres on his chin.  The shot also looks as if Darren has lost his stick during play, and his eyes are quite intent on his target. 

I still have another group of cards to go through that Mike sent; I need to figure out how I'm going to incorporate them as well.  That's my next post...

Thank you Mike for the cards, they are appreciated!!

Thanks for reading, Robert


Wednesday, September 13, 2017

2017--a wild and crazy ride so far

It's funny what comes into my head for post ideas lately.  I probably overdid the hurricane angle, even though it was relevant to my train of thought for those few days. 

I'm sitting at the computer Monday evening reading Daniel's blog (catching up is more like it) and going over his annual collecting goals.  I sat and thought to myself how am I doing with my 2017 goals?  Well, I had to go back and look and I seem to be at a strong "D" grade.

1.  Set completion.  64 Topps?  check.  88-89 OPC hockey?  check.  73 Topps?  2 to go.  Stalling on that one.  Have 3.5 months to go so if I buckle down, I can get an A.

2.  Video posts.  Once a month.  Nope.  Did 2 of them and stopped.  My wife goes to her friends house once a month for a day and a half.  Need to train myself to complete videos when she goes away.  Grade:  F

3.  COMC.  Have the cards in place, but there's too many unknowns for me right now to submit them.  Grade:  Incomplete

4. Jays and Leafs collections.  Sorted and posted to spreadsheets.  Scratched the surface on the Jays, haven't touched the Leafs.  Probably will not finish by the end of the year.  Grade:  

5.  Contest, 100 cards/100 words.  Well now, something I've completed!!  Grade:  A

6.  2016 Allen & Ginter completion.  62 cards to go.  If I don't finish this one, I should absolutely be ashamed.  I'm going to give myself an A on this, because I'm going to finish the damn set.

7.  $2K. Well, I had every intention of spending this kind of money this year, but it's funny how life gets in the way.  Probably 60% of that will be what's spent by year's end.  Not going to grade this one, just because.


Even among the chaos that has been my 2017 so far, I've started a couple of hockey projects, the serial numbered hockey set and the goalie mask frankenset.  In my mind, I've wanted to get back to hockey a bit more this year, and these two sets have me more involved with posting over the past couple of weeks.

I've also kept up with my other blog, the Player PC's blog has averaged better than a post a day again this year.   It has been easy for the most part, only typing 3 lines for each card, but what the blog has done for me is keeping focused on updating and picking up more cards for my PCs.

One card rule:


One day, I'm going to get around to doing my all time Blue Jays 40 man roster.   You can be sure that this guy will be on it.

Posting one card like this also reminds me to check the Trading Card Database to see if the card has been scanned onto the site (this one already was).  I am a big believer in what the site is doing, and will keep trying to help out in any way I can to add cards.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Monday, September 11, 2017

Aftermath

For the second year in a row, my better half and I have felt fortunate to escape the wrath of a hurricane that just devastated other parts of Florida.

This time, Irma got a good shot in on the Naples (southwest corner of the state) area, missing us by about 80 miles (roughly).  We spent the entire weekend in the house, shuttered up from the world.  I didn't even venture out of the house until about 4PM yesterday afternoon, to the protests of my wife. 

We were much better prepared for this hurricane, but still weren't 100% ready.  No spare gas as I couldn't find a 5 gallon container anywhere in my area (that will be handled shortly) and we still don't have the spare money for a generator.   That's something we will look to purchase in the near future. 

I do want to thank all the well wishers out there who followed my insanity over the past few days.  Your thoughts and words were very much appreciated.

Now, back to cards.

I've finally updated the goalie frankenset page with all the cards that I posted on the weekend.   But I still have the stack that Mike from NABCB sent me.  I went through it more thoroughly today, and found that he actually sent two cards that have the same card number.   So, I'm going to leave it up to everyone to vote on which card goes in the set.

Both of these cards are #9, so you tell me.  Andy Moog or Patrick Roy?


Both of them have pretty good mask shots, but I don't want to play favorites.  So you decide.

