The Announcement

In all likelihood, today is going to be the day the NHL announces that the Atlanta Thrashers will be moving to Winnipeg. This will mean two things:

First, for the second time in a row, Atlanta proves they aren't interesting in supporting hockey.

Second, realignment will need to occur which means this fall your favourite team may have a new divisional threat.

Personally I am happy to see another team in Canada but with that being said, Winnipeg'ers need to now put their money where their mouth is and support this franchise. The Winnipeg Thrashers Jets have a lot of really good and young players (like Kane, Little, Bogosian, Enstrom, and Byfuglien) but, they are another season or two away from playoff contention so fans will need to be patient.

One storyline that I would like to see develop is Dale Hawerchuk build the Barrie Colts into an OHL powerhouse, make an Memorial Cup appearance and then accept the job as the Winnipeg Jets head coach! I think the Jets would welcome their adopted son back with open arms!

Anyway enough day dreaming, here is an early congrats to Winnipeg and if they do indeed get the Jets, and I wish them all the best!

Here is a Hawerchuk auto I received back earlier this year.

90-91 and 91-92 Pro Set Holograms

Growing up there were always cards that you heard about but in many cases you have never actually seen in person. I was pretty young, but I still remember seeing my first Gretzky rookie. I still don't have one in my collection, but I had seen several over the years. The 90-91 and 91-92 Pro Set Holograms were cards I had heard of, but apart from images on the internet, I had never seen one in person before. That was until the other day.

I bought a couple of boxes of 90-91 Pro Set Series 1. Since I already had Series 2 taken care of, I thought what the heck....maybe I will get lucky and at the very least I could hopefully could finish Series 1 and have a complete set. Well I opened two boxes and it brought back some fun memories and rookies of players I had never heard of: (such as Ville Siren) and rookies of players who had gone on to have awesome careers like Jeremy Roenick.

After box one, I had no holograms and 376/405 base cards.

After box two, I had no holograms and 399/405 base cards.

In all not bad, just six cards short of a set, but hopes of getting a Stanley Cup hologram are dashed.....I don't think I had a realistic shot.....so back to images on the internet for me....

However, I did have SOME luck with an auction on ebay. I managed to get the OTHER Pro Set hologram. Sure, I didn't pull it from a pack but for the first time I did get to see the Hologram in person and it isn't a bad looking card.

I felt the card was more than worth the $25 I paid for it. I don't think it was worth $25 because it books for 50, but rather I felt it was worth 25 because it is one of those cards that has always eluded me and to have a chance to pick it up for the 1991 price of a box of Pro Set IMHO you can't go wrong. Do any of you have a card you bought despite what its "value" was and consider yourself getting a good deal?

Here is the front side of the card.

The card honours the 75th anniversary of the NHL. It was this season I saw my first NHL game as well.

Here is the back side of the card. A pretty cool message on the back in my opinion.

Each card is hand numbered to /10000 and the icing on my cake is I have one of the last 10 numbered cards which I think is pretty cool. Normally I don't pay much attention to the numbering and I didn't even know which of the 10000 this card was until it arrived at my house last week.

It is funny how much the league has changed over the last 20 years. I almost forget those early and futile days days the Sens and Sharks had in the early going.

Ebay Deal - "authentic one of a kind Wayne Gretzky rookie card"

When I saw this on ebay today, I just couldn't resist posting about it!

There are SOOOO many things wrong with this ad that I can only call shenanigans. I can't imagine there is anyone on the planet that would believe this ad. If there is someone, I hope they don't pay this clown $50 000 for a card that has 4 corners cut and is really worthless. Even if the card was in NrMt condition it is likely only worth 20 bucks.

Most collectors know this card is from the 80-81 OPC Set and secondly it is a team leader card and not even the base version of Gretzky. Should this card sell, I might be tempted to cut the corners off my swapmeet Wayne and call it an "authentic one of a kind Wayne Gretzky rookie card".

10-11 Panini Sticker Pack Break

I was out getting supplies for my son's first birthday and I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Panini stickers! I haven't purchased these in over 20 years. The last time I did this, I was trying to complete the 89-90 sticker set (and didn't have any success).

