2013-14 Upper Deck Artifacts Box Break #2

Yesterday, I posted the contents of a hobby box of 2013-14 Upper Deck Artifacts that included one of my Top 10 Pulls of 2013. My second box, unfortunately, didn't carry quite the same impact, but like most boxes of Artifacts, was still fun to open.

Like box #1, I got two Penguins. These two are of Sidney Crosby and Larry Murphy. The Crosby, of course, will be added to my Sidney Crosby Collection (base/hits), and the Murphy is cool, because they went with the retro logo on the card, to match the era he played for the team.

I lucked out on my serial-numbered base cards, in that all of them are low-numbered parallels. I pulled two Sapphire parallels, of Jason Pominville 11/85 and Ilya Bryzgalov 1/85, as well as a Team Canada Ruby parallel of Joe Thornton (20/299).

I got three rookies out of this box. My base rookie was of Edmonton Oilers defenseman Justin Schultz (97/999), and I also got a Ruby parallel of  Damien Brunner (155/299), who signed with the New Jersey Devils in the off-season. My Rookie Redemption is for the St. Louis Blues, but it is too early in the season to guess who that may be.

The first of my three memorabilia cards is a Milan Hejduk base card parallel, featuring two jersey swatches, numbered 57/125. I don't usually like getting two of the same color, but with the Avalanche sweaters, I'm ok with that. 

My Treasured swatches card from this box is a dual jersey card of Sean Couturier.  As a Penguins fan, I hate pulling Flyers cards of anyone not named Max Talbot, but at least I get different colored swatches with this one.

My autograph is an Autofacts card of Matt Martin. Unlike the Evander Kane I pulled from Box #1, most autographs you will find are from the Autofacts insert set. A majority of them are of lesser players, but there are also Autofacts cards of Wayne Gretzky and Bobby Orr, so there is still a chance to strike gold with these.

The hit of this box is a Tundra Trios card of Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green, and Braden Holtby of the Washington Capitals. Any time you can pull an Ovechkin, it's a great break, but what's with Mike Green? Out of four boxes of Artifacts in the past two years, I have pulled jersey cards of his in three. At this rate, he'll be passing Daniel Alfredsson as "The Guy I Always Seem to Pull" in no time.

That's it for this box. I didn't quite get the monster hit I did last time, but it wasn't completely unsuccessful either. Artifacts is always a fun break, and I'm sure I'll be coming back for more real soon.

2013-14 Upper Deck Artifacts Box Break #1

One of the most eagerly anticipated product lines in the early part of the hockey card collecting Year is Upper Deck Artifacts. The product is loaded with hits, as each box is guaranteed to contain three memorabilia cards, including one multi-player memorabilia card, and one autographed card. Not only that, but each box will contain at least one serial-numbered rookie card and one rookie redemption card, which is good for a rookie who debuts during the 2013-14 season.

The base cards are great this year. The frame around each of the cards gives it a classic look, which was sorely missing from last year's uninspired design. The other cool thing this year has to do with the background. In year's past, players were basically cut out and placed on a uniform backing, but here, we have the actual background of the photo, modified to still give a spotlight to the player image. There is a healthy mix of current and former players, and a few of them, like Evgeni Malkin, are pictured in All-Star jerseys.

The base set is numbered 1-100, but the set continues after that, with serial-numbered subsets. Card numbers 101-12 are goaltenders, cards 126-15 are Team Canada, and cards 151-200 are rookies. All of the base versions of these are numbered to 999, and all of these card, as well as cards 1-100 have parallel version, like Ruby /299, Emerald /99, Sapphire /85, Spectrum /25, and Black /5. Many of the Black Parallels are autographed. My box contained goaltenders Ed Belfour and Pekka Rinne, as well as Team Canada's Corey Perry. There was also an Emerald Ondrej Pavelec, numbered 86/99.

Like most boxes, I also got two rookies: a base version of Alex Chiasson, numbered 526/999 and a Boston Bruins Rookie Redemption. Each box contains one redemption, which will be exchanged for a player who makes his debut during the season. While some of the top draft picks from 2013 are easy to predict, some of the other teams may not have an eligible player until well into the season.

My first hit was a Treasured Swatches dual jersey card of Los Angeles Kings center Mike Richards. It appears as though Upper Deck has gone through their Mike Richards jerseys from his Flyer days, as this features the L.A. Kings' black and silver. It's a great color combination, and it's really good that they put in two different colored swatches, but what isn't clearly seen is just how sparkly that silver is. Very nice.

