A big CONGRATULATIONS to my cousin...

Big shout out to my cousin, who had her first child, a baby girl, on Sunday during the Super Bowl, right after the power outage. Although premature (3 and something pounds) both her and mom are doing well. Still name-less ;) CONGRATS!!!

Idea from Matt: TOP 10 PULLS OF 2013

I got this idea from Matt at Cardboard Conundrum, it is my top 10 pulls from 2013 that will be updated as I pull. :D

9. 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee Sticker Miikka Kiprusoff

9. 2012-13 Heroes and Prospects Brendan Guance

8. 2012-13 Heroes and Prospects Stuart Percy

7. 2012-13 Heroes and Propects Morgan Rielly


4. 2012-13 Score Riley Sheanhan Rookie

3. 2012-13 Heroes and Prospects Gordie Howe Legend

2. 2012-13 O-Pee-Chee Rainbow Raphael Diaz


1. 2012-13 Heroes and Prospects Nail Yakupov Autograph

UPDATED 3/4/13

PACK BREAK: 2012-13 Heroes and Prospects and 2012-13 Score - A HUGE hit

Hey everyone,

Sorry for the lack of posts. School has been SO busy for me lately. But that doesn't mean I'm not in the card buzz. I have recieved numerous GENEROUS pakages lately, hopefully gonna post them up soon. But anyways, here we are.

I went to my LCS in my local mall today and as it is hard to earn money at my age, I had to choose the packs I got wisely, and I was saving up for a few packs on NHCD next Saturday. (BTW if you are going, can I count on you to trade and help me complete my set?) I knew for sure anything over $10 was out of the question I finally decided on a pack of the brand new 2012-13 Heroes and Prospects, for $5.99, out not even a week ago. This is a product I love - AWESOME for TTM autos, and the design and hits get better each year. It would be my first ITG pack I've ever opened. Also a medium priced product, so affordable.

I also got a pack of this year's Score. I've opened about 3 packs before, nothing "really" special in those. A Mike Smith Net Cam with an AWFUL picture, to name one. But in this lone Score pack, I got a Marc Staal Gold and Riley Sheanhan rookie.

How with the H&P. I knew from watching reviews that each pack had a relic or decoy "He Shoots, He Scores!" Puzzle card. I also saw from the 1 box break I saw 2 of the 5 hits were in the first row of packs, of the 3 rows. One of the autos, a Ryan Strome, was in the top pack.

So as the owner gave me the box to pick my pack, I noticed only 1 pack was bought/taken, the 3rd row. I was thinking the whole way through I was going to take the top 1st row. But, for some strange feeling, I went under that pack and took the next one. A good choice...

After paying, I walked out and opened it while heading to another area of the mall I was in. I saw it was no really thick card, and knew it was a decoy. Kinda dissapointed, but then again, there are only 1:7 for relics and autos, out of 18 packs.

I flipped through them, hoping to get a good CHL player I could send to. All I remember is I saw Gordie Howe Legend on the top. Woot, woot! First time through, I remember it was 7 cards, a Ryan Murray puzzle decoy and another card. I knew I got a base of Brendan Guance (Nucks!!), Laurent Dauphin rookie and Francois Tremblay on the bottom... Kinda a bust for the money I paid...

Ends up I got bases of Howe, Theo Fluery, Radek Faksa, Guance, Dauphin, Tremblay and Tverdon, and the HSHS of Murray.

WHOA WHOA WAIT!!! So, I flip through them again... Oh frack, on the card on top of the decoy is an auto. In a Russian jersey. Wearing number 10. Drumroll please...

Badadadadadada... And...

CLUE... my heart skipped a beat.
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And...



A NAIL YAKUPOV AUTOGRAPH!!!! It is a BEAUTIFUL card... The card is beautifully designed, and has the Russian colours to match his jersey. I ran/fast walked back to my LCS, who gave me a top loader and penny sleeve to put it in. Then he researched it on his computer... And told me it was an $80 card!!!!