Anyway, seeing those little packs brought back some fun memories and I decided to buy a pack.

$1.00 got you 8 stickers

Well this pack appears to have been sponsored by the Toronto Maple Leafs

(which I used to be part owner of when I was an Ontario Teacher High School Teacher so I guess I should be happy...)

Poor Giggy.....Could be the goalie of the future for the Marlies.....Thanks to a hot James Reimer

Rinne, the reason the Preds made the playoffs in the first place. Here is hoping he can continue the success next season as the Preds are becoming a good young team.

Bryan Bickell....Had a good breakout year with the Hawks (17 goals)

Colten Orr....another Leaf....

Battling for the position of starting Marlies goalie will the Jonas Gustavsson

Underrated and very talented, David Booth. He impressed me at the '08 Worlds and I hope he can avoid further concussions otherwise he might be taking an early retirement from hockey.

Wojtek Wolski. Devils drafted Zajac over Wolski in 2004. Glad they did....

Klementyev, not the rookie I was hoping to get out of the pack....Anton spent the year in Bridgeport and I suspect he will head to the KHL before long...

There you have it. 10-11 Panini stickers. Glad I bought the pack for nostalgia sakes, but this isn't a product I probably will be purchasing until my son is into collecting them.

Norm Ullman and Ron Ellis TTM

Just a few weeks after sending out some swap meet cards, the autos are coming back home!

Here are two that I received in the last week or so.

Norm's was done in black sharpie and numbered, he also signed his Hall of Fame year which is a pretty cool touch. He included a little bonus that you can see at my other post on Dirty Dangle.com

Here is the Ron Ellis autograph. Blue sharpie was the pen of choice and he numbered his card as well. Always great to get these gems back in the mail, it will be neat to see which ones from the swap meet arrive next.

Countdown to draft day - Colorado Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques

The history of the Colorado Avalanche is much longer if you include their first stop in Quebec City. The Nordiques were a pretty strong franchise in the 80's the just couldn't survive their futility in the later part of the decade and the early 90's. They moved to Colorado in the summer of 1995 and they have never looked back since. Bringing to Colorado a team that was heavy on self-drafted talent and Patrick Roy showing up part way through that first season cemented what would be a powerhouse for nearly a decade.

Colorado Avalanche's first draft choice was goaltender Marc Denis. With the arrival of Saint Patrick, Denis' usefulness diminished and he was traded to Columbus for a draft pick.

When considering the Avalanche's time in both Colorado and Quebec, both the best and worst drafts end up coming from their days in Quebec. The best draft in franchise history is from 1979.

Armed with just 6 picks, the Nordiques made them count! 5 out of 6 picks would end up playing in the NHL with Pierre Lacroix having the shortest career (played 274 games). The other four players would all go on to very long and fruitful careers with Goulet and Hunter being household names.

The worst draft in franchise history goes to the 1985 draft year.

With 13 picks in a pretty poor draft year to begin with the Nordiques drafted all duds. Lafreniere was the only pick to crack 100 NHL games and 8 picks would never touch an NHL surface.

1991 Classic Draft Picks

Back in the early 90’s, not only were sets being mass produced, there also seemed to be dozens of different sets released. Classic and 7^th inning sketch are two examples of releases that focused on stars from the CHL and players who were drafted by NHL clubs. During my first life as a hockey card collector, I believed many of those early 90’s cards would be worth something someday. In my second life as a collector I know that is total BS. I remember getting a factory sealed set of ’91 Classic Hockey for about 5 bucks and I decided that I would NEVER open it and someday it will be worth something.

Well someday is now, and it is worth less I paid. However, some people like this person believe that a set limited to just 360 000 serial numbered sets should be worth $250. Meanwhile, there are many other people on eBay who disagree and have theirs listed for around 3-5 bucks.

So to see WHO was right, I turned to the most trusted resources in sports card collecting and it turns out the set is indeed worthless (BV $3). So what harm is there is opening mine up and actually seeing what cards are inside…….Down the Rabbit Hole we go!

