Jambalaya!

Let's continue along with posting the huge backlog of trade packages I've got sitting on my desk in my office/card room.  Today's post comes courtesy of longtime friend of the blog Dave H from Wax Stain Rookie.  Dave and I have been exchanging cards for a long time now, and you can count me among those who were very happy to see him return from his recent blogging hiatus.

In this latest package, Dave packed quite a punch with just eight cards!  Kicking things off we've got a set that is very foreign to me, 2013-14 Panini Titanium.  I don't do a good job of keeping up with new releases each season to begin with, and on top of that I think I recall reading somewhere that this set was released in Canada only.

I could be wrong about this, but based on the five minutes of research I did I believe the foil Loui Eriksson that led off the post is actually a base card from the set, and this non-foil version is a "Retail Parallel".  Seems awfully confusing if that is indeed the case, but either way I'm happy to have a pair of new Erikssons in my collection.  There are rumblings about the Bruins trying to work out an extension for Loui, and I'm not sure how I feel about that as a fan.  The cynical side of me thinks they're just trying to keep him around so that they still have something to show from the Seguin trade...

Here's the other retail parallel in the package, if that's indeed what it's called.  I'm not sure how I feel about the design of this set on the whole, but I do like the sort of washed out effect they used on the photograph backgrounds.  There was a fourth Titanium card in the package, which I'll get to in a moment, but first let's see some of the other goods...

I went through a brief love affair with Panini Prizm hockey cards a year or two ago.  I've since drifted away from the set, but only because I've been trying to curb my hobby expenses.  The cards themselves are still every bit as beautiful in my opinion, and this Phil Esposito Endless Impressions insert is a perfect example of why I enjoy the set so much.  This card is everything a nice chrome card should be!  Perhaps I'll put 2013-14 Prizm back on my collecting radar for 2016 after all...

One insert set that seems to be universally loved is Upper Deck Canvas.  The folks at Upper Deck really struck gold when they began inserting these back in the 2011-12 flagship set, and they've been a staple ever since.  I have precious few from this year's release so far, so I'll gladly welcome this Brad Marchand into my collection.  I'd love to complete a Canvas set one year (minus the Young Guns rookies), or maybe a Canvas franken-set from all the different releases, but the reality is that I don't need another collecting project right now.

Now we're getting to the real meat and potatoes of this package!  This UD Portraits insert represents my very first Malcolm Subban card of any sort.  PK's little brother looked horrific in his lone NHL appearance for the Bruins last February, but the kid is just 22 years old and still a highly touted prospect in the B's organization.  His Young Guns RC in this year's UD set is one I'd like to pick up at some point when I find it at the right price.

Here's the other Titanium card I alluded to above, and boy is it a nice one!  You could almost miss this at a quick glance, but check out that serial number in the upper right.  Just ten copies of this gold parallel out there in existence!  Awesome stuff.

Now normally a card serial-numbered to /10 of a 600-goal-plus HOF lock would be the highlight of any package hands down, but in this case Dave included a card that surpassed even this great Iginla in my opinion.  Check it out:

The scan doesn't do the card justice, as is so often the case, but in hand this 2014-15 Fleer Ultra Jambalaya insert is truly a thing of beauty!  Die-cut with a hint of lenticular technology, the card is really stunning in the right light.

It made such an impression on me that I spent some time combing around the web to see if I could land any others "on the cheap".  Unfortunately, I found that these are quite rare at one per 112 hobby packs!  As such, they command a pretty penny.  It's doubtful that I'll be adding any others given what they sell for on the secondary market, but that just makes the fact that Dave went out of his way to send me this one even more impressive!

As I said above, I'm really working at curtailing my hobby spending in 2016, but after a delivery like this it's clear I'm going to have to find something cool to send back.  Thank you so much for the great cards Dave!!!

Snowstorm Hockey Cards - Pt 2

As a reward for the hour or so I spent digging out this morning, let's spend a little time digging through the latest delivery of cardboard from Angus of Dawg Day Cards.  Angus is a pretty awesome dude, and has gone out of his way to send me cards on quite a few occasions now.  Most recently he sent me a very thoughtful Christmas card, and that was followed up not even a week or two later with a thick bubble mailer packed with hockey card goods.

For starters, there was a giant stack of this year's Upper Deck hockey to be found.  When the dust settled I had something like 35-40 new cards for my set, and a handful of doubles for my trade box as well.

I'm not going to show them all here obviously, but my favorites coincidentally (or perhaps not so much) all ended up being horizontal photos.

