After opening five blasters of 2017-18 Parkhurst, I needed one card to complete the set. I had every card but the Alex DeBrincat went into my collection and not the set. I was asking on Twitter if anyone had one to trade. I never had any success and eventually just bought the damn thing on COMC.
However, Ryan Cracknell (who writes for Beckett) reached out and asked if I needed the red parallel. Oh, I did...and he sent it my way without asking for anything in return. I'll have to find him something down the road and I'm very appreciative for his kindness. If you don't follow him on Twitter, you should. Thanks, tradercracks!
This is just my 3 1/2 DeBrincat card. So far I have his Young Guns, the Parkhurst base and I'm waiting on the Artifacts redemption to be shipped from Upper Deck.
If you shop online and haven't signed up and used ebates yet, you're missing out. I also use it on eBay to get money back from purchases there. Between referrals and cash back, I've gotten over $150 in a year. FREE CARDS!
I've been surprised that Alex DeBrincat Young Guns have sustained their value. The last three years Young Guns prices have dropped on all but the top one or two players once the set made it to ePack. They have still plummeted on the low-tier players, but this season there are a dozen or so that have remained higher. I have my theory on why, but I'll save that for a Bean's Ballcard Blog post.
As luck would have it, I searched for this card with the most recently listed and found this one. It cost less than the COMC asking price AND had free shipping. I went ahead and snagged it. I feel that eventually prices will drop and the $11 I paid will just seem stupid, but who knows?
2017-18 Upper Deck #221 Alex DeBrincat
This card doubles my Alex DeBrincat collection. The fact that I have just two cards speaks volumes about how I feel about modern cards. I'm cutting down on the amount of money I spend and the percentages have moved toward vintage and spending money for online trading shipping.
If you shop online and haven't signed up and used ebates yet, you're missing out. I also use it on eBay to get money back from purchases there. Between referrals and cash back, I've gotten over $150 in a year (including $15 back on one Black Friday purchase last week). FREE CARDS!
One of the best parts of our hobby is how many different ways you can collect. You can be a set builder. You can be a prospector. You can player collect. There are many team collectors. Hell, you can do all of these if you really want to.
I've done all of these in the past and to some extent still do them all, minus prospecting. I've always been a player collector. It started out with Dale Murphy. Then it was Will Clark. During my teenage years I collected Russ Davis and Bob Sura. I still collect some former players but my most recent fanatical collection was Blackhawks forward Andrew Shaw. I put a LOT of money and a good bit of time into that collection.
Then came June 24, 2016. I can't say that The Andrew Shaw project died that day, but it was certainly put into a coma. The Blackhawks traded Shaw to the Montreal Canadiens and my collection hasn't been the same.
It's been about 18 months and I've debated on selling off the cards and moving on. While I've sold some, I've still kept at least one of each. I still add low-end cards to the box but it's nothing like it was. One card that I will NEVER get rid of is my first Shaw card. It's one that I pulled myself and it means more to me than any money I'd ever get out of it.
I don't know that I'll ever try again to be a super collector. I've been burnt by Blackhawks prospects that were later traded because of the salary cap (see: Tuevo Tervainen). This past offseason my "new" favorite after the Shaw trade, Scott Darling, was traded. I've already cut back on how much modern product I buy and this is a part of the reason.
However, I denote this card my favorite of 2017. It may not have the monetary value of others in P-Town Tom's contest, but that means nothing to me.
2017-18 Upper Deck Parkhurst #288 Alex DeBrincat
2017-18 Upper Deck Parkhurst #288 Alex DeBrincat (back)
The card will probably debut in Beckett as a $5 or $8 card, but it's the first Alex DeBrincat card I pulled from a pack myself and the first I had onhand. The same happened with my favorite Shaw card. Monday night I opened my second blaster of Parkhurst hockey and in the first pack, the first thing I saw was the back of the card and I just smiled. I had it! It will be placed in a one-touch just as the Shaw is and I will always know it was that EXACT copy that was my first.
Why Alex DeBrincat? He's the "next big thing" for the Blackhawks. Just look at that stat line on the back. One knock on DeBrincat is his size, or lack thereof. Another was that his numbers were a product of playing alongside Connor McDavid and Dylan Strome. Those numbers you see from last season were sans McDavid and Strome.
The pick Chicago drafted DeBrincat with wasn't their originally. It came to them in a trade for...Andrew Shaw.
Despite his size, DeBrincat has some toughness to him. I found this on eliteprospects.com: "DeBrincat is a small player with a dynamic skill set and a pure sniper. He is undersized, but can be very nasty to play against and shies away from no one. He skates well and is very effective around the net. He is hard to contain for such a small player, and has great chemistry with anyone he plays with. A decade player in the OHL."
He hasn't shied away from larger players in his rookie season. He's also showing up on the score sheet. Through 33 games, he's scored 12 goals and has 11 assists. He's also logging almost 15 minutes a game on the ice.
I know that his Young Guns and all parallels will have more value. I'll eventually have at least the base Young Guns and the Canvas Young Guns, but I'm waiting until ePack hits. I also bought five copies of the Upper Deck Game Dated Moments card highlighting his first career hat trick. They aren't in-hand yet. This card will always be the first. That's why it's my favorite card of 2017.
If you shop online and haven't signed up and used ebates yet, you're missing out. I also use it on eBay to get money back from purchases there. Between referrals and cash back, I've gotten over $150 in a year (including $15 back on one Black Friday purchase last week). FREE CARDS!
If you have Twitter and read this, can you help me out with something?
I want to get Blackhawks rookie Alex DeBrincat a trading card for scoring his first career hat trick.
All I need you to do is tweet to @upperdeckhockey, @upperdeckhockey and @upperdecke_pack, use the hashtag #PickTheMoment and mention Alex DeBrincat First Career Hat Trick.
That's all I'm asking. Thanks to anyone willing to help out!
