Cards for Easter

As you all know by now, every gift-giving occasion (or even just because) my family gives me cards...lots of cards. This Easter was no exception, as my mom came through big time - a hobby box of Upper Deck Series 2, a blaster of 2013-14 Score, a hobby box of 1990-91 Upper Deck Series 2, and two factory sets!

I'm not going to talk about the last three right now- I didn't open the Upper Deck box in the mistaken belief that they were all duplicates. (Mom had previously given me a factory set of Series 2 for my birthday in 2017) But, just yesterday, I remembered that in those first two years UD included series 1 cards in series 2 packs, so I will have to open them up and see if I can complete the set. The factory sets will be addressed in the next two posts.

What I am going to talk about is the 2019-20 UD Series 2 box and the Score blaster.

This year's Upper Deck flagship struck a real chord with me...I thought it was a great design the instant I saw it. I even completed the veterans in series 1. Series 2 I didn't have as much luck with. I had previously gotten 1 fatpack, and I think I pulled every single card that I got in the fatpack out of the hobby box again, and even in the same order, Panini style. So, that was disappointing. But I was still able to add a bunch of great cards! I even ended up somehow getting TWO case hits from the same box, with my favorite card being one of them- a Clear Cut parallel, of a rookie, at that!

 This is the second Clear Cut parallel I've pulled, but the first of a Young Gun.

 Luckily for me, later in the box I also pulled the base version! I was unable to pull the Young Guns of Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar or Kaapo Kakko, so my dreams of actually completing the set are pretty much nill. However, I did manage to pull A Kakko...

from the UD Portraits set. If ever there was an insert concept that defines the term "meh", Portraits is it, but UD keeps cranking them out, even if I don't know anyone who actually likes them. This year's, at least, gives you two photos.

All was not lost with the Portraits, however, as I got my first card of two players from the insert:

So there's that at least. The UD Canvas insert is better, because it features full action photos, but I'd still rather have a base card. (I'm actually surprised Canvas hasn't been spun off into it's own release yet) I knew, when I pulled it, the Clear Cut Rookie was a case hit at 1:288 packs. What I did not realize, however, was that the Program of Excellence subset of the Canvas insert were also case hits, and I pulled one of them as well. At 270 cards this insert even has subsets...go figure!

at one in every 188 packs, it's not as rare as the Clear Cut rookie, but still falls one per case.

The O-Pee-Chee Updates- which I'm quite fond of- were varied to a wide degree. I got 5 base, 2 Retro, 1 Blue (Boqvist, a Boqvist hot box!) and 1 Red. I had gotten a hobby box for Christmas and hadn't gotten a single red out of it so that was a pleasant surprise. I managed to add two new players to my collection from the OPC updates as well, Joel Farrabee and Joakim Nygard, who I got both the base and red versions of.

I have to say, though, that I think this is my favorite of the OPC updates! It's always nice to pull parallel of your team...this is only my third Adam Fox card, and amazingly, I was lucky enough to pull the blue parallel from the one fatpack my brother got me! I'll have to nab the base card on COMC eventually, the OPC updates are usually plentiful thanks to e-pack.

Getting back to the base cards...I've not gotten a chance to scan any from the box yet. I was hit by some inspiration in my scale modeling hobby and have spent several days creating things there. I also successfully polished something for the first time! But the modeling has left little time for my other hobbies, like cards. So, since I don't want to push this post off any longer, I will take this time to showcase a card from the fatpack my brother got me, and which I got a duplicate of in this box, so it counts....it's my favorite card in the set, so far. I have purposely not gone and looked at the ones I'm missing so I can enjoy it more if/when I get them.

What a great card this is! Taken from this year's Heritage Classic on October 26th, in Regina Saskatchewan, it has so much going for it!

• snow
• toque
• automotive related ad on the boards
• the absolute certainty that I saw this game + the first Heritage Classic I ever saw
• only card photo taken in the entire province that I'm aware of (at least in Hockey)
• A fairly rare player for my collection (only my third card of him)
• throwback uniform

Even the fact that it's horizontal, which I generally don't care for, doesn't hurt it any. Unfortunately for Rittich, the Flames lost in OT that night, despite 43 stops on 45 shots by the Jets, a 2-1 defeat for the Flames.

I have to be honest, you will see this card again...I know that for sure, because I am working on my Top 12 cards of the year post at the end of each month (instead of going crazy trying to write it on December 31st!) and this card was my selection for March. Although the month is not over, the Clear Cut Boqvist is likely to take April's spot)

Now, let me talk about the Score blaster. Panini's NHL license was brief- 2010-14. But their two issuances of the Score brand, wow. They are two of my favorite NHL sets ever. The 2013-14 set is 750 cards! (although the last 100 cards are only available in Rookie Anthology packs). I don't know if the numbers are the same for all teams, but the first team in the set has 18 players with their own base cards! That's incredible. That's the way it should be done. The 2012-13 set is more colorful, but the 2013-14 set is so much larger...almost every player in the league got cards. That's the way it should be done, but almost never is. Yes, I know I'm repeating myself. It's that important. But that's not all! There are also team cards and highlights! The only thing missing are the coaches and league leaders, otherwise this was almost a perfect set. And they also had 1-per pack parallels, which is my favorite kind. I'm one of the few collectors that likes parallels. The set does have inserts, but parallels are more common- which in and of itself is highly uncommon, but I love it. I'd rather have a parallel than an insert any day. 

This is the base card. The section where the team logo and player name, as well as the box behind the Score logo, changes color to match each team's colors. 

The one-per-pack Gold parallel is really brown, but that's OK.

 The Score logo and the stripes also change from silver to gold. There are other colors but I didn't get any- think a couple are Hobby only.

 Here's one of the Season Highlights cards.

And a very cool insert! The photos taken by the camera inside the net can be pretty cool...or they can be closeups of the goalie's butt. That's much less cool, but this photo? Very cool. 

The other insert I got I had to make sure to post because I noticed something interesting about it...

Do you see what it is? 

It's the date of the franchise establishment! By using the 1909 date, they actually are dipping back into the NHA days, which is not something you see too often...in fact, the only other set in my collection that does that is the 1991-92 Pro Set set, which talks about the league's formation. I do know of several other sets that cover that pre-NHL time, including several issued when the league was active, but none of them appear in my collection...yet (or probably ever). 

In the end, I got 793 new cards, which is the most new I've ever gotten for Easter...by a wide margin! I don't know what the next highest number is, but I have an Excel chart of all the days where I got more than 400 cards in one day...and none of the dates of Easter on the list of past Easters in Wikipedia show up on the list at all...so I don't know how huge of a lead this Easter has over others- but it's at least 394 cards. So, this year was definitely an unusual one, but for once, in a good way! 

Stay tuned for the next post, as I celebrate a pretty big NHL milestone. You may be able to guess what it is, considering I basically told you in this post...