- Amazing how the white dots in the lower left hand corner of the card look like holes. I had to check for myself after scanning the card to see if they were...
- I like the starburst type design of the card. For all the foil that is on the card, the design actually works for me. I just noticed that Pacific doesn't list the player's position on the card as well. I looked at a lot of the other Pacific sets from this season, and they don't list Joe as a center as well.
- There are 6 parallels of this card. I can't recall ever seeing one of them.
- Bio on the back: "...Joe eclipsed the 300 goal and 500 assist milestones." Joe finished 96-97 with 307 career goals, 97 of those on the power play. 14.3% of Joe's shots found the net by then, or roughly one out of every 7. Solid numbers indeed.
- Robert
- I love any card that depicts a player signing autographs for the fans. I'd love to find the Exclusives silver parallel of this card; it's serial #'d to 100.
- Bio on the back: "He has a big swing but rarely chases bad balls." Jim drove in a lot of runs during his career (1699), but his walks total was higher (1747).
- The only copy of this card on COMC is currently listed for 75 cents. On the flipside, 52 of the 59 copies of this card on Sportlots are listed at the minimum 18 cents, while the other 7 range from 20-30 cents.
- Robert
- These cards were a great reason to hit McDonald's in Canada during the 96-97 season. It got really tough to find packs of these quickly.
- I never noticed until now that the "ice" logo in the upper left was actually an Upper Deck hologram.
- Bio on the back: "Joe Sakic won the Conn Smythe trophy in 1996." That sums the previous season in one short line, doesn't it?
- Robert
- We begin the 97-98 Sakic collection with a loud entry, the Feature Performers insert from the Pacific Invincible release.
- It might have been a little more convincing had Joe been skating in the photo instead of standing still. You're not going to break through too many walls while not moving.
- An early count of my Sakic collection shows 40 cards from 97-98, including several parallels. The scary part is that the Trading Card Database lists a total of 266 cards from this season. That means I own less than 1/6th of the cards available. Yikes.
- I was able to add this card to the TCDB though. Seeing the list of Sakic cards from this season on the site makes me hopeful that I'll be able to add a few more of them before too long.
- Robert
- The only insert that I have of Jim from the 2000 MVP set, I was surprised to see 13 different insert sets from that release. Of course that includes a couple of game used/signature inserts.
- Bio on the back: "Thome hit the second of his four Division Series home runs versus Boston on 10/7/99."
- Career home run #208 was hit 5/24/2000 off of Detroit's Allen McDill. Thome's homer brought the Indians to within 9-7, but the Tigers wound up winning the game 10-9.
- Also on 5/24/00, pitcher Shawn Estes of the Giants drove in 5 runs, including a grand slam, in a 18-0 whitewash of the Expos.
- Robert
- MVP was always an underrated set in my opinion. Nothing flashy, the price point was right, but the cards looked good and they always had good info on the back.
- Guessing that this photo was taken during spring training because of the jersey; that jersey is something I've never seen worn during a regular season game.
- The usual replica signature cards in silver, gold (#'d to 100) and super scripts (#'d to 25) are available for this set, as in past years. I need them all for my Thome PC, realistically I'll probably end up with just the silver sig parallel.
- Robert
- Part of a recent Sportlots order, it was nice and cheap at just a quarter. Going to have to try and pad the McCutchen PC through Sportlots instead of COMC. Save too much not to justify doing it that way.
- Notice on the trading card database that they don't reference this red as the Target red parallel. Same with the Wal Mart blue. Maybe that just the way I refer to them...
- Now that McCutchen is hot the trade rumors have started up again. The division is so close right now that one really good run will have them near the top of the NL Central. Maybe that's just not enough anymore as far as management is concerned in Steel Town.
- Robert
- Easy to tell that this photo was taken during the 96-97 season. In the foreground is Dave Reid, whose first season in Dallas was 96-97.
- Donruss Canadian Ice was a small 150 card set. There were two different types of Press Proofs, Gold and Red. I don't have either of those.
- There is also an O Canada insert as well, limited to 2000 copies. There are 2 available right now on COMC, both priced near $8. Maybe some day...
- Robert
- Never have, and probably never will bust open a pack of Museum Collection. At $270 for a 4 pack box (ebay auction), it's certainly out of my price range.
- I don't know what to say about the design, it kind of reminds me of something I would see on an architectural drawing.
- Amazingly there's only two colors of parallels, copper and green. The green is serial #'d to 199.
- Also surprising is the low cost of these on COMC. The cheapest copy of this card is just 80 cents. For as much as the packs cost, you'd think singles would still go for at least a couple of bucks.
- Robert
- I've mentioned before that it's been kind of tiring to see the repeated pictures of Lawrie in a throwing motion. Stadium Club just does it a little better for some reason. I don't mind this shot as much.
- Lawrie is always a warrior when he plays. The eye black shows it on this card. Can't see his career ending this early, I think someone is going to pick him up...
- Stunned to learn that there are five parallels of this card. Electric foil, foilboard, gold foil, members only, and rainbow foil. Anyone thinking of a Men at Work song right about now??