Whenever I see a card like this one I wonder to myself; does Upper Deck ever photoshop players out of the backgrounds on cards?  I find it hard to believe there was any point, either during warm-ups or game action, where there wouldn't be a single soul visible on all that ice behind Erik in this shot.

Here's the last Upper Deck flagship card I'll show.  Aside from making goal decisions much easier on the refs, the high tech goal cams that are used in today's game sure make for some sweet hockey cards.

The Upper Deck cards alone would have been more than enough to make a solid package, but Angus included a generous helping of Hartford Whalers cardboard as well!  Leading off we've got a trio of the team's lesser-known goaltenders in Kay Whitmore...

...Daryl Reaugh...

...and Frank Pietrangelo.  Love the mask matching the sweater on this one.

Surprisingly, I had not a single '92-93 Parkhurst "Emerald Ice" parallel in my collection before this package showed up.

They look exactly like their regular counterparts, except that the oval Parkhurst logo is done in emerald foil.

Angus hooked me up with a solid half dozen in this package to kick start me on these parallels.

Not a bad start at all!

Here's one from that '92-93 Upper Deck All-Star set that came in a tall plastic box made to look like an athletic locker.

A nice Geoff Sanderson insert from the 1993-94 Classic Pro Hockey Prospects set.  Don't recall ever having even seen this card before.

How about a couple of cards from the set that seems to be creeping into just about every trade package I've received recently?

I can't explain the sudden influx of '92-93 Bowman, but I'm not complaining either.  The more of these cards I see, the more I like the set.

Have about a dozen copies of this card, but this is my first French version of the Whalers' gardien de but!

Here's a nice Finest Andrew Cassels.  Had the refractor version but not the regular base, until now.

Last Whalers card of the package, a nice Pinnacle Tim Kerr.  Given that it's becoming harder and harder to find junk wax Whalers I don't already have, Angus did amazingly well with this delivery.  In fact, he bumped me to over 1,500 unique Whalers cards, a significant number for a franchise that didn't even last 20 years in the NHL!

Oh, and there was one "baseball card" as well.  This awesome over-sized Exhibits Walt Dropo.  Very cool!

Thanks for the great package Angus, and apologies for the delay in posting my gratitude.  I think it's gotten to the point where I'm going to have to go out and find a few Browns cards just to send you, my collecting conscience can't deal with the fact that I've yet to reciprocate all the great cards you've sent my way.  In the meantime, thank you!

Snowstorm Hockey Cards

Snow's coming down at a pretty good pace today.  At noon, I could see my lawn.  Six hours later and I've got about six inches of snow down.  I'm not complaining, it's the first significant snowfall of the year here so far, and at least it came on a weekend.

Having worked twenty five hours plus in the two days leading up to the storm, it was a little difficult to get prepared, and I certainly had no time for blogging or even reading other blogs.  Things came together in the end though and I've got plenty of gas for the snowblower, plenty of food in the house, and even some free time to enjoy the latest batch of hockey cards sent to me by my friend Douglas Corti of Sportscards from the Dollar Store.

A snowstorm feels like the perfect time to look at some hockey cards, and this PWE had nine new ones for my collection.  For starters, the David Pastrnak above and this David Krejci finish off my Bruins team set from the latest Upper Deck release (still need a couple of Young Guns though).

I'm relatively certain that's Miroslav Satan in the background, which almost makes it as though Marc Savard has a small Satan on his shoulder like you'd see in cartoons back in the day.  Just missing the angel on the opposite side.

I'm a fan of the 2013-14 Score set, but I did not have this really nice horizontal Seidenberg yet.  Love the photograph chosen for this one.

A very young Patrice Bergeron brought to you by Upper Deck Victory.

I'm still not sure whether Bruins fans liked or despised this guy.  It's probably somewhere around an even split I guess.  Looks like Michael's NHL days may be finished, as he's an unrestricted free agent and has yet to sign with any team for the ongoing 2015-16 season.

It wasn't all Bruins in the envelope though, as he seems to do almost every time Douglas included some new Whalers for my collection as well.  Three of them to be precise, all from the glorious height of the junk wax era, 1991-92.  This Parkhurst Rob Brown is the French version.

As are this pair of Pro Set cards that close out the package.

Douglas, thanks for the delivery as always.  This one has me on the precipice of 1,500 unique Whalers cards, a mark I should now be achieving any day.

Thanks to this snowstorm I should be able to get the next trade package out of the queue tomorrow.  Until then...

