08-09 ITG Ultimate Memorabilia 9th Edition Ultimate Auto Mates Silver Brodeur/Luongo /24

More slabbed fun! This time Marty has a friend in this Team Canada themed piece. While this particular combo didn't fare so well at the 2006 Olympics, Marty and Bobby did win at the 2004 World Cup of Hockey and would eventually win a gold medal together at the 2010 Olympics thus making this card a little more cool and relevant.


08-09 ITG Ultimate Memorabilia 9th Edition Ultimate Auto Mates Silver Brodeur/Luongo /24

I love the fact that these two future Hall of Famers are joined together on this one card and this being a Team Canada card makes it a little more enjoyable for me as a fan and a collector since I didn't care too much for Luongo during his Vancouver or earlier years. Recently I respected his move back to Florida and am loving that he has helped turn them into a competitive club. The only draw back to this card in my opinion is it appears ITG used two different kinds of stickers on the autographs and that is a tiny bit distracting.

Here is the backside of the card. I do wish the Ultimate fact and Congratulations switched spots and there was a little more info on the successes they had as teammates but alas the Dr. has spoken!

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for the slab tips, I will keep playing around as I have a few more slabs to share!

The Best Brodeur Card In My Collection....

Been busy so far this summer with Daddy Daycare and marking provincial exams but I am pleased to be back posting again. Back in the fall I came across a card that made my jaw drop. True the card isn't licensed but there is so much to the card that I feel a photo would take away from the card anyway.

The card started off with a very ambitious price and slowly dropped and dropped. Eventually it got low enough where I contacted the seller and we arranged a very nice price on this gem!

Famous Fabrics First Edition Martin Brodeur Stick /09

I love the size of this piece and the prime location off the stick. Words certainly don't back my appreciation of this card. This was the stick style Marty used during his Olympic Gold Medal run in 2002 and his Stanley Cup run in 2003 so the fact that it could have come from any of those time periods makes it that much more special.

Backside with the authenticity statement.


If a picture says a thousand words, then I believe I am done this post, thanks for stopping by and hope you enjoyed the pics! Quick question, for those bloggers so scan slabbed cards, what methods do you use? I have had a hard time trying to digitize a bunch of pickups and have resorted to a camera but even then it presents challenges so I am open to any help out there!

The Greatest Goalie in Devils History and Possibly NHL History Retires

I definitely owe Marty more than I can ever mention in a post. I could probably dedicate an entire blog and fill it with 691 posts and STILL not do him justice. I have been a Devils fan since 1987 and in those nearly 30 years I have been a very very spoiled fan. 3 Cups, 2 other Cup final appearances and many many more playoff appearances. In the mid-late 90's when he was putting up his best numbers he was often overlooked because of the great tandem of D-men in front of him. It was almost like he was being punished for being on a good team. That didn't happen to Ken Dryden, but for some reason it happened to Marty. Still he never complained and kept putting up HOF numbers and finally in the 2000's he got his due. 2 Olympic gold medals and a HOF career. Now he is transitioning to stage two of his life and I suspect he will be just as successful there as he was on the ice. I look forward to his Devils return next year where he will likely join management in some capacity and I hope to see him as our GM some day (assuming it is a fit and something he wants).

In the meantime, here is a nice card my BFAM (Brother from another mother) Tom sent me a couple months back.


13-14 Artifacts Tundra Trios Brodeur/Elias/Kovalchuk

This card features three neat players. First is the GOAT Devil Marty, then our franchise leading scorer Patrik and finally what some may call our greatest mistake Ilya. This card is nearly perfect, I would love to have seen a white swatch and maybe a D-man instead of Kovy.

11/12 Panini Prime Larsson/Greene/Brodeur Prime Trio /100

Another twitter trade here this time with my brother from another mother Tom. He collects Brodeur exclusively but lucky for me he doesn't want the card sullied with any other players so I was able to get this beauty among others.

