Top 60 Cards - Hockey Style! - Part 1

As you probably know, Topps recently launched a website where collectors are invited to vote for the top 60 Topps baseball cards of all-time. It seems most collectors have some gripes with the cards Topps put up for vote, and it's hard to blame them. Recently, Night Owl (and I'm sure some other bloggers that I just haven't stumbled across) created his own list. It seemed only right that someone compile one for hockey cards, so I began scouring my collection to see what I could come up with. I'm going to break this into 3 20-card posts like Night Owl to make it easier for me to type up and for you to read.

A couple of disclaimers before we get started. First of all, these are my current top 60 cards from my collection. All of the scans are of my actual cards, if I don't own it you won't see it here. So, while I'd love to include a 1950's Parkhurst Gordie Howe, that's not a possibility (yet). Secondly, this is not a "60 Most Valuable Cards in My Collection" post. There are a variety of reasons a card would make this list. True, a couple of them are more expensive, iconic cards but a ridiculously goofy face is just as likely to get you into the top 60. Finally, and most importantly, I encourage your comments! Lists like this provide great fodder for argument, so let me know where you agree or disagree, I'd love to hear your feedback.

So here we go, cards 1-20 in random order:

#1 - 1990-91 O-Pee-Chee Premier #100 - Jeremy Roenick Rookie - When O-Pee-Chee released its inaugural Premier set in 1990 collectors went crazy for it. It had a few great rookie cards and a design that looked pretty impressive compared to what was provided by Topps and O-Pee-Chee in the 80's. It's held up better over time than probably any set from this year. If you don't believe me try finding a wax box for under $70.

#2 - 1987-88 Topps #83 - Bernie Federko - Probably my favorite card from the 1987-88 set. Bernie's facial expression is priceless.

#3 - 1977-78 O-Pee-Chee WHA #49 - Al Smith - Growing up a Whalers fan, I had to include at least one card from the team's WHA years. Al Smith's great mask made this one an easy choice.

#4 - 1976-77 Topps #100 - Tony Esposito - I wanted a Tony Esposito card to be included and this is one of my favorites, although there were 3 or 4 others I could've easily chosen.

#5 - 1962-63 Topps #55 - Ted Hampson - Ted here is one of my oldest hockey cards. This card has definitely seen better days but hey, it's almost 50 years old. Besides, that wretched lower left corner gives the card character.

#6 - 1977-78 Topps #75 - Cleveland Barons Team - I chose this card because for the longest time I didn't even realize that the Cleveland Barons were at one point an NHL franchise. Formerly the Golden Seals, the Barons lasted just two seasons in the NHL (missing the playoffs both times) before merging with the Minnesota North Stars. I wish Upper Deck would do team cards like this in their modern flagship set.

#7 - 2008-09 Upper Deck #128 - Nicklas Lidstrom - One of the more recent cards on my list. I think this is a great shot of the grizzled veteran on the bench. Lidstrom continues to perform at age 40 and is once again a part of early season Norris trophy discussions. Definitely one of the best defenseman of all time.

#8 - 1994-95 Upper Deck SP Insert #149 - Eric Lindros Die-Cut - These inserts were among the very first die-cut hockey cards I remember my friends and I getting. I would've traded just about anything for this Lindros back in the day, but as it stands I got it out of the quarter box at the local hobby shop not too long ago.

#9 - 1989-90 Topps #113 - Joe Sakic Rookie - 1989-90 Topps/O-Pee-Chee is the set I collected more than any other as a kid, and for quite some time this Sakic rookie was the most "valuable" card I owned. I had two or three of them and I thought I would make a killing one day selling my extra copies. I've learned quite a bit since then!

#10 - 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee #99 - Wayne Gretzky Edmonton Oilers Leaders - This was a recent addition to my collection, pulled from a pack not too long ago. I think it's the perfect example of just how dominating Gretzky was during his era, and the fact that it's card number 99 in the set is a nice touch.