Just leave a comment with the goalie's name you want in the set.   It's that simple. 

Your help is appreciated, Robert

Sunday, September 10, 2017

Irmageddon, part 3--the day of reckoning

I'm writing this post on Saturday morning while we still have power.  As of right now the projected path of the hurricane is taking the eye of the storm over the west coast of Florida (I'm on the east coast).  We shall see how it goes today, I'll provide updates when I can on twitter.

But for now, I'm going to clean up the goalie cards that I have left in the collection today.

#'s 116 132 & 148

Decided to make one scan of just horizontal cards; it turns out that two of the three just happen to be of Tom Barrasso.  Both feature pretty good shots of his mask, and two different masks no less!   Have another shot of Steve Shields' Sharks mask, a classic.

#'s 120 129 134 146 160 165

There's Fleury's yellow equipment again.  I'd love to have a card that features him in his Winter Classic mask paying tribute to the Steelers.  Stephane Fiset's igloo mask was always a favorite for me.  Guy Hebert's Ducks mask with the duck wings on the side is always a good one to have in any goalie set as well.

#'s 166 171 174 177 180 182 198 199 & 218


In the upper left corner, you have a mask featuring the Michigan Wolverines on Shawn Hunwick.  It will be very hard for me to replace that one, along with the Norm Maracle Atlanta Thrashers mask in the center.  Some other classics on this page as well, with Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur and one of the many masks of Carey Price. 

That's it for the cards that I owned so far.  I still have another post or two of the cards that were sent to me from Mike at the NABCB blog; I'm hoping to have those done before too long.

Here we go!!

Thanks for reading, Robert

Saturday, September 9, 2017

Irmageddon, part 2

By the time this appears on the blog, the steady rain will have begun.  The forecast is anywhere from 8 to 15 inches of rain by the time this is all over, nothing near what Harvey dumped on South Texas.  But with all the canals and inlets that surround where I live, that amount of rainfall will cause some flooding for sure.

Enough of that, you're here to see the cards!!  18 more for you on this post, 3 groups of 6 goalie cards....

#'s 56,57,58,62,66 & 70

Dominic Roussel's card will likely be replaced eventually, but I thought it was interesting to put in the set to start because it looks as if his midsection is coming apart at the seams.  The Kirk McLean card may be the only one from 90-91 Bowman that remains in the set.   Ben Scrivens' card doesn't give a great shot of his mask, but it's a good place holder for now at #70

#'s 71 74 78 88 94 & 98

Great shot of Mike Vernon's San Jose Sharks mask, and even though I will always despise the Red Wings, you can't beat a good mask with the Wings logo, just ask Jimmy Howard.  I think the OPC retro cards look cool, but that could be a card that's replaced over time as well.

#'s 100 101 102 107 109 & 114

I barely remembered Darrin Madeley, but that's a pretty cool mask from the early days of the Senators.  Eric Fichaud's mask of the Gorton's Fisherman from the mid 90's is a keeper as well, as you will not see any of those any time soon.  Mike Dunham's card is also a solid one with the puck hitting his midsection, great shot! 

Knocked off 30 goalie cards in 2 days!  Another big group tomorrow on the day of reckoning....

Stay safe, Robert

Friday, September 8, 2017

Irmageddon, part 1

Landfall is imminent now, so I'm just going to rifle off three quick posts for the weekend and then batten down the hatches.

Just have the front shutters to close and lock up, move the BBQ into the garage, and that's it.  36 hours of insanity will begin sometime tomorrow.

I'm going to post most of the rest of the goalie cards I have for my frankenset so far during this weekend hurricane, and then we'll see how things are once Monday rolls around.

#'s 2 8 11 13 16 & 33

Love the Linus Ullmark card, it reminds me of Patrick Lalime's tribute to Marvin the Martian.   I've always been a big fan of the Artifacts release from Upper Deck, and I'm hoping that I can find a few more goalies to put in from them.


