1997-98 Donruss Studio

Stopped into a hobby shop that I've never been into before seeking penny sleeves earlier today and noticed a box of cards sitting on the shelf  behind the counter that I haven't seen in a very long time for sale - 1997-98 Donruss Studio.  I used to love the look of these cards as a kid and I still do; so for only $2 a pack I picked up two of them to rip to go along with my penny sleeves purchase.  Each pack comes with two portraits and five cards.

Mail Day! 2008-09 National Hockey Card Day Lot

I wasn't as much excited about receiving these today as I was to actually receive them in general.  I've been waiting for over a month for these cards to arrive in my mailbox and was almost sure that the seller had ripped me off.

I bought this lot from eBay for a cent + shipping charges.  The set of these cards from th 2008-09 national Hockey Card day promotion seems to go for about $8-15 online.   The set was comprised of the top rookies, stars and legends of the game.  Upper Deck are currently at work putting together the 2012 set; looks like it will be based around memorable moments of Canadian-born players.

HCD6 - Sidney Crosby.  Essentially the reason for my bid was to have this card.

HCD7 - Vincent Lecavalier.  Lecavalier has represented Team Canada a total number of 4 times in international play.

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.

1994-95 NHL Pog

Here are the few Pog that I have (left) from 1994.   I must have only gotten about three packs in my lifetime and was able to get Jagr.  I feel like I might have been luckier with pulling cool stuff back in 1994 than I am now.

184 - Jaromir Jagr.

298 - Don Beaupre.

2009-2010 Fleer Ultra

Zellers (yes, they do still exist) grab. Like usual there's a Gold Medallion card in every pack, jersey cards are 1:36 and signatures are 1 in a whopping 2880 packs. For 55% off, let's see...

The design of the cards are different than what I had expected from the Fleer Ultra sets, nice nonetheless.  Some nice photographs.

Pack no.1 

146 - Alexander Ovechkin.

34 - Christobal Huet.  I like the Winter Classic cards used from that year.