Beckett Associates Mystery Case Break

Found these plastic sealed cases in the Wal-Mart checkout aisle last night for $5.49, curiosity got the best of me and well - here it lands on my kitchen table.

Put together by MJ Holding Company and released by Beckett Associates, the package promises $50 catalog value and every 10th pack contains $100 in book value cards.  It took me a utility knife to open the case and the cards were sealed inside a white envelope.

Check under the cut for the goods.

1996-97 Upper Deck Collector's Choice 3 Star Selections

Inspired by a previous post over at Card Boarded and again as I was organizing my box of cards just earlier today, I wanted to post a feature on a favorite sub-set of mine from the 1996-97 Upper Deck Collector's Choice set that has been carried on over in the series through the years.

The '3 Star Selection' sub-set included 28 cards that featured 3 of the top players from each (26) team in the leauge; additionally 2 of the cards from the sub-set featured the top 3 players from the Eastern and Western Conference All-Star teams.

These were my favorite cards to pull from the Collector's Choice packs as a young collector.  After all my cards have been through, I feel lucky to sill have them in my collection.

St. Louis Blues - Brett Hull / Wayne Gretzky / Al Macinnis.  Pretty solid lineup here!  Gretzky would play briefly with St Louis, 31 games to be exact.  I don't have many cards with Gretzky in a Blues uniform.

New York Islanders - Eric Fichaud / Zigmund Palffy / Todd Bertuzzi.  I liked Fichaud as an Islander but he never lived up to the expectations his fantastic junior career had led to.  Palffy was another personal favorite of mine during these years, I was excited to see him represent Slovakia again during the 2010 Olympics.

1998-99 Upper Deck Choice Double Box Break Part 1

Wal-Mart was practically giving away these boxes of 1998-99 Upper Deck Choice at $8 a piece.  So I grabbed two of them with hopes of possibly completing the set and  maybe even the insert sets such as the Mini-Bobble Heads cards that I anticipated pulling from singles when I was about twelve.

36 packs per box, 6 cards per pack.  StarQuest Blue are inserted 2:1, Green 1:7, Red 1:23 and Gold are numbered to 100.  I have yet to see a Gold StarQuest in my life.  Mini Bobbing Heads are 1:4.  Key rookies from the set are Martin St. Louis, Milan Hejduk, Sergey Gusev, Mark Parrish, Oleg Kvasha, Michal Handzus, Tomas Kaberle, and Matt Cooke.

Every pack break from the first box is scanned and listed below.

1988-89 O-Pee-Chee Stickers Box Break

Hello all.  Today I bring you a box off 1988-89 O-Pee-Chee Yearbook Stickers.  The story goes, I originally thought I had purchased a box of 88-89 O-Pee-Chee cards with a chance of pulling Hull and Shanahan rookies at a very cheap price tag (too good to be true) but after some research I realized that I had actually bought these Panini-like stickers.  The original auction picture only showed the inside of the box with the wax packs which I was unfamiliar with.  Oh well.  You live, you learn.

Although it wasn't what I had hoped for, the stickers are a nice addition to my collection.  And I scored a bunch of various Gretzky, Lemieux and Hull stickers.

Mail Day! 1996-97 Score Sudden Death

Larger than usual Mail Day today; received the other four 96-97 Score Sudden Death cards that I had ordered. Damn Canada Post delay *shakes fist* Which brings me to 5/15 when it comes to completing the set of these guys.