Baseball Mail day

I don't pick up much baseball anymore, although sometimes certain cards catch my eye. I saw this Romero at a card shop and really liked the look. This card is a mini version and I really like the colorful border. The card shop had it priced for $15 and after some looking around online, I managed to get it for $3.50 including shipping.

I have always been a fan of prospects and these sweet spot autographs, so when I snagged this card for .99 cents plus $1.75 shipping, I was pretty happy. I was big on Burroughs when he was first drafted and I really thought he would be capable of hitting .300 plus in the majors with 20 home runs and 80 RBI annually.

 Burroughs power never developed and he was out of baseball for almost four years before returning last season.

A Comeback, A Call Up and Some Mail!

I have not been able to post much lately due to a busy life, although the mail box has been quite full these days!

The comeback and call up in my title features myself and my attempt this season to get back into hockey. My last full season was in 2008-09, playing for my school team. In an injury plagued season, I finished with 7 goals and 21 assists in 31 games. Not stellar numbers, but decent considering I was playing at a very high level.

Once I got my diploma from school my life became focused on establishing myself in my career and letting my body heal. I thought I was done with hockey. The only problem is hockey becomes a part of you and you are never really done with it. Every year in the late summer, I kept getting the bug to play. Finally, healthy this past summer I decided to do something about it.

Starting a new job in the summer didn't give me a whole lot of flexibility for joining a team, so I got myself in shape and let my friends teams know that I was ready and able to play if they were ever short.

Three month's into the season I had heard nothing from any of the teams an despite getting myself in to great shape (working out and playing shinny 2-4 times a week) I was losing motivation and ready to get on with my life.I almost went an entire week without playing, thankfully I forced myself to go out at week's end and a day later I got the call I had been waiting for: I was getting called to go played in an organized, official game of hockey.

As expected my first game back was a little bit sluggish, but by the third period I had found my legs, although it was too late as the team got pounded 7-2.

A little bit disappointed and not sure if I would get another call, I did, this time two weeks later to play against the same team that had beat us when I had played before.

This time, things were different, my legs were in to it right away and I was getting some good chances. I assisted on the game tying goal in the third, in a hard fought close game. We went on to lose the game in overtime 4-3. Not a bad result after we had just been pounded by the same team just two weeks ago.

Any way's on to the mail!

Still working on the set, although I'm getting really close to completing it! Just a few more to go!



A really cool looking acetate insert from classic. These guys were really ahead of the game in terms of inserts in the early 90's.

An amazingly sweet insert card from Donruss Elite. Limited to /2500 copies. Considered a high print run these days, in the mid 90's this was very low printed!

I love these press proof gold cards from 97-98 Donruss. This one was a steal for $2! A nice card for my McLean PC!

A major white whale of mine! I have been collecting McLean seriously for about two years now and not once has this card came up on eBay. I found this card on another site for the low price of $2.50!

Montoya Mail Day

I picked this gem up for a great price! The seller had it listed as buy it now for some absurd price, but posted it after a while as an auction style listing starting at .99 cents.

This is the black version of the card is 1 of 6. At first I wasn't crazy over the card design as I thought it was a tad boring. The card actually looks a lot better in hand and I'm glad to add this to my growing Montoya collection.

Terrific Montoya Mail Day

Starting off with some of the smaller Montoya pick ups and then I'll move on to the big boys! I picked up two major cornerstones for the PC.

This is the last ITG auto that I needed of Montoya and it's only the second one that I've seen pop up. I like the yellow design on the left.

Time for the two major pick ups:

10-11 ITG BTP He Shoots He Scores redemption! I thought I would never see this card as it's only numbered to 20, most likely not all got redeemed and I would imagine most people would keep the card in there PC if they did redeem it.

If you look in the bottom right corner, the card is hand numbered 9 of 20. This is the only copy I have seen on eBay and I imagine that the other 8 are already in PC's.

This is another card I thought I would never see. It's numbered to just /10 copies and features a piece of game used jersey, emblem, number and tie down from a Hartford Wolf Pack jersey. Another amazing card from ITG!

Amazing Ultimate Pick Up!

This years ITG Ultimate had some amazing cards and I managed to pick up my most coveted card in the set. This card was a MUST for my McLean collection. His save in the '94 cup finals is what made me like Kirk McLean. As a kid I thought this was an amazing final and I'm happy to own a large piece of it.

What makes it even sweeter is that I got this card for a MAJOR steal. Another auction where the seller charged sales tax. I tell you, the best way to not get the best money for your cards on ebay is to charge sales tax, not many people want to pay extra on top of the final price. Even with the sales tax on this card, I still got a major discount form the normal selling price.

I also added this nice McLean autograph. It took me a while to add this card as I'm not overly enthusiastic on adding a plain McLean autograph considering I already have one. Set builders, team and player collectors must have already gotten there copies because I got mine for pretty cheap!

Large Mailday With Some Gems!

Still getting caught up on mail for this last little while. I still have Christmas box breaks to post as well!

