My Collection Quest

With all the vintage cards I’ve been showing on Puck Junk lately, you probably think I’ve turned my back on newer cards.

That is so not true.

Over the past month, I’ve picked up 25 different rookie cards. Some were quarter bin fodder too good to pass up, while others were cards of awesome players at great prices. One was even given to me by a ‘Hawk-hatin’ Penguins fan. Which brings me to the first card, actually…

2010-11 O-Pee-Chee #541 – Nick Leddy (Marquee Rookies). At last month’s card show, fellow blogger Tim (The Real DFG) flat out gave me this card–and didn’t want anything in return. I guess Tim doesn’t like offensively-minded, puck-moving defensemen 🙂

2009-10 Upper Deck #203 – Matt Duchene (Young Guns). This one cost me the most out of all of these. I think I got it for less than “half book” if memory serves me correctly. Now, only 26 more Young Guns, and my 2009-10 Upper Deck set will be complete.

2008-09 Champ’s #137 – Darren Helm. Only 5 more cards and I’ll have all 100 of the Champ’s Rookies from this set.

2007-08 O-Pee-Chee #596 – Mayson Raymond (Marquee Rookies). I like Raymond, and couldn’t pass this up for a quarter.

2007-08 MVP #208 – David Krejci. Totally worth the buck I paid for it.

2007-08 Black Diamond #158 – David Krejci (Rookie Gems). I am slowly putting together the 2007-08 Black Diamond set, including all short prints. I think I got a sizable stack of the short prints for next to nothing (including a Quadruple Diamond Wayne Gretzky), so I pick away at this set when I find a card. This cost me only $2.

2006-07 Upper Deck Ovation #178 – Shea Weber. I’ve been a fan of Weber since his rookie season. Hie is an awesome defenseman, and I always try to pick up his various rookie cards when I find them.

2005-06 MVP #431 – Brent Seabrook. When I see a rookie card of a decent Blackhawk for a quarter, of course I’m going to pick it up. You all may know Seabrook as Duncan Keith’s defensive partner. The two are effective together – in fact, Seabrook was on the 2010 Canadian Olympic team so that Keith could be paired with him at the Olympics.

2005-06 Fleer Ultra #201 – Braydon Coburn. Coburn spent a season with the Chicago Wolves (2005-06) and has since developed into a reliable defenseman who always comes back. (If you don’t get the reference, watch this 30-second video).

2005-06 Fleer Ultra #220 – George Parros. This was Parros before his mustache phase.

2005-06 Fleer Ultra #241 – Ryan Clowe. I got all 3 RCs from this set for a quarter each. I bought the Coburn and Parros cards because I like those players, but this one I actually needed for my set. I’m 34 cards away from finishing it, including Sid and Ovie, so it’s gonna take a while.

2005-06 Victory #298 – Braydon Coburn. Glad they didn’t use the same photo as the Fleer Ultra card pictured above.

2005-06 Victory #280 – Ryan Getzlaf. I couldn’t belive that I found this card for only a quarter. Two of them, in fact.

2005-06 Victory #277 – George Parros. Another RC of the Ducks’ enforcer. 

2005-06 Victory #253 – Brent Seabrook. Another RC of “Seabs”.

2005-06 Beehive #103 – Jeff Carter. I like the portrait style, head-and-shoulder photographs used for the rookie cards in this set. 

2005-06 Beehive #126 – Henrik Lundqvist. A rookie card of “King Henrik”. Worth every cent of the one dollar I paid it for.

2005-06 Beehive #104 – Corey Perry. His bright blue eyes make Perry look like one of the Fremen in Dune.

2005-06 Beehive #122 – Brent Seabrook. Yes, another Seabrook RC that I couldn’t pass up.

2005-06 Beehive #134 – R.J. Umberger. This guy has been a solid player for the Columbus Blue Jackets the past 3 seasons.

2005-06 Upper Deck #216 – Henrik Lundqvist (Young Guns). This card has a “book value” of $12 to $30, so I thought it was an absolute steal for $10.

2005-06 Upper Deck #215 – Jimmy Howard (Young Guns). This photo of Howard stepping out onto the ice is pretty cool. Also note that he’s wearing his mask from his days with the University of Maine.

2005-06 Upper Deck #203 – Dion Phaneuf (Young Guns). Did you know that Phaneuf came in third in voting for the 2006 Calder Trophy? At one time, Phaneuf was considered a better prospect (and defenseman) than Duncan Keith. How times have changed.

2005-06 Upper Deck #230 – Duncan Keith (Young Guns). Speaking of Keith, I got this Duncan Keith rookie card from AU Sports, which is one of my favorite card shops. Now I am only 23 Young Guns away (including Crosby and Ovechkin) from having the entire set.

2002-03 Upper Deck #204 – Sean Avery (Young Guns). I also got this Sean Avery card from AU Sports. This reminds me of my favorite Sean Avery video of all time. (It’s 39 seconds well-spent).

