Now that it's finally here...

It appears that I wasn't alone in waiting (im)patiently for a COMC order to arrive.  After 5 days in purgatory, my order popped up at my post office today, and wound up in my mailbox late this afternoon. 

This was my biggest COMC order to date, 125 cards in total.  I'll show off just 9 of them today, for a good reason.  These 9 finished off two sets.

1976-77 O-Pee-Chee hockey is now complete with these 4 cards in hand.  I knew that the checklist card in the upper right hand corner had some centering issues, but it almost looks like it missed the cutter altogether.  The back is centered about the same.  No matter, it's unmarked, and it's in hand.

1989 Upper Deck is also done now that these 4 are in hand.  Vizquel RC, Ryan throwing the football, Finley RC, and the correct version of the Gallego card were 4 of the 5 that I needed, with the 5th being...

Number one.  Never had I owned this card until now.  It's not perfect, there's a minor ding on one of the corners on the back, but if memory serves me I only paid $15 for this, so I'm a happy camper and can cross another set off of the multitude that I have in progress. 

Still quite a few cards to go through in this monster package including Prizms, vintage baseball, 1 card for last year's Prestige football set, all kinds of cheap OPC hockey SPs, and some player collection adds.

I'll try and figure it out and get some posts done.

One teaser, the 125 COMC card box wasn't the largest package I received this week.  More on that in a few days as well.

Thanks for reading!

Robert

And then there were 5

With so many sets that I have want lists for, it's easy to forget at what point I'm at as far as a specific set is concerned.

When I received my COMC order a few days ago, and pulled these 4 cards out of the box, it hit me like a ton of bricks that I'm actually just 5 cards short of finishing the 76-77 OPC set.   This is one of the first sets I collected as a kid, and over 40 years later finally finishing this up is going to be a big source of pride.

My patience (read cheapness) finally led to getting these cards at a lower price.  The Canadiens team leaders card was just over $2, and the Bernie Parent was at $4.  Much, much better than I had seen over the past few months. 

I miss the days where forward lines spent more than a few weeks together.  The LCB line was a big force during the mid to late 70's, and finding this card for just under $2 was a big score for me. 

Finally, getting this card for less than $10 was a huge win.

I was pretty much resigned to having to pay $20 or more for this card, as I hadn't found any copies that were decent for less than that.   Then one Saturday morning, I hopped on the site, and saw this up for sale for $9.  Had to look at it twice to make sure that it was in as good condition as I hoped.  Then I get it out of the sleeve, and it was in even better shape than I thought.

An absolute steal for that price.  I'll smile each time I look at the set.

Now, I'm down to 5 cards to finish this off.   Ken Dryden, Lanny McDonald, Tiger Williams, and 2 checklists.  I know I'll get the McDonald for around $4-$5.

What the other 4 will cost, who knows?   Probably won't be cheap though...

Thanks for reading!!

Robert

The push to complete sets is now on

We're already halfway through 2019, and I've had a pretty good year trade wise.  I'm over 70 completed trades so far, so the goal of 100 trades by the end of the year should not be a problem.

My goal of 5 complete sets will easily be knocked out as well, as I'm very close on a few of them.  But I decided to write a countdown post largely for my own benefit (I know that there are many out there who don't care for these types of posts).  I'm hoping that putting something in print will help me get my thoughts together on how to progress for the remainder of the year on my set building journey.

Here goes:

1.  1995-96 Collectors Choice Players Club Hockey

Cards remaining:  3
Confidence level:  Very high

Comments:   It's been a quarter of a century, time to put this to bed.  If I don't finish this by the end of the year, it's time to turn in my collecting badge and move on to basket weaving.

2.  1976-77 OPC hockey

Cards remaining:  9
Confidence level:  Medium High

Comments:  A common theme through out this post will be my cheapness.  I gave up hunting a few months ago for cheap copies of Ken Dryden, Bobby Orr and Tiger Williams, so sometime in the near future I'm going to have to bite the bullet and get this beauty of a set completed.