Starting off with a nice little lot of Scoring Kings for my set:

I always wanted to start working on this set and to this point I just owned Kirk McLean, got these for a steal at a little over $2 each including shipping for a seller liquidating a large amount of game used cards on sportscard website:

Next up some Irbe stuff, the quad game used was part of deal I got for the liquidated game used and the All-Star card was part of a trade. It was nice to not have to overpay for some nice Irbe PC pieces:

Next up some random goalie stuff for the goalie PC:

I love picking up journeymen goalie cards and I'm happy to add guys like Wade Flaherty and Maxime Ouellet to my pc!

I am saving one really amazing addition to my Kirk McLean PC to post at another time. My best pickup of the year by far! Coming soon..

PC Mailday: First Sawchuk In a While

Another ITG Auto for .99 cents plus shipping! This one is from 2005-06, Montoya's rookie season. I don't see this card come up often and I'm happy to finally snag a copy.

Same as above, another .99 cent Montoya card! These cards look pretty similar but at least feature different photos.

Another ITG Ultimate McLean card to cross off my list. I like that the card features a picture of McLean in a Panthers uniform as they don't have many. The card seems rather plain with the one color jersey pieces, I may upgrade in the future but for now I am happy to have this card.

What a beauty of a card! Look how young Sawchuk looks in this picture. The Sawchuk memorabilia piece features a piece of a game used glove. This card looks even better in hand and features two of the best goalies of all-time. I am pumped to add this card to my collection and it's also my first Jacques Plante memorabilia card in my collection as well.



Some Recent Mail

I have been sick for most of the week, so my mail day's had been piling up. I have some really nice PC stuff coming in and this lot is the start of it. Getting right into things is a nice Fuhr stick & jersey from 2006-07 ITG BTP. I really like the look of the card featuring Fuhr in the old school Oilers jersey.

Yes, the above two scans go together and yes this an ULTRA TOUGH blank back from this years OPC hockey set. I have looked EVERYWHERE for this card and I asked almost every single dealer at the Fall Toronto Sports Card Expo if they had this card with no luck. I had yet to see the card on eBay either, so I was lucky enough to have a fellow collector help me out with the where abouts of this card, trade for it and then sell it to me for a very low price. One of my favourite pick ups of the year considering how much time I spent tracking it down.

Next up is some jersey cards from the 05-06 Ultra Scoring Kings set. I busted a box of this product when I got back into collecting hockey and actually pulled the Jagr Scoring Kings Jersey. I needed some money so I sold the card and have regretted it ever since. I am very pleased to have this card back in my collection.



Finally, my mini PC for Ben Scrivens starts with this Certified Signature rookie. I really like the look of these rookies cards. I got this card for a pretty good price when a seller listed it as a buy it now right when the set was released.

Not sure what took me so long to get Montoya's regular FW auto. Very pleased to add this to the Montoya PC.

I have seen this card quite a bit but usually in the $15-$20 range on eBay for the "buy it now" listing. I waited it out for an auction listing and won the card for $2 plus shipping. I have always liked the "fresh ink" cards and it's nice to finally have one in my collection.

A few low end Montoya rookies to wrap up my post of recent pick ups. A pretty good week of mail and I knocked a nice amount of cards off my want list for around $40. I'm looking forward to the mail this week as I have some ITG Ultimate stuff on the way!

A Nice Steal Mail Day

ITG did such a nice job this year with ITG Ultimate, only problem is that everything is so short printed prices have been quite high. There is quite a bit of stuff that came out for Kirk McLean and I really want to get these in my PC before they land in PC's of other collectors.

I think someone hit it big with Ultimate this year as they had a bunch of there smaller hits listed for buy it now at $15. I hit the buy it now on this card pretty quick when I saw it. It is selling in the $30 to $35 range right now.

I hope lady luck continues to follow me and that I can get my other McLeans in the set for a great price.

Short Printed Montoya Pick Up /10

It's hard to see the serial number between Montoya's pads but this is an UD Exclusives 4/10. I debated as to whether or not I should pick this card up given the price but I knew I may not see this card again for a very long time.

Some nice Montoya cards have been popping up on ebay lately and I have been on the out side looking in. An ITG jumbo glove 1/1 recently sold for $150, best offer and an 05-06 Ultimate Shield 1/1 went for $200 best offer. While I really enjoy collecting Montoya, I could not justify spending that much on a card. I don't think I spend $350 on cards total in 8 or 10 month's total!

Regardless of missing out on some nice cards, I think I have done well lately with my collecting and have enjoyed myself a lot more thanks to more focus on collecting habits.

Mailday: 90's Style as Usual

I picked up a few 90's inserts from one Ebay seller and got a great deal!

I have been working on the 1995-96 Between the Pipes set and I really like the look. I have always liked the look of the 96-97 set as well but have never been able to grab them at a good price, until now!

I always liked the Red version of Eddy's Hawk mask and never understood why he painted it black at the start of the 1995-96 season.

I picked up the last 4 cards of the post for my 1995-96 Topps master set I have been working on. I have been very lucky to have picked up a lot of my wants from the set lately for great prices and trades. If anyone has any card from 95-96 Topps please let me know and maybe we can work out a trade!