When I hit the eBay listings a week ago Wednesday, I had no idea that I would end up spending about an hour looking through nothing but Joe Sakic cards. Funny how that works isn't it? I started out looking for starter lots of the earlier A&G sets, and when I found nothing that I liked I hit the Sakic listings, and stuff just started hitting my cart.
I used to see these Pacific Dynagon 2000 Lamplighters cards all the time at shows, dealers would be asking around 8-10 bucks a pop, and while I liked the card, I didn't think it was honestly worth that price. I bought this for $1.90, which I found much to my liking.
3 years later, Pacific decided that the Lamplighters insert was to their liking again, so they included it in their base brand as an insert.
I like the overall design on this one over the Dynagon version, but the only think that is lacking is the netting doesn't happen on this card. The card above has some kind of nylon string, where the net on this Pacific version is just a photo on the card. This card cost 9 cents more than the other. Still for under $2 I was happy.
I liked the look of the Rookie Year Milestones insert from the 18-19 SP Authentic set, largely because it contains a photo of Joe wearing his rookie year jersey with the #88 on it. The less than $2 price tag was also endearing to me, so in the cart it went.
This is a card I've been looking for for a looonnnnnggggg time. 1996 Pinnacle Duracell L'Equipe De Beliveau insert, which has been tough to find. When I did find it in the past, I saw it for anywhere from 10-20 bucks, which as you know doesn't work for me. For $1 (!) this quickly jumped into the cart. What I wasn't aware of previously is that the back is in French, which when you think about it makes sense considering the name of the insert is also in French. Great find for me here!!
A pair of more recent OPC finds also climbed aboard the highway to S. Florida. The 14-15 OPC sticker insert on the right is another one of those "I thought I had this one already", but apparently that wasn't the case. $1.20 was the price tag, so that was an easy decision.
The 2011-12 OPC Rainbow parallel on the left was the priciest card of the whole bunch at $3. Considering it's one of the SPs from that set the price tag was quite reasonable.
Finishing off the post with a couple of older inserts. Pacific did hockey really well in the early 2000's in my opinion, I can't say that there's an insert or parallel that they made that I didn't like (I'm sure I'll turn that statement around someday). The Rink Immortals card from the 03-04 Heads Up set on the left chronicles Joe's 10 ASG appearances to that point in his career.
Another company/brand that I wish was still going with hockey is the Fleer Ultra line. I always liked the Gold Medallion parallels (some more than others), and the Scoring Kings and Ultra Action cards were also pleasing for me. This pair of inserts cost me less than $3 combined.
The entire order, which includes a couple of serial numbered cards for Saturday's serial numbered post cost me $23 shipped, not bad for a dozen cards (2 of which I had already in the collection). Best of all, I enjoyed going through it all and realizing that there's still deals to be had if you search hard enough.
Enjoy the hobby!
Robert
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