Nutrition with Olaf Kolzig

Here's my favorite new hockey card from the past month or so, from the 1995-96 Pinnacle hockey set.  This card is just perfectly awkward.  Eighteen cents well spent on Sportlots if you ask me!

A Pair of Yellow Champ's from Wax Stain Rookie

This past week I found a surprise PWE in the mail from Dave at Wax Stain Rookie.  Inside were a couple of cards we had talked about a while back that I had totally forgotten about:

Both were the hard-to-pull yellow parallels from the 2009-10 Upper Deck Champ's hockey set.  Mikko Koivu here is actually the more rare "animal icon" parallel, which almost slipped by me until I scanned the card in.

Here's the other card, a guy who's having an amazing year so far in 2013, after capturing a Cup last season.

Dave, thank you very much for your generosity and for thinking of me out of the blue.  I found a few Devils cards at the hobby shop this weekend to send back to you in return.  I'm an idiot though and I threw out your envelope before jotting down your address.  If you can drop me an email with your mailing address I'll get your package out today!

I've got a couple more trade posts coming this week featuring awesome packages from The Underdog Card Collector and Brad's Blog.  Stay tuned...

Zistle Trade with BucCollector

Still getting through my backlog of packages and trade posts, and getting more bubble mailers in the mail, so hang in there if you're waiting on cards from me.  Here's another trade completed in 2013, with Zistle member BucCollector.  I sent him a few Pirates, no big surprise given his username, and in return got 5 unique cards...

The very first card in the 1980 Topps set, paying tribute to two Hall-of-Famers who crossed the 3,000 hit threshold the year prior.  A great addition to my Red Sox and Carl Yastrzemski collections.

This interesting item is something I've definitely never encountered before.  It's stamped 1977, and features everyone's favorite forest-fire-preventing bear.  To the right is an area where you could affix a sticker, mine being a mini sticker reprint of a 1972 Topps Rookie Stars card.  Certainly an interesting oddball item!

There were two more cards I needed towards my 1982 Topps...

...both of them Pirates, which seems about right in an envelope from BucCollector.

Last but not least is my favorite item, a 1979-80 Topps team poster of my beloved Hartford Whalers.  This folds out to a decent size, if you want to see a more detailed picture just click for a larger version.

Thanks for the trade BucCollector!

Trade with Hackenbush!

I recently completed a quick trade with Hackenbush from Can't Have Too Many Cards. I've read his blog daily for years so I was glad we were able to make a swap.  The trade was initiated when I claimed some Red Sox cards from a disappointing 2013 Topps blaster and agreed to send some 2013 Topps Cubs in return.  A few days later I received an envelope containing these four cards:

Vicente Padilla base.  This was the one card in the package I already had.  In fact, I seem to have an uncanny ability to pull this card.  This may be my 4th or 5th copy!

Ryan Sweeney base.  I like this photo, which seems to have been taken on Opening Day.

The Target red parallel looks pretty nice as well!  All of my 2013 Topps cards came from Target, but I wasn't fortunate enough to pull many Red Sox red parallels, and definitely needed this one.

Last but not least, my favorite card of the bunch, a Nolan Ryan '72 Mini.  Just a great card.  I'm chasing the mini set, but also casually collect Nolan Ryan so this is one of my absolute favorite cards released so far in 2013.

Thanks for the great trade Hackenbush!

Signature Sundays - Geoff Sanderson

This week's Signature Sundays post features what will likely be the final Whalers autograph parallel from the 2012-12 Panini Classics Signatures set to be shown here on Shoebox Legends.  The subject is none other than longtime fan favorite Geoff Sanderson:

Geoff's is an autograph that I've wanted to pick up for a long time now.  He was drafted fairly high by the Whalers in the 1990 NHL entry draft, 36th overall.  That was actually the team's second pick as they selected Mark Greig 15th overall in the first round (40 total points in 400+ NHL games, ouch!).  He appeared in just two games towards the end of the 1990-91 season but still managed to register his first goal.

