Another Wayne Autograph

I hope you didn't come here thinking it was another Gretzky auto because you will be saddened. However, it is another Wayne who was a WHA star and an all round pretty awesome minor league player Wayne Connelly. No relation to Brett Connolly as they spell their names differently and all but still a star in his own right.



ITG 1972 The Year in Hockey - Wayne Connelly Auto

Picked this up in the spring for $1.50 and that isn't bad for an on-card auto of a former NHL and WHA player. As far as accomplishments go, Wayne scored a career high 35 goals in the NHL and hit 40 twice in the WHA. He also scored 45 goals in the WHL with the San Francisco Seals. While he never was able to put together a consistent career in the NHL, he did very well in the WHA averaging over 30 goals a year and finishing with 329 points in 366 WHA regular season games. 

ITG Delivers

Well a while back this post got deleted and unfortunately it is going to be much more abbreviated.

In less than three weeks I had my redemption in, filled and returned! You hear that UD and Panini? Now I knew my chances were about 50-50 of getting something decent and well here is the return. I will let you be the judge. Personally, I like the players, but they are both Flyers which means this card is up for sale/trade.

Front Side

Here are the swatches. The Schenn piece is pretty cool and the Couturier isn't white which is a plus. I do wish these cards were autographed considering the lengths people have to go through to get one of these redemptions.

The Back Side

The best feature of the card could be the fact it is number 1. That matters to some collectors.

So there you have it. A pretty decent return, I consider this a success myself, but as always beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

ITG Decades Box Break - Part 3 of 3

The rest of the box.

Hit 7

Being a Canadian, I am a tiny bit ignorant to the whole 1980 US Olympic team. I know the big names that went on to be NHL'ers and I would say Mark Johnson was my favourite of the lot. Verchota, never heard of him, but looks like he played a season of pro hockey in Europe. This card is up for trade if anyone is looking at getting all 20 Team USA autos.

Hit 8

Here is a Team USA member I did know about. Good defenseman and multiple all-star. LIke this auto and I do plan on keeping it.

Hit 9

Anyone noticing a pattern? A third Team USA auto, though this one is like the Ramsey one and meant to represent his NHL Club. Jim Craig is also in the set with a Team USA auto version as well. Can't say I am big enough fan of Jim Craig to want to keep this card so if you want to trade for it, send me an email.

In all the box was pretty successful. What I lost in autos I seemed to gain in memorabilia cards. I rate my box a 7 out of 10.

In terms of product, I love Decades. If I am spending 100 bucks for a pack, I am glad there aren't any base cards because chances are I will not ever complete the set. So a product in this price range that is all hits makes sense to me!

What I like:

Great design, cool subsets, quality checklist

Great number of hits for the price point

They tell you where the jersey was used

What I don't like:

No Wayne

Not a huge fan of the number of USA and part-time NHL's in the checklist

I hope ITG does another decade next year. 90's would be a fun one!

ITG Decades Box Break - Part 2 of 3

Hope you don't mind camera shots again! Here are hits 4-6.

The pack gets more interesting as we get our first memorabilia hit.

Hit 4

I am definitely a fan of Nifty Middleton. This card is numbered to 130 which isn't too bad for the highest numbered memorabilia insert.

Wayne Gretzky once played on a line with Middleton and Perreault and he marveled at how skilled Middleton was. There appeared to be a little piece of wood or something stuck in the jersey. I left it there....

Hit 5!!!!!

Wow! This may be one of the funnest cards I have ever pulled! These four guys are amazing and this is the Silver Version which is numbered to 30. Love the swatches, love the players, this made the box. According to the back of the card, all swatches are from their NHL clubs except Mario which is from a Team Canada Jersey. That part is what I think makes this the coolest card I own.

Hit 6

This one was a bit of a surprise. I came down from the high of the last card and missed something key on first inspection of this card. I was happy to see Leetch, he is an amazing defensemen. He is in the Hall of Fame and Messier called him the greatest Ranger of all-time. What I missed at first glance is this is a Silver Version which is also numbered to 30. This box is shaping up to be a winner!

ITG Decades Box Break - Part 1 of 3

Well finally I was able to get my box of ITG Decades. I have decided to share the break over three posts much like how the product is broken down into three different kinds of hits. My scanner isn't compatible with my home OS so you will have to suffer with pictures I have taken with my home camera. Any "sheen" is from the top loaders...

Hit 1 - 100 years of collecting

When I opened up my box I see Wendel smiling at me. Is this a good or bad sign. Well he went into his NHL career with LOTS of potential. He had a 46 goal season, but never played more than 66 games in a season.

Hit 2 - Decades Rookies

Now we are talking. Love this guy! This is a solid hit for me.

Hit 3 - Memorable Masks

One of the cooler insert in my opinion. Not a big enough Barrasso fan to want to keep this card so if anyone is interested in trading for it, it is available. The same goes with Wendel Clark. I don't imagine I have the patience to try and build the complete 100 years set.

Check out part 2 tomorrow!

ITG Decades Production Run

Since it will be several more days before I have my very own box of Decades 1980s to open, I thought I would so math about the product to pass the time.

Based on what ITG released about the game used production numbers and that there are 3 game used hits per box, I determined that there are 8148 boxes of ITG Decades out there.

