Make Sure You Know What You're Buying

One of these days I will learn to pay attention.  If you read my old blog, you might have seen this post about buying a card that I thought was something else.  The difference with today's post is that I bought these cards online.

The acquisitions were from Sportlots, where there aren't images for every card.  That's where I messed up.  It's all me.  The cards were listed as Auston Matthews but I had a brainfart and didn't pay attention that the card number was 400, which is a checklist.

I bought the card pictured on the left first.  It showed up later the day that I bought all of the others and realized my mistake.  I can't lie, it ruined my evening.  Oh well, at least I got another Stephen Johns out of the transaction.

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.  Between referrals and cash back, I've gotten over $100 in about seven months.  FREE CARDS!  If you're on Twitter, please give me a follow.  Happy collecting!

COMC Mail - Three Gold Stars

After more than six months, I'm still trying to figure out "values" of Compendium cards.  COMC and eBay are the only gauges and numbers are not relatively consistent in my eyes.  What I do know is that there aren't too many copies of the gold parallels available out there.  Because of this, I likely value the cards higher than others.  Perhaps the fact that I have done the legwork for every gold card that I have plays a role in it.  

This post is in honor of the three gold Dallas Stars cards that now reside with me.  

2016-17 Compendium Gold #85 Tyler Seguin

2016-17 Compendium Gold #88 Antoine Roussel

2016-17 Compendium Gold #587 Stephen Johns

The Tyler Seguin and Antoine Roussel cards are going into the card show box.  The Stephen Johns is all mine.  I wonder how many copies of this actually exist.  It can't be more than a handful.  

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.  Between referrals and cash back, I've gotten over $100 in about seven months.  FREE CARDS!  If you're on Twitter, please give me a follow.  Happy collecting!

Old Acquisitions from a New Show

Not that the area really needs ANOTHER card show, but the new Fort Worth Card Show held it's first event earlier this month.  I stopped in to support the show and walked away with a few items.

There weren't too many sellers and it was a small room, but I was VERY impressed with the amount of people attending in the short amount of time I was there.  The next show will have more sellers.  Likely due to being in a different part of the metroplex, most of the attendees were folks that I did not recognize and I'm excited to see the show grow.

I only bought from two of the sellers.  My first handful of pickups were from Rich.

1994 Ted Williams Dan Gardiner Collection #DG9 Checklist

I picked this card up because of Michael Jordan in a Barons uniform.  I own a few of his cards in Barons or White Sox uniforms.  I don't own one basketball card of him.  I was born in Birmingham and have attended a few games as a kid when I'd visit town for the summer.

1995 Upper Deck Minors Michael Jordan One On One #9 Michael Jordan '94 Autumn

1995 Upper Deck Minors Michael Jordan One On One #7 Michael Jordan '94 Season

1995 Upper Deck Minors Michael Jordan One On One #8 Michael Jordan First Homer

I wasn't paying attention and ended up with two copies of this card.  If I was going to make that error, I'm glad that it was on this card.  I was in the stands when Jordan hit his first home run.

1994 Upper Deck Minors #MJ23 Michael Jordan

The final card that I picked up was for the wifey's Dallas Stars binder.  As much as it pains me, Derian Hatcher was one of her favorite players.  Sometimes in life we just bite our toungues!

1994-95 Upper Deck #127 Derian Hatcher

The only other cards I picked up were from the show promoter's table.  A couple of them follow the above trend...

1995 Collector's Choice #500 Michael Jordan

1995 Collector's Choice Silver Signature #500 Michael Jordan

The final purchase was a set that I had a few cards from already and planned to complete.  At the price he was asking, I just bought the set so that I needed to give it no more thought.  

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.  Between referrals and cash back, I've gotten over $100 in about seven months.  FREE CARDS!  If you're on Twitter, please give me a follow.  Happy collecting!

COMC Mail - Young Guns

On an earlier post, I showed the Stephen Johns Gold Foil Rainbow Young Guns.  There were other Young Guns in the shipment.

Yes, I picked up this many Stephen Johns Young Guns.  As cheaply as they can be had on COMC, I can (hopefully) sell them at shows and make a few bucks.

2016-17 Upper Deck Exclusives #481 Stephen Johns

On the Upper Deck ePack site, I got a hard-to-find, and desirable, card.  I sent everyone that had a Johns Exclusives an offer for it and one trader took it!