3.  1989 Upper Deck baseball

Cards remaining:  18
Confidence level:  Medium High

Comments:   A recent trade on the TCDB put a major dent in this set, dropping my want list from just over 100 cards to 18.  Mostly the big name RCs are left; Griffey Jr., Smoltz, Biggio and Johnson.  Again, just have to dig in and start adding them.

4.  2012-13 OPC hockey

Cards remaining: 18
Confidence level:  High

Comments:  There is nothing overly expensive preventing me from completing this set.  Some of the cards on sites like COMC are just ridiculously priced, so I might turn to trading for them to get this done.

5.  1976 Topps baseball

Cards remaining:  47
Confidence level:  Medium

Comments:  You know, if I didn't have the 4 sets above that I wanted to finish, I'd probably be quite confident that I could get this done by the end of 2019.   Even with the fact that 90% of the cards remaining for this set are stars.

6.  2013-14 OPC hockey

Cards remaining:  36
Confidence level:  medium

Comments:  Another set that has just some ridiculous prices on fringe rookies, mostly for the simple fact that they are SPs.  My refusal to pay such stupid prices is the reason that this is below '76 Topps BB.   Stubborn, yes I know I am, but sometimes you have to draw the line.

7.  1981 Topps baseball

Cards remaining:  185
Confidence level:  medium

Comments:  This set right now has the exact same number of cards left as the next set on the list (79T), but I rank this higher because I see so much more of this on trade lists than I do '79s.  By the way, someone on twitter had a question recently asking about underrated players from the 1980s, my answer would be Carney Lansford.

8.  1979 Topps

Cards remaining:  185
Confidence level:  Just below medium

Comments:  I just don't see a whole lot of these up for trade, and buying lots of them on ebay aren't very feasible (too many doubles), so I'll be patient and see if I get lucky and find someone willing to part with a bunch of them on the cheap.

9.  1973 Topps

Cards remaining:  2
Confidence level:  Lower than I can limbo

Comments:  Approaching 2 years now at 2 cards to go.  Mike Schmidt RC.  High number checklist.  Do I expect to find these 2 cards at a price I want to pay by years end?   Hell no.  Maybe it's time I just ignored everything else and went after this.   My frugality will likely prevail and this will end up on 2020's list of sets to finish.

I had a lot of fun writing this post.  I got a lot of my thoughts on these sets and current pricing out there for everyone to see.   I'm not ashamed to admit I'm cheap, but as you can see from what I've written above, maybe it's time to just move forward and concentrate on finishing these sets.

We'll see what happens and revisit this post at the end of the year.....

Thanks for reading!

Robert

A Mish Mash

Mish Mash is exactly what you could call the scattering of cards in this post.  70's, 80's and 2010's are all represented in this post.   Commons, semistars, stars, they're all here as well.  This is all the hockey I had originally planned to show last night, along with a quartet of cards I won off of ebay that arrived today.

All alone from the 2013-14 OPC set was this Vladimir Tarasenko RC, which I figured I better grab now before the price starts to climb.  Vlad reached the 30 goal plateau again this season, and picking this up for just under $3 was an easy decision.  Still 40 more cards to finish this set, the majority of them SPs.

This page of cards from the 2012-13 OPC set weren't as expensive as the Tarasenko above, largely because there's not as much star power here.  OK, maybe Mario is a star, but it's not his RC I have here (someday I'll have it though).   This set is a bit closer to completion, just 21 cards away.  All but one of those is a SP.

Forget the checklist, the other 5 cards from the 83-84 OPC set weren't your pennies on the dollar purchases.   I still did pretty well though, the Messier/Gretzky card was just $7, and the others were in the $1.50-$4 range.  3 cards left to finish this set, Tony O, Francis, and another Gretzky card are all that's left to finish this beauty. 

How about some mid to late 70's cards?   3 more off of the 76-77 OPC set on the top row, leaving me with just 9 cards to go.   Love the Bill McKenzie card, not sure how the proof readers missed the spelling of his name on the front. 