Sanderson really had his breakout year in his second full season, 1992-93.  He registered career highs in the big offensive categories with a whopping 46 goals, 43 assists, and 89 points.  Yes I know there were an insane amount of goals scored that year, but those are some impressive totals nonetheless.  Sanderson was fast, durable and relatively consistent.  More importantly to me, he was committed with the team and was on the roster straight through the team's departure for Carolina.  His 189 goals in a Hartford sweater are the fifth most of any player (behind Francis, Dineen, Stoughton and Verbeek).  He was fifth in career points for Hartford as well, behind those same four players.

The reason I say this is likely the final Whalers autograph parallel from this set that I'll ever feature is that I'm missing only one at this point, but it's a big one.  There is actually an SSP autograph of Gordie Howe in Whalers sweater with an extremely limited print run, although I can't find any information on exactly how few are out there.  I've seen just one go up on eBay so far, for $350 with the option to make an offer.  The Whalers collector in me really wanted this card to complete the team set, but even my $150 best offer was much too low for the seller.  It went relatively quickly for the unreal price of $300+, if you can believe that!  Who knows if I'll ever see another, and even if I do I certainly won't be shelling out that kind of cash for a modern day auto.  For now I'll enjoy the Sanderson, Burke, Verbeek, Samuelsson and Tippett autos that I was fortunate enough to snag!

Sportscards from Canada (Possibly from the Dollar Store)

Recently I completed another trade with Douglas of Sports Cards from the Dollar Store.  It all started when I asked about a trio of cards that were posted as part of a 2013 Topps break.  Here were the three cards I was interested in...

I busted a decent amount of 2013 Topps retail, but was not fortunate enough to pull this Will Middlebrooks insert.

The one insert set that I'm going to try to build is the '72 Topps Mini set.  I'm sending two '72 minis back for this Ripken, but I think that's fair as Ripken tends to be one of the more expensive guys in the secondary market.

Finally, the card I was most excited about, a beautiful Ted Williams Cut to the Chase die-cut.  I think most collectors agree that these are a hit.  Fortunately I had pulled a double of one of these which worked out well for trading.

Being the all-around generous guy that he is, Douglas sent me a huge stack of Whalers cards as well, probably 100 or more.  It's starting to get to the point with my Whalers collection where I have a good deal of what's out there, so I don't usually hold out too much hope when somebody sends me a bulk lot.  Amazingly though, I plucked 30 cards that I needed out of this box!

A couple of '92-93 Topps...

...and one lone '92-93 O-Pee-Chee in the box, which I did not have.

Here's a guy who I'm in the market for an autographed card of.  Problem is, I don't think there's a certified auto of Randy with the Whalers in existence.  Panini?  Please?

Ditto.

There are still quite a few Whalers I need from the '93-94 Leaf set, even after these two...

Always appreciate a new Sean Burke.

I needed half a dozen '95-96 Collector's Choice Whalers that were included...

Finally, there was what must amount to nearly a full team set of cards that I knew didn't look familiar to me.  They're from the 1992-93 Score Canadian set, and I needed all 16 of them:

I like the Franchise subset cards from the 1991-92 Score set better than these.

This big chunk of Whalers cards now puts me at over 850 unique cards and counting in my Whalers collection, well on my way to my goal of 1,200 by the end of the year.  Thanks for another great trade Douglas!  I finally got your cards packaged up today, so keep an eye out at the mailbox..

Signature Sundays - Adrian Gonzalez

Coming later this week I have some more trade posts, including packages from David at Can't Have Too Many Cards and Douglas from Sports Cards from the Dollar Store.  Those will have to come later though, because it's Sunday, and you know what that means here at Shoebox Legends.  This week's Signature Sundays post features my very first Adrian Gonzalez Red Sox autograph!

