Random Sunday Post

Today was a typical lazy Sunday, sitting around watching the Patriots (lose) and eating greasy food. I want to post something but I'm not that motivated at the moment, so here's a couple of random things. First off a package I received last week containing 7 2007 Upper Deck Goudey short prints. This is the set that got me back into collecting back in 2007. I've got the base set completed (red and green backs) but there are still quite a few short prints I need. I was able to pick up these 7 for $1.75 plus $2 shipping. 3 Brooks Robinson cards:
The regular short print...

The Heads Up with no background writing short print...

And the Heads Up with background writing short print. I'm pretty sure that covers all the Brooks Robinson cards in the set. I also got two Harmon Killebrew short prints...

One Al Kaline...

And the card that drew me to the auction to begin with, a Nolan Ryan...

Someday I'll complete this one. If anyone has any of the short prints (cards 201 - 288) that they're willing to trade let me know and I'll send you my want list! I was away last week for work and happened to stop by a Wal-Mart in my travels. While I was there I picked up one of these 2009-10 Upper Deck rack packs. 32 cards for $4.99.

I've been showing off quite a few of the base cards from this set recently, so I'll spare you, but I did pull a couple of interesting cards:

#AG6 - Bobby Clarke - Philadelphia Flyers - Ambassadors of the Game - I like the old school players being featured in an insert set, and this is a cool photo. That being said, I could do without the ugly purple and yellow design.

#NET26 - Henrik Lundqvist - New York Rangers - Netminders - I'm guessing both the Ambassadors of the Game and Netminders inserts are retail only. This is one insert set I will not be chasing...

#229 - Taylor Chorney - Edmonton Oilers - Young Guns Rookie - I don't know what the odds are of pulling a Young Guns rookie in a rack pack, but I was lucky enough to get one. I've never heard of Taylor Chorney but I'll take any Young Gun I don't have! While I was in Wal-Mart I also grabbed two 8-card retail packs. Aside from the base cards in those I was lucky enough to pull another Young Gun:

#213 - Ryan O'Reilly - Colorado Avalanche - Young Guns Rookie - I'm having pretty good luck with the SPs in this year's Upper Deck release. I've opened 2 retail packs, the retail rack pack and 3 hobby packs and already have 3 Young Guns. O'Reilly is having a good season out in Colorado and has basically been on pace with Matt Duchene when it comes to scoring points.

On a final note, I think I'm going to pull the trigger on a hobby box of 09-10 Upper Deck hockey. I know at least one person (Justin G) has picked one up, has anyone else? I usually buy from Dave and Adam's Card World, who is offering them for $62 and change with free shipping. If you have purchased one, did you pay more or less than that?

Pack Rip - 2009 Upper Deck Sweet Spot Baseball

I am usually very careful with my card budget and stay away from high end wax for the most part. I'm a set and player collector and don't care much about pulling "hits". For the second year in a row though, I completely bucked this trend and dropped $18 on a pack of Upper Deck Sweet Spot. Spending close to $20 on a pack of cards goes against every fiber of my normal collecting self. What the hell was I thinking? Seriously, can someone tell me? Somehow I rationalized this while standing in the card shop. "I need a Dodger hit to trade to Night Owl, or maybe I'll pull a Red Sox hit" I told myself. Deep down I knew it would be a waste of an Andrew Jackson. Oh well, here is the 8 card pack...

#14 - Carlos Zambrano - Chicago Cubs - This is the first card in a stack I just started for lonestarr. I guess the pack wasn't a total waste...

#70 - Lance Berkman - Houston Astros - I actually really like the simple design of these base cards. I think they look better than last year's Sweet Spot release.

#6 - Alex Rodriguez - New York Yankees - Yawn...and now for the "big hit"...

#SS-CL - Carlos Lee - Houston Astros - Sweet Swatch - Pretty much what I expected. A one color jersey card of a player I don't care about who's on a team that nobody I know even collects. I have only myself to blame.

20th Anniversary Waste of Space - #1374 - Tiger Woods - Golfer/Adulterer - Fitting that I pulled this card this week. Does anybody else just not care that much about this Woods ordeal, or is it just me? Wow, big surprise, one of the wealthiest and most recognizable men in the world gave in to temptation and cheated on his wife. Shocker. I really appreciate Upper Deck wasting a spot in a $20 pack with one of these cards. Thanks.

