Gearing up for Hockey with a Trade

Baseball is in the pennant race and NFL is only days away, so it's easy to forget hockey season is creeping up. The most recent trade reminded of this, (and that I need to get my skates sharpened and buy a new roll of stick tape). Some new Cam Neelys with an All-Star sticker featuring a Reggie Lemelin cameo and a Stadium Club with my favorite Bruins alternate jerseys from the NHL's 75th season.

Cards from SCFTDS

We all know and love him, Sportscards From The Dollar Store, one of the more prolific traders around, and lucky for me a fellow Canadian that we can send packages back and forth without crazy shipping costs. His most recent package arrived full of good stuff as usual, here are a few of the highlights. Starting with some Pro Debut, I don't usually collect minor league stuff, but I really should. Who could pass up Hartford Yard Goats and Albuquerque Isotopes?

RLC Custom Card Project: Robbie Beckett

The Player: Not a household name by any means, but older collectors might remember the Padres first round pick in 1991 from 1991 Score or from a couple Bowman Cards. He would make his MLB debut in 1996 for the Rockies, pitching in five games, then would pitch in two more in 1997 making up his entire Majoe League career. 7 career games, 7 career innings and an ERA of 11.57.

The Card: Probably my favorite parallel, from probably my favorite modern set. I already had a 2011 Gypsy Queen template, so this one was pretty easy. I am trying to to repeat design to much in this project, but I really liked how this turned out so here it is.

The Project: Rockies Legacy Collection custom project to make digital cards of Rockies players who never had one issued.

Free Neely (or What I did with my ebay bucks)

Well, almost free, using my $1.21 ebay bucks, this came to 4 cents. Nice insert from his playing days with a Flair Showcase / Bowman Mojo kind of tractor tire refractor thing going on. A couple things to love about this card other than the shiny, is the serial number to 10000, nothing screams mid 90's like that, and the back has Mikael Renberg, who although I strongly disliked the Flyers, was a player I always kind of liked, and scored a lot of goalies for me on the Bruins in some NHL video that I forgot the year of.

The Most Expensive Checklist I Will Ever Own (aka the Joy of a completed team set)

I don't even know when I started this project. In my mind I can track it back to at least 5 moves ago, so that is right around 2001. I have been chipping away, adding cards, and after I picked up my personal white whale in Eddie Brown, the end was near. When everything fell together for this card it was too hard to pass up.

It was listed for a ridiculous $299.99 from big-time PSA seller 4 Sharp Corners, then reduced down to $90.99, still a little high, but everyones favorite online auction site had a 20% off everything discount, good for a savings of  $18.20. Figure that in with $6.00 shipping to Canada, made an expensive card, but something that fit in the budget.

The next step is to get the complete team set all in PSA slabs, but that is a long way off, but should get closer fairly soon.