1964-65 Topps "Tall Boys" #54 - Checklist

Here I go, much less time between posts! This card is one from the LCS. I stopped in one day with a pocket full of change and I spotted a number of Tall Boys. Using some recycling money and a few bucks I had in my wallet I was able to add 4 more tall boys to my collection. Originally I had just one, Jim Mikol rookie which I must say is in amazing shape compared to these but the latest additions all carry a bit more "book value".

The first of my pick-ups is the first checklist from the set.

1964-65 Topps "Tall Boys" #54 - Checklist

I actually love checklists, especially vintage ones. I have almost won one of the 66-67 Topps ones a couple of times but sadly still waiting on a victory there. But back in the day of course checklists were often checked so their value is often inflated due to the fact that unchecked ones are pretty scarce. This one is checked but despite its heavy use, it is pretty amazing still. Beautiful colour on the front and no creases!

Here is the backside. Again lots of checks, in fact I think they completed the Series 1 set by the looks of it and maybe had some issues finding card number 47. A little wear on the corners but other than that I just loved this card and had to have it.

Book price on this in great shape and sans-checkmarks is $300 and the second checklist is actually $450 because it is short printed. I thankfully bought it for pennies on the dollar due to all those horrible checkmarks which I personally like and feel it adds character. I don't think I would ever pay for an unchecked one but then again I supposed if I wanted to chase a mint version of this set I would need to consider that route. Still, it is a beautiful work of art that has been loved and will continue to be so. What are your thoughts on vintage checklists? Love/Hate? Do the checks bother you?

14-15 Trilogy Jonathan Drouin Rookie Premiere Blue Auto /225

Oh once upon a time I used to be such a consistent blogger. I have seem many of the great ones come and go and some even come back again. I really really hope that I don't go that way but at the same time life is just one of those things that will take what it wants from you and if time is short then you are left piecing what you have together. With the being said, I still am in the hobby and I am still getting from time to time but the sharing seems to have been the hardest part over the last 6 months. I realized that often I am a little too ambitious and that is getting in the way of production. I am thinking maybe trying to make them short and sweet will not only help me but also just keep me relevant in the wonderful world of sports card blogging.

So as Prince once said. "No I ain't dead yet but, uh, how about you?" here is what will hopefully be a rejuvenation!



14-15 Trilogy Jonathan Drouin Rookie Premiere Blue Auto /225

This card is one I have wanted before the season started. Ok, maybe not this particular card but I told myself no boxes or blasters will be purchased until I had a Drouin auto rookie and this one definitely fit the bill better than I could have hoped. These cards are beautiful and my 4 year old walking by stopped in his tracks and asked to see it. He loved the colours this thing has and it nearly is his favourite card. His actual favourite is the 91-92 Pro Set 75th Anniversary Hologram.

As some of you know, I am a bit of a Lightning fan thanks to Brett Connolly and even though he is gone I will still be cheering for them out of the East and Chicago out of the West. Here is hoping I have someone left at dance come June!

Thanks for your patience fellow collectors and readers. I am hoping (no promises) to get back on the proverbial horse! In the meantime, here is some more Prince!

A Successful International Experiment

So a while back Shane from Shoebox Legends writes to ask me if I wanted to participate in an experiment. I was flattered and immediately agreed to (for the sake of science of course). So fast forward a little over a week and in my mail was a wonderful care package of 9 cards in a PWE!  The best part is they all arrive safe and sound and what would have originally cost a finger or two to mail to Canada set Shane back nothing more than probably the hair off his knuckles!

I on the other hand, get ALL the rewards! Check them out!

Here is the gem of them all! My first Brett Connolly Young Gun! Despite having countless rookies and autos I never actually had this card (now I have 2, story to follow). Brett was recently traded to the Boston Bruins which did excite me because he was getting a new start after being buried low in the depth chart due to the hoarding of many young offensive forwards by Steve Yzerman.

Love this kid, just wish the coaches did. I have a couple of his rookies but this is the first Prizm one! Eric was a bit of a whipping boy for PDB, but since his firing, Eric has seen an increase in ice time and a decrease in scratches which will hopefully translate to a longer term deal next season (especially since we let Marek Zidlicky go).

I said that the Connolly YG was the Gem, but that is because I was expecting it. The real diamonds in the rough are this card and the next one.The Stadion cards are a Czech release from the early 2000's which feature players from all sorts of sports. Here is an awesome photo that I doubt Upper Deck would ever put on their cards. Scott has been wounded in action and I can almost picture this being taken while he was on the bench waiting to hear if the player got 4 minutes for the infraction! Or maybe it was a fight? Maybe it was a "no call". Well the cool thing about these cards, is there is a date stamp on the back which states when the photo was taken it this one was from Game 3 of the 2001 Stanley Cup Finals. Ville Niemenen took a 2 min boarding call against Scott in the first period so this could have been the result or maybe it was something missed. Either way, Scott didn't take any penalties during this game so it is safe to say it wasn't a fight. Love this card!

Here is another one, this time Scott Gomez is celebrating a goal! No games this time, this game is from April 20 2001 and while the Devils lost this game 3-2 to Carolina, they would go on to of course win the series and make it eventually to the Cup final. This particular game, Scott Gomez was one of the goal scorers but Arturs Irbe stopped 37 of 39 from the win. Based on these two cards I am very tempted to try and see others from this set. I am not sure how many Devils make an appearance but these two are great examples so far.

Yikes! Ok, don't judge a book by its cover but I have a hard time seeing him as a goalie coach! Maybe the accountant or something like that but not goalie coach. Well, it turns out boys and girls that the goalie coach for the 1980 USA Miracle on Ice team was Mr Strelow! He was only with the Devils for one season but he did coach in San Jose and Washington as well.