Bottom row is the start of a couple of sets;  the Denis Potvin and Atlanta Flames team card are from the 77-78 OPC set and both cost me right around 50 cents.  Someday I'll find a nice starter lot on the cheap to get me going with that set.   I'm also looking forward to building one of the more unique sets from the 70's, the blue bordered 79-80 set.   Gretzky's RC is in that one, so maybe one day when my house is paid off I'll use a mortgage payment to buy one of those.

Yep, we're all over the map here, as these 3 2018-19 OPC retro cards found their way here.  I love that OPC included the team checklist/logo cards as I've always been a big fan of those. 

I love the 71-72 OPC set even more each time new copies come home.  These were all within the $1 to $1.50 range, which I've come to realize is pretty reasonable.  I'm still not venturing into the star range as far as this set goes, but I did get a nice group of 4 cards from this set off ebay this week;

Using the "PERFECT3" code that ebay offered this week, this lot of 4 cards cost me just over $7 shipped.   The Henri Richard card alone is worth that and more, so this lot was a steal as far as I'm concerned.   Still a long way from completion, although the 1/3 mark is not too far off now as I'm at 79/264 in hand.   Can't wait to have this set in a binder!!

Hope you enjoyed the Mish Mash.  It's kind of what I do.

Thanks for reading!!

Robert

Some 70's and 80's hockey if you like

Most of these sets I'm about to show have a long way to go until they're complete, but the fun I'm going to have in chasing them all down is going to be endless.

I showed the 14 baseball cards from my recent COMC order yesterday, and that total is small in comparison to the 25 vintage cards from the 71-72 through 86-87 OPC sets that are pictured below.

All but one of the scans have 3 cards pictured.   It just worked out that way after going thru the pile.  The Jacques Lemaire card has a couple of creases which you can see if you look close (1 just above his head to the left, the other by his left glove), but for me they don't ruin the aesthetic of the card.  The Tony McKegney card was cheap and I wanted to get the 80-81 set going, and the Flames team card drops the want list for 76-77 OPC down to 12.  Bobby Orr and Ken Dryden are the two big "obstacles" left before that set is done.

The different colored borders that the 73-74 OPC set contains has me intrigued.  It'll be a while before I start seriously working on this set, but these trio of cards were a good start for me.  The Larry Robinson and Billy Smith RC's are pricey, and there are several other cards that go for $20 or more in really good condition, so this is another set that while not big, will take some time as I'll be picky in what I pick up for the set.

These three 83-84 OPC cards bring that want list even further down, as I now only need 11 to complete the set.  This will be done before too long (hopefully) even though I still need the Scott Stevens RC and the base card of Wayne Gretzky.

Biggest scan of the post, as these 6 84-85 OPC's were a nice cost-effective purchase.  I mailed an envelope to Norway on Saturday as part of a trade that will net me 22 of these.  When they come in, I'll be over 100 cards towards the set.

Both the 85-86 and 86-87 OPC sets are among my favorites, and I look forward to putting them together.   Mario Lemieux and Patrick Roy RCs will be the major hurdles in finishing both of these, as they are tough to find for less than $150 in decent condition.

Love the airbrush on the Gamble, totally wiped out the Maple Leaf

The 71-72 OPC set I've been picking at for over a year now and I'm almost a quarter of the way through (just 2 more to get me there).   This is the one set that I've seen more cards than any other with paper loss on the back.  I'm sure many of these cards back in the day were taped into binders or onto some kind of paper, and when pulled off the backs were torn up.   It's a shame because this might be one of the best sets ever, and finding cards without that paper loss is essential for me.
I've pretty much given up finding any commons less than $1, but that's OK because I'm really only buying 2 or 3 at a time, thus not spending a whole lot of $$.

This isn't even the whole of the hockey portion, tomorrow I'll post the more modern cards.

Thanks for reading!