- Robert
- Not as flashy as the 94-95 Electric Ice insert. I still like that Upper Deck changed the color of the player's name at the top from bronze to Silver to differentiate the Electric Ice cards.
- Doing my part: was very surprised that this card hadn't been added to the trading card database as of yet. It is now. As of this writing, the site was 289 cards short of 1.9 million scanned.
- I don't recall seeing any of the gold electric ice parallels for this set. Would love to have one for my Potvin and Sakic collections if anyone sees any cross their path.
- Career win #17 was the 3rd consecutive win for Felix, a 3-1 win over the Minnesota North Stars, 3/3/93. Felix stopped 29 of 30 shots, and Dave Andreychuk scored for the 2nd consecutive game.
- Robert
- The head shots of Felix on cards will never get old for me. Never...
- Bio on the back: "Potvin has recorded five shutouts in Stanley Cup Playoff competition." One line, short and sweet.
- Career win #16 for Felix was recorded 2/27/92 vs. the LA Kings at the Great Western Forum. Felix made 25 stops, and Bob Rouse (!) scored one of the Leafs goals in a 5-2 win.
- Robert
- Started looking through the year 2000 cards for Jim and this card totally confused me. I looked at the back and saw the stats for 2000 on it and immediately assumed this was a 2001 card. Had to do a little investigating to find out it was released in 2000.
- I would have liked to have seen Upper Deck use Jim as card #25 again, just as they did in the 2 previous Black Diamond releases. Nomar Garciaparra wound up on card #25.
- Career home run #206 for Jim was hit 5/11/2000 against Jason Rakers and the KC Royals. It was just overkill by that time, as the Indians were already leading by 10 and went on to shutout the Royals 16-0.
- Robert
- 2nd year in a row that Black Diamond used Jim's uniform number as Jim's card #. Love it.
- Don't get the blocks in the background. Definitely not one of my favorite Black Diamond designs.
- Bio on the back: "Thome tied an AL record with six home runs in 10 postseason contests in 1998." All those 1999 cards I just went through, and not one of them had this stat?
- Robert
- This would be the prelude to the SP sets that Upper Deck would release starting later in the 94-95 season.
- For me, it is going to be difficult to not like a Felix Potvin game action photo. This card is no different. Just from the stripes on the right hand side of the card it appears that the Leafs were in St. Louis when this photo was taken.
- Potvin is one collection I'd really like to grow, and quickly. A lot of his rarer base cards are at a dollar or more. This card on COMC is somewhat cheap right now at 65 cents. Any goalie collector knows that their cards can get expensive. Especially the jersey/auto cards...
- Robert
- Pacific never shied away from loud cards with bold designs, did they? Even inserts like this Attack Zone card weren't immune to the Pacific paintbrush.
- One step closer to 2 million: Surprisingly I was able to add this card to the TCDB. The site is less than 7000 cards away from 1.9 million added.
- Bio on the back: "Joe scored the game winning goal for Colorado in its 3-2 victory over the Florida Panthers in Game 3 of the 1996 Stanley Cup Finals." Boy has Florida fallen off since that magical season, however the rats still live on here in south Florida.
- Robert
- Posted the base card and the silver press proof back at the end of May; not sure why I waited over 2 weeks to add the Gold version to the blog.
- Serial #'d 22/99. Got this card very cheaply from COMC, paying just 67 cents for it. Who says you can't pick up a limited numbered card for your PC for just pennies?
- Added this card to the Trading Card database site. The site is closing in on 1.9 million cards scanned to it.
- Robert
- Congratulations to Andrew on reaching the 500 extra base hits milestone yesterday. He's the 8th player to reach that milestone for the Pirates, along side some big names like Stargell, Waner, Clemente and Parker.
- Andrew is also just 41 hits away from 1400. The slow start he had this year means he likely will not hit 1500 this year, unless he gets really hot.
- The card is not bad, the purplish "New Age" does remind you a bit of the mid to late 60's, and the double borders on the card aren't bad either.
- Robert
- Can't say that I like or dislike the "LP" on the left hand side of the card. It's not bad, but it's not great either. The logo would have been better had in been in the lower right corner of the card as well.
- Photo had to have been taken during the 96-97 season, since the Coyotes didn't exist until then.
- #22 in the background is none other than Hall of Famer Mike Gartner. Phoenix and the Rangers were the only two clubs where Mike didn't wear his usual #11. Messier had the 11 in New York, while Dallas Drake wore #11 in Phoenix while Gartner was there.
- Robert
- One word for this photo. Incredible.
- The tear out featuring the photo of Potvin scanned silver, when it's actually gold on the card. Go figure.
- Still haven't figured out why the corner is cut on this card. May have to look for another copy as the photo on the TCDB shows this card doesn't have a cut corner.
- Still need to get around to adding a PC list for Potvin on this blog. Sooner, rather than later is what I'm hoping.
- Robert
- This is like one of the puzzles you see on the internet: Tell me how many stars there are on this card?