My multi-player jersey card is of Daniel Alfredsson and Colin Greening of the Ottawa Senators. Both swatches are red, but that's ok, since at least it is from two different players, and that same color isn't white. I really have a talent for Ottawa Senators hits, though, or maybe it seems that way.

My  third memorabilia hit is a patch/jersey card of Washington Capitals defenseman Mike Green. I guess I may have spoke too soon about the Senators being a recurring pull, since this is my second Mike Green hit from Artifacts in two consecutive years. The first came in 2012-13, when I pulled a horizontal dual-jersey card of his. Anyway, it is always cool to pull a patch card, but a single-colored white patch? Booooooo.

The big hit of the box, though, was the autograph. I was lucky enough to pull an autographed Team Canada Black Parallel of Evander Kane, numbered 1/5. These cards, at least the autographed versions, are slightly modified from the base cards. Of course, you have the different-colored foil, but beyond that, they appear to just slightly fade the area behind the autograph to make it stand out even more.

I dipped my toes into Artifacts for the first time last year, and was very happy with the two boxes that I purchased. I picked up two this year as well, and although box #2 (which I will post tomorrow) wasn't quite as good as this one, Artifacts is always a fun break.

2012-13 Dominion Kris Letang Peerless Patches /40

While a lot of my singles purchasing has been towards the newest release of Panini Prime, I do love me some Dominion, which works out great, due to 2012-13 Dominion being included as a box-topper in Prime. One of my favorite single-card purchases of either product so far has been this Kris Letang Peerless Patches autographed card from Dominion, numbered 12/40.

\This card, first of all, features an on-card signature, where he appears to be signing "Kristopher" instead of the abbreviated "Kris," and he appears to be following Sidney Crosby's lead by putting his jersey number inside of the signature. The patch is barely a two-colored one, as you get just a peek of black at the bottom of the swatch. My biggest card-related nemesis is the one-colored patch, but Penguins patches make it somewhat better, as they at least have a texture to the fabric.

2012-13 Crown Royale Martin St. Louis Silhouette Signature Patch /5

Before a Gordie Howe auto and a Chay Genoway Prime Ties card knocked it down, my biggest pull of 2013 was a Silhouette Signatures Patch card of Martin St. Louis, numbered to 5. Unfortunately, the card's place was being held on my list with a plain white redemption card, as I would have to wait just a little bit longer for one of my top pulls of the year.

Well, after three months of waiting, the 2013 Art Ross Trophy winner sent his cards back to Panini, and this beauty made it's way into my hands.

The card I received is numbered 2/5, and features an action shot of St. Louis, surrounded my the material. The patch itself comes from the Lightning's home jersey, and appears to come from one of the numbers on the sleeve. The jersey itself, likely comes from before the 2012-13 season, when the lightning redesigned their logo and uniforms, going with just a white and blue color scheme. The newer ones look cool, but the older ones are better for cardboard,a s they also have black and silver to go along with the white and blue.

The interesting thing with the back of this card, is that while most other autographed or memorabilia card just leave a note about the authenticity of the item, Panini actually gave him a full write-up and a stats line, just like on any other card, while still giving a short COA-type message on the bottom. Of course, NOBODY who has one of these cards cares at all about what's on the back, but it's nice that Panini gives these cards that kind of treatment, and one thing I've always made clear, is how much I love even the smallest attention to detail.

Two Rookie Cards of J.J. Watt from 2012 Topps Platinum

I am already a Houston Texans fan, but the more and more I hear about J.J. Watt, the more I become a fan of his, as well. In just a couple years with the team, he has shown himself not only to be a beast on the football field, but one of the most generous human beings off of it. I don't buy too much unopened football products, so I didn't pull a whole lot of his cards, but I was able to pick up a couple of his rookie cards off of Ebay for just a buck plus shipping. 

What I got was a base card and refractor of Watt's 2012 Topps Platinum rookie card. While having him in his warm-up gear makes it look almost like it comes from an unlicensed product, a rookie card is still a rookie card. Not all of the rookies from Platinum are this way, though, so it made me wonder. I know that his rookie "hits" are only autographed, and none of them contain any pieces of memorabilia. The only thing I can think of is that he wasn't at the Rookie Premiere, or whatever it's called, where players pose for the card companies in their gear, sign the on-card products, and "use" the event-used memorabilia. Either way, these are two great cards of a pretty great guy.