Based on that run, you can expect a production run of the following:

100 years of collecting:

1 per box, 25 in total so the production run of each is about 325 each being un-numbered

Rookies:

1 per box, 45 in total, so the production run of each is about 181 each being un-numbered

Non-mem Inserts:

1 per box, 45 in total, so the production run of each is about 181 each being un-numbered

Autographs: Difficult to determine based on SPs and the 1/1's

3 per box, 170 in total, you could probably expect about 150 of each auto that isn't SP'ed.

Game Used numbers are released on the ITG website.

Without the product in my hands yet, I can already say this is a homerun!! Low production numbers, great quality swatches and on-card autos makes any collector happy. Personally I can't wait to get mine and when I do I will share what success or failure I ended up with. So what are you waiting for, go and get a box! I am sure you will be satisfied at the very least.

What is a rookie card?

I used to think I knew the answer to this question. It seemed so easy. In my first life as a collector, I felt that a RC was the first release of a player's card in a set that was available nationally/internationally. Some companies got a little aggressive with this idea and released cards of players in their junior uniforms and cards of international hockey events but collectors accepted these as true rc's and life was good. Companies like Seventh Inning Sketch and Classic were ignored and their cards were off the Rookie Card table in my books. I don't know why they were ignored, I imagine the Beckett Hockey Card Monthly had something to do with that.

Since I have resumed collecting, my opinions on rookie cards has changed. Maybe not changed so much as I think I have evolved. I question why does the Beckett determine what are rookie cards? I know it isn't fair for ITG to claim all the rookies by undercutting the NHL licensed manufacturer by releasing Junior and AHL players before they lace up in the NHL, but I think a balance can be reached.

Here is a rookie by Beckett definitions of Mattias Tedenby.

Picked it off eBay for $2.99 and Teddy is going to be a star for the Devils in the next year or two.

Here is the ITG release.

What I am suggesting, is why can't this also be a rookie card? It says so on the card after all! In fairness, they were both released in the same year and he is wearing an AHL jersey (which is professional hockey). Both are available Nationally/Internationally. In fact, you needed a redemption to pull the Artifacts version meanwhile, the ITG version could be found in packs of Heroes and Prospects.

To add to the confusion, sometimes UD released two rookies of the same player in the same set. For example, Steve Mason rookies can be found in UD Victory and Victory Update. However, in 2001 Ilya Kovalchuk had a Young Gun RC released in UD Series 1 and then in Series 2 had a regular base card released and the Beckett classifies the YG as a rookie card but ignores the Series 2 card entirely. This inconsistency is frustrating for me personally because how could it be true in one case and not another?

I believe each collector needs to decide their own definition of a rookie card and collect accordingly. Dr. Price blogged about rookies in their ITG Decades release. I will not for a second consider a 2011 release containing a "new" Patrick Roy rookie. I still plan on buying this product and am excited for it. But not because there will be any rookies in the box.

My own personal belief on rookie cards is:

Any card that is made featuring a player during their first season in the NHL

The card must be released Nationally/Internationally

The card can be a redemption

I am also willing to consider:

Parallels and Inserts as rookies on an individual basis.

I have this card as part of my collection. This is an insert from 05-06 which is Vanek's rookie year with this card being from the UD Ice set.

I consider this a rookie card. Would I sell it as a rookie card or trade with someone under those pretenses? NO. But for my own personal collection, I consider it a rookie and as far as trading with one another unless I know your own beliefs, I will stick to what the Beckett tells me.

Does this mean I am going to go back and consider cards like 1992-93 UD Brodeur Star Rookie as being a rookie card? No, but I do plan on using my definition of a rookie card for releases since the card companies stopped sniping junior players before they made it to the pros. With that being said, what is your definition of a rookie card? Does ITG have rookies in their products, or do Panini and UD just have that right?

Closer look at 10-11 Heroes and Prospects

Here is a look at the base cards from the 10-11 set. There are three types of cards in the set and they are Heroes, Prospects and Rookies. The layout of the set is to start with Heroes, then International Prospects, then Prospects from each league with rookies at the end of the CHL portion and rookies at the end of the AHL portion.

The complete checklist can be found here:

http://www.itgtradingcards.com/products/1011_hp/1011_hp_c_base.html

I was a little disappointed to see Hall and Eberle missing from this year's set but then again they have been included in the past and it is time to move on for ITG.

I like the look and design of the set, my wife on the other hand hates them. She actually felt the 10-11 Victory set looked nicer. The photography is no match for UD series 1 and 2, but I feel the design is clean and the backs are great giving it more of a meat and potatoes kind of set.

The heroes cards are simple, photos are a little grainy likely due to the fact that the source is likely from the 80's and samples of these guys in their younger days are not plentiful.

The back of the heroes give a little story about the player before they were an NHL'er.

Here is a typical prospect card. I really like this kid and I think Couturier has star potential. I know he won't be making it out of the top 10 in this draft which sucks because I was thinking he would have looked great as a NJ Devil.

As you can see on the back, his status is listed as draft eligible and there is a summary of last season's totals and a small blurb about him.

Omark is pretty exciting to watch and as you can see on his card it is identified as a rookie card. I think ITG gives this designation to any players that have never had an ITG card before. (that reminds me of the old FTC days!) I know they will never be recognized as true RC's but again that really isn't the reason why someone would collect Heroes and Prospects.

So what do you guys think? Is this set poorly designed? Where does it fit with other sets? At 90 bucks a box there are some expectations about base cards but does ITG make up for it with their hits?