- Maybe Jim should trademark this pose. Right foot on the heel, left foot on the toes. I should have started counting the number of cards with this pose when I started this blog. I'm sure that the percentage would be high...
- Career home run #204 would come 5/5/2000 vs. Toronto's Lance Painter. It was with one on in the 7th inning in the SkyDome, and would give the Indians a 10-9 lead. The Jays would score a run in each of the 8th and 9th innings to win the game 11-10.
- Robert
- You don't really see sets like this anymore. Decks of cards featuring player likenesses were released regularly for a while, but I haven't seen any for a few years. I may not be looking in the right places though...
- I'm a lot more observant now. For some reason, I never noticed the Conn Smythe Winner designation until now in the lower left hand side of the card. It certainly is big enough, so I guess I'm just more observant now.
- Thin and flat, this was very difficult to get off the scanner.
- The other aces in this set? Clubs: Gretzky. Hearts: Roy. Spades: Lemieux. Pretty good company indeed.
- Robert
- Love how the yellow and black in the border matches the team's colors. Maybe that's why I don't totally dislike Donruss as much as I used to. Looking at the cards a little closer I'm beginning to notice the subtle nuances (maybe too fancy a word for this blog).
- Bio on the back: The back chronicles Andrew falling a few feet short of hitting for the cycle on 7/4/14 against the Phillies. He just missed the homer, but had 4 hits in a 8-2 win. I'd love to see Andrew accomplish that feat before too long.
- Sometimes, I have to look up the prices of cards on COMC just for a laugh. There are currently 19 copies of this card on there right now, with 47 cents being the cheapest and $1.75 (!) being the most expensive.
- In contrast, there are 135 copies available on Sportlots with 43 copies priced above the minimum 18 cents. The most expensive? 35 cents.
- Robert
- One of the most unique cards I've shown of Joe so far. The C on the right hand side is actually a pull out, providing a smaller version of the card with Joe holding the Stanley Cup,
- This card currently books for $10 in Beckett; I don't remember how much I paid when I bought this, but I doubt it was that much.
- I've but less than a handful of cards from the 96-97 season left to show for Sakic. The 97-98 season begins the craziness that comes with all the parallels in various products such as Black Diamond, Paramount and Omega. Good times...
- Robert
- I did not think that this card would scan well at all. It didn't scan badly, but the 3D effect distorts the players in the background, diminishing the quality of this card.
- Interesting that on the back of the card, the English portion says Ice Breakers, while the French version translates to Star Players. I guess that the old "same, only different" line applies here.
- This was part of a 40 card set released by McDonald's in Canada. According to the TCDB, cards 21-31 were short printed. Good thing the SPs were a bunch of no names such as Lemieux, Jagr, Roy and Messier. Hate to see if there were any stars in the SPs how much they would go for...
- Robert
- Standard swing from the heels pose on another Thome card. Looks like the shin guard is a little higher up the leg now, towards the knee.
- Bio on the back: The back goes over his milestone home runs. 1st was versus the Yankees 10/4/91, 100th vs. the Rangers 5/14/97, and the 30th of 98 was hit against the Twins.
- 3 copies on COMC right now, 1 at $1.24 (always love the prices that end in 4 or 9) and 2 copies at $2.50. Have a feeling that the higher priced copies may sit there for a bit.
- Robert
- I don't know what possessed me to spend money to chase this card; I'm guessing it was the chance to own a limited copy of the card.
- For a card limited to just 25 copies, I spent $3.25 to have this card in my collection. I'm pretty cheap so to spend over 3 bucks on one card, there had to have been a really good reason.
- I do like the red ice look though, it looks as though you're on a 70's acid trip.
- Added this card as well to the trading card database, it is serial #'d 18/25.
- Robert
- Serial #'d 113/500. Copies of this card are available right now on COMC for as low as 50 cents. Limited runs aren't worth what they used to be...
- Added this card to the trading card database. I was a little surprised the other day when I found out it wasn't there.
- The blue border is really sharp, a little bit darker and it would have complemented the Jays uniform really well.
- I criticized the photos of Lawrie in this morning's post, but catching the ball in mid-flight and having it at the very top of the card was very good indeed.
- Robert
- This is the base version of the 3 Bowman cards I'm going to show today of Brett. I like the design, but companies have to figure out how to get other types of photos into the mix. Too many of Brett's cards feature him throwing.
- Bio on the back: "Sister played softball at University of Washington" Danielle Lawrie was part of the '09 women's softball national championship team for UW.
- I only found out today that Brett had another sister, Nicole, that passed away when she was only 5 years old.
- Robert
- It's almost impossible to take a bad picture of a goalie, isn't it? It's even harder to screw up when the photo is just the mask.
- Love the concept of this card, the back of the card details the 3 shutouts that Felix had in the 93-94 season, noting the dates and a quick highlight from each game.
- There are a ton of 94-95 cards of Felix on COMC, but not one copy of this card is available. Surprising.
- I really am wanting to add a good chunk of cards to the Potvin collection. Maybe as this year progresses I'll do just that...
- Robert
