Return to 'Tender

 Ever since going to the Rhinebeck car show early in May, I've been on a 60s music kick again. (as an aside, car shows play the best music) And of course, you can't listen to a 50s/60s channel without hearing Elvis. When they play his "Return to Sender" when you are looking at the following card:

it's very easy for the song to start playing in your head but instead of "Return to Sender" it becomes "Return to 'Tender" and then the idea popped into my head to write a post about goaltenders. Other than the post title, it didn't give me much to build off of. Hmm, perhaps a countdown of the top 10 Goaltenders in my collection, based on number of cards? 

10. Technically 9th and 10th are tied, both with 48 cards. But since I don't particularly like John Vanbiesbrouck, he gets last. His numbers are bumped up because he played for my team. Sergei Bobrovsky is 3 cards away from bumping him out of the top 10, and frankly I hope it happens. He actually had been ahead of him until I got the Rangers Centennial set for Glad I'm Not Dead Day.

9. Ed Belfour is in 9th, and of the Top 10 I know the least about him. He retired before I started watching the sport. One of his cards does mention he has a classic car so he can't be too bad! 48 cards of him reside in my collection.

8. I thought the 8th place goalie would be higher, but nope...he's only in 8th with 51 cards, Martin Brodeur.

7. There's a big drop between 6th and 7th, with Connor Hellebuyck holding down 7th most goalie cards, but he only has 52 in my collection, 14 less than the 6th place goalie. He is still active and that does give him a chance to add more cards than a retired player would though. 

6. Just barely out of the top 5 is one of the all-time greats, Patrick Roy. I didn't get to see him play live but I did get to see him coach. The Islanders shouldn't have fired him. I currently have 66 cards of him.

5. Holding the final spot in the top 5 is current superstar and guaranteed Hall of Famer Andrei Vasilevskiy, with 69 cards.

4. The highest ranked goalie who I didn't get to see play live isn't a surprise, as he's one of the all-time greats of my favorite team, and our last Stanley Cup winning goalie, Mike Richter. I currently have 73 cards of him, tied with Mario Lemieux.

3. Once we got below the top 2 I wasn't exactly sure how it play out so looking at my collection totals to make this post let me be surprised as well. Carey Price is in third, with 76 cards. 

2. Coming in second isn't really a surprise either, and that's Marc-Andre Fleury, with 94 cards. Marc-Andre is my mom's all-time favorite player and I'm also a fan. 

1. Of course, at number one, and the only number I knew who it would be before I started writing this post, is Henrik Lundqvist, my all-time favorite NHL player and one of the few who I actively buy single cards of. Not only does he have the most goalie cards in my collection, he has the most hockey cards overall of all players combined, with 165 at the time of this writing. 

Since I'll be curious if I remember to revisit this post/concept into the future, here are the contenders looking to move into the top 10:

1. 11. Sergei Bobrovsky 45
2. 12. Jonathan Quick 44
3. 13. Igor Shesterkin 42
4. 14. Roberto Luongo 41
5. 15. Dominik Hasek 40
6. 16. Curtis Joseph 40
7. 17. Tuukka Rask 40
8. 18. Sean Burke 38
9. 19. Semyon Varlamov 38
10. 20. John Gibson 36
11. 21. Daren Puppa 36
12. 22. Pekka Rinne 34
13. 23. Braden Holtby 33
14. 24. Kari Lehtonen 31
15. 25. Nikolai Khabibulin 30
16. 26. Matt Murry (1) 30
17. 27. Bill Ranford 30
18. 28. Carter Hart 29
19. 29. Cory Schneider 29
20. 30. Mike Vernon 29

Since I started the post with a card of Ukko-Pekka Luukonen, he has a long way to go. I currently have 11 cards of him. 

The Richter Scale

The Richter Scale is used to measure earthquakes. Mike Richter was the Championship goaltender the last time my favorite team won the Stanley Cup. Using a bit of play-on-words, here's a scale (countdown) of my top 10 favorite Mike Richter cards that I have scans for in my collection.

#10 1991-92 Upper Deck #175

I'm not a big fan of extreme closeups on cards. It doesn't really give you "the whole picture" of what's going on. Check out that plain blue helmet.

#9 1995-96 Topps Super Skills #47

Digitally altered background...text overlaying the feature that adds nothing...cheesy yet also likeable cartoon pucks taking up as much space as the photo...yeah, not going to be high on the list. Yet...when I think of Mike Richter cards in my collection, this one pops into my head for some reason. 

#8 1994 Sports Illustrated for Kids 2 #284

SI For Kids Series 2 is actually probably the greatest sports card set ever. It used multiple designs and this is not my favorite although also not my least favorite. The design- and the fact that these are slightly oversize- keeps this one lower on the list. Good photo though. I have to do a post about the set at some point.