This has to be THE best hit I have ever pulled... even better than the Eberle BAP. I'll be hanging on to this for a while, unless I get a nice Malkin auto in return. :)

Now I'm left with this: Do I sell it? Trade it? Or keep it?

To think I was able to get this card in 1 pack is awesome. What are the chances, that this card would end up in that store in the mall, and be the box opened to sell singlely as packs, and that I walked in and chose it?

Awesome. Thanks for reading. :D

*I borrowed the scan from eBay... I do not have a scanner, and my camera is terrible. My card looks the EXACT same though*

Got a Free Chris Shelton jersey card!

Hey y'all.

Just wanted to show you this cool card I got from this website, which gives you free stuff. It's basically ebay with credits instead of cash. So, after signing up, doing the tutorial, etc. I already had over 1500 credits for basically doing nothing. And for a mere 559 credits, I nailed this awesome card... my very first baseball hit card! A 2006 Ovation Apparel Chris Shelton jersey card! And it's not even just a plain white swatch... it had 2 lines of stiching on the bottom!

I can't load an image, so hopefully it will soon -__-

But very cool. Only one complaint... the card was mailed just in a penny sleeve and top loader in a PLAIN WHITE ENVELOPE! No paper or anything in the envelope or wrapped around the card. I was really lucky to get it in mint condition... no creases or anything!

Thank you Moses for this great card!

*I'm thinking of starting a new/another blog. This blog was supposed to maily focus on hockey, but now it's creeping into other sports, and right now I am a huge baseball fan. So this was a great learning experience, and I think I will, soon. One that focuses on all sports. Becuase now I am hooked on baseball cards ;) )

THANK YOU JUSTIN!!! That's What Collecting's All About!

After the summer olympics, my younger sister was hooked on gymnastics and the gymnasts that competed for team USA. (And we live in Canada... strange, huh? Maybe she was watching too much NBC. (; ) But anyways, her favourites were Aly Raisman, Jordyn Wieber, McKayla Maroney and Gabby Douglas. So I went out on a card search for her. What she specifically wanted were Raisman and Wieber cards. So I went on ebay, and found horrifically high prices. I wanted to get her a relic card (piece of leotard) but the prices were crazy. So I went looking on the web for some I could trade for. Sure enough, I found a blog of an awesome guy, Justin. Here's the link to his blog, Justin's World. So I sent him an email asking if his base card of Aly Raisman was for trade, as he pulled 2 in his olympic blasters. Sure enough, a few days later, he emailed me saying he had no problem just sending it to her, instead of having to work out a trade, and asked for my address. Now I didn't really feel comfortable with him having to pay for stamps and send them to me, so I offered to at least pay for stamps and try to send some cards his way. But he sent me back an email saying as long as my sister would be happy, he was happy to send them. And, he offered my sister a Nastia Liukin card, too! My sister was really happy (even though she didn't really know who Nastia was because she didn't see her perform in 2008) and I offered again to at least send some stamps to him. He, once again, said it was no problem. He even told me he would keep them until the storm near is area was over so he could make sure my sister got them.

Today, my sister got a surge of joy when she got home, to see this waiting for her.

Awesome! She still IS excited!

So this brings me to this: This is what I think collecting's all about! A collector welcoming another collector into the world! I think my sister will continue collecting, and when she has over 1000+ cards like me she'll look back onto these as what had started it, and who started it.

So thank you Justin... this act of kindness will not be forgotten!

Check out this contest!

I recently saw a new contest at ARPSmith's Sportscard Obsession. Here's the link to the contest: http://arpsmith44.blogspot.ca/2012/09/contest-time.html It's a pretty awesome contest with a huge prize. Check it out if you have time, and enjoy the rest of your day!

Email Autograph - Kayla Harrison

Okay, I'll eventually get around to do all of the posts I want to post. And I would have, except today I got an envelope in the mail, and when I felt a card inside and saw the return label, I knew exactly where it was from. Take a look:

 

Sorry for the sideways picture! Anyways, it was an email success. A really nice one! I emailed her (or her fan club?) using the email address from Sports Card Forum. Than I got a reply from her fan club stating they have sent me a card of her's signed. So a few weeks later, I recieved a BRAND NEW card (It lists on the back she won a gold at the 2012 olympics) of this Judoist! Pretty awesome card, she has an amazing autograph and also drew olympic rings and wrote champ under it! Thanks Ms. Harrison for this awesome success!