A Few New Sidney Crosby Additions

I picked up a few new cards for my Sidney Crosby Collection. (Base/Hits)

The first one is a 2012 Goodwin Champions Dual jersey card. This card features two different colors of fabric, and is basically a horizontal version of a vertical card. Luckily for me, just as the regular jersey cards go, this one was found dirt cheap, which is surprising, considering how rare they are.

I also picked up a 2013-14 O-Pee-Chee Rings card. These cards are actually "interactive," in that you can actually punch out the ring and wear it on your finger. An interesting concept, but how many people are actually going to do that?

Lastly, I also picked up a 2013 Panini National Convention card. I believe these cards are found in wrapper redemption packs given out exclusively at the 2013 National Sports Collectors Convention. It is a really cool looking card, but I'm not sure how well it worked out with the scan. For some reason, my scanner doesn't like all of this white-on-white stuff.

That's all for now. It seems like as far in to my collection as I am, I am having to go more with single card purchases that with lots. Still, I keep discovering more and more cards that I need, so the supply is never short. I just have to keep going on this never-ending collector's conquest.

2012-13 Dominion Jussi Rynnas Autographed Patch Rookie

OK, so I KNOW that this is ridiculous, but after starting a collection of 2011-12 Dominion Autographed Patch Rookie cards, I have decided to pursue the 2012-13 set, as well.

Part of this came from that fact that I pulled one from my 2012-13 Prime pack, which got me off to a good start, but part of it also just comes from the fact that they simply made these cards better. Not only do the cards this year look just as good as last year, but they short-printed the base (99 vs. 199 copies) and they included a larger swatch of material for the patch.

This particular one is of Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Jussi Rynnas, and is numbered 42/99.

Rynnas was undrafted, but signed a two-year entry-level contract with Toronto. He made three appearances in an NHL game in the following two years, mostly filling in for a struggling goaltender during a game. He got his first NHL start on March 29, 2012, when Jonas Justavsson was hurt during warm-ups, and let 7 goals by in a 7-1 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. In July of this year, Rynnas left the NHL as a free agent, signing a two-year contract with Oulun Kärpät of the SM-liiga (Finnish Elite League).

A Kris Letang Net/Jersey Card and a Cory Conacher Autographed Rookie Card

A while back, I purchased a Net Assets card from 2012-13 Panini Limited. Each of those cards feature a jersey piece from each player, along with a piece of net used in the 2012 NHL All-Star Game. The one I purchased was of Henrik Lundqvist and Jimmy Howard, which was cool, but what I really wanted was a card like that featuring a Penguin.  I finally got that in the form of a Net Assets card featuring Kris Letang and Philadelphia Flyer Kimmo Timonen, numbered 2/99.what I really love about this card is not only how the net piece is framed with an "X," but that both jersey swatches are of the teams' signature colors. It's much better than my Lundqvist/Howard that features two white swatches.

From this same seller, I also picked up a Cory Conacher Level 1 Rookie Premieres autographed card from 2013-14  Upper Deck Trilogy, numbered 441/699. Conacher ranked number 6 in Calder Trophy voting for the 2012-13 NHL season, scoring 11 goals and 18 assists in 47 games. He began the season with the Tampa Bay Lightning, but was brought to Ottawa along with a 2013 4th round draft pick in exchange for goaltender Ben Bishop.

2013 ITG Decades 1990s Box Break

It's been a little while since I busted open one of In the Game's high-end single-pack releases.  The last one I did was Motown Madness in March, but I love opening these products up. When ITG does these genre-specific releases, they do a great job of really going deep into a subjects history. Whether a team Philadelphia Flyers, Detroit Red Wings), a decade (1980s, 1990s), or even a role (Captains, Enforcers), they do a great job of giving collectors interested in those specific subjects a reward for their fandom.

The focus of Decades: 1990s is pretty obvious. Anything that happened from 1990-1999 is featured here, with autographs of players who haven't had cards since their active playing days, and memorabilia card of players who left the game before that movement ever took place. Each box promised six base cards, two inserts, three autographed cards, and three memorabilia cards, with one of those being a quad memorabilia card.

I did pretty well on my base cards, pulling one Hall-of-Famer in Luc Robitaille, two future Hall-of-Famers in Teemu Selanne and Dominik Hasek, and a Mark Recchi Gold Parallel, which is limited to just 30 copies.

