i checked out my cards: keep doin' that hockey

Welcome back to the second in a line of what will likely be around 10 posts representing my 2017 COMC Black Friday binge. Today, we keep doin' that hockey, with some new additions to my Minnesota Wild and Toronto Maple Leafs collections. There's also an Islander/Sabre snuck in.

Speaking of the Sabres, the first card there up at the top is of Marco Scandella, who Minnesota lost to the Sabres in the Tyler Ennis trade. It was a good deal for both sides, but personally I preferred Scandella.

This looks awful, but it isn't. 2016-2017 MVP had this awful foily throwback SUBSET reminiscent of Skybox's Skylines in 2000. I love that MVP offers subsets and this one is a beaut, Clark. 

The best thing about collecting hockey cards is that I still get Upper Deck in all of it's wonderfulness. Above is just the base card for Nino Niederreiter (my first Nino!) from 2015-2016. And its a great base card.

Moving into the veterans and parallels, this red parallel from 2016-2017 O-Pee-Chee Platinum (/199) is one of my nicer Mikkos at this point. My collection is certainly lacking.

I always wanted a Cramer's Choice card, and a couple months back I acquired a Rick Ankiel from 2000 Pacific Invincible. Knowing that Crown Royale brought them back to the hockey world recently, I looked for the cheapest one I could find of a decent and active player. Matt Moulson, now banished to the AHL, was that player. This one is a nicely thick die-cut with red and silver foil treatment and a snow white band for the ink. In-hand, this is a gem numbered to just /199.

With O-Pee-Chee (cough Upper Deck couch) free to do as they wish in hockey, there's plenty of die-cuts still, and they don't suck. From 2015-2016 O-Pee-Chee is this James van Riemsdyk, who I've really come to like this season (not like I didn't before) just in time for him to become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season. 

And here he is again from 2016-2017 Upper Deck, this time on the Canvas variations. This is one of the more benign photos used for Canvas.

Hey, that's better. And it's Nazem! Kadri was one of my collections I tried to really boost this Black Friday, and I added on goodies.

Like Mikko Koivu, I grabbed his red prim from 2016-2017 O-Pee-Chee Platinum.

As well as his Colors & Contours from 2015-2016 and 2016-2017 Upper Deck MVP. The top is a Level 1 Purple (sure, why not) and the following is a Gold - Level 2. So it looks like I have some rainbows to work on.

Kadri fell to Series 2 in 2014-2015 Upper Deck, but he did so with this beauty, in one of the most Nazem Kadri cards I've seen. Hockey is dominated by action shots, and Upper Deck plays around with their photos all the time, resulting in gems like this.

They also play the high-end game as well, creating bafflingly low-glass small-time hits in expensive box breaks such as this one. The green jersey parallel from 2015-2016 Trilogy (of what, exactly) is a pretty nice one in-hand, but the cheap digital numbering adds a handle of Barton's Vodka to the mix for such a classy set.

So that's our hockey. Still to come from the COMC binge will be:

• Hall of Famers and Legends
• Baby Jays
• Champion Jays
• New Collections
• Dirt
• Hits
• Doc, and:
• What the hell was I thinking Buying this Card

COMC #1 - JPA and the Miscellaneous

I managed to raid the COMC silos filled with cardboard goodies again recently.

I enjoy COMC orders every time. While the first or second was probably the best, it's not ad if they're getting worse or anything. Every time there is something new. My player collections are quite fluid, so the previous statement becomes more true every time.

And while I will get into some newer player collections in future posts, this one will stick with my number one - JP Arencibia.

As you can see from the photo above, JPA is currently being awesome on the Jays Winter Tour, which, sadly, does not come through Syracuse.

Might have to call up Paul Beeston and have a discussion on that.

Anyways. On to some new John-Pauls:

Diamonds and white trash parallels.

Black and white J-Ps from 2011 Topps. The white devil is from the factory set, which were stamped with a special logo in the top left, in case you forgot last (two years ago) was Topps' 60th Anniversary,

Fred Lewis is making a ton of cameos on this blog. Might as well give him a mention.

Nice card, poor analysis.

Not totally sure what set this is from*, but I really enjoy it. I don't always agree with Baseball America. And their podcasts are about as interesting as cud drying in the Wisconsin sun. I'm more of a Baseball Prospectus guyer.

Tristar Stylee

Another new Arencibia, and another Arencibia making a rediculous "who ripped one?!" face. This is some sort of rainbow foil.

Doble Gypsy

A Gypsy Queen Gypsy Queen from 2012. What the hell does that mean? There's a picture of some Hungarian woman, likely my GEOL 451: Remote Sensing professor printed on the back.

Also, my favourite back-type from '12 Gypsy Queen.

That's it for JPAs in this post, but it wouldn't be a tear-assing party without this guy:

#proooooo

Lawrie cards are expensive. This one, actually wasn't. But it's still awesome.

And of course, the lonely, single card from the iciest of sports, hockey:

Downtown Koivu

These cards are just great. This is number two in my collection, and is headed straight to the Puma Box to hang out with new teammate Zach Parise.

More COMC posts coming soon. There may be up to seven, you've been warned.

Awesome Hockey Group Break at Cardboard Conundrum

Hi everyone - this is a quick pimping of an excellent group break going down over at Cardboard Conundrum. Matt P will be busting some absolutely awesome boxes of hockey cards over there, and I myself would love to see this break fill up and see everyone grab some great cards, and maybe even get some hockey outsiders to join in on the fun.

And it's affordable! So go get some! Something like this, possibly: