Serendipitous Birthday Gift

When it comes to collecting, I have had some good luck and I have had some bad luck. I don't think you can collect for as long as I have without experiencing both. But I have also had some jaw dropping moments that I cannot classify as being anything other than a serendipitous event. I love that word and it is pretty fun to say too. Basically I am talking about getting good fortune by total accident. The first of a couple cases I am going to share just happened in the last month for my birthday:

My wife who I have mentioned before got me back into collecting cards I think is slowly starting to regret her early support as she now refused to buy me cards for birthdays and Christmas. However, she will still occasionally bribe me with cards and she did splurge and spend 4 dollars on two PressTine repack boxes. A few bloggers have shown them before and basically mine was no different. A couple theme repacks and a pack of 10-11 OPC where in one box and the other had 08-09 Victory and a couple theme packs to go along with an empty 35-card hinged box. Anyway, usually these repacks are all the commons from whatever decade they claim to represent and the other packs are always filled with stars and their ultra rare early 90's cardboard. 

However, one man's trash is another man's treasure in today's case. Check out my jaw dropping pack!

The pack begins with a header warning you what excitement is about to come your way.

First off was a 81-82 Topps Barry Beck. Barry was a highly touted defenseman whom the Rockies felt was going to be so amazing and game changing that they selected him over lesser players like Doug Wilson, Mike Bossy, Rod Langway, John Tonelli, Greg Millen and Glen Hanlon just to name a few. True he would be an ok defenseman and he would yield a boatload of players in a trade with the Rangers....but Mike Bossy could have changed the Rockies franchise around!

1981-82 Topps Mike Rogers, Mike Rogers was a scoring machine. He proved that WHA'ers could make an impact in the NHL and he did it immediately scoring 44 goals and 105 points in his first NHL season. I really don't know why his career ended so abruptly, but maybe one of my older fellow bloggers could inform and educate me. I couldn't find much online and he played his last NHL game at a pretty young age of 32.

Wow an OPC card! 89-90 of course. Adam's career was about to blast off at this point. I wonder if he has any idea how amazing that trade to St. Louis was going to be. True he would have his highest output in Boston, but the Blues was where he became an all-star.

89-90 OPC Buffalo Sabres action card. Looks like Dave Andreychuk will be sitting two for tripping.

SO there you have it, my repack. Pretty amazing huh? Can you guess which card was the jaw dropping one?

Well it was this one. Honestly there is NOTHING special about this common other than I desperately needed it. Let me explain:

So online about two years ago I bought a "complete" 81-82 Topps Set and I even featured it here. Being a huge fan of the 81-82 design but light on funds that set was a perfect starting point. I have since added tonnes of the OPC rookies and I may just pull the trigger on the OPC set someday. So the night it arrived to sat in my living room and fired that set into pages. I would pause and read a few but the main reason was to get it in safe and sound and I can enjoy it at my leisure. However, just before I finished putting it all in I realized that I was missing Lanny MacDonald. I had two Merlin Malinowskis instead. So I contacted the seller that night and he appologized and said I could keep both Merlins and mailed me a Lanny. Then the set sat for a few weeks and then I opened it up again and noticed something horrible.

I noticed that I had TWO #33 Borje Salmings! That mention I was missing another card which turned out to be number 32, Mike Rogers. So for a very long time I was missing a card in one of my favourite sets. I was going to contact the seller again but I felt that might come across wrong and really it was my fault for missing it too.

Then Sal at puckjunk.com had a cool contest which was the One Card Challenge. I thought great, a contest and a chance to get my missing card. So when I saw this, I went to my "want page" rather than wait until I got home and check my binder and sure enough the card I was missing was number 33. So Sal who was running the contest actually said he had the card and sent it my way. All the time it took to arrive here I thought wow I am going to have my complete set finally. However, in case you got confused because I know I had, it turns out I already had 2 number 33's and now I had a third. The elusive number 32 was still missing from my collection. SO for the next year or so I kept pondering if I should just pay the 4 bucks it would be 99 cents plus crazy shipping to get the card I needed or just hope it will arrive someday.

Well thanks to my wife, a PressTine repack and two years of waiting, I have the missing card that has eluded me all this time. You have no idea how happy I was to get this and the funny thing was my wife when she gave me these two boxes from the dollar store, said " I know they aren't much or might not have anything good in them but I thought you might like to open something". Well Julia, you may not have had much hope in that little box but I got one of the coolest accidents ever in my collecting career. When you think about all the common cards from the 80's and select 4, who would think that I would get the only card I was missing from my 81-82 Topps set.

This serendipitous even certainly provided me much amusement on my birthday but it also has increased my love of a set that will always have a great story.

Sets of Yesteryear - 91-92 Score Hot Cards

Here is another installment of "Sets of Yesteryear", and since we went all the way back to 1991-92 last time we might as well pick up another grossly overproduced set from that year. Some liked the Euro-stars, some hated them. Lets see what you all think of the 91-92 Score Hot Cards.

A little background, these cards came as a special insert for anyone wanting to by a blister pack of 91-92 Score Hockey. The blister packs came with 99 base cards and one insert card (if memory serves me right). The bad thing is I believe that the 91-92 Score Hockey (thanks to Collectors Corner for a cool review) was one of the ugliest set of all-time, the good thing is the Hot Cards look nothing like them! Here is the set in its entirety.

Card #1 Eric Lindros

I think Score made nearly a dozen cards of Lindros before he even played an NHL game. In some respects I think they felt that he was their ticket to printing money and in some ways that was true. I remember I bought two of these Blister packs at my local Sears store and I ended up with a Gretzky and a Jagr. The BV of the Lindros back in 1995 was 10 bucks and it has since dropped to a paltry $2.00. I really like this card as it features Lindros in his Team Canada World Junior jersey.

Card # 2 Wayne Gretzky

Love this card too, the action shot of Wayne streaking down the ice and a goalie who is out of the photo likely wetting himself in fear of the Great One all in black. The design is pretty simple with a full red border and a yellow accent in the trim. 

The backside is a paragraph of stats and information. I like that there is a photo on the back and the photo does differ from the photo on the front. The back design again is pretty decent and 20 years later doesn't look as terrible as other releases from the time period.

Card #3 Brett Hull

 During the early 90's every set and insert set NEEDED Brett Hull. The best goal-scorer from the early 90's period and the last player to an official 50 in 50 and last to score more than 80 goals in a season. I think the hooking Scott Stevens is doing in the background might get called in today's game.


Card #4 Sergei Fedorov

Another staple of any early 90's set was the hot upcoming prospects like Sergei Fedorov. With only one full season under his belt when this came out, he had much to prove and accomplish still, but if you look back at his career now, he is a shoo-in for the HOF.

Card #5 Mario Lemieux

 At the time this card came out, Lemieux had already begun his battle with back injuries and was limited to just a little over a quarter of a season. Still managed 19 goals and 45 points and may have been the best player in the set at the time.


 Card #6 Adam Oates

 Glad to see Oatesy get some respect by his inclusion in the set. At the time he was the other half of the Hull and Oates combo and some say Hull made him a super-star. Fact is, Oates made himself and proved it when he scored 45 goals and 142 points with the Bruins in 1992-93. If you were wondering who were his wingers at the time...it was likely a combination of Steve Leach, Dmitri Kvartalnov, and Vladimir Ruzicka. Definitely no Brett Hull!

Card #7 Theo Fleury

A cool goal celebration card featuring a star who lit the lamp often early in his career. That is a great looking Woody in his hand, btw.


Card #8 Jaromir Jagr

Either this is a practice or a warm-up photo because there are lots of empty seats over there and at the time everyone wanted to see Mario Jr.

Card #9 Ed Belfour

This is my favourite card in the set. I wanted nothing more in life than to be Ed Belfour when it came to street hockey. I even had the Hawks jersey to go along with the dream. The only goalie in the set, Score picked a fine player with Belfour being the reigning Vezina, Calder, and First-Team All-Star goalie.


Card #10 Jeremy Roenick

 Even though NHL '93 was a year or two away, Score made him the last card in the set. At the time Roenick had his first 40 goal season and the best was still yet to come. I personally love seeing the old Easton Aluminum sticks.

In all, I think the set is still reasonably attractive and has aged rather well when compared to the 91-92 Score base cards. It offers much more star power than the Euro-Stars set did but at the same time, it is a smaller set and not as nice looking to me personally. The book value of the set these days is 15 bucks with the most expensive card being Gretzky which books for 8 dollars. I managed to pick up a complete set at my LCS for the change in my pocket at the time which I think was like 3 bucks.

So what are your thoughts on the set? A must have or a must avoid? I personally think it would be a fun addition to someone's collection and gives you a reason to avoid 91-92 Score! I give this set a 4/5. Decent design, nice player selection and a couple cool photos you can really appreciate!