1983-84 O-Pee-Chee card #226 – Mel Bridgman
Stuff like this make collecting old hockey sets awesome. Among the cards of Gretzky, Bossy, Messier and Bourque you find hilarious little gems like this Mel Bridgman card. Continue reading “Mad Mel”
Hockey Cards
Opening 530 sticker packs is not fun
I recently purchased 530 packs of 1995-96 Panini Hockey stickers, and let me tell you, opening 530 packs of stickers is not fun!
I imagine that this would be the hobby equivalent of shelling peanuts. As much as I loved buying and opening packs of Panini Hockey Stickers back in the day, it just isn’t the same. Now, it’s more akin to factory work–you do the same thing over and over and over until you just don’t care. There are no insert or chase cards to hope for, and (somewhat ironically) the wrappers tend to stick to the top sticker, making these a bit of a challenge to unwrap. Fortunately, the top sticker is a shiny, foil sticker, so any paper that sticks can be removed without damaging the sticker itself
I purchased this large lot of sticker packs with the delusion of being to complete eight or nine sets. After all, 530 packs would be a total of 3,180 stickers. Since each set contains 306 stickers, you could theoretically make ten complete sets and have 120 leftover stickers.
Theoretically? I am delusional. After opening 100 or so packs, I was quickly reminded on how bad the collation on these old Panini sets were. I’d end up getting like 12 of one particular sticker, and none of some other sticker. So, while I got a ton of stickers of guys like Eric Lindros, Ray Bourque and Mike Richter, what I’d really hope for is stickers of Mark Tinordi or Ian Laperriere, because those two seemed impossible to come by in these packs.
When all was said and done, I only completed three sets! I am five stickers short of competing a fourth set, 15 stickers shy of a fifth set and would need an additional 30 stickers for a sixth set.
On the flip side, I have 1,394 duplicate stickers I don’t need, as well as a bunch of sticker albums (each album came with 10 packs).
Should anyone have duplicates from this set, perhaps we can work out a trade? The stickers I need are posted in my Want List.
Likewise, if anyone needs an album, I’d be willing to give you one for just the cost of shipping.
Card of the Week: Soccer, Eh?
1993 World Cup Soccer #HC4
& 1994 World Cup Soccer #C8
Honorary Captain Wayne Gretzky
During the 1990s, several spokesmen for trading card companies would sometimes promote cards of sports they did not play. You had Eric Lindros on a Score baseball card, Rocket Ishmail on a Classic hockey card and Wayne Gretzky on an Upper Deck soccer card.
Because nothing — and I mean NOTHING — says soccer like Wayne Gretzky. Continue reading “Card of the Week: Soccer, Eh?”
Review: 1999-00 Cleveland Lumberjacks team set
Pre-NHL card of goalie Nabokov keep this set from being forgettable
Given away at a home game in November 1999, the Cleveland Lumberjacks team set contains 24 cards. The ‘Jacks were a minor-league hockey team in the old International Hockey League (IHL). Formerly in Muskegon, the Lumberjacks were the top minor-league affiliate of the Pittsburgh Penguins for 14 years until 1997. In 1999, the team became affiliated with the Chicago Blackhawks. Thus, this set has mostly Blackhawks’ prospects and minor leaguers. It does, however, have a card of future superstar San Jose Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov. Continue reading “Review: 1999-00 Cleveland Lumberjacks team set”
Review: 2007-08 O-Pee-Chee Hockey
Lame design and low-quality besmirch the OPC name
For the second year in a row, Topps has leased the name “O-Pee-Chee” to Upper Deck for use in branding a large set of hockey trading cards. Whereas the prior year’s set of cards was a bit more appealing, this year’s set proves that Upper Deck could stamp the words “O-PEE-CHEE” on a box of crap, and we’d buy it. Continue reading “Review: 2007-08 O-Pee-Chee Hockey”
Color Me Krushelnyski
1988-89 O-Pee-Chee card #221 – Mike Krushelnyski
When Wayne Gretzky was traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings, other players were also involved in that deal. We tend to forget that sometimes, as “The Trade” was really, more or less, a Gretzky-for-$15 million dollars swap. But several more guys changed teams too. One such player was Mike Krushelnyski, who went with Gretzky – along with Marty McSorley – from the Edmonton Oilers to the Los Angeles Kings. Martin Gelinas and Jimmy Carson – along with some draft picks and mad amounts of cash – in turn went to the Oilers. The trade rocked the sports world, and to a lesser extent a few hockey cards. Continue reading “Color Me Krushelnyski”
The King’s New Clothes
1988-89 Topps #120 – Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky lucked out on two counts after his trade to the Los Angeles Kings. First off, while Gretzky was sent to the team with arguably the worst uniforms at the time, he never had to wear them. Up until then, the Kings wore those god-awful purple and yellow uniforms. After “The Trade,” the team changed their uniforms to that stylish silver and black getup we all loved in the 1990s. No giant “Imperial Margarine crown” for Wayne.