#11 - 1981-82 Topps #18 - Jari Kurri Rookie - The 1981-82 Topps/O-Pee-Chee design is definitely amongst my favorites of all time. There were many different cards I could've chosen from this one, but I settled on Jari Kurri's rookie. I remember this one vividly from my youth, Kurri looks more like a nervous little kid than a dangerous scorer.

#12 - 1977-78 O-Pee-Chee Glossy #5 - Ken Dryden - One thing you'll notice looking through my list is that I'm a fan of great goalie masks. Enough said.

#13 - 1991-92 Upper Deck #54 - Pavel Bure - The Russian Rocket was one of my favorite players as a kid. Terrible yet instantly recognizable card.

#14 - 1989-90 Topps #74 - Doug Gilmour - Another of my favorites from the 89-90 Topps set. I still have no idea why the background on this card is greenish/yellow, and somehow it took me years to realize there's a player's face in there.

#15 - 1977-78 Topps #134 - Mike Milbury Rookie - If you live in New England and don't know who Mike Milbury is, you're probably not much of a hockey fan. In fact, no matter where you live, if you follow hockey you've heard of Mike Milbury.

#16 - 1991-92 Upper Deck #47 - Mario Lemieux & George Bush - This card from the 1991-92 Upper Deck set is not something you see every day. In fact, I can't think of another hockey card off-hand where a president is pictured...

#17 - 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee #2 - Mike Bossy Record Breaker - As one of the best pure goal scorers of all-time, I had to include a Bossy card. I settled on this Record Breaker card, which celebrates his career season in 1981-82 (64 goals, 83 assists, 147 points). I know I've said this before but it's scary to think how many more goals Mike may have scored if he was able to stay healthy.

#18 - 1971-72 Topps #70 - Gordie Howe - What's not to like about this card? One of the best players to ever lace up skates on one of the best designs to ever grace a hockey card. Gordie will make another appearance later on the list.

#19 - 1974-75 Topps #169 - Kansas City Scouts Team Card - This one was picked for much the same reason as the Cleveland Barons card earlier in this post. I started collecting hockey cards in the 1989-90 season, and had a few cards as old as 1981-82, but anything from the 70's was a mystery to me. I didn't know about the KC Scouts until my second go at collecting more than 15 years later!

#20 - 2007-08 Upper Deck #208 - David Krejci Young Guns Rookie - We round out the first 20 with the proper Upper Deck Young Guns rookie of my favorite current NHL player, David Krejci. Every little thing this guy does on the ice has a purpose, his "hockey IQ" is amazing. You can really see how critical he is to the team when he misses time, I think if he hadn't gone down last year in the playoffs the B's wouldn't have choked that series away to the Flyers. Ugh...

Well, there's your first 20. Cards 21-40 will be posted tomorrow. What do you think?

On the Radar - 1988-89 Topps Hockey

One of my major collecting goals since I got back into the hobby has been to collect every Topps hockey set from the 1980's, from the 1980-81 set through the 1989-90 set. I have a tendency to get sidetracked and bounce all over the place though, so I'm only just now getting to a point where I have everything organized. Working my way backwards, I've already completed the 1989-90 Topps set. Next up would be the 1988-89 set:

The nice thing about the Topps sets from this decade is the manageable size of each set, with this one clocking in at 198 cards. Although I've had some of the bigger cards for quite some time (Gretzky, Lemieux, Hull rookie...), I had very few cards from this set until I picked up a huge stack of commons and semi-stars at the local hobby shop a while back.

I've finally got everything sorted out and into pages and my Want List is now up to date. I'm down to around 30 cards needed to finish the set. If anyone has any of the following available for trade please let me know!

23, 25, 26, 35, 49, 61, 73, 82,
102, 103, 104, 113, 118, 119, 123, 124, 130, 134, 141, 145, 147, 157, 160, 161, 166, 167, 171, 176, 179, 193

I've also got a healthy stack of doubles on the odd chance that anyone's looking to get started on a 22-year-old Topps hockey set!

The Ultimate 2010-11 Upper Deck Hockey Pack!