11/12 Panini Prime Larsson/Greene/Brodeur Prime Trio /100

Just an awesome and simple card with Three future HOF'ers on it. Oops did I say three? One is a very very very long shot to make the Hall and the other is too early in his career but the start definitely isn't one of HOF pedigree but hey Marty is on the card. I actually like the other two kids as well! Any Greene could be our next captain (secretly I am hoping for Henrique) and Adam will finally get a chance to learn and grow with Scott Stevens at the helm so this card definitely is cool to me!

13/14 The Cup Foundations - Martin Brodeur Auto /15

I almost never trade vintage for modern cards. Not that I have anything against modern cards because I am one of those rare collectors who do BOTH. But because I always trade vintage with a little more respect because I find modern cards are starting to really blend together. After from a rookie, how many patch autos do I really need of the same player? What is the difference between a swatch from a player's third year and their 9th year? So as a result this trade might seem a little unusual for me, but it was one I couldn't pass up!


13/14 The Cup Foundations - Martin Brodeur Auto /15

My collection has taken a beating lately with many cards going out the window to collectors for other cards. This trade was a simple 1 for 1. Out was my 86/87 Topps Patrick Roy rookie which was in such amazing shape I have long considered grading it because it was at least a 9 in my books. But, in comes one of a million Marty autos but one that is relatively low in a print run, features nice swatches and is an on-card auto. This is my third Marty auto and I think it is fantastic. Colours are sharp and bright and the signature is positioned very well. I do not regret the trade but I was sad to see my second Roy rookie disappear. Some day, I will get another one back and half the fun in the chase to find it.

My other awesome Twitter trade over the summer

While my last trade post mentioned someone who wrote me up about trading, this post is about a trade I initiated myself. During the dog days of summer I had a chance to really be active on twitter which has pretty much ground to a halt now that school is back in session. However, during that time I saw a retweet by Upper Deck which involved a collector named Jeff who likes to break ultra high-end cards. He is chasing the Rookie Bookmark set from the 11/12 The Cup set so he bought some boxes and shared the results. In his break he hit a Devils rookie I had been trying to find on the cheap and I decided to contact him if he would be willing to trade it. 

He was more than willing and we were able to come up with a pretty good deal for both sides. Not long after he has hit more Devils cards and I was able to make a second trade with him as a result. Here are the cards I got from my two trades with Jeff.

 11/12 The Cup Adam Larsson Auto Patch Rookie /249

Sure it is a plain white patch but what do you expect from a Devils emblem! It features lots of white.


07/08 Upper Deck Sweet Shot Martin Brodeur Sweet Stiches /299

This was a throw in by Jeff to balance out our first trade. The card became much more significant when I traded a few of my Brodeur game-used away to Tom a few weeks after getting this card. I am now on the hunt for a Brodeur Auto Patch that I hope to land someday in the next year or so.

13/14 Panini Prime Prime Jon Merrill Prime Time Rookies /25

A little chipping on the card is a downer, but numbered to 25 and an on card auto are all awesome pluses! This isn't my first Merrill card and I doubt it will be my last either!


So a couple trades down already and maybe even more in the future with Jeff. Thanks for two great trades Jeff and I wish you the best of luck with your Rookie Bookmarks. 

It's Evolution Baby! Upper Deck Style

Once upon a time there were two species of human, once upon a time there were two card companies (OPC and  Topps). Once upon a time, Upper Deck had two rookie subsets. It started off as Young Guns and Star Rookies. The Star Rookies were a carry over from the baseball sets and Young Guns were new for hockey. For a few years Upper Deck kept both around in their flagship set and then something happened. Young Guns died off and became a part of the Collector's Choice product and Star Rookies got the prime-time focus in Upper Deck's flagship sets. Was that the end? Of course not, eventually Star Rookies would be dropped and Young Guns came back and have been going strong for over a decade. Question is, would you want to see Star Rookies make a come back and live in harmony with Young Guns? Well Upper Deck has reformed its monopoly so they can do whatever they want! Here are two fun old Star Rookies.