2016-17 Upper Deck Silver Foil #481 Stephen Johns

This was a card that I "made" by combining five Young Guns cards.  Most of the silvers I combined into golds, but I needed one copy of this.

2016-17 Upper Deck #225 Jesse Puljujarvi

Jesse Puljujarvi is a card that was very desirable on ePack, but I didn't feel people were offering enough to get from me.  So, I elected to send him home.

2016-17 Upper Deck #451 Patrik Laine

If you're not going to get an Auston Matthews, Patrik Laine is probably the card you want to pull.  There was no reason for me to attempt trading this on ePack, because I didn't want to trade down.  I already had two Auston Matthews Young Guns, so I didn't need to trade up.  

I love ePack.  

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.  Between referrals and cash back, I've gotten over $100 in about seven months.  FREE CARDS!  If you're on Twitter, please give me a follow.  Happy collecting!

Break of a Different Kind

About a year ago, I gave up on group breaks.  You lose more than you win and don't even get the joy of opening cards.  The final straw for me was paying $50 for the Blackhawks in a break where they had the most hits in the set.  I walked away with 0 cards.  For $50.

I have done a few vintage set breaks with Burl's Sports and will do more in the future.  No matter what, you still at least come away with a vintage card in every spot.

LINK: 1956 Topps Baseball Set Break from BurlsSports.com

While searching eBay for Stephen Johns items, I came across a seller (collect_edition_montreal  on eBay) that was doing breaks by player.  I'd heard of them before, but had never participated.  The one that intrigued me was a half-case break, the starting bid was just 99 cents and shipping was free.

I ended up winning the auction for Johns (for $2.01) and Stan Mikita (for 99 cents).  With the free shipping, my total was $3 and it was coming from Canada.  If I had walked away empty-handed, I wasn't going to be upset at that low of a price.  

A half case should yield 36 Young Guns.  There are 50 in series 2, so odds were around 65% that a Stephen Johns would come out.  One did.

2016-17 Upper Deck #481 Stephen Johns

It wasn't a UD Exclusives (/100) or a High Gloss (/10), but for $3, I am thrilled.

To be honest, I didn't even know what Stan Mikita card was in the set.  I figured it was a stick card of some sort and odds would be long.  It was worth a 99 cent shot.  It paid off.

2016-17 Upper Deck Canvas #C255 Stan Mikita

I was watching the live stream and did a double take on this one.  The breaker was in Canada and had a French accent, so I thought maybe my ears were playing tricks on me.  Nope.  The Retired players Canvas are 1:192 packs (1:8 boxes) and there are 15 players in the set, making the odds on this 1:120 boxes.

For me, that was $3 well spent.

My Day With the Cup #NHL100

Well it wasn't like this...

Or anything like this...

However, I did get see and get my picture taken with the Stanley Cup today.

Today the second greatest trophy in all of sport was in Dallas as a part of the NHL's Centennial Celebration.  The lady and I decided to go down to the AAC and check it out.  Never take for granted an opportunity like this because you never know when the opportunity will arise again.

In addition to seeing the Cup, there was a trailer that had some memorabilia and other displays.

There were some cool things to see that unless I some day go to the Hockey Hall of Fame, I would never see in person.

I love the photo opportunity that the NHL provided with this.  If you notice, my (our?) last name is at the top where the name plate would be, along with a number of your choosing.  They put 65 for me (since I was wearing my Andrew Shaw sweater) and she chose 29 since our birthdays are both on January 29.  That's kind of a big deal to us!  I mean, how many couples do you know whose birthday is on the same day?

I may not have the prettiest form, but for someone that never played hockey I feel that I get some pretty damn good velocity and height on the puck (that was actually a ball).  I did play a good amount of sports as a kid and even played softball up until about three years ago, but I think this is the most sports-related thing the lady has ever seen me do.  

Philip Pritchard (@keeperofthecup) was there (obviously) and graciously took pictures with anyone that asked.  It's not a bad job that he has and it definitely has made him a celebrity.  

Meet Phil Pritchard, Keeper of the Stanley Cup - Men's Fitness

NHL: What's life like for the keepers of the Stanley Cup - ESPN.com

Ten Questions with Phil Pritchard, the Keeper of The Stanley Cup ...

Because It's the Cup | The Players' Tribune

Anyway, on to the reason that we went...and there's nobody in the world that I'd rather have shared the experience with than this lady.  She's the best thing to ever happen to me.

It may not have been the greatest day of my life, but it was one that I will not forget until the good Lord starts taking my memories from me.