We’re gonna get hi(gh) hi(gh) hi(gh)

On Friday, the wife and I were going to our friends birthday party. This was in another city. We had to make a stop at the LCBO to pick up some wine. While my wife went to get this, I noticed there was a Dollarama in the mall. I thought they might have some of those surprise boxes that I had bought earlier. There were ten boxes left but it appeared they had been searched. So I looked (box searched)  through a couple and settled on this box. From my previous posts, we all know what the box looks like and also the plastic sleeves. Now for the packs.

90/91 ProSet Series II

As the wrapper indicates, 15 new cards and 1 NHL ProSet discount card.

# 443 Chris Joseph

# 467 Eric Desjardins

# 475 Ryan Walter

# 482 Brad Dalgarno

# 502 Pete Peeters

# 522 Robert Dirk

# 526 Cliff Ronning

# 560 Gord Donnelly

 #567 Buffalo Sabres logo

# 580 Pittsburgh Penguins logo

# 617 Lyle Odelein

# 645 Peter Bondra

# 646 Jim Hrivnak

# 648 Stephane Beauregard

# 694 Bill McCreary

10 cent Discount card



Team colour borders on front with team logo, Pro Set logo, players name, position and number.

Backs have a head shot, 4 years of stats and career totals, brief bio and vital stats.

There was a Stanley Cup hologram numbered out of 5000 but I don't know if it was available in series II. Didn't get one anyway.

The next pack was

90/91 Upper Deck High Series

12 hockey cards per pack. This pack contained 7 low series and 4 high series cards. ( 7 + 4=12)  I remember when these came out, there were packs that had 6 of each, so, of course, those packs sold for more.

# 5 Mark Osborne

# 10 Rick Wamsley

# 25 John Byce

# 205 Art Ross Trophy Winner

# 285 Rick Meagher

# 296 Kelly Kisio



#311 New Jersey Devils Checklist

# 456 Pierre Sevigny

# 476 Wayne Gretzky Campbell Conference All-Star

# 496 Patrick Roy Wales Conference All-Star

# 550 Checklist

Two Gretzkys and a Roy.  Didn't get any of the Young Guns ( Federov or Bure).

Also got this that I guess the box searcher didn't want.

# 10 Rick DiPietro

This jersey card is from Pacific's 2003 Quest for the Cup. These were inserted 1:24 packs when originally released.



So high series, high series and a wine high. I wonder if the searcher got something that they wanted.





Vintage Blue jays

In my never ending quest for FREE stuff,

Swagbucks.com is a Los Angeles based on-line rewards site that enables users to earn virtual currency (Swagbucks) and real life rewards for their everyday web activity.

I joined at the start of the year and was looking ofr something to spend my money on. Nothing much caught my fancy in the trading cards section except for the following:

MLB Vintage Trading Card 4-pack (Any Team)

Are you a collector of vintage 70's, 80's and early-mid 90's baseball cards? Do you have a favorite baseball team? If you answered yes to either, then this item is for you!

When you order this prize, you will receive four vintage trading cards from any team that you choose! Many stars of the era are included in this lot, so grab yourself one!
++ Note, the cards, and the year shown, may not be the ones you receive.

This could be had for the low price of 120 swagbucks. So I ordered the Blue Jays (of course) on April 22. This past Tuesday, there was this PWE waiting for me.

What treasures was I about to unveil?

In an Ultra Pro semi rigid holder, my vintage haul was as follows

1987 Topps # 643 Ron Shepherd

1993 Topps # 427 Bob MacDonald

1993 Topps # 458 David Wells

1993 # 564 Mike Timlin



Some more fodder to my boxes of Blue Jays cards.

For free, what could I expect. A 1977 Steve Hargan.

Has anyone else ordered from Swagbucks? Were you pleasantly surprised with your "swag"

Hockey Wire Photos--The Real Deal

I read with interest  when 2011 Parkhurst Champions Hockey announced a wire photos insert set last year. Besides being a novel idea for a card, it reminded me of the wire photos I have. I received these from the local newspaper where I was living in the late 80's. I had read an article in Sports Collectors Digest that one of the columnists had picked some up and opined that they would make a nice oddball collectible. I was right on top of that.
FREE. SPORTS. COLLECTIBLES.