Robert

The focus has helped....somewhat

I declared a while ago that I was going to try and focus on finishing one set at a time to try and not feel so overwhelmed by all the sets that I wanted to complete.

That worked for a short time, as I knocked a good chunk off of the 76-77 OPC hockey want list right away.

Then the cheap ass in me took over.  That's usually my standard M.O.  Buy up as many cards as I can to get close to finishing the set, then wait and wait for the best deal possible to finish up the set with the high end cards.

My latest COMC order came with just 2 cards for the various hockey sets that I'm building.  This 76-77 OPC team leaders card I picked up for just over $2, and it reminded me of the talent that the Sabres had in the mid 70's.  You don't even see Rene Robert, Jim Schoenfeld, Craig Ramsay or the other solid players that this team had.  It's kind of surprising that they didn't get to the Cup final more than once.

This card brings me down to 14 for the set, and I still have some big names like Orr, Dryden, and the Tiger Williams rookie still to pick up.  Bargain hunting it is...

Speaking of looking for cheap cards, for me this next card was the steal of the order.

One of the best U.S. born players of his era (if not the best), the Pat LaFontaine RC is criminally low priced at $15.   I somehow managed to snag this copy off of COMC for under $4 (!) which should never happen.  Aside from being slightly off center, the card is in fantastic shape, and is a fabulous addition to my 84-85 OPC set build.  I'm just a couple of cards away from being 1/6th of the way through the set, and I'm always hunting for a nice lot of cards to give me a push towards completing the set.

I will say this about my focus, it may have strayed away from finishing off the 76-77 OPC set somewhat, but my resolve for purchasing only cards towards my set projects has grown.   Outside of the hockey re-pack I bought myself to celebrate the 7th anniversary of the blog, nothing new is coming into the house. 

The fact that I've held out this long from buying packs is a miracle itself.  We'll see how long it lasts.

thanks for reading, Robert

Now this is how I like a want list to look

10,115,116,132,200,213,215,258,267,345,348,373,377,380,388

That's it folks, that's how I'd love all my want lists to be.   But, the crazy man in me that's trying to put together a million sets at one time just can't have it that way right now.

Those 15 numbers above are what my 76-77 OPC  want list consists of now, thanks to my recent delivery from COMC.  I have quite a few additions to show off over the next few days, but I did want to start with the one set that I'm concentrating on.

My scanner is driving me nuts right now, as I can't put an entire page worth of cards on the scanner bed.  The scanner is cutting off the top and bottom portions of cards when I try to scan 9, so I'm forced to piece meal scans together in the center of the scanner.  I'm hoping this weekend a new scanner will be purchased allowing me to get some decent scans out to you again.  

I'm to the point in this set where cards are costing me anywhere from $1-$3 bucks apiece, with any Canadiens and Leafs cards being sold at higher prices than other teams.

Having these cards in hand is fantastic though.  Two stars such as Lapointe and Robinson, even though they played for the blue, blanc et rouge at the time, will always be welcome here.  

For the most part I'm just showing off the star cards on this post to illustrate the legendary names that I'm buying up to complete this set.   Jean Ratelle and Billy Smith are a pair of great players from that era that wound up costing me a couple bucks apiece.  Even the PPG leaders card cost me a couple of dollars, but with all those great names on it, it's not surprising.

Even the record breakers cards are expensive.   Gotta have them!  It's funny, because now I hold the Trottier and Sittler cards together and I can easily see that the Sittler card has been trimmed a bit.  It's a shame what dealers will do to make a card look better.  

Just 15 to go to complete the set.  Big names like Ken Dryden and Lanny McDonald still need to be bought, along with the Tiger Williams RC.  

I'm hoping to have this set finished off soon so I don't have to worry about it at the National...

Thanks for reading, Robert

Knocked a few off of the 76-77 want list

It took just under two weeks, but the ebay auction that I found for 11 of the cards that I needed for the 76-77 OPC set build finally arrived yesterday.  It felt great deleting these cards from the want list, and I'm hoping that by the time the National rolls around in 6 weeks, I'll have only a handful of cards left on the list.

