A Successful International Experiment

So a while back Shane from Shoebox Legends writes to ask me if I wanted to participate in an experiment. I was flattered and immediately agreed to (for the sake of science of course). So fast forward a little over a week and in my mail was a wonderful care package of 9 cards in a PWE!  The best part is they all arrive safe and sound and what would have originally cost a finger or two to mail to Canada set Shane back nothing more than probably the hair off his knuckles!

I on the other hand, get ALL the rewards! Check them out!

Here is the gem of them all! My first Brett Connolly Young Gun! Despite having countless rookies and autos I never actually had this card (now I have 2, story to follow). Brett was recently traded to the Boston Bruins which did excite me because he was getting a new start after being buried low in the depth chart due to the hoarding of many young offensive forwards by Steve Yzerman.

Love this kid, just wish the coaches did. I have a couple of his rookies but this is the first Prizm one! Eric was a bit of a whipping boy for PDB, but since his firing, Eric has seen an increase in ice time and a decrease in scratches which will hopefully translate to a longer term deal next season (especially since we let Marek Zidlicky go).

I said that the Connolly YG was the Gem, but that is because I was expecting it. The real diamonds in the rough are this card and the next one.The Stadion cards are a Czech release from the early 2000's which feature players from all sorts of sports. Here is an awesome photo that I doubt Upper Deck would ever put on their cards. Scott has been wounded in action and I can almost picture this being taken while he was on the bench waiting to hear if the player got 4 minutes for the infraction! Or maybe it was a fight? Maybe it was a "no call". Well the cool thing about these cards, is there is a date stamp on the back which states when the photo was taken it this one was from Game 3 of the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals. Ville Niemenen took a 2 min boarding call against Scott in the first period so this could have been the result or maybe it was something missed. Either way, Scott didn't take any penalties during this game so it is safe to say it wasn't a fight. Love this card!

Here is another one, this time Scott Gomez is celebrating a goal! No games this time, this game is from April 20 2001 and while the Devils lost this game 3-2 to Carolina, they would go on to of course win the series and make it eventually to the Cup final. This particular game, Scott Gomez was one of the goal scorers but Arturs Irbe stopped 37 of 39 from the win. Based on these two cards I am very tempted to try and see others from this set. I am not sure how many Devils make an appearance but these two are great examples so far.

Yikes! Ok, don't judge a book by its cover but I have a hard time seeing him as a goalie coach! Maybe the accountant or something like that but not goalie coach. Well, it turns out boys and girls that the goalie coach for the 1980 USA Miracle on Ice team was Mr Strelow! He was only with the Devils for one season but he did coach in San Jose and Washington as well.

Leading scorer in Devils history! Sweet!

Some more Elias! Awesome!

In addition to these 7 cards, there was also base cards of Zach Parise and Brian Gionta filling out a PWE stuffed with 9 cards. Every card made it safe and sound and I want to thank Shane again for including me on a pretty awesome experiment. Hopefully it isn't 3 weeks until my next post either :)

A massive pile of awesome from Shoebox Legends

When I started blogging back in Dec of 2009, I felt as an outsider and really I was. I was newly back into the hobby two years previously, lots had changed and there was a pretty awesome community of card collectors that were blogging. Guys like Mike from Bad Wax, Sal from Puck Junk and Shane from Shoebox were collectors that had cool blogs that motivated me to just give it a try. Then as time passed I found myself slowly being apart of an already established community and that community grows each year. 

I have been very fortunate to have received great things via trade, sale and gratis. Shane most recently has dropped another package of kindness on my door step and I plan on sharing that with you in today's post. As most of you know, I am entirely a hockey collector but thanks to Shane and few others like Jeff from 2x3 heroes I have slowly begun getting a few ball cards in my collection. I even went out recently and finally found a baseball set (exciting I know). 

Shane sent a huge pile of hockey and baseball cards in the most recent package so here are a few of the many that I received.

Bondo!!! During the round years 2002-2005 especially, Bonderman was our lone bright spot. Shame he hasn't been able to pitch as well as he did back then because the Tigers could really use the old Bonderman.

 The card defines what Shane does all the time, X-Tra Effort. Very cool card, another one that I don't own.

 Here is one of many shiny cards from the late 90's. This one is of my doppelganger Pavel Bure. I once dated a girl in high school because she thought I looked like him.
 

 This is one of a few 78 OPC. What a cool set, not sure if it has a fan following or not but I liked the ones I got. Chuck looks like he is all business and his career .190 batting average suggests otherwise.

 These two were classic.

 Mullets! I got myself a few mullets too. I tried rocking one when I was like 9 years old. Didn't last long or look good.

Another shiny of Alex Mogilny. Good memories of him in New Jersey.

There you go a small sampling of the wicked stack that Shane sent my way. I am already working on getting another one going Shane and hopefully it will be in the mail in a month or two.