The 2010-11 season marks the 100th Anniversary of hockey cards. A century ago, the first set of hockey cards–now known as the C56 set–was released by Imperial Tobacco. One hockey card was placed in each pack of cigarettes to keep the cigs from breaking.
To commemorate this, In The Game is kicking it old school–way old school. Their Ultimate Memorabilia 10 hockey set will feature a base card design that looks like the century old portraits of the C56 set. But there’s a twist–apparently, the set will feature relatively newer players like Mario Lemieux (above) and Ted Lindsay (left). Redemption cards for graded copies of 1910-11 C56 cards will be randomly inserted.
The look of this set excites me. I love painted cards, such as the old Hockey Hall of Fame Postcards, Donruss Ice Kings/Ice Masters–even those Upper Deck checklists from the early 1990s. The thought of collecting a set that looks pre-World War One is enticing.
However, I have never bought Ultimate Memorabilia before. It seems like a very expensive product (several hundred dollars for a 5-pack box). And since I’m more interested in the base cards then memorabilia cards, I don’t know how re-sell-able (if that’s even a word) the memorabilia inserts are.
Has anyone collected Ultimate Memorabilia in the past? How was the set? How much did a box cost? Are the memorabilia insert cards easy to re-sell, or hard to because they don’t have the team logos?
I am so not a jersey card kind of guy, so shelling out hundreds of dollars to go after “base” cards doesn’t seem like the greatest idea. Then again, I’ve never bought any of ITG’s memorabilia products. Maybe I’ll like them if I try them.