Price, Kolzig and Fernandez

No, Price, Kolzig and Fernandez isn't your latest law firm trying to get you to enter one of their class action lawsuits on late night TV.  These are the 3 goalies I'm going to show off today for the goalie frankenset that I started on last week.

Using a bear on a Bruins mask is a good but easy call, and Manny Fernandez pulls it off on his 2008/09 OPC card.  I also like the partial spoked B on the right hand side of the mask to fill in what the scary bear doesn't use.  Manny will be card #490, unless a better one comes along. 

Goalies like Fernandez will also be good for this set, as Manny played quite a few years in the league and with a couple of different teams.   Here's hoping I can find some other Fernandez variations.

Ollie the goalie played all but the final 8 games of his career for the Capitals, but I don't remember him ever wearing this mask with the Uncle Sam on the forehead.  Mind you, this card is from the 94-95 Upper Deck set, so my memories of every mask from back then aren't that great. 

Still, this is a great addition to the set, and will be card #486.

Carey Price isn't shy about switching designs on his mask.  This one is a little tough to figure out for me, aside from the Canadiens logo on his forehead and the 31 on his chin.  Maybe there's a Canadien fan out there that will recognize the mask and shed some light as to what's on the side and above the team logo.

None the less, this is card #459 from the 2012-13 OPC set and will be a part of the set unless something else comes along.

For those of you who voted in the Luongo/Essensa vote earlier this week, Bob Essensa won 6-2, so his card #265 from 1992-93 Pro Set Platinum (remember that set?) will be in the set and Bobby Lu will have to find another spot.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Try a Pack #6: 2017 Allen & Ginter

I watched Matt's break of his box #9 (the "magic" box) of A&G a few days back, and noticed the picture frame borders around the player's photo.  Something a little bit different this year, but I enjoyed it.  So while out on my Target run today, I decided to pick up a couple of 3 packs of A&G.

The bonus minis in the pack are gold this year, and in my opinion look sharp.

I don't know for sure, but the two 3 packs of gold minis I opened all had A&G backs.  Does anyone know if that's the case for all the gold minis?

The other pack of gold minis featured Jayson Werth, Manny Machado and the Trees in India card.  All 6 are available if someone wants them.

The folks in India are certainly environmentally aware, as the back of the card states that they broke a record by planting 49.3 million trees in a single day.  Over 800,000 people participated in this even, which is really something in this day and age. 

I really do like the base cards, the border as I mentioned earlier gives them the picture frame look, which is different than I remember from past A&G releases.

The 100 card insert set this year is the What A Day set, featuring days where said player performed something special on the diamond.  I also pulled a Bo Jackson card that mentions how he hit 3 homers on 3 at-bats on July 17th, 1990.  He got hurt after the 3rd homer, went on the DL for six weeks, and on his first AB back, hit his fourth straight homer, tying a MLB record.  I also pulled a World's Fair Westinghouse Tower card to go along with these.  The inserts are available, and I'll be sure pulling more of these as the months go along.

I pulled two of the World's Dudes mini inserts, the other one was fisherman dude.  I'll be keeping an eye out to see if anyone is in need of the minis. The Kluber is an A&G back, I also have an A&G back of Miami's Marcell Ozuna.  Let me know if any one of these cards interests you.

I'll be putting together the 350 card base set, and I'll also be looking for the 7 Jays cards that appear for my Jays collection. 

I still need just under a quarter of the 2016 set, something I'm going to have to get cleaned up before too long as well.   If you have any of these cards from last years set, please leave a comment or send me an email...

1,15,16,23,25,31,36,44,55,61,71,73,74,88,97,99,106,110,113,120,142,149,163,
168,177,182,187,190,191,192,194,197,199,206,208,228,230,232,251,254,268,
274,287,295,296,299,300,301,302,304,305,306,307,308,309,311,313,314,316,
317,319,320,321,323,324,325,326,327,328,329,332,334,335,336,338,341,343,
344,345,346,347,349,350

Thanks for reading, Robert

A new franken set: Showing my love for the goalie mask

Anyone who reads this blog knows my love for hockey.   It's hard when you're Canadian by birth not to love hockey.  A bit part of hockey for me has always been the goalie masks.  The art on them is especially fascinating for me, and has been ever since I saw this mask back in the late 70's.

