Nick Spaling Auto

This recent pick-up of mine isn't going to make many people jealous. But at the same time, it was far too good of a deal to pass up.

Nick Spaling is a current NHL'er who has played every year with the Nashville Predators. That is strike one against him. He isn't an offensive dynamo, but does fill in well into a 3rd or 4th center role and he does this rather well. That is strike two. The $1 price tag ensures that there was no strikeout here!

Love these cards, I know I have said it many times but still, a great deal and nice auto. If anyone out there has more of these Certified autos and wants to unload them, I certainly wouldn't mind making an offer!



They make football cards?

Alright, I am kidding! Of course they make football cards but if you ever saw my collection you might be surprised. Being a huge sports fan, I love most of the major sports, sorry Nascar and Basketball, no love here.

However, despite loving football, I have NEVER bought, owned or even touched a football card. That changed a couple weeks ago. I was at the local swap meet and even though there wasn't much there, I did see a card that I knew I had to buy.

1974 Topps John Unitas #150

Johnny fricking Unitas. I love this guy and the card is just classic looking. The price tag was only 5 bucks and the card is in amazing shape. I knew I was leaving with this card! After seeing very little in terms of hockey cards, I bundled a bunch of cards together and made a deal I couldn't refuse. So in the end, Mr. Unitas came home with me for less than a 5 spot.

I didn't even know he was a Charger, but it turns out he played one last year with the Chargers and even though he only had like 76 pass attempts that season before retiring Topps, made sure to include him in the set.

New PC - Stefan Della Rovere

As far as PC's go, all of mine are pretty minor and this one is no exception. I am not going to try and track down every Della Rovere card in existence. However, I will certainly try and land a few of his rookies and autos and here are a couple recent pick ups.

I have been a fan of his since his days with the Canadian World Junior team and I enjoy his style of play and his approach to the game. Both cards I landed are from the 10/11 Season and are both "rookies" by my definition.

11/12 Zenith Gold

 Here is a rookie auto from the 10/11 Zenith set. This card came from a dare to tear pack and is numbered to just /99 copies. I spent about 7 bucks including shipping on it.

10/11 The Cup

For all players I collect, I strive to try and land their The Cup rookie if it exists and Della Rovere is no exception. Here is a nice little swatch containing 3 colours and a on-card auto. This card looks exactly like the scan and I was very pleased to land it for under 10 bucks.

As it stands right now, Stefan spent this past season in the AHL and is stuck pretty deep in the depth chart with the Blues. Lots can happen from year to year and I feel this kid is NHL material and really it is only a matter of time before he gets his shot. He will never win an Art Ross or even a Lady Byng. I think he can be a good and productive 3rd liner with an NHL club and a kid who would bring a great winning attitude to whatever club he makes it with.

Dave Taylor - Captain C Auto

Dave Taylor. A classy guy who may not have wowed you with ability and skill, did put together a nice career which has him in the top 100 of most major offensive stats. Had a career high of 47 goals and 112 points in 80-81.

His auto is all class, beautiful penmanship that is very easy to read.

Scan came out a little yellowish, but you can see the nice flow of his signature nonetheless.

Glad to land this baby for under 2 bucks.

Parkhurst Project - A Six Pack of Habs

A while back, I mentioned that I would be buying my 11/12 Score set, rather than doing it through packs and trades. Well I think it is about time to share what I did with the 100 bucks instead of buying three boxes and then painfully trading and tracking down base cards. The set cost me a whopping 26 bucks plus 15 shipping. So, for 41 bones I got a complete set from 1-548. That is all the base cards and the 48 rookies that are SP'ed. That left me with 59 dollars to spend on other cards. Well 30 of those 59 dollars went toward this lot purchase. I must warn you, the cards aren't pretty for the most part. I think one would grade VG+ and the rest would fall in the Fair or Poor range. But, they Habs cards usually are a little more sought after, so to land 6 at 5 bucks a piece isn't too shabby either. Here they are!

Paul Masnick

 Creases and rounded corners, check. Tape, check. Nice colouring, the only plus about this card. Paul's NHL career was pretty short, 232 games, but his pro career was quite long, 13 seasons. During his stay in the NHL, Paul scored 18 goals and had 42 assists for 60 points. Most of those points came in the 53-54 season where he had 26 points in 50 games.

Ross Lowe

 Definitely a sad story here. The nicest card of the batch, features a player who died just after winning the AHL MVP award. Ross Lowe won the Les Cunningham Award in the 54-55 season after 82 points in 60 games and then drown that summer while vacationing with his family. He was 26 years old when he died.

Gerry Doc Couture

 Gerry had a pretty decent NHL career with 385 games, 86 goals, 70 assists and 156 points. Gerry is best known for being a member of the 50 Stanley Cup winning Detroit Red Wings. During that post season, Gerry had 9 points including 5 goals in 14 playoff games.