1992-93 Upper Deck Series 1 Bill Guerin Star Rookie

This is a legit rookie. Check out the nice photography.

Here is the back side of the rookie. Bill is one of my all-time favourite players and this is a pretty cool rookie.

1992-93 Upper Deck Series 1 Martin Brodeur Star Rookie

Unlike the Guerin, this is NOT a legit rookie. Score included him in their 90-91 set as a first round draft pick. Still, this was the first card after he played in the NHL so that is cool right? Ok, maybe not but the photo on this card is cool. Green pants, cool helmet and gallimaufry galore!

Here is the back of the card, as you can see he already has 2 NHL wins and Zero Shutouts. Hard to believe he would set NHL records in both those categories in a mere 20 seasons...

If you are just checking out this post because you like Pearl Jam then here:

In with the old, and out with the young - Devils sign Marty and lose Parise

Well free agency is now a week old and in that time a large number of players have received new contracts. Some of those are with the same club as last season and others found new homes. My beloved Devils lost their captain Zach Parise and resigned a number of players including "senior" players Brodeur, Hedberg and Salvadore. 

Don't get me wrong, these are some good young players but I think we need to start moving in the rebuild on the fly mode and focus on some more youth. Our defense is young, but our forwards and goaltenders are among the oldest in the league and I really like the Marty signing, but I think we need to focus on getting some young goalies action in the NHL in the next two years. 

There are still some talented players available but most will require compensation through trade or rfa which sucks because it really isn't the approach I think we should be taking.

11/12 Black Diamond Martin Brodeur

I received this card in a trade with Tim from the Real DFG. This card features a nice two colour swatch and a solid black swatch of Marty Brodeur. Love that this card features all the Devils colours and don't get me wrong, I love that we resigned him. But I think we need to be using Marty to help condition one of our prospects.

The Devils also just lost Matt Taormina which is a little unfortunate. He is a talented offensive defensemen and for once we are starting to accumulate a large number of "prospects" at that position. It became a numbers game and I wish Matt all the best in Tampa, I suspect he will put up some good numbers this upcoming season if he can stay healthy!

Also as an aside, I think Parise signing with the Wild is the second worst thing that could happen to my collection of Parise cards. First off, he is no longer a Devils which sucks a fair bit, but also, no one is going to want my Parise cards anymore because he is gone into the abyss as far as collectors go. Does anyone out there actually collect Minnesota Wild cards? I don't see too many bidding wars for Mikko Koivu cards or P-M Bouchard autos. Unfortunately, he will be a great player on a small market team and the team itself I am predicting will win Zero Cups in the next 13 years. Not that I am hating on Zach, but I think that Minny is a long way away from being a Cup contender.

On to round two!

Well, it took 7 and a half games, but the Devils finally won a series and will be into round 2 for the first time in a while (2007). Henrique was the hero, but Marty really was the reason for us making it to round 2.

He put in a vintage performance last night seeing more than 40 shots and stopping all but two. Both goals were tough ones and he certainly can't be faulted.

As for the Flyers, I am concerned. We are hurting and there is no denying it. Kovy is going to be pounded because rumours are out that he is hurting and the Flyers aren't the kind of team that will go lightly on them. Fact is, we need our third and fourth lines to continue doing what they do and we could just have a chance!

One neat fact after the first round is Marty has more points than Jason Arnott, Jamie Langenbrunner, Peter Sykora, and Duncan Keith to name a few. Marty has the same number of points as Mike Green and Jeff Carter.

Martin Brodeur TTM

WOW!!!!!!!! Was my first response when I opened the mail as saw this. I really didn't expect to ever see the card as where I mailed it was a long-shot at best.

The rest of the story can be found at Dirty Dangle.com. I would share my contact address if I could, but I don't want to betray their trust in helping me get this auto so I will apologize in advance that cannot share it.

