Canada Post Screws Up Again and Panini America Makes It Right

So as many of you know, I moved about a year ago. When you move, there are lots of things to take care of and one of those things is mail forwarding. My wife and I had a debate over how long to forward our mail and I wanted to pay for a YEAR and she wanted to do the minimum of 6 months. Not knowing when some of my TTMs might make it back home to me I felt a year was totally worth it and in fact I was tempted to renew just in case. Well a couple days ago our year was up and I will just have to live with any super long returns just not making it back to me. However, returns from Selanne, Tretiak, and Backes are just a couple of the reasons why I was glad to forward for as long as I did.

Sadly, mail forwarding isn't always perfect because people are involved. I had asked for a product replacement from Panini last summer to replace a redemption that was going to take forever to get back and really was going to be crap anyway. It was a 12-13 Limited Devils Rookie Redemption and it turned out that they weren't going to be signed so I asked for a different card. The great people at Panini America offered me another card and it turned out to be this card.

11-12 Panini Contenders NHL Ink - Adam Larsson

However, what happened was they mailed the above card out and weeks later I wondered, where the heck is it? So I logged on to check the tracking and it turns out the card was delivered. But, I never received it. I then knew why, I FORGOT TO CHANGE MY MAILING ADDRESS. My first thought was, damn I am an idiot for not checking that first. But then I thought, why didn't it get forwarded? Canada Post first blamed me because it was a package and they don't forward packages, just letters. But then after a couple of days of "reviewing my case" they realized they did screw up too and offered me postage products to make up for the mistake. Panini on the other hand said they would wait to see if it came back as a "return to sender" . A few weeks later I contacted Panini again and they said it didn't arrive back but that they would resend a second card and they confirmed my new address with me and a week or two later the above card arrived.

In all, I don't think this could have come out any better for me. I had some stressful moments dealing with Canada Post etc, but in the end I believe Panini was the better of the three parties by stepping up and fixing MY MISTAKE and dealing me a homerun of a card. No stickers here, a nice on-card auto of one of the best Devils defense prospects. If it wasn't for DeBoer, Adam would have been a full-time NHL'er a while back.

Thanks Panini for making it right and that is another reason why you will be missed in the Hockey Card market. Top notch customer service.

This is my trade of the year: Part 1 of 3

Not too long ago, Matt from Cardboard Conundrum announced that he was starting a new PC. When I read his post on collecting UND alumni I knew I would be able to help him out immediately. I had a few doubles of former Devil Zach Parise that I wouldn't mind trading and an extra Ed Belfour auto. Unlike Clarkson, I didn't have a Zach fire sale because I knew going to Minn wasn't going to add value to his collection and in same cases it dropped the value. Secondly, I didn't take his departure as personally because he wasn't an undrafted signing like Clarkson who was passed over by all 30 clubs including Toronto. Instead, Parise was drafted in the first round and picked by the Devils ahead of Minnesota who would much have rather drafted Parise instead of Brent Burns.

So I emailed Matt with a few cards I had up for trade and a few I was interested in and BANG, one of my fastest trades ever. Then I thought I would ask if Matt had any interest in my Crosby GU 5/5 and he went above and beyond to ensure that was included in the deal. So, here is the first part of my amazing haul thanks to Matt:

2010-11 ITG Decades 80's Esa Tikkanen Auto 

The Tick! Yep, I own an on-card auto of former NHL super pest and 5-time Stanley Cup Champ, Esa Tikkanen. The Oilers are always a club that I liked, and maybe the most of any Canadian club. There are only two names that come to mind when I think of a player who could effectively throw another star player off their game, then score the game winning goal for their own club. Those players are Claude Lemieux and Esa Tikkanen. What some people don't know is that Esa actually in the top 20 all-time for regular season short handed goals despite only having 244 career goals. Esa was also a New Jersey Devil for 9 games in the much forgettable 1995-96 season where we missed the playoffs by 2 points. That season the Devils had more point than 5 teams that made the playoffs in the Western Conference.

11-12 Dominion Peerless Patches - Adam Larsson /40

A rookie year auto is always nice and when you add in the patch it is just awesome. True the patch is a little dull, but when you consider the Devils emblem, there really aren't many exciting swatches you can pull from it. The swatch is nice and large and the auto is large and spot on for Adam. This card was one that had to be included in the trade because there just aren't many bloggers out there who would appreciate this as much as I would so it came home with Esa.

There are the first two from the trade, there will we two more posts each with a single card focus. See you next time. 

11/12 UD Ultimate Pick-ups

I have some really cool post ideas that are both very personal and very meaningful to me, but it just seems that I have no time to do these posts justice so they keep getting put on the back burner. Fact is, they likely won't interest many of my casual readers or any of my readers for that matter, but as time has done by on this blog I am beginning to realize one thing. What I have realized is that not only am I doing this for personal fun, not only am I doing this to be a member of a really cool community, but I am also doing this for my children. 

I have a son who can't read or write (because he is two) and another one to join him in February and anything can happen to me at any time. If I died tomorrow, you might see another post or two on here but that would be it, and further more my story about life, collecting etc., would be over. My passion for collecting and love of hockey would be extinguished too and my children may never know how much I really enjoyed it or why certain cards were important. 

My blog, does give me that opportunity because "the internet is forever" and what I say or do can be  read in the future by them whether I am around or not. I think this new focus will allow me to share more meaningful posts to an audience I never knew I might have...my family. I guess you can consider this a warning that my posts may get less interesting to you on occasion, or on occasion I will be more interesting....I guess it depends on what brought you to my site in the first place.

