Product Previews – Week of July 22, 2008

I am live from my newly upgraded computer tower which is going to be my “card” computer from here on out.  Of course I can’t find my printer software so I can’t scan in cards right now.  That is not good.  I want to get more active when it comes to trading for set needs but I need my scanner to work first. 

I think I’m done with the product previews for baseball and basketball.  I don’t collect those sports enough and I don’t understand all of the products like I do with hockey.  So we’re going with hockey previews from here on out:

2007-08 Upper Deck The Cup- This is the release that all hockey collectors wait for every year, even the ones that can’t afford to buy boxes like me.  For around $325 you receive one tin of 4 to 7 cards.  The sell sheet says 4 cards but I have seen breaks on the Beckett message board where anywhere from 4 to 7 cards are in a tin.  The main draw of this set is the rookie auto patch subset.  There is 1 rookie auto patch in every box.  There are 66 different “level 2″ rookie auto patches numbered to 249 and 6 “level 1″ rookie auto patches numbered to 99.  If you hit a Kane, Price or Toews in this product then you will make some money on EBay.  There are also a huge number of different autograph, patch and autographed patch cards.  The most popular cards outside of the 1/1’s are going to be the Limited Logos auto patch cards.  The design looks similar to Upper Deck Exquisite Basketball and it is a great look for the set.  If there wasn’t 88 of them and if they didn’t cost so much it would be a set I would love to collect. 

I only recommend buying a tin of this if you have a lot of money and you want to take a gamble.  Otherwise buying singles off of EBay is usually the way to go.  If you are going to buy some of this product I would suggest you go all in and buy a case of 6 tins.  It’s a lot more money but you have a much better chance of hitting a rookie #’d to 99 or a “property of” stick card that is a 1/1 to sell and make your money back.  You do not have a good chance of making your money back if you buy one tin of this product. 

The reason I’m not going to buy a tin (other than the high price) it’s because of the lack of Panthers.  Here are all of the Panthers cards in the set:

•  Base cards – 1 – Tomas Vokoun
•  Signature patches – 1 – Tomas Vokoun / 75
•  Emblems of Endorsements – 1 – Tomas Vokoun /15
•  Limited Logos – 1 – Tomas Vokoun / 50
•  Honorable Numbers – None
•  Dual Honorable Numbers – None
•  Scripted Swatches – None
•  Dual Scripted Swatches – None
•  Hardware Heroes – None (of course the Panthers never win awards so I can’t blame UD)
•  Stanley Cup Titlists – None (see above)
•  All Star Royalty – 1 – Tomas Vokoun / 1 (and he’s in his Nashville pads)
•  Stanley Cup Signatures – None (of course)
•  Cup Chirography – None
•  Cup Foundations Jerseys – 1 – Tomas Vokoun / 1
•  Dual Logo Shields - 5 – Bouwmeester/Horton, Horton/Cammalleri, Bouwmeester/Jovanovski, Jokinen/Selanne, Jokinen/Vokoun (Wow! Some of these are not Vokoun!  Of course these are 1/1’s)
•  Dual Logo Auto Shields – 1 – Horton/St. Louis / 1
•  ”Property Of” – None
•  Legendary Cuts – None (Even though Roger Neilson is one of the cut autos)
•  Cup Enshrinements – None
•  Cup Enshrinements – Dual – None
•  Cup Enshrinements – Triple – None
•  Cup Jerseys – Trios – 1 – Vokoun/Jagr/Hasek / 15
•  Cup Jerseys – Quads – None
•  Printing Plates - 25 – Cory Murphy auto, Stefan Meyer auto, Vokoun Cup base, Martin Lojek Victory, Martin Lojek MVP, Lojek Artifacts, Stefan Meyer Artifacts, Martin Lojek OPC, Cory Murphy OPC, Martin Lojek SPx, Cory Murphy Victory, Stefan Meyer SP Game Used, Martin Lojek SP Game Used, Cory Murphy SP Game Used, Martin Lojek Ice, Tanner Glass Ice, Stefan Meyer Ice, Cory Murphy Ice, Stefan Meyer Mini-Jersey, Cory Murphy SPA, Stefan Meyer SPA, Martin Lojek Ultimate, Tanner Glass Ultimate, Cory Murphy Premier, Stefan Meyer Premier (all plates are / 4)
• Autograph Rookie Patch Level 2 – 2 – Cory Murphy, Stefan Meyer (both numbered to 249)
• Autograph Rookie Patch Level 1 – None
• Autograph Rookies – Non-Patch – None