These are the kinds of cards you end up with as you get towards the end of building a set.  Star power.  Brian Spencer wasn't a big star in the NHL, but he did have a decent career playing over 500 NHL games.  

The other three on the scan are the heavy hitters.  Bill Barber played 12 seasons in the NHL, scored 420 goals and won 2 Stanley Cups with the Flyers.   I was aware that Gerry Cheevers played for some time in the WHA, but what I learned today is that he actually walked out on the Cleveland Crusaders over financial issues, and returned to the Bruins 2 days after that during the 75-76 season. 
Guy Lafleur was the superstar for the Canadiens during the 70's, scoring 50+ goals for 6 straight seasons, 1st team all star each of those years, won the scoring title 3 times and the Stanley Cup 4 times during those 6 years. 

The team photos are what I enjoyed receiving the most.  Here's 3 members of the old Adams Division, the 4th member being the Maple Leafs. 

Interesting that the Black Hawks team card doesn't consist of a team photo, just 23 players/coaches in various poses.  I wonder why that happened.  Also interesting is that the Red Wings ice looks green, wonder if that's just the way the photo was, or if there was something wrong with the water back then in Detroit. 

Needless to say, I love these cards, and I'm glad that I've passed the 90% complete mark for the set.  Just 38 more to go, and about half of those are in my COMC cart just waiting to be shipped.  I can't wait to show the entire set off once it's in hand...

Thanks for reading, Robert

Feeling a little overwhelmed

I think I've bitten off a little more than I can chew right now.   I am working on what has to be a couple dozen baseball sets, and I want to complete nearly a dozen hockey sets. 

Yeah, it's a lot.

I also love grabbing cards for the players I collect.  I've added a few more players during the past year.  They're all big names (Ichiro, Larry Fitzgerald, Andrew McCutchen) so there's a lot of cards for each of them as well.

I've done some thinking about all this the past few days.  And I know what my problem is.

I just can't focus on one thing.  If I could just say "I want to finish xxx set next" and focus solely on that, that might help ease the overwhelmed feeling. 

But it's tough.   All those cards out there to buy. 

There are guys that I follow on twitter that are set builders.   They seem to have no problem focusing on a task and completing it.  Mind you, they have a bigger following than I do (most people do...lol) and putting want lists out there goes a long way for them. 

So maybe it's time I made a decision.  

76-77 OPC.  This is a set that I should have finished a long time ago.  My start on this was thanks to Dave at the Wax Stain Rookie blog, as he offered up a starter lot of these cards on his blog and I jumped at the chance.  How long ago you may ask?  I've been in Florida almost 3 years now, and I got these before I moved here. 

I have 49 cards left, 3 of them are already in my cart at COMC.  Let's see if focusing on finishing this set over the next few weeks helps ease the burden. 

Maybe I should think positive and start thinking about what's next...

Thanks for reading, Robert

A little bit here, a little bit there

A good portion of my recent COMC order was spent on hockey, almost 40% of the order was puck related.

Much like the post from the other day, this post features cards from a lot of different sets.  The only difference is there is a mix of old and new.

The 2012-13 & 2013-14 O-Pee-Chee set builds that I'm working on are like any Topps Heritage set, full of SPs that have some expensive cards and take an extended time to build.  I guess I'm also describing any vintage set as well, so maybe modern and vintage sets aren't so different?  The 6 cards you see above are all short prints; between the two sets I have about 90 SPs still to pick up.

Two mid 90's parallel sets that I've barely touch over the past several months are featured above.  I honestly can't remember the last time I pulled any 94-95 Electric Ice cards; I grabbed the Hasek and Hull cards on the cheap and maybe sometime in the near future I'll grab some more.

The Players Club parallel card of Red Wings Keith Primeau features a Mighty Duck player in the classic uniform from the 90's.  I'd love to see these brought back as a 3rd uniform or maybe worn in an outdoor game in the years to come.  The teal and purple was a great combo back then and had a lot more pizazz than the current black and orange sported by the Ducks.

