2009-10 Fleer Ultra pack

I’ve had this pack of 2009-10 Fleer Ultra for a few weeks now, and finally got around to opening it. Let’s see what my $1.99 ($2.20 with Chicago sales tax) nets me…

Card #114, Mikkel Boedker, Phoenix Coyotes – Despite watching a ton of Coyotes games last year, I don’t have an opinion on this guy one way or another. I’m not a huge fan of sets that flip-flop between vertical and horizontal photos, either.

Card #66, Tomas Vokoun, Florida Panthers – It looks like Vokoun is being screened by the Fleer Ultra logo.

Card #34, Christobal Huet, Chicago Blackhawks – Hey, one of those Gold Medallion cards. Parallel inserts suck–especially when you get one in every single pack. That means you’d have to buy 50 packs instead of 40 if you were going to try to complete the 200-card base set. Of course, Upper Deck knows this fact. As for the card itself, the photo is from the 2009 Winter Classic, so that makes it 10% cooler.

Card #110, Scott Hartnell, Philadelphia Flyers – I’m not sure why the Nashville Predators traded away this guy. Oh yeah–because his contract was about to expire. By the way, I’ve never been a fan of the black Flyers uniforms.

Card #236, Peter Regin, Ottawa Senators – An elusive Ultra Rookie card. You get one in every six packs. Too bad it had to be this one. It’s hard to get excited about–or even try to build–the rookie subset if it is just a bunch of leftovers from last year.

One thing I dig about these cards is that they show all of the player’s stats. Not sure how it deals with the stats of a super veteran like Mike Modano or Chris Chelios, but the layout looks like it can accommodate 20 seasons or so.

The back of the Gold Medallion parallel cards replace the big uniform number in the lower right with a “Gold Medallion” insignia.

Like most other sets with “hard-to-get-rookies,” I might just wait until I can find a base set in the $5 to $10 range. Then again, I did buy a jumbo pack too. If I get around to opening it, I’ll post the highlights from that too.

Review: 1990-91 Boston Bruins team set

Your 1990 Stanley Cup runner-ups!

1990-91 Bruins Team SetProduced by a company called Sports Action, this team set was sold at the Boston Bruins Pro Shop during the 1990-91 season. Appealing in its simplistic design, the 24-card set came in a cardboard and polybag package that was stapled shut.  Continue reading “Review: 1990-91 Boston Bruins team set”

Card of the Week: Me

1989-90 trading card of Sal Barry

Sal Barry 1989Like most hockey fans, I too made an attempt to play the game. Having discovered hockey in January 1989, I quickly decided that it was a game that I must learn to play. I soon purchased a floor hockey stick, and encouraged all of my friends in the neighborhood to follow suit. By March of ’89, we were playing street hockey in the alley behind my Aunt’s house on a regular basis. But that was not good enough for me; I would also have to try my hand at ice hockey…real hockey. Continue reading “Card of the Week: Me”

Review: 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee

A great shot that just misses the mark

2009-10 OPC #230 - Patrick Sharp (front)For the fourth year in a row, Upper Deck has leased the name “O-Pee-Chee” from Topps in order to brand a set of hockey cards. Overtly emblazoning the O-Pee-Chee logo and featuring Wayne Gretzky on the box and wrapper, the set is clearly meant to appeal to old school collectors who cut their card-collecting teeth during the 1970s and 1980s. And for the most part, it will. Comprising the set are 500 base cards, 50 short-printed Marquee Rookies and 50 short-printed Legends.

Continue reading “Review: 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee”

2009-10 Artifacts pack

I picked up a pack of 2009-10 Artifacts the other day at Target. Understand that buying a single retail pack won’t yield you anything but base cards most of the time, since someone has already sniffed out the 1:36 box hit. Still, I was curious about the design of the cards. Let’s see what $2.99 (plus 10.25% Chicago sales tax) gets us…

Card #23: Jeff Carter, Philadelphia Flyers – Scored 46 goals last year. But skating with your head down like that is gonna get you hurt. Hey Jeff, eyes up!

Card #43: Tomas Vokoun, Florida Panthers – He’s also looking down at the puck, but it’s totally cool because he’s a goalie.

Card #45: Patrick Berglund, St. Louis Blues – Those Blues third jerseys are cool-looking, but totally ripping off the “old time hockey” feel of the Minnesota Wild third jerseys from the past few seasons.

Card 88: Andrei Markov, Montreal Canadiens – Is this guy any good? The back of the card says that he was “arguably the Canadiens best player in 2008-09.” But I don’t know enough about the Habs to know if that is an accurate assessment of Markov.

Card #97: Jakub Voracek, Columbus Blue Jackets – Uh, whatever.

As you can see, no jersey card or autograph card or even a 1:20 Rookies/Legends card (Now if I had only bought 19 more packs). Are these five cards worth $3.00? Only to someone who pays $3.00 for them.

I’m not too hype on the design either, with the columns on either side of the player, and that weird swirly thing in the background. Last year’s design looked more like a dusty old book, which was a great design for a set called “Artifacts.” This year’s design would work better if the set was called “Illuminati” or something like that.

As for the card backs…

Nothing special here. It won’t offend anyone, but it probably won’t get asked out on too many dates either.

As a rule, I’m usually not impressed with “memorabilia” sets. It’s as if the jersey or autograph cards are–dare I say it?–more important than the base cards themselves. Artifacts has a hit-or-miss design which is definitely “miss” this year.

