Week in review: Close on a couple of fronts

I decided to take today off so I could enjoy a 3 day weekend.  With the weather finally starting to turn the corner a little bit, it was nice to get out of the house for an hour or two with the mrs., even if it meant having to run a couple of errands.

Those errands were in the early afternoon, which meant I had the morning to continue work on the Blue Jays piles on my desk.

Let me correct that.   Pile.

Yes, I've finally cut a swath through the massive piles of cards, and am down to roughly 100 cards to go before they are either removed from the want list, or found to be one of the many duplicates that I have.   Even with 24 days to go before my self imposed deadline, the goal of having these cards cataloged and the want list up to date is very close at hand.

Speaking of close, I received the 2nd part of my Sportlots order today, and I'm now 12 cards closer to completing the 2008-09 OPC set.

One of my favorite players to ever wear the #27, Frank Mahovlich, is in the upper right corner.  Great card except that he's wearing the dreaded CH instead of the blue and white.  Shack and Bower on the bottom row more than make up for that.   I wish that there were more coaches cards in products like OPC; instead of spitting out the same retired players every year, put all 30 coaches into a set.  For me it would be a nice change.

Even with OPC, the rookie lottery is in play.  You just never know what you're going to get with the RC's.  Joey Mormina played 1 game in the NHL.   Erik Ersberg played 3 years in the NHL, and now plays in the KHL.  Mattias Ritola played 43 games over parts of 4 seasons, and is now back in his native Sweden.  Jack Hillen has had an OK career so far, playing in 257 games with 4 clubs.  Brassard and Abdelkader are both NHL regulars, but neither are top 6 forwards. 

I guess that's why I got these SPs on the cheap....

Money spent this week: $15.36

That means that I have a little extra to spend on the show this weekend.  Now if I can only figure out what my plan of attack is for tomorrow, I'll be all set.

Thanks for reading, Robert

There's a reason I keep going back

I've bought stuff on eBay off and on for over a decade now.  I've used Sportlots for a couple of years to pick up some singles for sets that I'm working on.

In all those transactions, there's probably only one seller that I really have no qualms going back to on a regular basis.  Let me tell you why.

First, part of his Sportlots user name is "dork".  If that isn't right up my alley....

Second, the guy is just that damn good.   I ordered cards on Sunday night. I placed the order after 7 pm.  It's Tuesday, and the cards are already in my hands.  You just cannot beat that for turnaround. 

Yes, this seller lives in western PA as I do, so the cards should arrive quickly through the mail.  Even so, the speed at which he gets the cards to me is still unbelievable.  The cards are also well packaged, another plus.  And, unlike the one eBay seller that I bought a 25 card gold Topps lot from, the orders never get screwed up (that eBayer sent me emerald green instead....close).

I hit 3 different hockey sets that I've been working on in my order. 

 

For the most part, a lot of good talent on this scan.  Sometime soon, I'll start hitting the short prints that I need from the 2012-13 OPC set.  Still need 65 of them, so it might take a little time to round them all up.

If you thought there was talent on the first scan, this group of 7 includes 6 Hall of Famers, and the 7th who isn't in the HOF (Wilson) certainly had a great career in Chicago and San Jose.  The 2008-09 OPC set that I'm working on still has 28 SPs to go. With more to come in the other half of the order that has yet to arrive, I can see the light at the end of that tunnel.

Finally, I picked up 14 of the 95-96 Collectors Choice Players Club parallels.

 

With these 14 in, I finally hit the 2/3 mark.  With only 130 to go, and nearly 19 years gone by since this set was first released, I should complete this set sometime around 2024.  A lofty goal no doubt!

It would be nice to find a couple of other reliable sellers like this on eBay, but I certainly am not complaining.

I consider myself lucky to have found one great online seller that I can go back to again and again.  If there's a seller that you'd like to recommend because you've had good success with him/her, let me know in the comments.

thanks for reading, Robert

Day 1 at the Expo: More walking than buying

My camera phone skills at work again

I figured I'd get the photo up right away for this post rather than making you wait.  These two cards were the highlights of my first day at the Expo.  They came from one table that had dollar boxes of  cards from various years.   I went through them and found 16 cards for the 71-72 OPC set that I started a short time ago.   Among those 16 were the two cards you see above.  For a dollar apiece, I couldn't leave them there.

The only other table that I bought cards from was one that had several boxes of modern OPC singles.  I wound up buying a bunch of singles for a couple of different sets, including a bunch of SPs from the 2008-09 set.  I had priced them out to be $45, and when the dealer handed the cards back to me and asked for only $25, my day was made.

Spending a total of $40 on cards the first day was a lot better than I expected to do.  I put a good dent into a couple of modern sets, got a nice group of cards for an older set, and avoided the discount wax that I usually succumb to at this show. 

Tomorrow I'll hopefully add to my Joe Sakic collection, and maybe dig up something that I didn't see in my 3.5 hours today. 

I'll let you know....

Thanks for reading, Robert

Two weekends, two shows, two missions

I'm absolutely spoiled.  You can ask my wife, she'll tell you.  I lucked out this month and have two card shows over a two weekend period that are within a reasonable driving distance.  One was the local mall show last weekend, where I kept to the vintage baseball sets that I've been chasing after.  If you missed that post, you can see it here.

Now this coming weekend is going to be the same, only different.  I'm headed off to the Expo just outside of Toronto and will spend the better part of 2 days hunting for cards to finish off some hockey sets.  Some sets are newer, some I've been working on for quite a while.