#'s  39 42 47 50 52 & 53

Marc Andre Fleury's yellow equipment and the Beezer's Panther mask are the two highlights from this six pack of cards.

Speaking of six packs, the wife and I may be drinking one or two of those this weekend.

Stay safe, Robert


Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Just a few random Blue Jay cards out of the box

Trying to break up the posts as I'm feeling that I've made the blog a little too hockey focused lately.  As I mentioned, with nothing new coming in lately (or in the near future), I've had to rely on what I have in hand to get some posts out to the blogosphere.

With a couple of boxes of Jays cards on the desk to my left, I decided to go through the unsorted box to see if there were a few cards that struck my fancy.   I did find a few and I'll add just a few random thoughts with each.


This card is phenomenal.  One of the best Blue Jays cards that I own.  Someday I'll have to figure out how to enlarge cards like this and hang them on my wall.  I have so much room, it's like a blank canvas to be used for cards such as this...


There's a bit of hope for my collection as I found these two cards together in the box.  I know that's not going to be true for the several thousand other cards, but it was good to find a pair of framed parallels back to back.

I only wish that the Jays had picked up Reyes earlier in his career...



This is probably the one Blue Jay that I own the most cards of.  I only wonder what would have happened had he played his entire career in Toronto.  A couple of extra years playing DH could have got him to 500 HRs.


Same photo, 2 different products. 

Gotta be tough having a nickname such as Sanchize.  Hopefully next year he can remain healthy and lead the rotation again.  Hard to believe after leading the AL in ERA and HR/9 that he could only gain a contract in the $535K range. 



One of these days, I'm going to collect all the cards I have of players that are like Alomar's above.  I might be able to put together a makeshift deck of cards from Blue Jays and other PC type cards.  Check out the reflection of the SkyDome in Alomar's glasses by the way, makes for a great photo.




Great idea for a baseball set, piggybacking off the success of 90-91 OPC Premier hockey.  Only problem, OPC made the set too Toronto/Montreal focused in my opinion.  1992 Premier was much the same, and they gave up on the concept after that. 

With Irma on the way, I may have time to actually sort some of these this weekend...God willing.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

A little obsessed

I normally get home from work between 615-630 in the evening, depending on traffic.  With all the preparations going on down here in S. Florida over hurricane Irma, I decided to turn on the evening news.  CBS and NBC both led off with storm coverage, and it's been interesting to watch what all the different forecasters are predicting for the storm's path.

I've also been obsessed with posting the goalie cards lately, largely because $$ has been tight because of bills and of course, buying supplies for the storm.  No buying means you have to get creative with what you post, and starting to put together this goalie set has helped with that.

So in the meantime, with Irma reaching category 5 status this morning, here's 5 more cards for the goalie frankenset.


It's a little hard to see on the 98-99 Upper Deck card, but Byron Dafoe's mask has his nickname "Lord Byron" on his chin, and the Bruins logo with a growling bear on the side.  There's a rare sighting of a Curtis Joseph mask in the center that doesn't contain his trademark CuJo design.  Bill Ranford's design was never a big thrill for me, so if I ever find a #226 card featuring a goalie, chances are this card may be replaced.  These 3 cards are # 221,222 and 226.


I picked up the Mike McKenna card last month at the card show, largely because it was a gold medallion card from Fleer Ultra.  I believe that the mask he's wearing is from his time with the Norfolk Admirals of the AHL. 
The other card is easily my favorite card of the post (and yes, it's miscut) featuring Robb Stauber with the playing card King on his forehead.  Of course I'd like to find a more centered card of Stauber, but it'll be tough for me to part with it because of my love for playing cards.  These 2 cards are #234 & #248.

There's 5 more cards off of the list.  I'm going to try and get some more posts in by the end of the week, and then we'll see where nature takes us....

thanks for reading, Robert

Monday, September 4, 2017

An education that isn't taught in schools.

I'm hoping to pump out a few short posts this week.   My mind is a bit preoccupied right now, what with the forecasts that Hurricane Irma is going to make landfall potentially in South Florida late this week.