This beauty is from last year's Allen & Ginter set.  It's my fourth Red Sox A & G auto overall, but my first from the 2012 set.  I really like the darker border that was utilized for this past year's autograph cards.  Adrian doesn't exactly have the most exciting signature, but at least it's large and bold, I've certainly seen much worse.

This one takes me to 46 unique Gonzalez cards and counting.  I paid $29 and change for this card, plus shipping, when I picked it up this past September.  That's definitely more than I'd typically shell out for an auto (20% of my card budget for an entire month), but in this case I just had to have the card.  I'm glad I sprung for it too, because they aren't exactly that common.  In fact, searching eBay and COMC right now I can't locate another one at any price.

Of all the Gonzalez autos out there, this is certainly a great way to start.  Now I just need to find a 2011 A&G Gonzalez auto to pair with this one...

Adrian Gonzalez Red Sox Cards - Count

Total Cards - 46

#'d /2011 - 1
#'d /999 - 1
#'d/199 - 1
#'d/100 - 2
#'d/99 - 1
#'d/75 - 1
#'d /60 - 1
#'d/50 - 2
#'d/25 - 2
#'d/10 - 1
1/1 - 6
Relics - 1
Silk - 1
Autographs - 1
Printing Plates - 5

Some COMC Loot!

Another brutal week, please be patient if you're awaiting a card package or return email from me.  I'm about out of steam, but I didn't want to go post-free for the entire work week, so I figured this would be the perfect chance for an image-heavy post showing off some COMC purchases.  Here's a good chunk of cards I picked up on the site over the last few months and haven't had a chance to post...

This Will Clark SP puts me one card closer to completing the 2012 Archives set, and it goes nicely with the signed copy I picked up a while ago.

I can't seem to resist the 2011 Topps Cognac Retired Stars parallels, especially when I can manage to find them for around a buck or less.  This Reggie Jackson is one of the nicest I've seen yet, just a beautiful card.  The retro A's uniform is perfect for a cognac parallel.

I grabbed a couple of these from the same seller by making a package-deal offer, and this Fisk was what got the ball rolling.  This card had been on the Most Wanted List in my sidebar for quite some time, happy to erase it.

Closing out the trio is another Athletic, Rickey Henderson.

These next few Diamond Anniversary parallels were actually won quite a few months back now, and got me a good chunk closer to completing the Red Sox team set...

These were much cooler when they were still novel, before there were 70 different shades of them in every Topps release...

The Topps Lineage set never really grew on me, but I thought the inserts were well done so I did try to grab all of the Red Sox at least.  I already had the Adrian Gonzalez 3-D insert, so Carl Crawford was the only other one I wanted.

I snagged these three stickers from the same seller on the cheap...

The last of the Lineage, a trio of Stand-Up inserts.  Two Hall-of-Famers and one guy who seems like he could maybe get old as a teammate after a while.

Things seem to come in threes for me on COMC for some reason...

2009 Allen & Ginter World's Biggest Hoaxes, Hoodwinks & Bamboozles Victor Lustig mini.  This was purchased because it fits into my very small Eiffel Tower collection.

This Mako Shark from the 2008 Allen & Ginter World's Deadliest Sharks insert set puts me at four out of five now.  I'm now missing only the elusive Tiger Shark, card #2, to knock this set off.  It's been added to my Most Wanted list in the sidebar...

This 2010 Nolan Ryan insert was on my Most Wanted list as well, an interesting 1957 Topps tribute.  I've only shipped 4 or 5 orders ever from COMC and I think every one of them has included at least one Nolan Ryan card.

Last but not least, here's a hockey card.  I swear my purchases weren't all baseball.  I'll post some of the hockey goodies soon, but I had this one scanned already so here you go.  I know I've said this probably 50 times but the early Ultra insert sets were junk wax perfection as far as I'm concerned.  I've wanted a copy of this Brodeur for nearly two decades now, nice to finally land one.  I really do enjoy shopping on COMC!