On a whim, I decided to start building the 1960-61 Topps Hockey set. This was at a card show last month. While I’ve been prioritizing other sets, like 1963-64 Parkhurst, I came across a dealer who had 21 cards in decent shape–most priced at $5 to $6 each. Another dealer had 2 more cards from the set at $3.75 each. Take a look at what I got:

Last month I purchased 25 cards–roughly 6%–from the 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Hockey set. This brings me up to 177 out of 396 cards.

Of course, when you still require the Wayne Gretzky rookie card for your set, you can have 395 cards and still feel like you are about a thousand cards short.

Nonetheless, I now have the second and third-best cards in this set:
 

I got a few other key cards, including…

Another 218 cards–plus a Gretzky RC–to complete this landmark set. In the meantime, I’ll continue to chip away at it, a few cards here and there.

QUESTION: At what point do you “page” your sets? That is, when do you put a near-complete set into pages? Do you get a certain percentage, like at least half? Or do you wait until you have every single card? Or, do you not use pages at all…?

I just want to give a quick shout out to thank fellow blogger Jon aka JohnWayne for sending me the last card I needed to complete my 2010-11 Score Hockey set–a short-printed rookie card of Pittsburgh Penguins prospect Brad Thiessen.  It took me almost a year, but I managed to finally complete the 550 card set (the Super-Short Print Rookies are another story).

Nope, your eyes do not deceive you–I have been seeking this Mark Fitzpatrick card for nearly two decades. It is from the 1992-93 Fleer Ultra set–the height of the “Junk Wax Era,” though I prefer to call those years “Neo-Vintage.” Specifically, this was from the Awards Winners insert set, back when inserts were actually cool and made sense (All-Stars, Award Winners….uh, Russians….)

It is true that I could have had this card ten times over if I bought it online. It just seemed that whenever I bought a bunch of cards from an eBay or Beckett Online seller, they didn’t have this one. And we all hate the idea of paying $2 to ship one card if that one card is only “worth” a quarter.

There is also something rewarding about finding a card like this in the wild. I found this at a recent show in a quarter box from a dealer named Big Jon, who is an avid Red Wings fan. Upon finding out that it was the last card I needed to complete my set, he told me that the card had been accidentally put in the quarter box, and was actually a ten-dollar card. Ah, that joke is about as old as the trading card industry itself, and yet it still makes me smile a little bit.

Hell, I’m in such a great mood I’ll even scan and share the back of the card….

One thing I’ve learned about collecting is that it is a waiting game. Sooner or later, we all tend to find what we are looking for, no matter how way there out or insignificant.

Every so often, I’d find a 1953-54 Parkhurst card at a show for $5 or $10 and buy it. Then one day, I realized that I had 17 cards from the set–enough that I figured that I’d start pursuing this set as one I’d like to complete.

Nothing will trump the 1951-52 Parkhurst set in the mind of collectors for its significance as being the first, ahem, “modern” set and it’s plethora of rookie cards (Howe? Richard? Never heard of ’em).

But I feel that the 1953-54 set is when Parkhurst really started to hit their stride. The cards are bigger and the backs are more informative. The smaller Parkies feel more like toss-ins from a bag of tobacco (I know, they were gum cards), whereas these feel like hockey cards.

Last month, I purchased 15 more cards from the 1953-54 Parkhurst set, bringing me up to 34 out of 100 cards. Enjoy the scans:

Although I’m not really chasing after the 1963-64 Topps Hockey set, I couldn’t pass up these two cards. I paid $8 for the pair. Not bad for almost-50-year-old cardboard.

Here are scans of the back. These cards were in damn good shape for their age. No stains or creasing, just some soft corners.

More vintage goodness to come.

Michael Frolik hasn’t exactly been “tearing it up” this season with the Chicago Blackhawks–he’s scored 7 points in 16 games–but he seems to be fitting in on the Blackhawks. I guess I like Frolik enough that when I saw this card at a local card shop, I had to have it.

If you are going to get a rookie card, it might as well be an autographed one, right? That is unless, of course, it is a card of someone like Crosby or Ovechkin that will cost you thousands of dollars.

Anyway, next weekend, I will be going to the Sun-Times Sports Card Show in Rosemont, IL (November 18-20). Is anyone else going?

In addition to all those great 1963-64 Parkhurst cards I got at The National, I also picked up a few 1960-61 cards.

I figured that if I was going to start collecting 1960-61 Parkies, I should get one of someone significant, like Bernie “Boom Boom” Geoffrion.

This Parkie card of Sid Abel looks great, and only cost me $8.

A line card of Don Marshall, Henri Richard and Dickie Moore. I guess line cards are a thing of the past, given that players change teams so frequently now that no trio really stays together for long.

This Nels Stewart card is from the 1960-61 Topps set. Twenty-seven of the 66 cards are of All-Time Greats–players from the early 20th century. I have always liked the look of these cards; a 1920s design sensibility, but done up in bright colors indicative of the 1960s.