I wasn't planning to build the 2010-11 Upper Deck hockey set, and I'm not sure that's changed, but on Friday night I did pick up one single pack at the local shop for $3 just to see how the cards look in person.

I've collected the Upper Deck base set for the past few years since I got back into collecting, but kind of got bored with it after last year's set. $3 gets you 8 cards, this turned out to be an extremely good pack:

#21 - Steven Stamkos - Can't get a much better first card than this. Stamkos is the most exciting young scorer in the league at the moment. After scoring a league-leading 51 goals last season (along with Sydney Crosby), he is leading the league in both goals and points so far this year.

#63 - Daniel Alfredsson - Alfredsson is still putting up good numbers as a 37-year-old. He's been good for about a point per game over his career and registered his 1,000th career point earlier this season.

#19 - Colton Orr - I have to say that these cards actually look really good. I was excited about collecting the Score set this year but these look so much nicer, although they are priced much differently in all fairness to Panini. I didn't purchase so much as a single pack of Upper Deck's baseball release this year, so this was my first real exposure to this design. I think it works much better with the hockey set.

#183 - Tuukka Rask - Every Bruins fan, myself included, thought Rask would be the man between the pipes the majority of the time for Boston this season, after he led the league in both Goals Against Average and Save Percentage last year. His 0-4-1 record over his first 5 appearances though, combined with the fact that Tim Thomas has been an absolute beast (10-1-1, 1.49 GAA, .954 save percentage!), have resulted in little playing time for Tuukka. He did post a shut-out in his last start against the Panthers on Thursday night. I love the photo on this card depicting Rask being presented with the NESN (Bruins TV broadcast) 7th Man Award.

#231 - P.K. Subban - Young Guns Rookie - I couldn't believe it when I shuffled Rask's card to the side and this one was revealed. Subban is causing quite a stir in the hobby, and in the media as well. Just last night on Hockey Night in Canada we heard Don Cherry as well as Mike Richards of the Philadelphia Flyers commenting on Subban's lack of respect for the game. All I know is he looked pretty damn good against the Bruins last time they played. This card is consistently selling in the $30 - $40 range on eBay. I'm very tempted to flip this for some vintage hockey on eBay, since I have a feeling this card might drop a bit in value over the long run and don't plan on collecting this set, but I'm still not sure what I'll do.

#86 - Andy Greene

#36 - Joe Pavelski - After a phenomenal playoff performance, Pavelski has cooled down some but is still posting decent offensive numbers so far this year.

#46 - Tyler Kennedy

That wraps it up. I'd say that's about as good as I could hope to do with just a single pack of Upper Deck! The odds of purchasing just one pack and pulling a Subban rookie are pretty low to say the least. Stamkos and a nice Rask card put this one over the top for me.

That being said, I just don't need another set to collect right now. If anyone wants to trade me a Krejci that would be great. I might even pick up another pack here and there, but no hobby boxes for me.

Odds and Ends

In case you couldn't tell by my paltry 3 posts so far in the month of November, things have been a little slow around here. Well, actually it's the complete opposite, things have been so busy I've found very little time or money for cards in recent weeks. I've still been reading blogs and populating Zistle with images when I find a few free minutes, but that's about it. I haven't stopped buying altogether though, and have found some pretty good deals on my limited budget. Here's a few highlights that I've added to the collection over the past month or so:

I picked up this 1982-83 O-Pee-Chee Ron Francis rookie card for just a few bucks at the local hobby shop. Aside from the fact that I'm just starting on my quest to hand collate this set, it's inexcusable that as a die hard Whalers fan this card has been missing from my collection for so long. I've already talked multiple times about how under-rated Francis is. He's 4th all-time in scoring, try finding a rookie card of the 3 guys ahead of him (Gretzky, Messier and Howe) for under 10 bucks!

This 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee retro parallel of Bobby Orr puts me one card closer to this monstrous 600-card parallel set. I've bid on a few of these and lost over time, I ended up winning this one by making an offer on a Buy it Now auction. I think it cost me $3. I like this one in particular since Orr never had a card in the 79-80 set (his final O-Pee-Chee card came in the 78-79 set).