For the benefit of the uninitiated

A wire photo is a photographic image that was transmitted from an agency to a subscriber via telegraph or telephone wires, and later, via satellite. Different agencies (AP, CP, Reuters, UPI) trademarked different terms, including Wirephoto, Telephoto, Laserphoto, Laserphoto II and others, that corresponded to their wire photos. The process was similar to sending and receiving a fax, where the photo was scanned in at one location, transmitted over "the wire", and printed at another location.  Each of these processes worked in the same general manner. At the sending station, a typed caption was prepared and pasted to the border of the original photograph. It was then inserted into the sending machine (usually wrapped around a drum) and transmitted. At the receiving end, photo paper was then exposed with the transmitted image and the caption information became a part of the photographic image. Wire photos were printed on special, thin paper, rather than developed in a traditional darkroom. The resulting print has a tendency to fade and turn brown much quicker than gelatin-silver prints. With the advent of digital photography, the wire photo is truly an artifact of a bygone era.

Here is a sample. Laserphoto II AP.  This is from a Feb 11/89 game featuring the Hartford Whalers vs the Winnipeg Jets.

I got a few of these signed. Remember this was before the hockey card explosion with all the new companies. There wasn't a lot to get signed so this fit the bill perfectly.

Just like Parkhurst Champions, I have single signed ones.

Guy LaFleur signed blue sharpie TTM. I have a few different signed ones of The Flower and a few other player. I did have some dual signed ones which I have sold previously.

I just grabbed a handful from the 1989 season. I actually counted this pile and they totalled 141. Looking at the boxes I have, I must have at least 10,000 of these. I'm now making these available for sale. Most are from the 87/88, 88/89 and 89/90 seasons. Do you have a favourite player or team? Did you see a game live, have the ticket stub or program and want  photo from that game. Let me know and we can work something out. They're not really 1 of 1's as a lot of newspapers got these. But they may be unique as there aren't a lot still around. You can check online to see what these are going for. BTW, I also have some baseball, football, basketball and some other sports also.

Presstine Mystery Box # 2

I went to another Dollarama in the city and picked up box number 2 of the Hockey cards surprise box..

Another 50 pack of card protectors (soft sleeves).

This time I received two unopened packs of original cards and one repack.

08/09 Upper Deck Collectors Choice

Find Choice Rookie Cards inserted every other pack! Look for a Choice Reserve Parallel Card in every pack!

Look for key rookies including Steve Stamkos, Luke Schenn, Blake Wheeler, Nikita Filatov, Fabian Brunnstrom, Brandon Sutter, T.J. Oshie, Drew Doughty, Mikael Boedker, Nikolai Kulemin, Colton Gillies, Steve Mason and many more!

 6 cards per pack

PRODUCT BREAKDOWN:

" Rookie Cards
* Choice Rookies - inserted 1:2

" Cool Subsets
* Three Star Selections - inserted 3:10
* Chippy's Choice - inserted 1:5

" Parallel Cards (combining to drop 1 per pack)
* Choice Reserve - Silver Regular card //
* Choice Reserve - Silver Rookie & Subset //
* Choice Reserve - Gold Regular card //
* Choice Reserve - Gold Rookie & Subset //

" CupQuest - A Set Within a Set! (combining to fall 1:6)
* First Round - inserted 1:10
* Second Round - inserted 1:14
* Semi-Finals - inserted 1:16
* Finals - inserted 1:32

" Stickers
* Stick-Ums - inserted 1:18

So, let's see how I did in my pack break.

# 27 Chris Osgood-Choice Reserve silver
# 100 Marian Gaborik
# 109 Martin St. Louis
# 158 Rick Nash
# 199Zach Parise
# 275 3 Star Selections San Jose Sharks

Didn't open a lot of this so I may have these (or not)

91/92 Upper Deck Jumbo Pack-Edition francaise

17 cards per pack with a chance of 3-D Award Winner Hologram cards and jumbo pack exclusine Euro-Stars

# 35-Brian Leetch

# 48 Michel Picard

# 94 St. Louis Blues Checklist (Adam Oates)

# 112 Mike Ridley

# 181 Thomas Steen

# 191 Kirk McLean

# 227 Petr Nedved

# 229 Michal Pivonka



#  282 Shayne Corson



# 340 Steven Finn

# 350 Steve Smith

# 358 Dan Quinn

# 380 Brian Noonan

# 412 Jamie Macoun

# 457 Mike Sillinger

# 475 Claude Boivin

E 4 Anatoli Semenov

I don't believe I have any of these as I didn't break any French Upper Deck.

 

Hockey Edition Memorabilia Edition

08/09 Upper Deck Series 1 GJ-PB



White piece of game used jersey of Pierre-Marc Bouchard


So there we have it my friends. Fun time but now more cards to hide from the wife.
(think I'll try another box though)