Here is Mr. Lindros on the Top. Clearly the reason why anyone would want to buy this!

Here is the bottom with my certificate of authenticity!!

It is like being a member of an exclusive club that happens to let anyone in with 5 bucks!

Here is the checklist. I must say, it is pretty impressive looking!

The set features 50 of the first 62 picks in the 91 entry draft. A few notable misses from the first 62 are players like Brian Rolston and Sandis Ozolinsh. But some great surprise hits like Palffy, Osgood and Jozef Stumpel.

Here is what the back of the cards look like.

A pretty clean design with junior stats and a small blurb about the player and which club selected them.

One of the best third overall picks of all-time!

4-time Cup winner and has won at EVERY level possible.

Philly had a steal with Forsberg at the 6th spot.

Shame they traded him to Quebec for Lindros, it would have been neat to see what he could have done with Renberg and Leclair!

The Wizard

Ray Whitney just seemed to get better with age. 926 career points for a guy picked in the second round...not bad!

I always liked Jozef Stumpel and I felt he was a seriously underrated as a player.

Jozef is in the KHL and still playing. Finished 5th on the Minsk Dynamo team in scoring, not bad for a 38 year old.

Yanic Perreault

One of the greatest face-off men in NHL history!

Chris Osgood

Whether you like him or not, you can't argue with winning!

Michael Nylander

As you can see, Classic didn't have an NHL license and couldn't show the team crests on their jerseys. I always thought Nylander was crazy talented but he never put up the numbers like I thought he was capable of. Judging from the hair, I would say he liked "Saved By The Bell".

Ahhh the Rocket

Had way too much hype and expectation around his talents, there was no way he could live up to them (ala Alexandre Daigle). But managed a respectable NFL/CFL career. No hockey career though....I might see if he is available to join my ball hockey league since I doubt his skating ability.

Well there you have it, the set isn't bad by 1991 standards and I did enjoy busting it open and I will find it a home in an album somewhere. Do any of you have this set? Have you cracked the seal or are you like the 300 000 or so out there who will cling to hope that someday it will be valuable?

Young Guns vs Victory Black

As a hockey card collector I find it sometimes difficult to be able to go and build every set there is. In fact, I find it difficult to justify building sets that include ALL SP's. So when I buy boxes of products like UD, I tend to just focus on building the base set and what ever Young Guns I get are bonuses. I hope each season to land the big fish and it happens sometimes (Price, Kane and Stamkos) and other times I don't (Tavares and Hall) and I can either give up, or go and buy that card as a single if I want it. But really in the end, I don't feel a desire to try and get all 50 young guns for each series which is good in some respects because then I can trade my YG's for other YG's I do want or at the very least for other cards I would prefer.

So with the season almost in the books and my card buying is pretty much planned for the next couple of months, I am faced with the task of trying to gather up the remaining Devils rookies I didn't pull from packs. My goal is usually to have one copy of each Devils Rookie. I don't need all the Devils rookies from all the sets, but I try and get one or two versions of each player.

On Ebay, I found many different auctions for a Stephen Gionta rookie card. One in particular was for a Victory Black and the other for a Young Gun version. So my question is, not being interested in anything more than the single card, which do you choose? Keep in mind, in the case of Mr. Gionta, the Victory Black and Young Gun ended up being the same price.

Do you go for the better looking card?

Do you go for the better product?

Do you go for the rarer of the two?

I decided to go with the Victory Black. I put a bid in for 3 bucks including shipping and sure enough it was a winner.

Here is what the Young Gun Version.

Here is the Victory Black card I won.

-the card is in amazing shape and I am very happy with it, what you see on the top is a little tape residue on the top loader.

I decided to go with the rarer of the two. The production numbers are significantly different. I estimate there are anywhere from 50-80 times as many Young Guns as there are Victory Blacks. I like the idea that the card is a little more scarce and being able to get it for the same price as a young gun made me feel like I got a good deal. But now your turn, which would you have chosen?