Sense a bit of a pattern?  Other than two rookie autos the only non 1/1 cards in the set are Tomas Vokoun cards.  They couldn’t have mixed in Weiss, Horton, Bouwmeester, Booth or Olesz in the set at all?  Murphy and Meyer would also have “gold” parallels of their auto patches numbered to their jersey numbers.  Vokoun has a bunch of low-numbered base parallels.  So this set is not for the Panthers collector.  It will be next year if Matthias and Frolik make the team. 

Thanks for reading.

Not Really a Product Preview – Week of July 15

Let’s start fresh for the previews from here.  Sorry I have missed the last 3 months or so.  Josh Hamilton is putting on a show right now in the HR Derby and good for him.  He’s quite the story.  Should I put the 2007 Bowman chrome rookie I have on EBay?  I wouldn’t get much for it but a dollar here and a dollar there and I can save for something. 

The preview is based on Blowout Cards’ release schedule (www.blowoutcards.com):

Wow.  I just checked the release calendar and the only major league sport release is 2008 Topps Football.  So no real preview this week.  Let’s rant about something!

There are pros and cons to being a Florida Panthers collector.  The pro is that I can find cards like a Nathan Horton autograph off of EBay for around $3 with shipping.  The only real rookie of any substance I have to collect is Olesz.  I can find Cory Murphy and Stefan Meyer rookie patches and autos pretty easily.  The problem is that this is the con of being a Panthers collector.  I’m not asking to have a Crosby or an Ovechkin to collect but what about someone on the level of Kane or Toews or Carey Price or even Niklas Backstrom.  I can’t wait to have Matthias make the team next year so I will have one of the premium rookies to collect.  I have to make sure that I don’t complain about having to spend more for Matthias cards because I’m used to spending $12 on a Drew Larman The Cup autograph numbered to 50.  The other problem with being a Panthers collector is that there aren’t a lot of players to collect.  You see the same player in each set.  It’s always Jokinen/Horton/Bouwmeester/Weiss and Vokoun.  And with Jokinen being traded and Bouwmeester probably playing his last year I could be looking at picking up as many Keith Ballard autos as I can.  And that doesn’t sound like fun.  At least the cards won’t cost too much and I will focus more on sets I guess.

Next week will be a preview of 2007-08 The Cup where I will maybe buy some Panthers singles off of EBay but will not be buying any packs unless I win the lottery.  Thanks for reading.

Projects Update

I know it has been a while since I have posted.  I haven’t stopped collecting but I haven’t had time in the last couple of months to blog.  It stinks.  I still have a lot of cards to scan which I might do after the Indians game which is on TV here tonight.   Here is a projects update since I last posted:

Hockey:

1.  2005-06 UD Series 1 Young Guns - I picked up a Henrik Lundqvist at the Toronto International show in May to complete this set except for the Crosby.  I picked up a Series 1 base set as well so everything is in a binder now with my complete Series 2 set.  That’s good because one of my revised card goals is met for the year.

2.  2006-07 Fleer Hot Prospects – I need 5 more rookies numbered to 1,999 to complete the rookie subset outside of the auto patches.  I haven’t been too active on the trading front for hockey but once I organize my cards for trade I will make this set a priority.

3.  2006-07 MVP – I haven’t made any progress on this set.  I’m going to look for a Malkin and Staal rookie in trades but I probably will buy a box for a cheap price to start filling this set.