#7 1993-94 Power Play #165

The tall-boy cards are such a pain- you can't store or sort them with your other cards. Decent photo, and Nobody Beats the Wiz is an iconic ad campaign from my youth. 

#6 1989-90 Marine Midland New York Rangers #35

A regional promo that is slightly oversized-but not so much so that it can't be stored in my boxes with my other hockey cards. My copy of the set is a little dingy, note the staining in the bottom right border, but I'm still pretty thrilled to have it. I lucked into finding most of this set locally, except the checklist/cover card, which is now my most wanted NHL card. 1989-90 was his first season in the NHL, so you have a rookie regional promo, with a great ad on the boards, this one has a lot going for it. Do they still make Chuckles? I used to be a big fan, but would not be able to eat them anymore even if I could still find them. We had an account with Marine Midland back when these cards were issued, and they also did Knicks sets, but both were issued before I discovered each sport. 

#5 2002-03 Topps #128

We go from his rookie season to his final season, which saw his career get ended prematurely due to a skull fracture suffered on the ice (!) I dislike the Topps design of this season but the card features a great action photo. 

#4 1997-98 Score New York Rangers #16

This card features the Statue of Liberty alternate that many people are hoping makes a return now that the NHL allows more than one home/road design again. 

#3 1996-97 Leaf #178

A cool angle for a photograph, even if the action doesn't really convey. Where's the puck? I think it is in his glove but the shadow is too deep to be able to be 100% certain. I got this the very first day that I began buying hockey cards, before the Rangers even became my favorite team. 

#2 1993-94 Starting Lineup #99

Good design and great photo, taken down a bit by the realization that this was probably a goal for the opponent...note that he is looking into the net, past his glove. I don't have the figure this card came with, nor do I have the Score card it's based on, yet. 

#1 1993-94 Ultra #228

It's hard for me to go against Ultra, my favorite brand in cardboard history. The great action photo- look at that puck in the air!- cements this as my favorite card of his, in my collection, so far! 

I've only scanned 12 cards of his, although a quick trip to his listing on the Trading Card Database tells me that I have 28 of him in my collection. Perhaps I will revisit this Scale at some point. Even if I did have all 28 scanned, the #1 card would not change. 

Buying "Christmas Cards" for others leads to presents...for me!

Earlier today I hit my favorite local shop in a mad-dash scramble to get my Blogger Secret Santa out in the mail. I cut it close this year, which was not something I wanted to do but had some unexpected medical expenses pop up...not something you ever want to have to deal with, and fixing it is going to be hanging over my head for a few months. I am not going to say who I got or what I got them, but I will say I was successful in more ways than one. But, since I plan to surprise the people I found stuff for, I'm not going to talk about that, either.

What I am going to talk about, however, is the great stuff I found for myself, but first, some USPS delivered surprises.

Hey look, it's me! Trading Card Database member C2 Cigars- who I met in September, the only member of my favorite website I've met in person- made up a set of cards for some of the regular contributors to the Database. This is actually my second card- I made up my own, which Gavin printed for me a few years ago. This is the only one where I took the photograph though. Even better, one of the members ever gave me a PID on there (Personal ID) which every athlete and non-sports person to have a card gets. How cool is that? Now I'm debating listing the card I had Gavin make up for me. Sure, it's a production run of 2, and I have both, but is it any different than a 1/1 that I pull from a pack? Hey, I licensed it, too! :) (Perhaps, if the proper paypalling was done, Gavin could be persuaded to print more of my card?)

Anyway, that was cool. Not totally a surprise because I knew it was coming, but I also got one of Capt.Kirk and C2 himself, plus the checklist.

I got a HUGE, heavy box from Database member bevans. I've traded with Brad a few times but I wasn't expecting anything this huge. It turned out to be some cards, which I have not even opened yet, but books...lots of books, about hockey! I didn't know the NHL published their own magazine. I do now! I'm going to read them all from cover to cover, but I may not get to them until next year. I'm currently reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles I got from the library, and since I have to give that back, I think I will finish that first. Also included is a copy of the OPC card stories book, which I've heard good things about, but hadn't actually seen before. I expect I will learn a lot from all these books.

Now, I sort of expected to buy some basketball cards for myself today, and I did. 27 of the Panini Player of the Day set, including some of the big names (Kevin Durant, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Kyrie Irving, etc) I also picked up an oddball perforated Michael Jordan card from 1991-92 Hoops. I have not IDed it yet, but it may be from the page issued at a Bulls game that year. I wasn't expecting to get any vintage hockey, but I did...I knew it would be there, it always is, but I said to myself "save the money, you have medical bills looming" and of course, I have no real willpower when it comes to not buying cards, and came home with this:

 3 cards from 1974-75 Topps, including my first Kansas City Scouts card! The team failed miserably in Kansas, moved to Colorado, failed miserably there too, then moved to New Jersey, became the Devils, and are still there thriving. I had seen this card on The Shlabotnik Report blog and wanted a copy, and now I have one! I LOVE team logo cards. When it's my first card of a defunct team that is mostly forgotten? Even better!