Floyd Curry

                                         
 Floyd maybe the most famous of all the players in this lot. Curry won 10 Stanley Cup rings including 4 as a player and all with the Canadiens. He played a total of 601 games with the Habs and during that time he put up 105 career goals, and 204 points.

    Paul Meger

 Paul Meger was similar to Ross Lowe in the sense that his career was cut short before it really took off. In the case of Paul, it was a nasty skate to the temple that would eventually require surgery to repair the skull fracture that would end his career. He was also only 26 and unfortunately would never play hockey again.

       Jim Bud MacPherson

This card could be in the roughest shape of ANY card in the set so far. As a player, he was a rugged stay at home defenseman and his career was primarily in the minors. He did win a Cup with the Habs and made an appearance in the 1953 All-Star game.

Progress:

Card # 2, 6, 8, 12, 17, 18 and # 18-23 of my set


Percentage Complete:

21.9%

Cost of the Card:

30.00 with shipping


Total Cost of Set to Date:

$160.29

Garth Butcher - Captain C

Garth Butcher was one of those players as a kid you used to cringe when you would pull his card from a pack. I mean, it was the early 90's and he was considered a common at best. As I got older and more mature, I learned that Garth was a pretty amazing junior hockey player who played a tough game and a smart game. On one hand, he scored 178 points in two full seasons of junior hockey and did that while racking up 548 PIM. When he got to the NHL, he became a shutdown defenseman who would average nearly 3 PIM a game for the better part of 14 seasons.

He was a captain of the St. Louis Blues for a couple seasons before finally ending up in Quebec and Toronto. Here is his auto which I landed off eBay for a whopping $0.99.

Pretty cool signature if you ask me, I hope to land a few more from this set in the coming months as their prices on the secondary market are very reasonable. Certainly better than dropping another C-note on a box.

Alex Vasyunov Redemption

Last summer before the hockey season started, I made a trade with Luke from the cardboard review. The trade was pretty simple; I sent him a Joe Thornton Acetate card in exchange for two Devils rookie cards. One of those cards was a Panini Luxury Suite Alex Vasyunov rookie redemption. However, Wednesday September 7th happened and Alex was on board with the Lokomotiov Yaroslavl team and perished with his team mates. Like the rest of the hockey world, I certainly mourned the loss of both Alex Vasyunov and Karl Rachunek. The story of how Alex even ended up in the KHL was clearly one of choice. The Devils made it clear to Alex with the large number of young forwards in our system, a spot on the Devils roster was not guaranteed and a two-way deal would be the only one on the table. Alex, wanting to play top-level hockey decided to reject the Devils 2-way offer on June 28th and play the upcoming season in the KHL. The Devils were fine with this choice as Alex would play a decent level of hockey and would still be their property when he decides to return back to the NHL.

Amazing what could happen from the outcome of one choice. If he had taken the two way deal, he would certainly still be here with us today instead of being apart of one of the greatest tragedies in hockey history.

Well, Panini the other day honoured my redemption request after over 9 months. The card they sent wasn’t an Alex Vasyunov autograph, it wasn’t even from the Luxury Suite set. Here is what I got instead:

This card is from the 10/11 Zenith Set.

Nick Leddy isn’t a name I was very familiar with. Doing a little bit of research, he is a defenseman with some offensive potential. This past season, Leddy put up 37 points which was second to Keith’s 43 points among Chicago’s D-Men. Hockey’s Future ranks Leddy a 7.5 which translates into an Ehrhoff or Tallinder calibre defenseman. I am pretty happy with the substitution, but of course I certainly wish this tragedy hadn’t happened, but it did and this appears to be how Panini is dealing with those redemptions.  

Contest.....Free Stuff...

For those interested, 30 year old cardboard is having a contest with a TON of prizes. Head on over and check it out!

http://bapple2286.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/giveaway-time-thanks-for-the-hits-10-winners-will-be-chosen/

Nathan MacKinnon TTM

An idea came to me a while back that I decided to put into play and that is; using decoys for autographs. Every now and again I don’t have a card of a player, but I want to get an autograph before they move or die. A decoy works nicely because it is card sized (a little on the thick side), doesn’t crease easily (because of girth) and since Panini uses all white ones, the autos show up nicely.



I put this plan into action with up-coming superstar Nathan MacKinnon.



Check out the autos

Forgive the scans, they both are actually uniform in colour, but the scan seems to make the cards two-tone white-cream. Have you done this before? I liked the result and I think I will do it again!

Fly my pretties, fly!

Ok, so I am not unleashing an army of monkeys. But yesterday I finally assembled an army of He Shoots He Scores redemption cards, 200 to be precise. I packed them up and sent them off in the hopes that they will return with something good. Well, not really return, the rules state they will not be returned, but a redemption card numbered to 20 will be sent back in exchange for my points. Who will it be? That part is kinda fun. I looked at the list, and odds are 50-50 I will be really happy with the results. When it arrives I will share.

Maybe Nail?

Have you ever done the exchange program with ITG? Were you happy?