My most frugal purchase of all was 4 more 1968-69 Topps hockey cards, a set which I am slowly accumulating a decent portion of. This Cesare Maniago card is probably my favorite, even though it's not nearly as cool as his 1973-74 Topps card. This card cost me 50 cents if you can believe that...

On the back we learn that Cesare had played for teams in 13 different cities in the 8 years prior to this card's release. The other three I picked up:



The Arnie Brown has a couple of soft corners but other than that the 4 cards are clean, crease-free examples with good centering and corners. The Brown was 10 cents, the Hodge 60 cents and the Peters 20 cents. At this rate I'll have this set done in no time! Finally, although I'm not a big autograph chaser, I couldn't pass up this beauty:

I was always mesmerized as a kid by MacInnis' tremendous slap shot. I've almost pulled the trigger on a couple of his autographed cards before but never ended up going for it. My biggest criteria was to get him in a Flames uniform, the team with which he captured the Stanley Cup in 1989 (and was named playoff MVP). I got this one for $2.75, less than the cost of most modern day packs!

Living on the cheap isn't so bad after all!

Cards From Canuck

This week a package arrived from one of my favorite traders, Captain Canuck. You know him from the blog Waxaholic, but if you're a hockey fan and haven't seen it yet make sure to check out his other blog dedicated solely to hockey, Just A Bit Offside. Captain helped knock a few more cards off my want list, but as usual also threw in a couple of bonus Whaler cards including this Pinnacle Murray Craven:

I've always liked the 1992-93 Pinnacle set, but for whatever reason have very few cards from it. This may be one that I pick up a box or two of on the cheap at some point.

Also included was this Pro Set Platinum Kevin Dineen card, with Peter Sidorkiewicz lurking in the background. There were a few cards from two sets in particular, including 13 cards I needed from last year's Series 2 Upper Deck set. Sal sent a bunch of these in his last package as well, I guess my blogging friends are determined for me to finish this set!

Nice horizontal card of Patrick Kane about to light the lamp.

Henrik Zetterberg in what appears to be a mid-dump-in photo.

Saku Koivu celebrating with teammates. I'm now just 7 cards away from finishing this one off. Also included were 7 more cards towards my nearly complete 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee hockey set, all of them Marquee Rookies (I've already finished the 500 card short set and the 40 card Legends subset). Most were no-name players but there were a couple of decent guys:

Turris has seen action in 14 games this year for Phoenix.

Although not an offensive-minded defenseman, Hjalmarsson has played in 19 games for the Hawks this season. Perhaps most appreciated in this package were 2 cards I needed from the 1979-80 Retro parallel subset:

These are only inserted one per pack, so completing this 600 card set is quite ambitious, but I really hope to get there someday. These 2 put me at 396 cards, so I'm just about 2/3 of the way there. As usual, there was a junk wax era hockey pack included with the cards. This time it was 1991-92 Score (Canadian Bilingual edition).

15 cards in the pack, here are a few of my favorites:

The most recent inductee in the Hockey Hall-of-Fame.

A couple of Penguins including goaltender Tom Barrasso and one of the best defenseman of all time, Paul Coffey:


Wayne Gretzky Lady Byng Trophy card. These are very similar to the trophy winner cards in Score's inaugural set released the year prior.

Mike Modano - The Franchise. I'd like to take a moment to point out how much better these cards look than the Franchise inserts in Panini's recent Score release. I've always thought these were some of the nicer looking cards in the 1991-92 set.

Another Wayne Gretzky trophy card. Pretty random to get both of these in the same pack.



Greg Adams has some roller marks across the top, which I don't recall ever seeing in this set. Believe me, I opened a TON of this too back in the day.

Thanks for another great trade package Captain! I'm now just 7 cards from finishing 2009-10 Upper Deck hockey, and just 12 cards from completing the monstrous 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee set. Brian, maybe I can send you a 1992-93 Upper Deck starter set?