The other lucky break for The Great One was that he was exempted from the time-honored tradition of the “airbrushed” hockey card. Continue reading “The King’s New Clothes”
Review: 1992-93 Clark Bun Mario Lemieux
Three 3-by-3 card set of Super Mario
This miniscule set contains three unnumbered cards of Pittsburgh Penguins superstar Mario Lemieux. Each card measures 3″ by 3″. The cards were packed with Clark’s “Mario Bun” candy bars, which were sold in Canada in 1993. Continue reading “Review: 1992-93 Clark Bun Mario Lemieux”
Miracle on Cardboard
1980 Kellogg’s Olympic Stick’r Trading Cards
Kellogg’s–the makers of cereals such as Corn Flakes–issued a set of smaller-sized, Olympic-themed trading cards. The cards could be peeled away from their cardboard backing and “stuck” to a flat surface-hence calling it a “stick’r trading card”. Released in 1980, these were most likely packed in boxes of cereal. One such card deals with our favorite sport: ice hockey! Here we see some sweet but random hockey action on the front. I’m not sure what teams these are, as the logos have been airbrushed off of the jerseys, but I guess we could assume that the players in white are from Team USA. Adoring the lower left corner of this card is a large and distracting Winter Olympics logo. Continue reading “Miracle on Cardboard”
1992-93 OPC Premier box break
Recently, I went to a card show and picked up a box of 1992-93 O-Pee-Chee Premier hockey cards for $8.
As much as I like old cards and opening packs, this set left me wishing I just bought a complete set online. The problem with that, though, is that many people want to charge you $8 to ship a 132-card set.
So, I thought that I’d buy this box and get a complete set.
I thought wrong. Even though a box would yield you 252 “regular” cards and 36 insert cards, I came surprisingly short of completing a set. Here’s the breakdown of what I got:
Regular cards
– 115 cards towards my set
– 94 doubles
– 42 triples
– 1 quadruple
Insert cards
– 32 “Star Performers” (22 plus 10 doubles)
– 5 “Top Rookies” (4 plus 1 double)
Overall, I now have 88% of a complete set, 100% of the 22-card “Star Performers insert set and 100% of the 4-card “Top Rookies” insert set. Even though it’s cool that I got all the inserts, I really didn’t need them, since I bought those a long time ago.
As you can see, I got a lot of doubles–and quite a few triples too. I even got a quadruple, of Tampa Bay Lightning player Joe Reekie.
Many of the packs had a “packaging flaw”, where you would get two cards of the same player in the same pack. One particular pack gave me three doubles in the same pack, as I pulled two cards of Glen Murray, two cards of Gordie Roberts and two cards of Guy Hebert.
But I ended up with one more insert card than I should have–37 instead of 36…so I guess it wasn’t all bad.
Another interesting tidbit: these cards seemed to “segregate” themselves. In every pack that I pulled a card of Reggie Savage, I also got a card of Darren Banks in the very same pack! I don’t know if the card-packing machines in London, Ontario really intended to put both black players in the same pack, though; it was probably coincidental. 
If anyone has doubles and can help me out, I still need 17 cards to complete my set–see my Wantlist here.
I also have numerous doubles to trade of both the base and insert cards, as well as complete insert sets for trade. Reply here, or Contact Me if interested.
Look for a review of this set once I complete it.