I hear you Fuji, I hear you

This past Thursday one of my favorite bloggers, Mark (aka Fuji) from the Chronicles of Fuji blog wrote about the bane of his blogging existence.  Turns out the bane of scanning cards was not unique to Fuji if you read the comments on that post.

Scanning is a necessary evil in the card blogging world.  For some bloggers, it paints a picture of what's to come in the post, much like brushstrokes on an artist's canvas.

For me, especially over the past 18 months, scanning is just showing off.  But it's still a necessary evil.  Especially for this kind of post, which I don't get to do very often.  

Showing off complete sets is something that I pride myself on doing.  But I only will show those that end up in binders; not the more recent sets that end up in 300-800 count boxes depending on their size.

Complete set #3 in 2019 is a set that I've wanted to finish for quite a while now, but again, cheapness kind of stood in the way.  Similar to a lot of sets I've put together, I'll find that one card that I remain stubborn about how much I'll pay for it (see my Saturday's post about Lee Tunnell). 

The 83-84 OPC hockey set I just completed on the weekend had it's own stubborn card.

Tony Esposito, card #99.

The Ron Francis and Wayne Gretzky cards were bought on COMC for just under $5 combined.  Again, I got stubborn, and refused to pay $4 for the Esposito card, which I knew wasn't worth near that much.

So, I hunted around on Sportlots, and wound up buying it from one of my favorite sellers for $1.50.  This is the same seller that offers free shipping if you buy 100+ cards, so I turned it into a big order and knocked a bunch of cards off of various want lists, including '79 Topps which you'll see tomorrow on the blog.

Without further adieu, I present all 396 cards of the '83-84 OPC set. 

I believe the 83-84 OPC set was the only one to start the set by using the 2 teams that appeared in the previous year's Stanley Cup final, and then moving on to the remainder of the teams in alphabetical order.  Each team's players were also listed in alphabetical order by last name, which made it easy for me to determine who I was missing.

As you'll see as we go along, a lot of players were airbrushed into new uniforms as they were traded or signed as a free agent, but OPC still didn't move them out of the place they were originally slated to be in the set.

One of the poorest attempts ever at airbrushing was the artist trying to do Ron Duguay's card.  Yikes.

I also love that each team was started off with the scoring leaders card, and then a highlight card right after that.  That also made things a bit easier when it came to figuring out what was missing from time to time.

6 Gretzky cards of the Award Winner/Record Breaker variety can put a bit of a dent into the wallet unless you shop around.  My final Gretzky card cost me just $1 which is a steal in my book.

One of most famous masks for not having any kind of paint job was Pelle Lindbergh.  It's too bad he died so young, it would have been interesting to see if he ever changed the mask or added any paint to it as time went on.

I've mentioned this on the blog a few times before, but if you want a chuckle, have a listen to Randy Moller's goal calls as the radio man for the Florida Panthers.  Or, if you'd rather see how tough Randy was as a player, watch him go after Chris Nilan in the Good Friday massacre in the playoffs against Montreal.   Forehead covered in blood?  He didn't care, he wanted Nilan and it was one of the most entertaining parts of that 15 minute video.

I used to own the gold version of the Canucks "V" jersey.  I loved it then, and I'd love to have another one to wear now.  I'd get the black version this time around. 
There aren't too many goalies as well who had better designs on their mask than John Garrett did.  Do a Google search of John Garrett masks for further proof.

The Scott Stevens RC was one of the last 10 cards I needed to finish the set, and thanks to Dave who runs the Wax Stain Rookie blog, I was able to get it at a good price.

There you have it, 44 pages worth of scans for those who enjoy looking at a boatload of cards in one sitting.   Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing about it.

Thanks for reading!!

Robert