I WON A CONTEST! THANKS SPORTS CARD INFO!

Just yesterday, I received a medium sized bubble envelope. Now, when I saw it (the top of my mailbox was opened I thought is was something else (which should arrive soon and I should be posting about it ;) ) but then I saw it was from Sports Card Info on the return address! So I knew exactly what it was... this:  A really nice on-card auto of T.J. Graham!

 2012 Prestige Draft City Destinations Autograph #30 T.J. Graham

(I used Ross's picture, credit goes to him)

Hockey fans, if you don't know him that's O.K. He's a wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills. It's a really nice card, and I love the idea of the card. Plus it's from Prestige 2012, a really nice set! And don't forget, the autograph is ON-CARD!! The only thing I wish I could change about this card is to add on a serial number (I'm pretty sure less than 999 were made of each of these cards) and that Graham had signed it a little under so his autograph would be on top of his name, and not block his hand, and a teeny bit right, so it would be centered, because I really do not like all the white space at the bottom and he sign on his arm. But nonetheless, an awesome card!

Thank you Ross and Sports Card Info for this wonderful card and contest! You can be sure to see me in the upcoming contests!

You should also be seeing a flurry of posts coming up! A few days ago I received a really nice fan pack (with signed stuff in it :D ) and just today I received a star player TTM that I had completely forgot about and then the package I hinted at the top of this post when I get it!

Oh yeah, I'm not really that big of a Bills fan, if anyone wants to trade for it, just shoot me an email or comment! Thanks!

Who's Your Favourite Summer Olympians?

Wow! Me post something non-hockey??? Now that's an accomplishment! But here is an odd question that I asked myself... who is your favourite summer olympian? I was thinking of a basketball player in the NBA, but NBC never broadcasts that stuff. Actually, it seems like that NBC mostly broadcasts only gymnastics, swimming, track, and on rare occasions tennis and beach volleyball. So, who is your favourite summer olympian? Please comment and let me know, here are mine: 

Favourite Female Olympian: Aly Raisman, Gymnastics

 

This one was tough for me... all the 4 finalists were from the gymnastics team! The finals were between her and teammate Jordyn Wieber... but with Aly's performance today, I picked her. What's not to like about an athlete who does flips, twists, and dangerous landings, some on a balance beam! And I see her perform A LOT thanks to NBC. Not to mention she's really pretty! ;) 

Runner Up:

Jordyn Wieber, Gymnastics

McKayla Maroney / Gabby Douglas, Gymnatics

Favourite Male Athlete: Usain Bolt, Track and Field

To me, Usain Bolt is like Alex Ovechkin in hockey. He looks like a person that is funny and loves to have fun, on and off the track. And an all-around great guy. Sound a little like Ovie? And don't forget he is also the fastest man ever! His last name Bolt fits him absolutely perfectly!

Runner Up:

Johan Blake, Track and Field

Michael Phelps, Swimming

I'd like to see your choices. Comment, I care and see them all! 

Thanks Sal! ... had no time to post!

So sorry for the lack of posts everyone! I have been so busy and went on a bunch of mini vacations! But now I finally catch a break, and I need to post something I have been meaning to a while ago. It was when Sal held a contest. He promised a prize for everyone, not just the winner( who I unfortunately wasn't) He tried to make the prize interesting for everyone, and asked for their favourite team. So I said the Penguins, and a few days after I received it. It was this really cool Mario Lemieux 1990's game card, like Pokemon, sort of. The card was really cool, and interesting. It came in a top loader which had a stoker on it that said: Book Price - $6.00 Our Price - $2.00 RC. Well, this most definitely wasn't his RC, ;) , but was really cool. Thank you Sal! I will try and get a picture soon, as I am posting this on my IPhone.