09-10 OPC Premier John Taveres Auto RC /299

John Tavares has been a class act in my opinion from the moment the spotlight was thrown on him as a 15 year old. He ripped apart the junior ranks setting national records and even beat a Gretzky record in the process for goals by a 16 year old. However, this past season has been a tough one for him and with all the attention Crosby has received few have noticed that John hasn't been filling the net much this year after just missing out on an Art Ross trophy last year.

Currently he's on pace for 60 points which would represent his lowest point output for a full season since his rookie year. John does have 4 points in his last 4 games and 10 in his last 12 so he could be gearing up for a strong second half. I personally hope that this is true.

I am fortunate enough to already have a rookie or two of John's and his auto but one card I always really wanted was his OPC Premier rookie (even more so than his young gun). Not sure what the draw is exactly, but I do love the design from that season for OPC Premier, and having a relatively low print run with swatches and signatures is always a nice plus in my books.


09-10 OPC Premier John Taveres Auto RC /299

This is a pretty solid specimen. Gold signature, all Islanders colours are represented with a couple two colour pieces and its numbered 232/299. I think it's pretty funny how I am drawn to certain cards more than others especially when I am sure there are many more valuable and desirable ones out there. However for me, I would gladly take this card over his SPx rookie etc any day!

Thanks for stopping by, next post is going to be a sets of yesteryear as its been a while since I have done one of those. 

So here is what I bought with my Brendan Gallagher Loot - Part 2

Like I said in my last post, I am really just trying to convert my Gallagher auto into cards I would appreciate more. For a few years now I have been trying to secure a nice mid-range Tavares rookie. My packs and boxes of 09-10 UD Series one have yielded nothing so I decided to try my hand at landing a Young Gun. Tavares Young Guns started out around the $100 mark and have steadily dropped despite him picking up his game. You can typically land a Young Gun Tavares in the 30-40 dollar range for ungraded Nrmt-Mt ones. I felt that was a little rich for my blood so then I tried landed a Trilogy Tavares rookie. I like these cards a little better because the print run is actually about a 1/10 of the Young Guns. Young Guns are a tremendous value and are more sought after but typically you can expect a print run of at least 5000 per card. The Trilogy Tavares rookie was limited to just 499. After a couple failed Best Offers, one of the BIN's I had been watching ended and reappeared as an auction. I was all over that and wasn't going to let it go for peanuts. Sure enough, I was the lucky winner and an easy fiver under my max bid. So here is the mid-range Tavares rookie specimen in my collection.

09-10 UD Trilogy John Tavares Rookie /499

So this card is amazing in person. The card is printed on a very nice and vibrant foil board and you certainly get a nice rainbow effect when you look at the card. Numbered as I mentioned before and the card is in perfect shape. Book value on this is 10 bucks lower than the Young Gun rookie (60 for YG 50 for Trilogy) and in my opinion worth every bit of the book value and much more than the $15 I stole it for. When Trilogy came out in 09-10 you could easily expect to pay 25-30 a pack for this stuff with there being hits in every pack. Rookies fell 1 in 3 packs and autos and memorabilia hits in the other 2 in 3 packs. Prices have dropped on this product and you can find hobby boxes (9 packs) for less than $180 bucks now. Still pricey, but there are some pretty cool hits if you are among the lucky.

If you are looking for a mid-range Tavares, both the Trilogy and Black Diamond versions can be had at deals if you are patient!

John Tavares TTM Auto - With a cool twist

A while back I received two John Tavares autos which were personalized. However, there was a neat twist to how the envelope found its way home, check out the rest of the story at Dirty Dangle!

Box Break Loot from Cardboard Conundrum

As I get through my posts, I need to share some fun loot from a box break a while ago with Matt from Cardboard Conundrum. Initially I had signed up for the Devils, but then my secondary team wasn't terribly interesting to me, but Matt was kind enough to trade me for the Islanders so here we go, three boxes (10-11 Luxury, 11-12 Anthology and 11-12 Enforcers)

I will kill all suspense and say that I hit nothing of note on the Anthology box except a Pinnacle rookie of Anders Nilsson.

The Luxury Suite box was my best success with three cards:

Gotta love J-T, he is showing why he was the first overall pick in 09 as he sits 5th in goals with 16 at the moment. Boring swatch, but a nice hit regardless.

 My favourite hit of the lot and not just because it is a rookie auto. I think this kid is a good defenseman and he has potential to be very good offensively. Overall, the best card in terms of my "value" I place on each card.

I really felt this kid could have been a good offensive defenseman. I am not wrong about that at the AHL level, but it looks like I may have over-estimated his NHL potential.

Is it me, or does that auto look wrong? I actually had to look online to see if there was a mistake with the stickers on this one....Turns out there wasn't and Gillies starts with an M.

There you go, another great Conundrum break. I think I ended up ahead on this break even if all my good hits were Islanders. 

My. Best. Upper Deck. Pack. Ever.

Funny story the other day. I decided to go into some sketchy second hand store and just look around. Wandering past the old Bee Gees records and overpriced used xbox games I see a few packs of cards. For 75 cents I could get myself a pack of 88 Donruss Baseball, 91 UD Baseball, 90-91 Pro Set Series 2 and the list of crap went on. Then out of the corner of my eye on a dirty back shelf was a box of 09-10 MVP and 10-11 UD Series 1. I see a price of 2.99 on the UD Series 1 so I ask the lady if I could see the box. The guy working behind the counter in a gruff manner asks what do I need to see the box for? I respond I wanted to know if they were retail or hobby packs. He said they are hobby. By that point the box is now in front of me and then I said, I feel lucky so I would like to select my own three packs. Before they could respond I just grabbed the top right pack, bottom left pack and then a pack 2 down on the bottom right. Then I walk to the cash and pay 10.25 which included tax.