4.  2007-08 Upper Deck – I have close to a complete Series 1 base set and I’m going to buy a box of Series 2 to come close to completing the Series 2 base set.  I have made a couple of trades to pick up a number of Series 1 Young Guns and a couple of Series 2 Young Guns.  I have 11 of 50 Series 1 Young Guns including Kane, Backstrom and Lucic and only 4 Series 2 Young Guns.  I will keep trying to make trades and I’m going to try and save up and pick up Price and Toews before the summer is over since prices are a little lower at this time of year.

5.  Collect Panthers Autos and Jerseys – This is a goal I have been meeting.  I have finally picked up a David Booth 2006-07 The Cup Auto Patch rookie numbered to 249.  I also have picked up a couple of different Vokoun, Horton and Cory Murphy autograph cards.  The next big Panthers card I want to get is a 2005-06 Rostislav Olesz Cup rookie auto patch.  That won’t be for a while but I will continue getting other Panthers for lower prices.  Last week I picked up a 2006-07 Nathan Horton Artifacts “Auto-facts” autograph and a Cory Murphy 2007-08 OPC Premier Quad Patch numbered to 299 for just over $8 combined.

Baseball:

1.  2006 Bowman Draft - I’m still around at the same set progress as my last update.  It’s hard to get people to give up chrome draft rookies.  I’m going to keep trying or just buy the set needs.  It looks like a trade I made last December has gone bad and I will not see my end of the trade which stinks because I was hoping for around 10 of my set needs for this set and 50 or so 2007 Bowman needs. 

2.  2007 Bowman – See #1.  I’m at about the same spot as last update and have received 5-6 cards for my set in trades. 

3.  2007 Bowman Chrome – I still need a ton of cards for this set.  I will still work on it and I should buy a box when my budget expands a bit so I can trade refractors etc. for my set needs. 

4.  2008 Topps Heritage – I have bought a few packs and two boxes of this product.  I have made a few trades as well and I have my set needs down to around 30 regular base cards, 20 “black back” semi-short print base cards and 53 short print cards.  I might not collect this set again because there are too many short prints to collect.  It’s a beautiful set though and looks great in a binder and is fun to open. 

5.  2008 Topps – I bought a box of Series 1 and a box of Series 2.  I am 2 cards short of a Series 1 set and around 30 short of a Series 2 set.  Nothing special has come from the box breaks but it’s a nice card design and I like the idea of opening a 36 pack box with no doubles for the base set.  There are a lot of inserts too including the cool “History of Trading Cards” subset that I really like.  I’m hoping to trade my extra inserts for the above set needs. 

6.  Collecting Indians – I do have a few more Indians autographs and jerseys since I traded away some of my Bowman autographs that I have traded when I gave up on collecting those autograph sets.  With the Indians having such a bad year I’m going to try and collect some of the prospects in the system like Nick Weglarz, Wes Hodges, Beau Mills and the newest Indian, Matt LaPorta. 

Baseketball:

I have hardly collected any basketball lately.  My Dad has picked me up a couple of “fat packs” of 2007-08 Fleer so I have a partial set on the go.  I am going to try and save for boxes of Fleer and Bowman so I can start trading autos and parallels for set needs. 

Other than a couple of boxes I purchased in May I have kept my purchases to a minimum lately.  I am going to try and get some more trades done but my cardlists on my computer need to be more well organized and I have to start getting more cards scanned.  I might try to sell some cards either on the Bench or on EBay later this week to raise some funds for larger purchases.  The key to meeting these goals is to stay within them.  In other words I shouldn’t blow my card budget on an auto or jersey card that doesn’t meet the above goals unless it’s a deal I can’t turn down and it’s for something that I could get good trade value for. 

So this is where I’m at so far.  I need to get back into product previews and scans of some of the Indians and Panthers cards I have picked up in the last couple of months.  If you have kept checking this blog to see if it has been updated thank you.  I appreciate it.  Thanks for reading.