Welcome back MVP

I was always a fan of this set.  Back in the 90's it was a cheaper alternative to the myriad of other sets that were on the market, plus it had one of my favorite parallels ever, the silver signature parallel.

When I recently read that Upper Deck was going to resurrect MVP as a base brand again rather than an insert as it has been the past few years, I was happy.

Cheap cards, with a little something to chase, is right up my alley.

I bought a blaster while I was up in Canada during August, and when I amazingly spotted one in the card aisle today at Wal Mart, I quickly snapped it up.

The set consists of 300 cards, as it has in the past.  But now card #'s 201-300 are SPs, found 1:1 in hobby packs, 1:2 in retail/blasters.  That breakdown was a little disappointing, but not unexpected in today's SP driven card market.

The design is nice, although there may be a little too much border on the front for some people's tastes..

I think Upper Deck wanted to make sure that people knew that these cards were the MVP brand.  The logo/lettering appears twice on the front.

And twice more on the back customers are made aware that this is the MVP brand.  A little bit of overkill if you ask me.  Maybe a secondary photo on the back instead of the MVP logo would have enhanced these cards.

Also returning are my beloved silver script parallels.  I like the fact that they are distinguishable from the base set by the silver borders (along with the faux signature).  This blaster was very good to me, as I pulled 6 quality players.   This is probably going to be a chase set for me again, as I'm finally about to finish the 99-00 MVP silver sig set very shortly. 

Now, the blaster I bought in Canada netted me a Mikkel Boedker gold signature card.  I figured that I just got very lucky, since the gold signatures are #'d to 100.  Well, either I'm very lucky, or the gold signatures are in each blaster, because I pulled another one...

Love it.  Ryan O'Reilly, #'d 98/100.  In the past versions of MVP, I never pulled any gold signatures that I can recall.   Now 2 in 2 blasters?  Can my luck be changing that much?

Now this next insert I'm going to gush a little bit about...

The 3 stars of the week inserts are a fantastic idea in my opinion.  Not based on just guys who are young, or hot in the collecting world, these cards feature players that earned the 3 stars during a specific week during the NHL regular season.  

How many times are you going to see Taylor Hall, Semyon Varlamov and Max Pacioretty on a card together??  I don't recall seeing any kind of inserts like these in the past, and I'd love to see more of these in the future.  With 26 of these available (one for each week during the season), it's also an attainable insert set to put together.

MVP also has a colors and contours parallel set that is found in hobby packs that will drive team and player collectors a little more crazy as well. 

Sorry for the blurry image

No, I unfortunately don't have the Joe Sakic die-cut yet, but naturally as a Sakic collector I would love to have one for my PC.  A quick search of eBay shows that these have a bit of a wide price range so far; a lot of the commons going for about $2-$3, while a Bobby Orr purple die cut has a $40 BIN price tag on one auction that I found.

I'm hoping by the time the Hockey Expo in November rolls around that the price tag drops a bit, which I'm thinking it will since the 14-15 Upper Deck series 1 releases that week.

All in all, this has been a fun and inexpensive rip so far, and it just may replace my OPC chase this year.

thanks for reading, Robert

Another unique add to the Sakic collection

I never had seen one of these discs until a seller on Sportlots added it to my order a couple of weeks ago.

I cut off a bit of the top of the disc, but you can still see the Team Rivals designation.  This disc was released the year after the Panthers and the Avalanche met each other in the Stanley Cup Finals.  This particular disc was only available via redemption from jars of Kraft peanut butter.

Here's the back:

I looked through the checklist, which contains 72 discs, and surprisingly found that there were none that featured Wayne Gretzky.   Joe Sakic has a 2nd disc in this set that features only him.  I imagine that putting a set of these discs had to have been difficult back in the day, as they were released in several different Kraft products in Canada. 

Nonetheless, another great addition to the Sakic collection at a price that can't be beat.

Thanks for reading, Robert

Adding pieces of the puzzle--right before the frenzy

I posted on the other blog about a PWE that Doug from the Dollar Store blog sent me.  The remainder of the cards in the envelope hit two of my hockey collections.

First, he sent me this years SP Game Used card of Joe Sakic.

I'm curious what the plans are for Burnaby Joe and the Avalanche organization as the free agent frenzy begins tomorrow.  I'm not too sure that the Parenteau for Briere trade was a step in the right direction for the Avs, but of course I have a tendency to be wrong when criticizing trades, so don't be surprised to see that trend continue.

Colorado's big name free agent is Paul Stastny, who has been rumored to be going to the blue and white, along with a few other teams.  Speaking of blue and white....

Doug also sent a couple of really nice base cards from the 2013-14 Panini Rookie Anthology set.  From all the scuttlebutt I've heard recently, James Reimer's days as a Maple Leaf are numbered, with Winnipeg as the likely destination. 

I almost wish I had taken the day off tomorrow to watch the going's on, but then I remember to a couple of years ago when I took July 1st off, and wound up watching all day as nothing major really took place. 

One of these days I'll have to start putting a Maple Leafs want list together.  It shouldn't be as difficult as the Jays list was, and it will give me a good starting point when I head to hockey shows down the road. 

Thanks again Doug!  I appreciate the cards very much...

thanks for reading, Robert

Joe Sakic PC is up to date

I actually found a group of Sakic cards that I bought a while ago that I hadn't entered into the PC. 

They are now entered; 20 more cards are officially part of the longest running collection that I own.

Lots of color, and chrome, and silver parallels becoming part of the collection.  The total is now at 341 cards, because a quick perusal of the list turned up a couple of dupes. 

Just 84 more to go to reach the 2014 goal.  I'm pretty confident that I'll get there, but reaching the goal probably will not happen until later this year.  I'm trying to finish up some of the vintage set goals first before I start tackling the PCs.

But knowing my fickle nature, that thought process may change in an instant.  We'll see.

Thanks for reading, Robert