Hey I was at that game - When the card photo is familiar

With there being a bit of a lull between productions that are in my price range, I have taken to making a few trades. In the next few weeks I should be seeing a few packages coming my way which will be fun and exciting and I will share some of them with you as they come in. One that arrived last week ended up having a neat meaning to me that I am curious if others have had the same experience.

Sal at Puckjunk.com sent me over a few cards in exchange for a few he needed and one of them was this Martin Brodeur card. In all it is a nice card and is numbered xx/25…..literally. I can only presume there are 25 out there which is pretty cool for a Devils fan and I have only seen about 3 or 4 on eBay so this might be true.


Anyway, I was looking at the card with some detail and on the back are stats from 10/11 season which is pretty cool especially when you consider the photo on the front could only have come from 2 possible games in the last 15 years as Brodeur is wearing his retro helmet and jersey. One of those games was last year on Mar 17th and the other was this year on Mar 18th. What makes this card special was I saw my first ever Devils home game on Mar 18th and having only ever seen two Devils games live my whole life, there is a very good chance this card is from the game I saw. Furthermore, since the stats indicate this is an 11/12 product my chances increase even more.

In my life, I have seen countless NHL games live on TV, but only a handful of games in person and only 2 games involving the NJ Devils. So, I think it is pretty neat to be almost positive that I have a card, from a game I saw of a team and player I cheer for. Have you ever found a card from a game you attended? Of course, living in an NHL city and having season tickets really increases those odds to 100%…but I am curious if you have ever found a card from a game you watched.

Panini All Goalies Break and Review

When Panini announced that they were releasing a box set called All Goalies I was intrigued. When I found out it was 19.99 and would consist of 100 cards, 5 insert cards and 1 memorabilia card I was excited. (However, I had to pay 22.50 which based on what I have seen online is still a great deal, thanks Jon at Elsewhere Gaming and Hobbies)

The price point is excellent, when you factor in one memorabilia card and the fact that there are over 20 rookies in this box I needed to have it!

Would I be disappointed? Here it is:

The box is compact and pretty cool looking. My complaint is the cards aren't well protected inside so if your box looks like it has survived a drop or two chances are the cards didn't!

Everything was safe in my box.

Base cards:

The design is nice and clean. Cards are the same stock thickness as the Score cards were with the gloss that the Donruss cards had. Not bad for 20 bucks.

The back side of the cards

The write ups on the back contain no career stats information but each seem to have a small blurb and in some cases it looks like the writers tried adding in humour. Read Jordan Pearce's for an example. (a little corny, but someone will laugh)

The OTHER Brodeur

The last 10 cards or so in the set focus on legends from the past. These include Belfour (as a Hawk!!!), King Richard Brodeur, Jim Craig and Tom Barrasso to name a few.

Inserts

Each box includes 5 "Up Close" inserts. The cards are of heavier stock and have more gloss on them. They also include a closeup shot on the front. They box just has 5 sequentially numbered cards so it looks like you could get a whole set of Up Close if you bought a case. That is both good and bad in my books. I got rookie Desjardins, James Reimer and a few other Tampa Goalies.

Jersey Card

When I looked at the checklist, there are 18 memorabilia cards and 6 of them were pretty cool. This one, not so cool. Raycroft isn't a bad goalie, he just isn't very good either. Never lived up to his rookie year and now I own my own piece of him. Still for 20 bucks, I can't complain!

What I like:

Cheap

Cool idea and you get the WHOLE set

Nice design and the layout of the cards are nice including photos on the back

Inserts and memorabilia cards are nice touch to make each box unique

What I don't like:

Didn't randomize insert cards enough

1 in 3 chances of scoring a decent goalie memorabilia card

Box could be a little more protective.

This is a GOOD idea Panini. I really hope you don't mess with this formula too much and come back again next season with this product.

I would rate this a 9/10.

After all, I am sure you have spent 20 bucks on things much worse than this!