Even looking at a card like a John Tavares RC. The Young Gun cards go on eBay for prices between 40 and 70 bucks, while Victory Black versions can be had for about 80-100 bucks. So again, you aren't paying a huge premium for a much more scarce card.

Kelly Hrudey TTM

Here is another TTM success. I mailed three cards to Kelly Hrudey and he returned all three along with a little note that was signed as well. The complete story can be found at Dirty Dangle.

The cards were mailed to the CBC and I received them back signed in black sharpie 8 days later.

Countdown to draft day - Chicago Blackhawks

Since the Chicago Blackhawks are an original 6 team, they have been participating in drafts of one form or another since 1963. Their first ever pick was 5th overall in the 1963 Amateur draft when they struck out by selecting Art Hampson. Art would not ever play an NHL game, and I know very little of what became of Art. The Blackhawks would not have any success with their selections for the next several Amateur drafts before getting a hit in 1968 with John Marks, a defenceman from Winnipeg Manitoba.

Chicago's greatest draft success came in the 1980 NHL Entry Draft.

What is amazing about this draft is not only do they score one of the most exciting players to watch in NHL history with their first pick, they continue the draft selecting 8 more players that would eventually make the NHL. Ludzik, Murray, Wilson and Larmer would all go on to play over 400 NHL games a piece and of course Larmer would be an offensive superstar in his own right scoring 441 career goals while averaging more than a point a game in his 1000+ game NHL career. Denis Savard was the gem of the draft for the Hawks where he would break 100+ points 5 times for the Blackhawks during the 80's. Unfortunately for Blackhawks fans, Savard would leave Chicago and go on to win a Stanley Cup in a different uniform.

If you ignore the tiny 3 to 4 round Amateur drafts during the 60's then the worst draft in Chicago history would be the 1989 Entry Draft.

With the 6th overall selection in the draft, Chicago selected Adam Bennett. By selecting Bennett, the Hawks missed out on great 2-way forwards like Holik and Sillinger who were taken later than first round. Bennett who played a total of 69 games was by far the best Hawks selection in the draft. Only Tichy would ever play in the NHL from the remaining 9 selections Chicago had in the draft. Some other missed talent was: Nick Lidstrom, Patrice Brisebois, Robert Reichel, Sergei Fedorov and Pavel Bure.

Kovy puts a fork in Canada

A few random thoughts...

With Blogger on the fritz earlier, things have just been wacky on Wax Stain today, but it looks like all the posts are back the way they should be (for now). Looking at the poll, a majority of you seem to think writing Dionne and paying a sawbuck for it is a good idea. I picked out the perfect card for the TTM and hope to share my success down the road.

Well Canada is now out of the WHC and all my hockey pools are now toast, it leaves me with not much left to cheer about, so I am forced to pick from what is left in the post season. Since I am too much of a hockey fan to pack it in, I am throwing my support behind the Lightning and the Canucks. I am cheering for TB because of Stamkos and Roloson. I think Rollie deserves a Cup and Stamkos is an amazing talent that is fun to watch. I am supporting the Canucks mainly because I can't see myself backing the Sharks. Here is hoping I get to see one or both of those teams make the Finals.

The Canada loss had one small lining in it for me and that was Kovy was the one to deliver the final blow. Despite it being his first goal of the tournament, it seems he is continuing to play a more complete game which is a sign that he is committed to being a better Devils player and I think Russia is going to benefit from a two-way Kovy.

Here is another Panini deal I picked up a little while back:

10-11 Panini Certified Top Choice Game Used

This card is numbered 04/99 and features a swatch from a Devils jersey. Please forgive the scan, I think because the swatch wasn't touching the glass on the scanner it came out a little "salmon-like". The swatch is indeed red, and for 99 cents plus shipping I think it was a great deal for a Kovy fan like myself. Just another reason why I like Panini eBay deals.

GO CANUCKS and LIGHTNING!

Red Kelly TTM

I seem to be averaging about one successful TTM a week. This past week, my success was Red Kelly. The turnaround time on this request was a mere 15 days.

