I seem to have gotten into a routine the past couple of Fridays of just posting some goings-on from my little corner of the collecting world from the week prior. No reason to break that streak today I suppose, let's see what I've been up to hobby-wise...
Another nice new Helmar card here, from their T206 tribute set. I picked this one up a while back now, but only just got around to processing and adding it to my inventoried collection this past week. Perhaps not as cool as
my first card from this set, but an interesting one in that it's my one and only card of Hugh Bedient.
This guy was a rookie for Boston in 1912 and was absolutely huge. He won 20 games for the Sox in that first season, and was clutch in the World Series against Christy Mathewson and the Giants as well. It's crazy that, as far as I know, the guy doesn't have a single mainstream card out there.
I know they're not for everyone, but this is exactly why I love the Helmar art cards. So many of the subjects in the sets they make just aren't available to be added to your collection elsewhere. I was more than happy to bring this one home for the opening bid of $9.99. I mean, check out this back:
Simply awesome! After landing quite a few Helmar cards last summer and early fall, I've really laid off and it's been many months since I landed one or really even paid close attention to their weekly eBay auctions. Every time I do though I'm reminded of what great work they do.
On the hockey front, it was another great week for my Whalers collection, as I processed and added a full 30 new cards from the stack that I recently rediscovered. This lot brought me to over 1,800 total Whalers cards now, within 200 cards of my goal of reaching the 2,000 mark this year.
Most of them were '90s cards, but included in the lot was this '89-90 O-Pee-Chee Sticker. It's half a Whalers card, anyway. That's the great Dave Tippett on the right there!
A handful of the cards were from Upper Deck's 1993-94 flagship set. I ripped a wax box of this many years back, probably at least ten years ago now. Still haven't decided what I plan to do with that, but in the meantime...
...the ones that I processed this week completed my Whalers team set for this release! This is a pretty solid design, if less memorable than the first two to three years of Upper Deck hockey. I feel like the photography was especially crisp for the early '90s. Maybe it's just me, but the colors seem to absolutely pop off the card when it comes to this set.
These Playoff One on One game cards are something only a team or player collector could love in my opinion. If it's got a Whalers logo on it though, I'll take it!
The team set completion momentum continued, as this '94-95 Donruss card is the final Whaler I was missing for this release as well. I think what Donruss went with design-wise here
could have actually worked quite well had they not made the entire thing blinding, largely illegible foil.
It just kept getting better as I processed through the stack, as I also completed the 1994-95 Score team set when I scanned and logged this overly busy card celebrating Brian Propp's 1,000th career point. That's right, the longtime Philadelphia Flyer recorded point number 1,000 while sporting Whaler blue.
1993-94 Pinnacle doesn't do much for me. It's a clean design I'll say. Anyway, that's enough Whalers for this post, but again it was a good week. I have one more small stack probably the same size as this to process, so maybe I'll be featuring the Whalers one more time in a weekly round-up post like this.
Let's see, what else? Oh, here's another '72-73 O-Pee-Chee high number WHA card. Mike Amodeo looks pretty much like a spot-on WHA stereotypical guy here. Love that handlebar 'stache! I'm approaching one third complete now as far as the 51 WHA cards in this release go, and feeling more and more confident with each addition that I'll complete this someday.
Not much to say about this one, just a really cool Pedro that I picked up in a quarter box many years back and just got around to processing now.
In collection news, back in April I'd posted about the
first ten athletes that hit the 100-card threshold within my collection. Since then two more have been added to the list. The great Mario Lemieux (his '91-92 Upper Deck card here is a real beauty, no?)...
...and the controversial Roger Clemens! Mario Lemieux hitting the 100-card mark is a result of me seeking out his cards every so often since he's one of my all-time favorite players. Roger on the other hand hit the mark simply because I'm a Red Sox collector, and he was included in practically every single release with the team during the height of the junk wax era.
Different rationale, same end result. Welcome to the 100 club, Mario and Roger!
We'll close it out with a new shiny card. I've become highly intrigued by these 1999 Bowman's Best Refrators since learning about them from a collector on YouTube a few weeks back. After picking up the Vlad Guerrero 'Performers' subset card for just a few bucks, I was looking for other low-hanging fruit and found Todd Helton here for the same price.
He may not be enshrined in Cooperstown, but he's certainly a member of the Hall of Very Good. That was enough to get me to bite on this Refractor. These are really stunning in hand, happy to have one to pair with my Vlad.
That's a wrap for now. Thanks as always for stopping by, and check back this weekend for more great cardboard. Until then, stay safe!
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3 comments:
I absolutely adore Helmar's work - they shine a light on so many players that have been completely forgotten about and they do so with high quality work. It's a niche in this hobby that someone has to fill and that Bedient is proof positive that they're the people to do it!
Helmar rules. I'm still trying to put together one of their sets. Back in the day, I was also putting together that Playoff One on One set too. The gold cards were way too tough, so I gave up. Ended up with tons of the common sets. Ended up taking them to Goodwill, because nobody wanted them when I tried to dump them cheap at the flea market.
That Helmar card is great, and the back is just as well-done!
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