Of the two inserts included, one is promised to be a Rookie card, and the other being a Mask card. My rookie is Dominik Hasek, who many people probably forget began his career with the Chicago Blackhawks. The Mask insert is of Bill Ranford, who won two Stanley Cups, who won two Stanley Cups with the Edmonton Oilers, once as Grant Fuhr's backup, and the other as the team's top goaltender. He got his third Cup in 2012, as the goaltending coach for the Los Angeles Kings.

I did pretty well on my three autographs. Gary Roberts spent time with six NHL teams, including a year and a half run with the Pittsburgh Penguins late in his career, but is mostly known as a Calgary Flame, where he won his only Stanley Cup in 1989. Marty McSorley  spent some time in Pittsburgh as well, but is mostly known as Wayne Gretzky's bodyguard in Edmonton and Los Angeles. Well, that, and he also has one of hockey's best-looking signatures. Jim Cummins spent time with nine teams over a 12-year NHL career, but spent the most time with the Chicago Blackwaks. Known mostly as an enforcer, he retired in 2004 with 1,538 penalty minutes

All three of my memorabilia cards were pretty good. The first is a dual jersey card of Pavel Bure and Tomas Holmstrom from the European Influence set. While every player on these cards are from Europe, they apparently don't have to be from the same country, as Bure is Russian and Holmstrom is Swedish.  The Jeremy Roenick card os from their base jersey insert, but is a silver parallel, which is limited to just 30 copies. It features a two-colored jersey swatch from a Blackhawks sweater.

I did really well with my quad jersey card, getting an All-Stars card of Al MacInnis, Curtis Joseph, , Jeremy Roenick, and Ray Bourque. The card is a silver parallel limited to 30 copies, and features two-colored swatches for Joseph and Roenick.  If it seems weird for Bourque to have a turquoise swatch, there's a reason for it, which will be explained on the back of the card.

Easily my favorite thing about ITG, is that they make it a point to identify the jersey used, meaning they will tell you all the details they can about the team where the jersey comes from. Not only that, but if they make a specific insert set, like All-Stars, they will make sure that the jerseys are specific from that event. For example, for this card, they made sure that EVERY jersey used came from a specific All-Star Game. It's an attention to detail that I'm sure gives them a lot of extra work, but the effort is not lost on me, at least.

As far as unlicensed products go, In the Game has the right idea. They may not be able to use team names and logos, but they make up for it in other ways, by taking extra steps that the other companies don't. I'm sure not everyone is as big of a fan as I am, but the intricacies and attention to detail make most ITG products big winners to me.

My Chay Genoway Prime Ties Card is Here!!!!!!!

About a month ago, I got possibly the coolest, and most unique, card I have ever pulled from a pack when I got a redemption card out of 2012-13 Panini Prime good for one of the coveted Prime Ties cards.These cards were introduced in the 2011-12 Prime set and feature a gigantic jersey swatch of the tie on a player's jersey collar. Of course, this limits the cards specifically to players who play on a team whose jerseys have that feature, but there are certainly enough to made a respectably-sized insert set of it. Due to their massive size, these cards are unable to be inserted into packs, instead being done as redemptions.

The Prime Ties card I pulled was of Chay Genoway, who played college hockey at the University of North Dakota and began his NHL career with the Minnesota Wild, before a 2012-13 mid-season trade sent him to the Washington Capitals. So far, he has only played in one NHL game so far, which came during the 2011-12 season, and is currently playing with the Capitals' AHL affiliate, the Hershey Bears.

I had redeemed the card on Aug. 31, and today, the card finally arrived. It took a whole month to get the card in hand, but once I saw it in-person, it was well worth the wait.

Wow. I had seen pictures of these cards on Panini's blog, and on Ebay, but until you see one in person, you have no idea how cool these are. I knew that these card had a significant amount of size to them, but I really had no idea until I had it in my hands, just how big they were. In fact, there aren't even any top-loaders or thick single-card cases that can contain them. About all that will do is a 50-card hinged snap-down card case, which is what Panini sent it in.

The back of the card doesn't give any kind of a player write up or stats, juts the fine print that guarantees the authenticity of the memorabilia. It does, however, dress it up in a very colorful way, with the bright red background and the full bodied shot of the player. The bottom left also includes the all-important 1-of-1 serial number.

I am very happy to finally have this card in-hand and I must say, it is already one of the top items in my collection. It's one of those things where I'm lucky to have pulled it from a pack, because there's no way I'd pay the secondary market prices that these things go for.