#50 - Jim Thome - Chicago White Sox

#26 - David Ortiz - Boston Red Sox - OK, at least I pulled a single Red Sox card for my collection.

#82 - Nomar Garciaparra - Oakland Athletics - I was an impressionable Red Sox fan when Nomar first made waves in the bigs, so I've always had a bit of a soft spot for him.

Well that was as bad as I expected. I will be keeping the Garciaparra and Ortiz cards, and the Zambrano is going out in a package as I mentioned. Anything else is up for trade.

Mail Day and a Pack Rip

Here's my second pack of 2009-10 Upper Deck Series 1 hockey. This one was definitely better than the first. Here we go:

#79 - Tobias Enstrom - Atlanta Thrashers - Tobias looks poised to have his best year yet in his 3rd NHL season, and the Thrashers are sitting at 5th in the Eastern Conference.

#47 - Marc-Andre Fleury - Pittsburgh Penguins - Marc-Andre raising the roof!

#184 - Milan Hejduk - Colorado Avalanche - And now the card that made this a killer pack:

#203 - Matt Duchene - Colorado Avalanche - Young Guns Rookie - My first Young Gun short printed rookie of 2009-10 and it's a good one. I think this is one of the top 2 or 3 Young Guns rookies in the set. Despite being just 18 years old, Matt has looked great out of the gate. He scored twice against the Tampa Bay Lightning last night, giving him 6 goals and 8 assists on the year. This was one of the cards I wanted as soon as the set came out, and I've seen it going upwards of $12 - $15 on eBay. It was worth picking up the 8 packs for this card alone!

#57 - Rick DiPietro - New York Islanders - There certainly are a lot of DiPietro cards out there for a guy who hasn't played in quite some time. I guess signing a ridiculously large contract guarantees you cards.

#115 - R.J. Umberger - Columbus Blue Jackets - Great action shot with Red Wings Nick Lidstrom and Henrik Zetterberg in the background.

#20 - Tomas Plekanec - Montreal Canadiens - Even the Canadien cards look good (shudder).

#170 - Ryan Kesler - Vancouver Canucks - Well the Duchene card made this pack a success. I also got a package delivered today containing a single card I won recently on eBay. This is another one I've been tracking for quite some time:

2009 Topps Updates & Highlights - #232B - Nolan Ryan - California Angels - I've really started to make an effort in accumulating Ryan cards recently, and this one caught my eye when Updates & Highlights was first released. After numerous failures I was able to grab one for just $.89. With shipping I paid a few cents over $3. If anyone has the Mets variation of this card and is willing to trade, I will definitely make it worth your while!

I'll have a few more pack rips and hopefully another mail day or two posted this week!

Pack Rip - 2009-10 Upper Deck Series 1 Hockey Pack 1 (Hobby)

Upper Deck's base hockey set has been one of my favorites the last two seasons in a row, so I knew I would pick some 2009-10 Series 1 up at some point. I was at the hobby shop yesterday and he had 8 packs left, so I grabbed them all for $24. 8 cards per pack, here's the first pack:

#189 - Mikko Koivu - Minnesota Wild - I swear I pull cards of this guy all the time, including just yesterday in my pack of Artifacts.

#45 - Sergei Gonchar - Pittsburgh Penguins - Not the greatest shot ever...

#112 - Dustin Byfuglien - Chicago Blackhawks - Now that's a nice card! This photo is from last year's Winter Classic game if I'm not mistaken. You can see the patch on Dustin's jersey and the Wrigley brick in the background. It's been a while but I seem to recall whatever network did last year's Winter Classic hosting this contest where you had to spot the player without the Reebok patch above his number on the back of his jersey. I think the player was Dustin Byfuglien.

#96 - Brooks Laich - Washington Capitals - A guy who has become somewhat of a fan favorite in Washington from what I can tell. He's having a great year with 22 points in 26 games. In fact, he's gotten steadily better in each of his 3 NHL seasons.

#TG2 - Zach Parise - New Jersey Devils - Top Guns - I'm not impressed with this Top Guns insert set at all. Couldn't you have at least gone with a foil logo Upper Deck? This looks like an insert I would expect in a retail pack, not hobby.

#62 - Doug Weight - New York Islanders - I have to say that I really like the look of these cards. Extremely similar to the Upper Deck baseball set from 2009, but there's one key difference that I think makes the hockey cards look significantly better. In the baseball release the bar across the bottom of the card where the player's position is noted was one color for all cards, a beige color. In the hockey release this bar is always a team color from the player depicted. It's also see-through in the hockey release, where it was solid in the baseball set. These changes make a huge difference in my opinion, for the better.

