Archive for the ‘2010′s’ Category

We all know Panini is a terrible company, right? If you did NOT know that, let me give you the latest example that illustrates why they care little about collectors.

Their 2010-11 Donruss hockey product had an insert called Tough Times which celebrated the tough guys of the NHL. This particular set focused on guys from the 80s and included players like Jay Miller, Lyndon Byers, Joey Kocur and some others. They also made an on-card signed version of each card numbered to 250. As is the case nowadays, there were redemptions for a handful of the players. Being a collect of all things hockey fights, I naturally wanted to build both versions of the set. I picked up four of the redemption cards: Lyndon Byers, Joey Kocur, Torrie Robertson, and Dave Brown. I received the Byers and Kocur cards eventually, although it did take awhile. The Robertson and Brown say in my account, unfilled, first for 6 months, then a year, then over a year…until late last week.

In my mailbox were two bubble mailers from Panani, each with one of my Tough Time redemptions, only they were of Robertson or Brown. Instead, they were these:

Wait, what? These guys were not even in the set!

So apparently Panini could not get signed cards of Dave Brown or Torrie Robertson, so instead of replacing them with some other signed cards, they created new cards to fill in. I don’t think I have ever heard of this before, have any of you? There are, to my knowledge, no unsigned versions of these cards, so they only exist in signed form. So now there are two Tough Times sets with different players.

This isn’t even what I want to complain about. I’d more than happy to receive hard signed cards of two enforcers instead of some junk cards as replacements. I have two problems with these cards:

1. Gord Donnelly is a fitting replacement for Torrie Robertson. However, Donnelly never played for the Dallas Stars in the 80s; he was a Nordique and a Jet during that time and only played for the Stars during the 94-95 season.

2. The serial number for the other Tough Times autographs are at the bottom of the back of the card, in that little brownish box, not at the top.

I’ve said it once, but I’ll say it again: Panini overlooks the details SO MANY TIMES that its gotten to the point of comical. How hard would have it been to use a picture of Donnelly in a Nords or Jets jersey? And most importantly, WHY COULDN’T YOU PUT THE SERIAL NUMBER WHERE IT IS SUPPOSE TO GO?! HOW HARD IS THIS?

Seriously, someone should be fired for this. Collectors are picky; they like consistency in their sets, so why toss the serial number is some weird place when the other cards all have them in the same spot?

Time and time again, Panini overlooks the details and then their cards look like utter garbage because of it. Panini, you just need to GO AWAY AND NEVER COME BACK! Go back to Europe and produce soccer cards and use all the foil and sticker autos you want. Stop pretending like you give a damn about collectors and leave. Seriously, leave!

In related news, I picked this up at my LCS…

Ehhhh, what are you gonna do?

I also picked this up…

Only the finest in German engineering. The Bruins staved off elimination today in overtime and head back to Boston for Game 7 on Wednesday. I may have to throw up a mega PJ-JO post to bring the B’s a win.

In other card news, I bought a handful of packs of Topps’ 2012 Gypsy Queen because I’m an idiot and a sucker. I hadn’t read a lot on this product for this year, so I went in sort of blind.

I bought five packs in all and here is a quick run down of what I got.

The cards are thick stock and the painted effect looks real nice. There are plenty of old timers mixed in with current players. There are also SP variations of some cards; I think the Schmidt is one of them. The backs look old timey and give a brief write-up.

There is a mini in each pack and as you can see, there are parallels. The Latos is a sepia parallel numbered to 99 and there are also Straight Cut and Gypsy Queen back variations. Yeah yeah yeah.

This is a sort of interesting insert set; dudes sliding.

There is also this insert set, Moonshots. This was probably my favorite card of them all because I was, and am, an Albert Belle fan. I need to see if there is a Belle auto in this set…

Speaking of which, I did pull two hits, if you want to really call them that.

Um, okay.

Overall, it’s a nice looking product and it really makes me wish Topps could make hockey cards again. If anyone wants any of these or any of the other base cards I got, let me know; they’re yours.

Lastly, voting closed for right wingers and no one made it into my HOF. Mike Gartner got the most votes with 12 (48%) but was well short of the 60% needed. Don’t forget to vote for defencemen and goalies.

Whoa, it has been about two weeks since I last posted. Not much has been going on card wise for me these past couple weeks and I’ve felt a little lazy. I was on vacation all of last week and planned to take a trip to Cooperstown to see that other Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, we had a blizzard midweek and my trip was derailed. Of course, it barely snows all winter yet on the week of my vacation, we get dumped on. C’est la vie.

Add to that the fact that my Bruins have been sputtering, the trade deadline brought over retread Brian Rolston (who I actually like, but is past his prime), and Tuukka is out 4-6 weeks and I’ve just been sort of meh about writing.

So what better way to get into the mood then by finally getting together the rejected players from my Hockey Hall of Pretty Good series and seeing if we can’t right some wrongs.

First, here are all the previous posts:

1961-1966
1967-1970
1971-1973
1974-1976
1977-1978
1979-1980
1981
1982-1984
1985-1986
1987-1988
1989-1990
1991-1992
1993-1995
1996-1997
1998-2000
2001-2002
2003-2005
2006-2008
2009-2011

All total, there were 57 players who didn’t make the cut. I’m trying to figure out the best way to present them and I think by position will be the most effective. Let’sfirst start with the centers who are up for reconsideration:

So, does anyone from this group deserve to be in? If so, leave a comment and tell me why. Then, when we go through each position, I’ll post the guys up for consideration and we’ll vote. Sounds easy, right? So DO IT!

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I was all set to post when I went to my LCS today and picked up a couple things.

First, there was this, which I had been eyeballin’ for a while…

1974-75 O-Pee-Chee WHA #40Frank Mahovlich

Mahovlich finished up a Hall of Fame career by signing with the rebel league in 1974. He would play two seasons with the Toronto Toros (pictured) and two seasons with the Birmingham Bulls. Man, I love that jersey!

At the same store, I picked up seven packs of 2011-12 Upper Deck Series 2 Hockey. While I didn’t get anything great, I apparently busted all sorts of odds.

Here are some of the better looking base cards I got…

These were the most unusual shots in the packs and outside of the Conklin, that is not saying much. I have to say, I’m a bit disappointed by Upper Deck’s photography this year. Gun to head, I give Pinnacle the nod for best photography this year. I will now light myself on fire.

I don’t think there are any big name rookies in Series 2, but you do have a shot at getting MVP,Victory, and O-Pee-Chee rookies of players lie Nugent-Hopkins, so I suppose that is the draw here. Here are some rookies I snagged…

No great shakes here.

I did pull a tough-ish insert…

Gabriel Landeskog rookie insert numbered out of /100 and in AWESOME DIE-CUT ACETATE FORM! Or, as I like to call it, eBay fodder.

And if you think that is the only hit I got, guess again. Check out these beauties…

Guys, these are really rare and valuable. These are ACTUAL pieces of jersey worn by the players! The Horak is an event-used piece, so I could let this go for like, $100, but the Roy is a piece of a jersey FROM AN ACTUAL GAME! I could be talked out of it for, oh I don’t know, $250-$300. JERZEE CARDZ!!

If anyone wants any of this junk, let me know, especially the Landeskog because that is most like going to go on eBay for like $25.