Red Kelly signed the autograph with a blue sharpie and added his number 4 on the end. You can see the rest of my post at Dirtydangle.com.

The Worst Player In Video Game History

Does this look like the face of the worst player in video game history? According to EA Sports in their NHL '93 game, Shawn Chambers was good enough for a overall rating of 1. Probably the only time it isn't good to be NUMBER 1.

Check out the link to the article here.

Countdown to draft day - Carolina Hurricanes/Whalers

Been a while since I did a draft day post, so here are the Carolina Whalers!

I think it is important to point out that since the Hurricanes have only been around since 1997 and I believe there are still many Whalers fans out there I must tie the two together because in my mind they are most certainly the same franchise!

The first ever pick for the Hartford Whalers as members of the NHL was right winger Ray Allison. Ray Allison was the 18th overall pick in the 1979 draft. Ray was an amazing junior player for the Brandon Wheat Kings racking up 134 goals and 313 points in his last two years of junior. As a pro, Ray never found major success in the NHL but did have a few good seasons in the AHL.

The first ever pick for the Carolina Hurricanes was Nikos Tselios. Nikos never could really find a home on an NHL roster and spent time in the IHL, NHL, AHL, Finnish pro league, Swedish elite league and the UHL before calling it quits.

Finding the best draft in Whalers/Hurricanes history lead me down a path that ended with 1981 and 1982 as the possible top choices.

The 1981 draft wasn't as deep for the Whalers as it was for other teams. The Whalers did grab the player who I felt was the best in the entire draft with the 4th overall pick. Ron Francis is one of those talents that if placed on the right team you would have heard about his performances each and every night but being isolated in a small market, Francis really never got the respect I felt he deserved. If there ever was an all-star underrated team Ron Francis would be the captain and starting centre. Apart from Francis and MacDermid, the 1981 draft was a bust for the Whalers. But really, if you could always have one hit like Francis does it matter who else you picked?

In the end, it was the depth the Whalers found in the 82 draft that I felt was the best in franchise history.

Each of the first 6 picks from this draft would play in the NHL. Dineen and Ferraro would both score more than 300 goals and have multiple 40+ goal seasons. Samuelsson would have a long career as well playing more than 1000 games including one game where he ruined Cam Neely's promising career. Unlike Dineen and Ferraro, Samuelsson would also win two Cups as a member of the Penguins.

The worst draft in Hurricanes/Whalers history in my opinion was their 2001 entry draft (which isn't horrible by some standards). In that draft, Mike Zigomanis was the only Hurricanes selection to make the NHL. At this point in his career, Mike has played for 5 different NHL clubs over the course of 10 years while playing less than 200 games. Not exactly what was expected from a player who had multiple 40 goal seasons in junior. Zigomanis still has potential and could be a late bloomer. He finished this season scoring 47 points in 65 AHL games with the Marlies. However his contract is officially up and this summer he is a UFA looking for some love and cash.

Is Joel Ward the second coming of John Druce?

In Feb of 2010, I bought a lot of 4 UD Ice hot packs. I remember be very disappointed in the results and if you check out the link you could see why.

15 months later, I am beginning to feel some excitement towards one of those cards. As of today, the leading goal scorer in these playoffs is Joel Ward. After finishing the season with 10 goals (good enough for 253rd in the NHL), Joel is leading the way in the playoffs with 7 goals in just 11 games and is the main reason the Preds are still in their series with Vancouver.

What makes this feat that much more enjoyable, Joel Ward was never drafted and signed as a free agent after tearing up the CIS as a member of the UPEI Panthers (Canada's version of NCAA). There seems to be a growing trend of players making the NHL after playing university hockey in Canada. I have been watching university hockey for years and I have seen some great players come and go and I am very happy to see Ward experience success.

