Old Whalers Become New Whalers

My collecting always seems to wane some in the summer months, and that's been the case again this year.  Just too much to do, and to be honest it's hard to sit inside scanning baseball cards or using a laptop when it's warm and sunny outside and the ocean, parks and mountains are close by.  With that in mind let me at least sneak another quick post in before what looks like a beautiful summer weekend ahead...

Today I've got two Whalers cards of old, re-branded as buybacks in recent Upper Deck products.  The first is the legendary, scrappy, under-rated star Pat Verbeek!  I've said it many times before, but he was the epitome of the cliche "you love him when he's in your sweater, hate him if you're an opponent".

This card is from the 2014-15 Upper Deck buyback promotion, with each card being hand numbered to /25 as you can see in the scan.  A great card of a great player, and a unique and hard-to-find addition to my ever-growing Whalers collection.

Upper Deck had some great card backs, so of course I had to show it here.  Is it me or did Verbeek not only play similarly to how Brad Marchand does these days, but also look just a little bit like him as well?

Today's other buyback is my latest from the '92-93 Ultra buybacks that were included in the 2016-17 Fleer Showcase release.  These are numbered to /25 as well, though foil stamped as opposed to hand numbered.  I'm up to 15 of these puppies now, and that's just the non-autographed versions.

Here's the back of the Cassels buyback, after all Fleer Ultra was one of the few releases that could compete with Upper Deck in the realm of quality card backs at the time.

So there you have it, a pair of old-yet-new Whalers in my never-ending quest to build the world's finest collection of Whalers on cardboard.  Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend everyone!