Leaf fans will remember one of the most exciting goalies to don the Blue and White during my lifetime, Mike Palmateer.  I even tried to paint my goalie mask with the same design, with very poor results.

Nearly 40 years later, my fascination for goalie mask art is still great, and thus I've decided to put together a set of cards devoted to goalie mask art.  500 cards, all based on the card number on the back.  No serial #'s needed. 

I love photos such as this one of Ron Hextall, card #41 from the 90-91 OPC Premier set:

Love the arrow on his forehead pointing down between his eyes, as if daring players to shoot the puck between his eyes.   That one is a keeper. 

I'm sure that anyone who is a hockey fan remembers the Hartford Whalers.  Here's Kay Whitmore's mask from the 91-92 OPC Premier set, card #182.

Would love to see the Whalers logo comeback.  How bout it Hurricanes, maybe a throwback night?

I'm primarily looking for cards with the mask/cage combo.   Most of the cards with the helmet and cage combo for goalies don't feature artwork.  There are exceptions, such as this Dominik Hasek card from 2008-09 OPC.

Card #290 from the 08-09 OPC Set

I'm sure by now you get the idea.  I'd like to build a set of 500 cards, #'d 1-500 (of course).  No rules, cards can be from any set, any team.  The better the photo, the more I'll enjoy it.  Hopefully you will as well when I show off the cards on the blog.  I've found about 5 dozen cards so far, and some of them have the same card number.  

For example, I have two cards with the #285 on the back.  Roberto Luongo of the Canucks, and Bob Essensa of the Winnipeg Jets.

Both cards have great shots of their mask, so which do I keep?  I figured to have some fun I'd post the cards on twitter along with a poll and let the universe (as small as my universe may be) decide the fate of these two cards.  The poll will be live by the time you read this, so go and find it and vote!!  (Here's the link, just in case)

I'm also going to post a list of cards I have on a separate page on the blog, so if someone out there finds something that might be of some use to me, they can send it my way.

I hope you'll have as much fun with this as I'm going to.

thanks for reading, Robert

Inbound and down #16: Twitter ID @MyNamePickle

This is the first time I have received an envelope from anyone off of twitter, let alone someone who I hadn't even come across on twitter until a couple of weeks ago.

@MyNamePickle, whose name is Eddy by the way, is the ID of a gentleman who also PC's Joe Sakic.   He tweeted about a set of 1990-91 Kraft cards, of which one of the photos just happened to be Joe.

I mentioned that I needed the Sakic, mostly because I wanted to look for it down the road, and by replying to him I hoped that I would remember.  Eddy replied back that he only had the one copy and that he had it in his PC.  No worries here I told him, I just replied so that I would remember the card for the future.

Lo and behold, Eddy retweeted me back and said that he had an extra copy, and if I would provide him my address, he'd send the card post haste.

This showed up in my mailbox yesterday, just under two weeks after the initial encounter:

The Kraft and Panini cards have long been a sore spot when it comes to my Sakic PC.  Until recently, I didn't have any of the food or sticker issues of Joe.   I've purchased a few Panini's over the past several weeks, and now I have one of the 2 second year Kraft cards of Sakic.

It's surprising to see that the back has only stats from his playoff appearances with his junior team in Swift Current.  No NHL stats at all, even though the card was licensed by both the NHL and NHLPA.  I thought that there might be at least his rookie stats on the card, but no luck there.

I've actually added 30 cards of Sakic on my own the past couple of weeks, but none of them compare to this card. 

It's amazing what collectors will do for each other.  It's random acts of kindness like this that reaffirm my faith in the hobby.

Thank you Eddy!  This card is truly appreciated!!

Thanks for reading, Robert