Does this success mean Ward is going to score 50 goals next season? Definitely not. John Druce is the classic example. Back in the 1990 playoffs, Druce lead the Washington Capitals in goals with 14 which is nearly double the 8 goals he scored in 45 regular season games. After 14 goals in 15 playoff games, Druce would fall back to earth and only break 20 goals in a season once. In a playoff atmosphere playing the same team up to 7 times I think that it much easier to maintain a "hot streak" than it is over the course of an 82 game season. There are highs and lows that set in and I think players that often get really hot come playoff time are usually the unsung heroes and the players that can go unnoticed during the regular season.

If Nashville makes it to the next round, I think Ward has as much to do with it as Pekka Rinne does. I also think that next season realistically we can expect Ward to return to a 15-20 goal player but, I would especially love to see him turn into a Johan Franzen rather than a John Druce.

Marcel Dionne Debate

For a while I have been debating myself on whether or not I should mail away to Marcel Dionne. He is like Gilbert Perreault and charges for his autograph. From what I read, Dionne charges 10 bucks per autograph so I would mail away one item if I were to do it at all. What are your thoughts? Should I do it? I set up a poll on the upper right hand side of my blog to leave your response. After the polls close in a week, I will do what you guys suggest.

Mike Gartner - TTM

Check out my Mike Gartner TTM post over at Dirty Dangle.

Signature is done with a black sharpie, unfortunately no number but I guess that isn't his style. The turn around time was pretty decent at 2 months. He even put the cards in a top loader for me which I thought was a great touch!

Victory Black Print Run

Last year I bought a box of 09-10 UD Series 2 and I shared my break with you. See post here:

Fast forward another year and it looks like my big hits from the box are doing pretty well. Couture is up for ROY and James van Riemsdyk is playing like a second overall pick with 7 goals in 9 playoff games. The nice thing about the van Riemsdyk RC is the rarity of it. Victory black used to be one of the hardest to find hits in hockey. In fact, back in 05-06, if you found a Victory black card in a pack, you had yourself a card numbered to 5. Even the gold cards from that set were numbered to 100 (I pulled a 05-06 Victory Gold Kovalev #/100 once).

Times have changed in Victory land, gold and black cards are much easier to pull now than they were in 05-06. Upper Deck stopped numbering the cards in 06-07 and more recently, they started releasing 1 rookie and 1 regular black parallel in each case of UD Series 2.

So how many Victory black rookies are there? If you look on eBay, sellers are taking advantage of the idea they are still numbered to 5, but that hasn’t been true since 2006. There is no way of REALLY knowing how many there are, but I can tell you the minimum number of them.

The key to calculating the number rests in the fact that UD exclusives cards are numbered and seeded. There are 250 cards in the 09-10 Series 2 set, of which, Upper Deck produced 100 numbered cards of each of them. These cards are distributed at a rate of 1 in 48 hobby packs. That means there are 1.2 million hobby packs produced for 09-10 UD Series 2. If you factor in there are 2 Victory black cards for each 288 packs (the number in a case) then you are looking at about 8333 Victory black cards in all those hobby packs. If there are 90 victory cards in the update set, that means there are 92 Victory black cards for each card in the set.

92 is the minimum number, if you factor in there could also be Victory black in retail and fat packs that number would be higher. If they distributed the cards unevenly (ie the imbalance between 50 regular and 40 rookie cards in that set, that number could also rise).

Either way, it seems to expect there are only 5 victory black rookies is quite unreasonable now as the number seems more like 100. If you find yourself wanting to buy a victory black card on eBay, keep this in mind. Sure these numbers are only applicable to the 09-10 Victory Update set, but I imagine the numbers aren’t much different for the 10-11 Victory Update set as well. In fact I think the reasonable expectation is a print run of about 80-100 Victory black cards.

The Swap Meet

Living in the rural part of any province has its advantages and disadvantages. Living in rural Nova Scotia is especially hard if you are a hockey card collector. There are never any card shows, little to no card shops and mail service is slow. I have a local hobby shop I try and support but if I want a full fledged card shop, I have to drive almost an hour and a half to get there.

However, opportunity shone a light on me this past weekend when the local arena was housing a giant swap meet. There were lots of tables, lots of junk and a few sports cards kicking around. Armed with enough money to buy a blaster box, I found a few treasures that had me smiling when I left. There were two tables that I made purchases at and left 10 bucks with one and 16 bucks with another. Let me know how you think I did in all.....