#12 - Nathan Gerbe - Buffalo Sabres - This guy is pretty well known around where I live. He was a star at Boston College, was drafted by the Sabres and was called up for his first NHL action last year. Gerbe recorded 1 assist in 10 games, and has yet to see NHL action in 2009-10.

#54 - David Clarkson - New Jersey Devils - Interesting shot to end the pack. I like the little Devils logos on the seats behind the glass.

Even though this wasn't the world's best pack, I think these cards look great, which is what I've come to expect from Upper Deck just about every year. I was wavering about whether or not to pick up a hobby box of this stuff, now I think I'm gonna have to go for it. I've only ripped one other pack so far, and it was definitely better than this one. I'll be posting that one soon...

Pack Rip - 2009-10 Upper Deck Artifacts Hockey (Retail)

Literally within minutes of me scanning these cards in today, Sal over at Puck Junk posted a pack rip of the same Artifacts retail pack from Target. As you can see, he was not impressed. Neither was I...

#35 - Jason Arnott - Nashville Predators - Boring. These are way too strange, the columns make absolutely no sense.

#44 - Dany Heatley - Ottawa Senators - Dany Heatley traded to Sharks: September 10th. Upper Deck Artifacts released: October 27th.

#49 - Patrik Elias - New Jersey Devils - John this is yours if you want it...

#96 - Mikko Koivu - Minnesota Wild - The Wild's first permanent captain in franchise history.

#95 - Andrew Cogliano - Edmonton Oilers - I'll admit it, I know virtually nothing about this guy.

Let's face it, these cards are not all that exciting. I won't be buying any more of these, especially given that there's not a Krejci card in the set. About the only saving grace is that I was expecting to pay $2.99 for this and it rang up at $1.59. Not sure if that was a sale or clerical error.

Pack Rip - 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee Hockey (Retail)

I probably won't be spending any money on cards until after the holidays, so I'm going to try to survive off of the small stash of packs in my card closet for the time being. I'll be posting quite a few pack rips in the next few weeks. I'm going to start off with a retail pack of 2009-10 O-Pee-Chee hockey. I like to get at least a pack or two of each new hockey release, and I picked this up at Target about a week ago. 6 cards for $1.59.

#386 - Paul Gaustad - Buffalo Sabres - Gritty center, Buffalo fan favorite. I like these cards but I don't have time to collect a 600-card set at the moment.

#67 - Josh Harding - Minnesota Wild - 1-3 with a 3.41 GAA so far this year. Not off to a great start with this pack...

#540 - John Negrin - Calgary Flames - Marquee Rookie - A "short-printed" Marquee Rookie card. As far as I can tell, John appeared in 3 games for Calgary last year and has not seen NHL action at all so far in 2009-10.

#398 - Evgeni Malkin - Pittsburgh Penguins - Best card in the pack, easily. I love the retro style 3rd jersey but I wish Upper Deck would've used a baby blue border to match it instead of the normal border color for a Penguins card.

#179 - Steve Staios - Edmonton Oilers

#450 - Nathan Horton - Florida Panthers - A Florida Panther to finish out the pack.

Well, they can't all be winners but I guess the Horton and the Malkin make this a decent pack for a buck and a half...

David Krejci Collection - Card 9

Last night David Krejci registered his 3rd goal of the season against the Ottawa Senators in a 4-3 shootout win by the Bruins. Krejci also recorded an assist on what would've been the game winning goal had Tim Thomas not let a weak shot slip by with just seconds to go. Luckily Thomas and the B's recovered for the shootout win.

Thanks to a recent hot streak (5-0-1 in their last 6) the Bruins now sit at 3rd place in the Eastern Conference. Next up, the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday night!

#1 - 2007-08 Upper Deck SPX (Auto/Dual Relic/#'d to 999)
#2 - 2007-08 O-Pee-Chee Premier (Auto/Quad Relic/#'d to 299)
#3 - 2007-08 Upper Deck Ice Fresh Threads (Dual Relic)
#4 - 2008-09 Upper Deck Champs Mini
#5 - 2007-08 In the Game Heroes & Prospects
#6 - 2009-10 Fleer Ultra
#7 - 2007-08 Upper Deck SP Authentic (Auto/#'d to 999)

#8 - 2008-09 O-Pee-Chee