The 9 cards above from the 76-77 OPC set above a quite representative of the 49 cards I have left to complete the set.  Very few commons, some star cards like Brad Park and Reggie Leach, some big name players like Marcel Dionne, and a few team cards such as the Kings card on the bottom. 

With less than 50 to go, this might be a set that I start focusing on in the short term in order to get it out of the way.   The only major RC left is Tiger Williams, which is a card that in NM condition is going to run around $25.  Other big name cards that I still need are Guy LaFleur and Ken Dryden, both of which will cost about the same.  Compared to a lot of other sets I'm building, finishing this one will be comparatively cheap.

Interesting that the Polis and Morrison cards feature the players in jerseys without a number

Cool mix of the old high and tight hair with the free flowing longer hair

Finally, the 71-72 OPC set is one that I'll enjoy building for quite a long time.  I know that the big name Rookie Cards such as Dryden, Lafleur and Dionne will cost a small fortune (potentially a couple of car payments for those 3 alone) and a lot of the bigger names will run $10 and more so I'm not putting any pressure on myself to pick these up quickly.  The set size being only 264 cards will make things a bit easier; I'm already 20% of the way through and haven't spent a whole lot of money so far. 

Sometimes it's interesting what you realize while writing a post; knowing that I'm as close as I am to finishing the 76-77 set that it should be something I focus on in the short term.

The next post will be the biggest chunk of the COMC order, '59 Topps.  That set may be #2 on the hit list....

Thanks for reading, Robert

Time to knock out some hockey

It's getting down to crunch time in the NHL season, teams having anywhere from 16 to 21 games left to play.  I'm hoping I don't jinx them, but it appears that the Maple Leafs are solidly in a playoff spot for the 2nd straight year.  It'll be the first time the Leafs have made the playoffs two years straight since the 02-03 and 03-04 seasons.   That's quite a while.

I'm still working on a few hockey sets that are a little bit older than the past 15 years that I just talked about.   Everybody loves some older hockey....right?

Only managed to buy one of these league leader cards twice.   A good thing.   Love the 83-84 OPC set.  I could probably say that I love the entire decade of the 80s as far as OPC hockey goes.  When it's said and done, there won't be a set from the 80's that I don't own.

I'm listening to Denis Potvin as I write this post, he's been the color analyst for the Panthers for quite a while now.  The Dennis Maruk card comes complete with the old style wax stain on the front of the card.  Wouldn't be an 80's set without it!!

It's hard to see but the mask on the goalie in the background of the Lars Lindgren card is that of longtime analyst John Garrett.   Garrett had some great paint jobs on his masks during the 70's and 80's; just search John Garrett mask on Google and you'll see all kinds of great photos.

Mostly commons on this 83-84 OPC order, and I'm now only 9 cards short of being 2/3 done.  But that's not the only hockey I picked up on the latest COMC purchase...

I guess the phrase "pecking away" would be how you describe the speed at which I'm picking up cards for these 2 sets.  Here and there I search for lots of 86-87 OPC (Andreychuk on the left) on ebay.  Haven't found anything to my liking as of yet.   The pair of 71-72 OPC's on the right bring me up to 50 cards from that set.  Honestly, I don't anticipate finishing 71-72 OPC anytime in the next few years, what with the big RC's of Dryden, Lafleur and Dionne.  Add in several other lower tier RC's like Rick MacLeish and this set will probably cost an arm and a leg.  But it's fun to get a card or 2 here and there just to say I'm working on the set...

The first hockey card packs I ever bought were from this set, 76-77 OPC.  Dave from the Wax Stain Rookie blog sent me a bunch of these a couple years ago, and I've been picking away at this set also.  I'm a lot closer to finishing this set, needing just 58 cards now to complete. 

Hey hockey collectors, when are you ever going to see a checking line on a hockey card ever again?

Classic stuff.

Thanks for reading, Robert