Friday, November 18, 2016

Looking at some random Hockey cards

Remember the other day when I posted "See (no) more Butts" I mentioned that I had gotten out some non-NBA to scan. Well, more than half of what I pulled out was hockey. I scanned 29 hockey cards, and while I am not going to post them all, I thought I would hit one from each set that I scanned out of. Every single one of these was given to me on January 31st, 2015, when I was given over 2000 hockey cards in one day.

I have really been enjoying reading the various hockey posts lately so I thought I would contribute one as well.

1989-90 O-Pee-Chee. This was the first set I got a bunch of that day, and it ranks #3 in my collection with 148 cards. Although I live in New York, I more associate with New England and Connecticut than I do NYC. In fact, my "local" card shop that I get my mixed boxes from is in Connecticut. Unfortunately the franchise is no longer there. This is one of my favorite hockey sets in my collection, along with 1990-91 Pro Set, which I didn't scan any of this round.

1991-92 Bowman. For some reason this set doesn't work as well for me as the previous Bowman sets, which do appear in my collection but not this post. Also, why did it take until 2003-04 for the Bowman brand proper to return to the NBA?

 1993-94 Leaf. My friend who gave me all the cards is a huge Lightning supporter, he is enough of a supporter of the team that Vincent Lecavalier remembers his name. Naturally he sent me a lot of Lightning cards and they rank #1 on my team rank. This design was really popular in this time frame. The same basic design also appears in baseball and NASCAR. The back of this set is more well-known but everybody posts them, I'll post the front.
1993-94 Upper Deck. Nice design. Good photography in the set, if not the most flattering photo of Andreychuk.
1994-95 Pinnacle. I believe this is a subset, but I am also pretty sure it's my only card from the set- it's certainly my only base card, I might have an insert too. Interesting design that I didn't fully appreciate until I scanned it.

1997-98 Leaf is the second largest set in my collection, with 150 cards present. The names are a little tough to read, this is Mats Sundin. For someone like me who is not too familiar with the sport, it wasn't always easy to figure out the player's names because they use the same cursive on the back, and even though it's on a white backdrop some of the letters look very similar.

2000-01 Revolution. A very busy border, but somehow, it works. I am sure this is the only card from this set in my collection. Being in the NYC news region, I was familiar with him before getting the cards.

2002-03 SP Authentic. I have only two cards from this set and scanned them both (the other being Mike Modano). Like most SP Authentic sets, I find it rather bland and boring. But at least it's not just the player in front of a white digital backdrop and nothing else, like so many SP Authentic sets are.

2006-07 Ultra. Ultra has always been my favorite brand in the NBA, and the NHL version is just as nice! This card has a small crease in it at the top left corner, but it doesn't show up in the scan. I don't really mind, I'd rather have a damaged card than no card. I have no idea what the wall ad is for, but it's nice and bright.

2006-07 Upper Deck Rookie Class. I think this may have been a box set, but I'm not 100% sure on that. I got a bunch of them, but not the whole set. I was able to do a full 9-card scan of the set and could- and eventually will- do another. They scan nicely.

 2011-12 SPx. The aforementioned Lecavalier makes an appearance and it's no coincidence that this is the third Lightning card in the post. I an pretty sure this is my only card from the set. It's unusual in that it's an SPx card that's not mirror foil, but I'm very glad of that fact!
2012-13 Score. This is a nice, large set, with a lot of different people getting cards. I like that about sets. This is card #499, for example. My preferred sport has not gotten a set that large since...hmm...1993-94! (disgraceful) But this post is about hockey, and this is a good set. It ranks 8th in my hockey collection with 75 cards in my collection.

All stats come from the Trading Card Database's Stats feature, I don't have my hockey collection documented anywhere else, yet. (someday, maybe I will create a paper listing, but ohh, my hand will not thank me!)

One more I nearly forgot to post, and am clearly editing in here before I hit publish: 1992-93 Ultra!
They used the exact same design in the NBA, only with green under the foil bar, while hockey had more blueish tint. I love the design either way. I would not be too surprised to learn that they used the same design in baseball and football as well, but I don't have any of them. The NBA set, as you may recall, made my Top 20 Favorite sets countdown of early 2016. This set ranks 4th largest in my NHL collection with 122 cards representing it. Only five sets crack the triple digits and three of them appear in this post.

6 comments:

  1. I've seen that same Ultra design for baseball and football so your hunch was correct.

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    1. Come to think of it, I am pretty sure I actually have some of the football cards! I like when there is a brand identity between different sports in the same year.

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  2. There was a baseball version of the design in the box I just got from Gavin today!

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  3. Great to see some hockey content on here! The Brodeur card is pretty cool, I don't believe I have ever seen it before. I always liked the 92-93 Ultra design, hope to find a cheap complete set of it some day.

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    1. Thanks! there will be more, probably before the end of the year. I mix some in to my currently on hiatus "Hot off the Scanner Tray" posts as well sometimes.

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  4. Their teeth still appear to be intact....hmmm, what is wrong with those pictures?!

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