Category: News & Views

Tim’s Take: Four Hobby Phrases That Should Be Retired Now!

You know the feeling you get when you hear the same phrases repeated over and over and over again?

Whether it was your parents yelling things like “Don’t make me come back there,” or “Because I said so,” or that catchphrase your once favorite sports personality now uses as a noun, verb, adjective, and every other part of speech you can think of, certain phrases just get beaten into the ground.

The same can be said for the card-collecting hobby. While those not on social media may not hear these things often, those that are and interact with others in the hobby daily, get bombarded by these words and phrases regularly.

The solution? I think it’s about time that some of these phrases get retired now. 

Continue reading “Tim’s Take: Four Hobby Phrases That Should Be Retired Now!”

The Decline in Value of the Connor Bedard Young Guns Card

When You Start at the Top, There’s Only One Way to Go.

This past weekend, I set up at the Chicago Sports Spectacular to sell hockey cards and t-shirts. The Spectacular is a twice-annual, three-day show with around 400 vendors and dozens of autograph guests. The show draws a large crowd, and many in the crowd were wearing Blackhawks jerseys with Connor Bedard’s name and number 98 on the back. 

The March Chicago Sports Spectacular was the first major Chicago-area show since Bedard’s Young Guns card was released in 2023-24 Upper Deck Series 2 on March 6 – and as you probably have guessed, everyone was talking about him.

At least half of the people who stopped by my booth asked if I had any Bedard cards, though many of them were looking specifically for his Young Guns card. And some even offered to sell me a Bedard Young Guns card, usually asking around $500 to $600. I could have bought that card ten times over.

But I didn’t. Continue reading “The Decline in Value of the Connor Bedard Young Guns Card”

Clemente’s Corner: Connor Bedard’s Young Guns Prices Do Not COMP-ute!

Amid the usual sea of Michael Jordan, Mark Grace and Walter Payton cards and jerseys, another – much younger – athlete was prominently on display at the recent Chicago Sports Spectacular.

Connor Bedard was very much on the minds and tongues of many at the three-day event, the Windy City’s biggest sports collectables gathering and one of the best-attended regional shows in North America.

And Bedard’s Young Guns card was hands down the most-talked about item – even by those who don’t typically buy hockey. It was a card that had shaggy-haired teens carrying silver cases scurrying about in search of it, while seasoned collectors shook their heads (some in disgust) at some of the prices in the showcases.

Continue reading “Clemente’s Corner: Connor Bedard’s Young Guns Prices Do Not COMP-ute!”

Checklists are NOT Dead!

A few weeks back, I opined that checklist cards in this day and age are pretty much useless and should be discontinued. I put a poll out on X/Twitter asking collectors if they like checklist cards.

As you can see from the poll results above, 50.7% of respondents still like checklists, while 49.3% do not like checklists.

There are two takeaways here:

Continue reading “Checklists are NOT Dead!”

Connor Bedard Mania is Upon Us!

Is Bedard’s Young Guns the Most-Wanted Hockey Card Ever?

I’ve never seen anything like this.

In my 35+ years of collecting hockey cards, I have never seen so much hype over one brand-new hockey card.

I was collecting cards in 1990 when Eric Lindros was being called “The Next One,” and everyone was hoarding his 1990-91 Score rookie cards. 

I remember the hype over Sidney Crosby and how tough it was to find 2005-06 hockey cards that were not marked up to (then) ridiculous prices – because there might be a Crosby rookie card inside. 

More recently, I recall the anticipation for Connor McDavid’s Young Guns card, which was fetching $275 right out of the gate when 2015-16 Upper Deck Series 1 launched in November 2015.

But none of that matches the anticipation, the hype, the fervor, caused by Connor Bedard’s Young Guns rookie card – a card that technically comes out today with the launch of 2023-24 Upper Deck Series 2 Hockey, but has already found its way on eBay a few days ago.

Continue reading “Connor Bedard Mania is Upon Us!”

What Would You Do With a Full Case of 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Cards?

In a record-setting auction that ended Sunday, February 25, a full case of 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Hockey cards sold at Heritage Auctions for $3.72 MILLION DOLLARS.

The winning bid, which was placed Saturday night, was for $3.1 million. The “buyer’s premium” that gets tacked on to the winning bid price was $620,000, bringing the grand total to $3.72M. 

What I want to know is, what would someone do with an entire case of 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Hockey cards?

Continue reading “What Would You Do With a Full Case of 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee Hockey Cards?”

Video: Bernie Parent Interview

In this video, Flyers legend and Hockey Hall of Fame goalie Bernie Parent talks with Sal Barry about his NHL and WHA career. Topics include what it was like for Parent to play with Jacques Plante, why he left to play in the WHA, and the problem with today’s goalie gear. It’s 10 minutes of hockey goodness. 

Special thanks to the Sport Card Expo for video of the interview. 

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Tim’s Take: Is Cleaning Cards a Dirty Business?

All we are is dust in the wind…

Those words, made immortal by the poetic genius of Kansas, were true when they were written and are true today. It’s also true that I hate dust, who doesn’t? The only thing I hate more than dust is dusting. But sometimes, even our cardboard collections succumb to the annoyingly random, floating, airborne particulate. Or maybe something worse. So what do we do about it?

I think there is certainly a difficult and layered discussion that can be had regarding the differences between dusting off your cards, cleaning, restoration, and alteration. We live in a world where the hobby is particularly focused on the gems, gem rates, and population counts among the best of the best. Finding the best quality so that you can maximize your “profits” is and has been, the direction the hobby has trended heavily since around 2015.

Sure, collectors have always wanted the best looking cards in the best condition possible, but since we’ve regularly eclipsed six figure sales for cards, the thoughts of dollar signs take over and the only way to get them is to grade. There is a ton of money at stake now and with half dozen or more card grading companies (the alphabet soups) that will rate your card on an arbitrary scale of 1-10 (with no industry regulation, oversight, certification, or standardized operating procedure), there’s extra incentive to help stack the deck in your favor.

Before I continue down this potential rabbit hole, keep in mind that I’m not talking about taking out the Swiffer duster once in awhile to run over your boxes, binders and bro cases. I’m not even talking about taking the dust off the individual cards themselves. I’m talking about where we draw the line between wiping off a thumb print or some dust particles vs. physically changing or altering the state of a card.

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Connor Bedard’s O-Pee-Chee Rookie Cards are Hot!

But Will They Be This Hot for Long?

It’s a mad, mad world we hockey card collectors are living in right now. Earlier this month, the hobby got turned on it’s head – again! – thanks, in large part, to the hype surrounding Blackhawks rookie Connor Bedard.

Upper Deck released its 2023-24 O-Pee-Chee Hockey set on February 7. Traditionally, OPC is issued at the start of the season and does not include any of the “big name” rookies, who would normally get OPC cards later in the year as a part of an update set.

But this year, OPC was released mid-season. That means that Upper Deck could include Connor Bedard in the ’23-24 OPC set – and boy, did they ever! 

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Is There Too Much of a Good Thing?

After I launched the Puck Junk Newsletter last summer, a reader commented about the sheer number of hockey cards coming out over the next few months. 

That got me wondering: are there too many hockey sets being released at once? In other words, is this too much of a good thing? 

Continue reading “Is There Too Much of a Good Thing?”