3 cards from 1971-72 O-Pee-Chee! I previously had one from the set. Two of the people, Hillman and Darryl Edestrand, are new to my collection.

My first two cards from 1966-67 Topps! Both have issues- this card has some rather poorly placed wax damage on the front, and the other card, not pictured, (#38 Tom Williams) has some water damage. But, all 8 cards from the 60s and 70s combined cost me only $10! The 71-72 OPCs are pretty much perfect, too. The Jacques Laperriere shown was marked $5 in and of itself, so I am very happy.

It wasn't just vintage hockey, though...

A huge stack of 2001-02 Heads Up, one of Pacific's brighter sets, the entire card is printed on holofoil starbursts. It looks really cool in hand. I added more than 25 of them to my collection!

I also added a complete set of 1989-90 Marine Midland New York Rangers cards, which, even though they are not all in great shape, become my first completed regional promo for the sport! I know there are new people to my collection in the cards, but not a single one was posted to the Trading Card Database, so getting them posted took precedence over figuring out how many are new to me.

Not a new person. I used to love Chuckles candies when I was a kid...when these cards were new. Now, I wouldn't be able to eat them anymore even if they still made them. Not if I didn't want to...you know, die.

Lindy Ruff is definitely new to my collection. He's currently the top assistant coach for the team.

Card back gives full career stats. Each card is slightly oversized- big enough they will not fit in a standard penny sleeve, but they WILL fit in an oversize sleeve made for thick cards. Glad I had some on hand because some of the cards have something sticky on them- don't know what, but it looks like they were stuck to something like a book at one point. I don't normally store any of my cards in plastic but in this case I will make an exception.

I'm pretty sure back in the day, during the time these cards were issued, we had an account with the now long-gone Marine Midland bank. Don't recall ever being offered cards! They did sets for the Rangers, Knicks and Islanders...don't know if they did any others in other sports, but I would not be surprised.

Less than an hour now until the 100th classic outdoor game between the Senators and Canadiens. The Outdoor games are fun so I am looking forward to that...expected to be 3 degrees F out at the start of the game.

Forceful Rangers

Back on May 5th I got a surprise package of mostly Rangers from Jedi Jeff out of the blue...I was not expecting them whatsoever! But there was a lot of great stuff in there, and now I'm going to show you some highlights.

First off, I added 22 new people to my collection, and 11 new sets! The package also brought the Rangers to within 3 cards of the lead in my collection, trailing the Tampa Bay Lightning. My friend who sent me almost 3000 cards in January 2015 is a big Lightning collector and fan and sent me his duplicates so they have been in the lead for quite some time now. Wayne Gretzky did pass Vincent Lecavalier for most cards in my NHL collection, with 32 cards. All of these stats come from the tools the Trading Card Database provides.

Ok, now some random or not so random scans.

 The 1993-94 Ultra design is great in the NBA...but the NHL version, with the gray border instead of tan, may be even nicer!

 I think this card, from 1995-96 Collector's Choice, may be my favorite image in the bunch. As someone with pretty severe OCD the fact that the sticks are lined up by style really makes me happy.

 I can't identify that logo on the uniform. It's CHL. I know that much.

 This is one of the 800 card sets I mentioned in the It Begins post.

 I had to share the back of this one...from 2008-09, it speculated that 2007-08 would be Jagr's last year. Far from it, he's still playing...he entered the NHL the year I entered kindergarten, and he's still going!

 I really like the 2009-10 UD design.

 My first card from this set, I really like it. I picked up a cheap autograph from the set on the COMC sale so it will show up again in the not too distant future.

 The first two cards I saw out of the package were the patch I showed on the day they arrived and then this one! I knew it was going to be a good package when it led off with two SN cards.

 My first card from 2012-13 Rookie Anthology.

 By 2013-14, Ultra had been relegated to an insert in Fleer Showcase. Bring back a freestanding Ultra!

 These Rainbow parallels do not scan anywhere near as nice as they look in hand. They are Upper Deck's version of a Refractor.

 The package contained cards from as far back as 1988-89...

...all the way up to 2016-17!

Thank you again Jeff, this was very, very appreciated!

Edit to add: While this is not a gift from Jeff, it did arrive the day I had scheduled this post for! My first non-card NHL memorabilia...