I was fortunate last year, because the only hurricane that came close, Matthew, hit landfall about 50 miles north of where I live, and my wife and I were only hit with 30 MPH winds and very little rainfall.

This time around, I'm more prepared, and have pretty much everything that we need, save for a generator for when the power goes out.  The lesson I learned this year is that you have to be ahead of the crowd, and buy your supplies well in advance.  If you don't, you'll be left scrambling and that really sucked last year when I went through hurricane prep for the first time.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to try and write a few posts this week to keep my mind distracted.  I'm going to keep the goalie set frankenset going by showing 4 more cards today.



The one card that I was kind of excited to have in the set was Louis Domingue, lower left hand corner, as he's had a decent run as the backup in Arizona.  Yes, the numbers aren't great, but he's stood tall and made some highlight reel saves over the past couple of years while backing up Mike Smith.

Best card for me of the 4 is the nice close shot of Jon Casey, from the 90-91 OPC set.  I miss the old North Stars logo, and his mask was simple yet effective.  Grant Fuhr had some good masks over the years, and Felix Potvin's cat mask will probably make the set a time or two.

Cards #253,262,264 and 269 have been added.  Hopefully I can get a few more of these quick posts on the blog this week.

thanks for reading, Robert

Friday, September 1, 2017

Eddie the Eagle and a dozen others

Back onto the mask theme that has driven a few posts out of me lately.  I've found quite a few Ed Belfour cards for the frankenset so far; no surprise as Belfour's mask is a timeless classic, and as I mentioned recently comes in more than one color.


Eddie started his career in Chicago, and boy did I hate seeing that red eagle play against the Leafs.  But there's no denying how good the mask looks, especially in the 91-92 Upper Deck team checklist art card.  The only one of the 4 cards that doesn't give a great shot of the eagle is the 98-99 Black Diamond in the lower right.  That card also represents a color of the mask I really don't remember him wearing, gold.  That might be the one that be replaced over time. 

These 4 are all low numbers, 19,26,31 & 81. 


Can't go wrong with red and orange, the color of fire, especially on a mask.   I love Fred Brathwaite's mask, with the C in flames on the forehead, and paying homage to the original location in Atlanta with the old flaming 'A' on his chin.  Trevor Kidd always had cool designs on his mask, and although it is hard to see on his 97-98 Upper Deck card, the fire breathing dragons are no different.  JS Giguere and Tyler Moss round out the quartet of Flames cards that are part of the set so far.

Cross off #'s 23-30-108 & 156


Best shot of these 4?  Easily the Johan Hedberg on the lower right.  Great photo of Johan about to get hit in the mask with the puck; as long as it doesn't hit his trademark moose that is on the right hand side then all is good.  The Andy Moog OPC card from 90-91 might feature the most boring mask that he sported as a Bruin.   Some of his later designs were fantastic, especially the one with the growling bear.  I hope to have one of those in this collection later on.   Fredrik Andersen's "blue knight" and Nikolai Khabibulin's "Bulin Wall" mask also grace this group of 4.

#'s 289-291-294 & 296 can be taken off the list.


Some early 90's love here with Allan Bester's card from Pro Set, Ron Tugnutt's 91-92 Upper Deck card (one of my favorite masks of his) and Bob Essensa from 92-93 Pro Set Platinum.  Finally, Steve Shields who I featured the other day in his Gerry Cheevers mask, is shown here in his San Jose Sharks mask which looks as if the shark is going to bite the cage off.  A couple of these could get replaced over time, we shall see....

These 4 knock off cards 275-277-278 & 285.

Seeing these masks made me think of some other mask cards I'd love to have.  San Jose's Brian Hayward comes to mind, I also mentioned Andy Moog's Bruin mask.  There are some older cards that come to mind, goalies such as Ken Dryden (bulls eye), Mike Palmateer (jagged tooth) and Murray Bannerman (Blackhawk logo) are three that come to mind right away.

There's still lots of time to find those.

Thanks for reading, Robert