One set that I'm hoping to finish off is the 2008-09 OPC set.  I'm down to 49 short prints after picking up these 4 off of Sportlots last week

I picked these 4 up only because the 2 sellers that I had purchased other cards from had these on for relatively cheap.  It was just happenstance that the 2 Legends SPs turned out to be two of the all time greatest Blackhawk players, Tony O and Denis Savard.  Zubov has played a grand total of 11 NHL games.  So much for being a "marquee rookie".  Kyle Turris is now with the Senators, and playing reasonably well since coming from the Coyotes two seasons ago.

I'm also hoping to pick up some more cards for my Joe Sakic PC..

I picked these three cards up a couple of weeks ago during a trip to the LCS.  I wish this card shop was a little more local, as I have to drive almost 30 miles to get to it, but when I do get to visit the trip is always worth it, as the Sakic cards above show...

The crowds should be pretty big each day at the Expo, largely because of the big names that are going to be giving autographs.  Bobby Hull, Mario Lemieux, Guy Lafleur, Mike Modano and Vladislav Tretiak join former Leaf greats Lanny McDonald and Borje Salming.  Not that I chase any autographs, but it should be pretty cool to see those guys up close and in person.

If you're looking for me on Friday, I'll be the guy wearing the flaming horse jersey.  Don't be afraid to say hello.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Just one

I would say that over the past couple of weeks, I've started to focus a little bit more on completing sets again.  Some new, some not so new.  Originally, set completion was going to be the primary focus of this blog.  But that kind of got sidetracked when I started trading, and found out that there was a whole world of cards out there to be had.

I also had this crazy idea for a frankenset that steered me off of the beaten path as well.  That project is still kicking and is approaching the 2 year mark. 

This past weekend I hit Sportlots and started to go back to my roots.   Set building.  For the most part.

There is one seller that I go back to over and over, because he's somewhat local (maybe 90 minutes from my house), and every order that I've completed with him has arrived within 2 days.

You read that right, two days!!

The latest order arrived today, and hit a few different want lists.  Instead of boring you with a whole bunch of players that you may or may not know about (do a search for Mike Iggulden, and you'll see what I mean), I'll show you just one card from each of the sets that arrived at my doorstep.

If I was collecting the 2013 Heritage SPs for my set, this would have been a card that I would have needed to buy twice.  But since I decided to work the base set only, this beauty goes into the Jays collection.

Adding Mr. Reyes leaves me with just one more Jay to complete my team set for this year's Heritage.  It's already on its way to me...

I also received 6 "Marquee Rookies" from the 08-09 OPC hockey set today.  But I'll just show you one, the one that actually has become a solid NHL player.

Alex Goligoski played all of 3 games in the 07-08 season, but that was enough to earn him a rookie card in the 08-09 OPC set.  The Penguins ended up using him as a trading chip to make themselves deeper up front, acquiring James Neal from the Dallas Stars. 

Finally, I'll show off a card from the 95-96 Collectors Choice Players Club parallel set I'm still working on, a future hall of famer by the name of Chris Chelios.

This guy posted numbers during his career that would have made any fantasy hockey player drool.  For example, his 1992-93 season consisted of 73 points, 282 penalty minutes, a +14 rating and 8 power play goals.  I found one season that amazed me more numbers wise.   2001-02, 39 points, +40 and over 25 minutes a game for the Red Wings, at the age of forty!!  Incredible.

I'm sure that I wouldn't be so flustered as often as I am if I wasn't working on so many sets.  My life would probably be so much easier if I had only one set/goal to work on at a time.

Just one?  Come on, who am I kidding?  Where would the fun be in that?

Thanks for reading, Robert

Disorganized? Yea, that's me

I am my own worst critic.  Hard on myself?  You better believe it.  I don't know why that was ingrained in me as a child, but when I make mistakes, the Scottish temper flares right up.

There's really no need for it, but it happens.   This evening is a prime example.  I opened an envelope that I received from Sportlots, and part of the package was these 5 cards.

If only Billy knew what was going to happen to him later in the year...

5 1986 Topps cards.  Getting that much closer to the set!!  Why is this bad?

I only needed 7 to finish the set before placing the order.  What the hell??

It's things like that piece of foolishness that make me wonder about myself sometimes.  There's no excuse for ordering 5 out of the 7 commons that I need to finish the damn set.  Come on man, get with the program. [EDIT:  turns out that I actually needed 8 commons...damn you Bobby Valentine]

The best part of the Sportlots fun from last week?  I ordered cards from five different sets that I've been building for various lengths of time.  Five...

Speaking of five, here's 5 cards that I ordered from the 01-02 Vintage set.

So blah of a design, and yet I love the damn set

Now, on the flip side of all this, I at least am proud of myself for one achievement (cheapness is always a thrill..)

I specifically shied away from these cards at the Expo last November, for the specific reason that the table I purchased the other 08/09 OPC commons from wanted 50 cents a card for these.  Sorry, I just couldn't bring myself to pay that kind of change for Patrice Bergeron and Jason Spezza.  18 cents apiece on Sportlots?  Yea, I can do that...

Finally, 33 more of the 2001 Fleer Tradition cards were bought off of Sportlots.  I'm probably suffering from a bit of buyer's remorse with this set, because I realize now that if I had taken the time and thought it through, this set is probably one that could have been set aside for more loftier goals.  Once I got below 100 cards to finish this set, it was a given that that the set needed to be finished. 

Even though I may regret the "overpayment" for the cards, the collector in me still loves this set.  I'm sure that the money spent on it will never be recouped, but in this case, the love of this set will outweigh that.  Just 53 more cards to go until completion.

That's one set I'll be happy to remove from the Fab Five list.   It's been there way longer than it should have been.

thanks for reading, Robert