Then I tell them, I don't search packs because I prefer to get rookies over jersey cards.

Then I proceed to open the packs.

Pack 1.

Looking in through the top I can already see I have a jersey card. No rookie, but cool nonetheless.

The card is a Mark Recchi jersey card which has a black swatch.... good start.

Pack 2.

Looking in I see lots of cards, rookie potential in there.

However, no rookies to be found but I do find a 90-91 variation of Brent Seabrook. Not bad because I don't have any of these cards.

Pack 3.

Looking into the top, something isn't right. I see three cards. One huge and thick one and two small ones. My adrenaline gets pumping because I have NEVER pulled what I think this is out of ANY pack before. Sure enough it is a patch card! And better yet, the card is of a player who is pretty darn good and has MUCH potential!

A three colour swatch with orange and white being patch pieces.

The card is numbered 06/15 and I am jacked.

Without a doubt this is the best card I have ever pulled from an UD pack and maybe the best I have ever pulled period. Not back for feeling lucky and the best part I felt was, this was all on my birthday!

Please forgive the photo, a little crude but time has not been on my blogging side lately as I finish up my last two Masters courses!

Upper Deck makes it right!

In perfect Mike Holmes style, Upper Deck decided to make it right for me. Just before Christmas, Zellers had a sale on blaster boxes (I appear to be a sucker for them) where I got a 12 pack one for 8 bucks. The odds on the box said 1:6 have young guns in them, so I of course think that I should get two. To my surprise, after opening the box I receive NONE.

I know it is an average of 1:6 but I figured I should at least get one. In the past I have had both good (3 yg's in a blaster box) and bad luck (4 yg's in a hobby box and 1 game used instead of 6 and 2) with these averages but I felt I should have had at least 1 for my purchase.

So I called UD customer support and they were very kind and gave me a case number and told me to mail in the box top along with a letter including my information. Fast forward 8 weeks and in the mail comes a letter along with three cards. The letter had a kind message affirming UD stance on pack and box odds being for the whole run and not on an individual basis but they also stated that they wish to give me some complimentary product as a sign that they care about my issue. I believe the gesture was sincere and I think that in the long run the act of kindness from UD will continue to keep me buying their product. Don't get me wrong, I will never be exclusively one company or another, but I think a company that does these sort of acts does show some care about their customer service because I know they could have told me to "cram it with walnuts, ugly".

Here is what I received:

Young Guns Checklist featuring the big three from last season. Duchene appears to be the most successful of the lot so far.

Frazer McLaren will likely have more fights than points in his career but for some people that is OK!

I was really surprised to see this gem in there. I didn't have a Brown G-U in my collection yet and I definitely will hang on to this one. The other two young guns are available for trade if someone needs them to finish their sets.

Diversions

Ok, so the ruling didn't go the way I hoped it would. Now the waiting game continues, so I thought I would share a box I opened a little while back of 09-10 UD Series 2. I usually don't mind this product because of a couple of reasons. First of all, you get a crack at the Victory versions of the rookies you missed from Series 1, you get a shot at a Rookie Memorabilia card and finally it completes the series. I must say, before I opened this box, I knew it could only get better! My Series one box best card was a Brodeur game used and the best rookie was Ryan O'Reilly. That was a dud box to say the least. I usually like the feeling I got what I paid for, but I was left unsatisfied and disgusted because all 6 of my pathetic young guns had roller marks all over them. SO here we go, this time around I feel I got it right, the young gun pool is much shallower, but I did alright...

The highlight of the rookies was Logan Couture who saw some action at the end of the season and looks to be a rather promising star. THN has him projected to score 36 points this season. Brad Marchand and Lars Eller were the other two notable pulls and they are projected to be full-time NHL'ers this coming season according to THN.

My Victory Gold rookie for this box was good old JT. Since I missed him in Series 1, this is the equivalence of the Ms Congeniality prize. I don't mind Victory rookies as much as others, I love rookie cards so the Gold parallel is better then the regular base one, which I pulled two of him as well.

The Exclusives are inserted 1 for every two hobby boxes and I was lucky enough to pull my buddy Gio. A former Devil, he will always have a place in my heart especially after his magical 48 goal season. He will never be able to repeat it, but I wish him luck in Montreal.

After opening most of the packs, this little surprise was found toward the bottom of the box. I have never pulled a victory black in my life and Van Riemsdyk isn't a bad one to start a collection on. I had pulled a regular Victory Rc of him earlier in the box was well and also lucked into a Ultra redemption rc of my new best friend James. He was born in NJ so maybe this is fate.

I almost fell off my chair when I opened this one. If all these Van Riemsdyk cards can't turn me into a fan then I don't know what will. A black swatch is always better than a white one, but beggars can't be choosers because the other GU from this box I pulled was a JP Dumont which if I didn't already have another GU of him might have been mildly exciting....But alas I have a SP Game Used of him already so now I will try and find a Preds fan who would be remotely interested in it and trade it to them for some commons of a set I am sure I don't collect.

The final thing I have to say about this box is why did I pull two "ice dancer" cards? Since when did hockey and ice dancing go together? Worse yet, one of them has never even won a real event like the olympics! I think they won some crappy USA junior title or some shit like that? There are probably two people in the world that wanted this card printed...Him and His MOM. So why did UD think it was a good idea? I can't wait for Panini to print some cards and give me an option to not buy UD.