One Card Post - Shiny Blue

What:  2012 Topps Chrome Blue Refractor #207 - Mike Aviles (#'d /199)
Where:  COMC
How Much?:  $.69

Why?:  The combination of shiny refractor and perceived scarcity was too much to overcome at less than seventy cents.  So one night, in a moment of weakness, and most likely from the comfort of my living room couch, I pulled the trigger.  That's really it.

These Red Sox Brought to You By Tony Burbs

Today's trade package comes courtesy of Tony Burbs of the great blog Wrigley Roster Jenga.  Tony's been on the blogging scene for a while now, but somehow our paths never crossed until towards the end of last year.  When I learned he was starting to collect Chicago Blackhawks cards I sent him a whole bunch, and in return he crafted a sweet return bubble mailer chock full o' Red Sox.

Tony cross-referenced my collection on Zistle before shipping, which means he batted a thousand in terms of the cards being new to my collection.  I'm kind of embarrassed to say I didn't have a copy of the '89 Upper Deck Boggs you see above previously.  Glad Tony rectified that before I had to turn in my Red Sox Team Collector Badge.

There was a huge variety to be found among the goods that Tony sent.  This MLB Showdown game card featuring longtime Sox captain Jason Varitek is a perfect example of just how random this delivery was.

Always happy to add another new card of the greatest player I've ever seen pitch for Boston.

I've nearly completed this past season's Archives team set, but hadn't managed to find a copy of this Ortiz yet.  Haven't even thought about those pesky short-prints, and probably won't bother.

My favorite two players on the current team are young stars Xander Bogaerts and Mookie Betts.  Any package that adds a new card of either to my collection is automatically a winner.

Like I said, some real variety here.  Seven cards into the post, seven different sets represented.

Here's a nice one from the last true Upper Deck baseball set (in my humble opinion, the 2010 set where they did a half-ass job of hiding logos doesn't count for me).  Upper Deck was releasing some absolutely giant sets around this time; this is card number 953 in the 2009 set.

As I've stated many times, I'm a total sucker for minor league cardboard, so I was very happy to find this Anthony Ranaudo featuring him with the Red Sox AA affiliate Portland Sea Dogs in the stack.

Believe it or not, this is my second David Mailman card, though it is the first that was delivered by my actual mailman.  David never made it past A-ball, but he sure has an interesting name.

Che-Hsuan Lin actually got into a handful of games with Boston back in 2012.  This is my first card of his too, another name off of the all-time Red Sox checklist!

Here's another great Portland Sea Dogs card, featuring pitcher Abe Alvarez.  This is from the 2004 Just Prospects set.  Random fact, Abe was called up to start a single game in 2004, and thus received a World Series ring!  He's now retired and serving as a pitching coach in college.

The minor league cards keep on coming, with this 1999 Team Best Dernell Stenson.  This one's a bit on the depressing side, as Dernell was brutally murdered at age 25 while playing in the Arizona Fall League.

On a more positive note, here's a nice Toys 'R' Us purple parallel of Jarrod Saltalamacchia.  These parallels in particular seem to really command a premium, and since I haven't stepped foot in a Toys 'R' Us in probably a decade, I have precious few in my collection.

Will Middlebrooks, what could have been.  I'll still enjoy this nice Gold Sparkle parallel of his rookie card, even if his career has really tanked in the few seasons since it was printed.

These Opening Day Stars 3D cards are just awesome in hand.  I can't believe I never bothered to track down the Red Sox before, but it's not a problem...

...since Tony hooked me up with both of them in this package.  Two of my favorite cards in the entire package for sure.

These 'When They Were Young' inserts are a little strange to me, but it is comical to see that David Ortiz had the swagger that he's known for from a young age, apparently.

This one is from the 2008 Topps Trading Card History insert set.  Interesting seeing Josh on a '64 Topps design...

...but give me the real thing any day!  This one's way up there on the checklist too, number 526 in the set.  My previous highest-numbered card from this set was 352.  Do I care that Lou Clinton has been gently loved over the years?  Not in the least!

Finally, the oldest card Tony set, and another pretty high number.  Ray Webster here is number 452 in the '60 Topps set.  Just awesome.

If you haven't had a chance to check out Tony's blog, now's the perfect time to hop on over there and congratulate him on getting engaged to his longtime girlfriend.  Tony, thanks for the great package of Sox, and sorry that it took me so long to give them their proper appreciation in the form of a post.  I really appreciate you taking the time to pick out and ship me these gems.