Edit: Great minds think alike. Shane at Shoebox Legends also plunked down $3 to bring you all a pack rip from this set. Don’t let his purchase be in vain–go check it out.

Cost of building a 2009-10 OPC set

I recently won a complete set of 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee hockey cards on eBay, including all short-printed Rookies and Legends cards.

I also bought some packs–specifically one rack pack and one blaster box. It may seem pointless to buy packs if you already have a complete set. But if I want to be the world’s best hockey card blogger (dare to dream!), then I have to experience all aspects of the hobby…including the Sisyphean task of buying and opening packs.

Dave at Waxaholic recently wrote a 2009-10 box breakdown, so I’ll skip doing that too and talk about a related topic: the cost of building a 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee set. Please note that my examples do not account for sales tax, since it varies from state to state / province to province.

Option One: Rack Packs
This is the way to go if you only want to build the 500-card base set. A rack pack contains 31 base cards and 1 short-print–either a Marquee Rookies or Legends card. Your cost per card boils down to 15.6 cents each.

You’d need to buy 17 rack packs (17 x 31 = 527 base cards) to get enough cards to make a complete set. Of course, a few of those might end up being other inserts, like team checklists or Canadian Heroes. Most likely, you will not get all 500 cards you need for a base set; you’ll probably end up with some double or triples, falling short of a complete base set.

The good news is that you will easily be able to trade those 17 short prints that you end up with. Collectors trying to get cards 501-600 will gladly trade you 5 or more base cards for one of your short-prints.


Option Two: Blaster Boxes


These are the types of boxes you find at Target, Toys R Us and Wal-mart. A $20 blaster box has 14 six-card packs. 14 x 6 = 84 cards – a cost of 23.8 cents per card. A blaster box will net you 62 base cards, 7 short-prints and 15 inserts–give or take.

At a cost of $20 each, 9 blaster boxes gets you 558 base cards, 63 short-prints and 135 inserts. You’ll spend $180, will fall short of getting all of the short-prints, and again most likely won’t get one copy of each base card. At the same time, you’ll have a lot of inserts that you could probably trade away for the rest of the base or short-prints you need.

Option Three: Hobby Boxes
Hobby boxes have 36 six-card packs. My local shop sells them for $70, and the best price I can find online (including shipping) is $60. Without checking every single online store, card shop and eBay auction, let’s just say a hobby box sells for $65.

The only upside to buying hobby boxes is that you vastly increase your chances of getting a jersey or autograph card. In fact, you are three times more likely to get such a card from a hobby pack vs. a retail pack.

Should the allure of the possibility of getting one of these cards be enough to sway you to go the hobby box route, you would need to buy three boxes to get 486 base cards (plus 54 short-prints and 108 inserts). Four boxes gets you 648 base, 72 short-prints and 144 inserts–hopefully, one of them is an autograph.

Option Four: Buy a Complete Set
OK, technically this is not “building a set”, but it is by far the cheapest method. I got my set for $91 shipped. Looking at eBay auctions during the last two weeks, a base set sells for around $60 shipped, and a full set (1-600) for $110. Some dealers have even put together “master sets” that contain all base, short-printed and insert cards.

No, you don’t get to open pack after pack. You don’t get the glimmer of hope for a game used or autograph card. But you also don’t end up trying to track down the last 26 cards you need, or with figuring out with what to do with your duplicates (I hear some bike spokes calling…)

On a related note, I plan on posting a review of this set in about a week or so. I have a final paper and a final presentation–both about cyborgs–due in a week for one of my grad school classes. So the hockey card talk will be at a minimum the next few days until I get all my schoolwork behind me 🙂

Review: 2007-08 Chicago Blackhawks team set

Featuring 1st NHL cards of Kane & Toews

2007-08 Blackhawks Patrick Kane

Ten bucks usually does not go far in hockey card collecting these days, but in 2007-08 it could get you a complete team-issued set of Chicago Blackhawks trading cards. These were the first cards to show Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews in ‘Hawks sweaters. Sold in the lobby at Blackhawks home games during the 2007-08 campaign, a $10 charitable donation would net you this set of oversized trading cards. Continue reading “Review: 2007-08 Chicago Blackhawks team set”

Card of the Week: I Got a Rock

2008-09 Champ's Hockey card #FA-NE - Neolithic Stone ToolsThe 2008-09 Champ’s Hockey set was one of the strangest releases in recent memory. The cards had a design harkening back to the original Champ’s set from the 1924; they came in both standard and smaller, “cigarette” sizes; and had an odd, 192-card “Natural History Collection” subset, featuring animals like the Great White Shark and the Carrier Pigeon. But hands down, the weirdest thing about Champ’s was the one-per-case “Fossil Cards.”

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to get one of these. No, it wasn’t something cool like a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth or a Wooly Mammoth tusk – just a Neolithic Stone Tool. As Charlie Brown would say, “I got a rock.” Although – as cliched as it sounds – it is kind of cool to own a piece of history. Continue reading “Card of the Week: I Got a Rock”

One Game Wonder #1

1994-95 Score card #217 – Josef Cierny

1994-95 Score card #217 - Josef CiernyIn the 1990s, trading card companies tried very hard to be the first to feature a player – any player – in their sets. They lowered their standards to include practically anyone who came within 10 feet of an NHL sweater. Forget the cup of coffee – even a whiff of coffee would suffice. Josef Cierny was one such player, a one-game wonder who appeared on one NHL trading card. His game was for the Edmonton Oilers in the 1993-94 campaign; good enough for inclusion in Score’s 1994-95 set. Continue reading “One Game Wonder #1”