In the meantime, here is some 11/12 UD Ultimate cardboard!

11/12 Ultimate Signatures Brett Connolly

I am becoming a bigger collector of his by the day, here is a nice simple on-card auto of a future star in my opinion!

11/12 UD Ultimate Rookie Patches

Two rookie patches, three colours and numbered to an arbitrary 65. I love the card and it gives me some NJ swatches of one of our best prospects on the blue-line! The best part is both of these combined cost me less than a pack of Artifacts with shipping!

Toonie Treasures

My LCS has just continued to evolve over the past year or so thanks to Mike. He has taken the approach of moving lots of product fast rather than make more of each card slowly. It certainly is a business model that I think works for everyone, but then again my wife is the one with the business degree. All of these cards were in the 2 dollar bin which offers a good balance of value and coolness.

11/12 UD Young Guns Checklist

I am going to say that if this was one of my Young Gun hits in a box I would be happy, but not excited. At two bucks, I am excited. Three solid rookies including my boy Larsson. The other two were ROY finalists including the winner Landeskog.


08/09 UD Young Guns Checklist

I think any card with Stamkos on it from his rookie year is a home run. Both Doughty and Pietrangelo has become soild D-Men not unlike the early 90's when it was Lidstrom and Niedermayer.

05-06 UD ICE Zach Parise Rookie /999

 I bought one of these a while back in a lot deal with a Duncan Keith Ice rookie. I thought it was a pretty good deal to land both for under 10 bucks, but this takes the cake!

07-08 BAP Auto Tobias Enstrom

Here is a rookie year auto of Tobias Enstrom. If this kid was in Toronto he would be getting as much praise as Jake Gardiner, however he is stuck in the Winnipeg Thrasher organization and back to back 50 point seasons mean your auto is in the two dollar bin. He did only have 33 points last year, but he was hurt for 20 games.

06-07 Bee Hive Booth /100 and Zajac

A Booth rookie /100 had to come home with me and the Zajac was a rookie I didn't own already so these two are likely my least biggest savings but still two good cards that found a loving home!


I will keep sifting the boxes and sharing what other good stuff I can find. Parise is up for trade if anyone is interested.

Adam Larsson Rookie - Pros and Cons of SP Game Used

I would like to begin this post by saying, I have never bought a pack or box of SP Game Used. I intend to at some point, but I just haven't yet. For those of you who have priced it out or bought a box the packs will run you about 35-40 bucks and boxes are between 180 and 200 bucks (depending on location and taxes).

I could have bought a box of 11/12 SP Game Used last week, but I instead went with Certified and I haven't lost any sleep over my decision. If you are unfamiliar with the product, you get 6 packs in a box and each pack has at least one hit. The hit is going to be a game used card. Sometimes there will be an auto on your game-used card and other times there will be a rookie in the pack as well. Rookies fall every three packs or two per box. Sometimes you can get a third rookie and the rookies are numbered to /699 or /99 this year. 

The problem with the product boils down to VALUE. 8 hits in a box (6 game used and 2 rookies) is a pretty nice box, but at 200 bucks you are getting your hits at 25 bucks a piece. The game used cards can often be had for under 5 bucks a piece for common players and the rookies are the same if you get a common /699. So in the end you can pay 200 bucks and end up with 50 bucks in cardboard. But, it is the chase for the big rookies, cool inserts and rare cards that make the chase that much more exciting, but if you are unlucky you can lose big. 

A while back I made a trade with Tim from the Real DFG and I landed this Adam Larsson card.

11/12 SP Game Used Adam Larsson Rookie /99

This is one of the base rookies that are numbered to 99. There are 10 cards in the set numbered to 99 and the numbering is a sticker on what is intended to look like a circuit board which is why it scanned funny. The card is pretty cool looking, much nicer than the 07/08 SP Game Used cards.

Glad to have this card as part of my collection and certainly glad to have so many fellow bloggers out there to make trades with!

Adam Larsson Hot Rookie

This is the second last post about cards I picked up with my 100 dollars I would have spent on Score boxes.  One card I wanted to get was an SP rookie from the set because of a couple of reasons. The first reason is there was an SP'd rookie featuring a New Jersey Devil, the second being if I had bought some boxes I would have landed some of these cards so why wouldn't I try to land one.

Funny story about this card is it is actually the second one I have purchased. I sent the first one I purchased in a trade with another blogger (The Real DFG I think). Anyway, I landed this one for a little less than I paid for the first one, but it was the first price that I included in my 100 dollar spending spree.

11/12 Score Adam Larsson Hot Rookie

Adam came out of the gate hot for the Devils and played very well most of the season. However, his inexperience with long seasons did come to the surface toward the end of the season as he just seemed to run out of gas and found himself being a healthy scratch down the stretch. However, I think he learned a lot and will be an excellent defenseman in the years to come. The deep playoff run will certainly only help his career in the NHL.

The Future is looking bright!

Each year, ITG impresses me more and more. There was an insert card out there in the new Heroes and Prospects that just spoke to me!

Here are three prospects in the Devils organization that have me believing that we can keep up the success after Marty retires.

I found this gem a little while back on eBay. I paid a little more than I probably normally would for a game-used card but still brought it home for a respectable 10 bucks.

This is the silver version of the insert, so they are numbered to 50.

After getting this card, I was inspired to buy a box of 11/12 Heroes and Prospects. The results were pretty good and I will share those in a post soon!