Leading scorer in Devils history! Sweet!

Some more Elias! Awesome!

In addition to these 7 cards, there was also base cards of Zach Parise and Brian Gionta filling out a PWE stuffed with 9 cards. Every card made it safe and sound and I want to thank Shane again for including me on a pretty awesome experiment. Hopefully it isn't 3 weeks until my next post either :)

Contest! Sign up while you still can and make the scoring race more enjoyable!

I can't say enough amazing things about Casey and his blog the house of oglethorpe. But more importantly is he is trying to run a contest and I assure you, you want in! Get over there now and sign up for some serious fun.

13-14 Select Ondrej Palat Auto Rookie /399

Here is a riddle I am sure many of you have heard:

This thing all things devours;
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beats mountain down.




So what is the answer? Well it is the one thing I seem to seriously lack these days despite how much I try and that is time. So many cool things to share and show and so little time. I really wanted to share my International Experiment I did but I missed three cards from the scan so I need to find time to do that later and share it in my next post. In the meantime, I didn't screw this one up so here it is:

 13-14 Select Ondrej Palat Auto Rookie /399

Yep, more Select! One thing that Tampa has a surplus of is skilled offensive forwards. One reason why they have been so amazing this season despite injuries to their defense is they roll three very solid lines that play at both ends of the ice. Ondrej Palat a former seventh round pick (4th last picked in the draft) is proving he deserved to be a first round pick. Palat was a runner up for the Calder last season and this season is on pace for career high in assists and points. Another fun card from the Select set and one I was very happy to add to the collection!

08-09 SPx Winning Materials Hull and Hawerchuk

Normally I write something before the card, but not today. Check out that card. What are your thoughts? Anything surprising? Arguably two of the best players to ever wear the jersey (Selanne is in that discussion too). Swatches are small, but hey, these are two Hall of Famers here! Jersey swatches are different! Can you believe one is game used and the other is event used? Probably, UD loves doing that. But, it turns out the Hull is the game used and Hawerchuk is event used. As it stands, in my Hawerchuk collection, I now have 2 event used and 3 game used Hawerchuk swatches. But more importantly, I have my first game used Hull! Best part, you can't see this on the card but I paid 2 bucks! Never in a million years did I expect to get it but I did. Would you pay that price knowing one is essentially a fake? At the time I didn't know it was a fake but the swatch on the Hull looked very real to me and that is why I pulled the trigger. I know have Bobby Hull autos and a Bobby Hull game used. I do hope to get his rookie some day so I will hold off on the HOF post for now....but that will be a pretty tall order!

11-12 Dominion David Savard Rookie Patch Auto /58

Here is another card from an epic twitter trade I had made. There were two David Savard autos in the lot and this was by far the better of the two. On card auto, huge two colour patch and a nice and low print run with beautiful gold foil. What else could a collector of modern cards want? Cards like these make it pretty impossible for me to be strictly vintage!

11-12 Dominion David Savard Rookie Patch Auto /58

David is a good Canadian kid who is slowly coming into his own in the NHL. As a member of the Blue Jackets, he logs about 22 minutes every night and plays in all situations. He is already at career highs for goals, assists and points with 8, 15 and 23 respectively. At this pace, he should score 13 goals and have 32 points by the end of the season. I believe there is still room between where he is now and his ceiling and I hope he continues to flourish on an exciting Blue Jackets club.

Easy come, easy go and come again.

A while ago, I reluctantly traded away my Roy rookie. In all fairness, I got a pretty amazing card which did have a higher book value, but I assure you if I took the time to grade that gem, it would easily fetch full book value on that Brodeur if not more. But I let it go because in the end I liked what I got back in return more.

A few months later, I was searching on HI and a collector put out a call for anyone selling Ryan Murphy cards, well it just so happened that I had a decent one and I would be willing to move! We chatted back and forth and he cited some eBay sales and I cited it had some value to me as a card and in the end we found a very agreeable value where both sides were happy. Knowing I let an important card go away I decided to fix a hole and I landed a SET of 86-87 Topps including Mr Roy.

While the card isn't as nice as the previous, I would suggest it is a solid NrMt (the other was Mint I swear) and the rest of the set is pretty nice. Not having any sets from that year, it is nice to cross 86-87 off my list giving me at least one set a year from 1980-1997 or 98 (can't remember exactly where I stop off). 

As some of you know, I just had wrist surgery to repair a problem I have had since the summer and this is my first post since the procedure. I hope to be back a little more regularly now that I am feeling better and I also have a few sets I want to share as well as countless additions due to trades etc.

Thanks for bearing with me over the past few months of inactivity etc I promise you at least the same quality I had before (setting the bar low here) ;)

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 Dominion Mammoth - Adam Henrique (Player Worn) /50

There are some cards out there that are part of my PC but I really don't care if I ever land them. This card is a prime example. While Panini did some pretty bad things (Pinnacle anyone?), Dominion was one of my favourite products. But with that being said, the Mammoth inserts were pretty much ho-hum in my opinion and for really only one reason. There is no blue in the Devils jerseys....ever! I suspect I am now a proud owner of a Panini jersey swatch! I have seen a few photos and patches from that said jersey and it really is the only thing that makes sense here. So the question is, do I really want to own a piece of a jersey that is about as fake as they get? The answer is pretty much no.

With that being said, I made a twitter trade a while back which featured a load of cards and this one was in there so I am guessing I care about it more than a Henrique base card but that is primarily because it at least has a low print run and is a rookie year card.


11-12 Dominion Mammoth - Adam Henrique (Player Worn) /50

What I do like about the card is the photo, NHLPA symbol and the large swatch size. I really just dislike the swatch. If that was a nice Devils jersey, this card would have been a winner for me. Instead, it is another for the pile and one I will probably not display on a regular basis.