1991 Score Young Stars Set.

- image taken from kmmcoinsandcurrency.com

Maybe I am feeling nostalgic lately but I felt my collection needed this little factory set. I am pretty sure it is worthless, but 40 cards of some pretty cool stars, I felt was worth the 2 bucks.

74-75 OPC Greg Joly RC

This was one of the few old rookies I saw kicking around and I could't leave this former number 1 draft pick lying around for 50 cents. Hope to turn it into TTM success.

74-75 OPC Lanny McDonald RC

This card is not in good shape, as you can seen the corners are not sharp and there are some light creases around them, but for $1.50 I wasn't really going to expect much. He is a HOF'er and to have his RC in my collection for so cheap was a must.

74-75 OPC Bernie Geoffrion Co Card

I didn't even know Boom Boom coached! He looks pretty sharp in one of Don Cherry's suits. Forgive the dirt on the top loader, but the card itself is in pretty good shape. Worth a dollar to me.

71-72 OPC Syl Apps RC

Here is another rookie I really wanted to have. Love the 71-72 set, and to pick up a RC from that set for a buck was a steal in my books. I am planning on sending this one as a TTM as well.

74-75 OPC WHA Heikki Riihiranta RC

I probably over paid for these next two cards. Each was 50 cents, but I was caught up in the moment (I have seen very few WHA cards in my life) and to have a chance to buy them for so cheap I grabbed the two most interesting to me. This is Heikki's RC, but someone decided to write a 'k' on the card for some reason so really I am sure this card is worthless, but a rookie is a rookie! BTW, never heard of Heikki, don't feel bad, he never skated for an NHL club.

74-75 OPC WHA Wayne Carleton

Wayne did play in the NHL and of all the WHA cards there he was the most notable. Paid 50 cents for this one.

97-98 BAP Pinnacle Krzysztof Oliwa

An autographed rookie card for a dollar? Couldn't leave this behind, especially since it is the "Polish Prince" Kryz Oliwa. He won a Cup with the Devils in 2000 and could fight with the best of them!

97-98 BAP Pinnacle Ray Sheppard

I always liked Ray Sheppard. Over 350 career goals including a 52 goal season with the Red Wings. A dollar for his autograph was too good to resist.

74-75 OPC Pat Quinn

I was a little skeptical about this one. A dollar for a Pat Quinn auto. The card isn't in great shape, but the auto done in black pen looked legit. From what I seen online it looks real, but for a dollar I felt it was worth the risk of being a fake. What do you guys think? Real or fake?

72-73 Topps Yvon Cournoyer

Picked up the Roadrunner and a couple other 72-73 Topps cards for a buck a piece. They are all in great shape and actually look like they were just pulled from packs. I am sending the next three out this week as TTM requests.

72-73 Topps Ron Ellis

The dirt on the upper right is just on the top loader.

72-73 Topps Norm Ullman

Norm looks much older than 36, but that didn't stop him from putting up 73 points in 77 games. He made the Hall of Fame in '82.

80-81 Wayne Gretzky Team Leader

I paid 2 bucks for this card. There is a ding in the upper left corner and one of the previous owners used the checklist on the back. The card looks awesome otherwise and for 2 bucks I couldn't lose!

82-83 OPC Messier/Gretzky Highlight Card

This was the most I paid for any of the cards. There is some typical OPC choppy cutting but that is the only thing wrong with the card. I have always wanted one of these and am pretty glad to have found it at the swap meet.

80-81 Gretzky RB

4 dollars is what this one cost. Same problem as the Messier/Gretzky there is some choppy cutting but that is about it. I think this is my fav of the whole lot.

In all 26 bucks for 15 cards and 1 set. How did I do?

I give it a 7 out of 10. I could have probably paid less for some, but given the age of some and if I have success with getting some autos that could really make this a great haul. If only the Gretzky team leader card didn't have the pen marks on the back!