Sportscards From The Dollar Store

Sunday, 22 November 2020

The Suzuki Turnaround

Think back a few years back to July, when I busted a box of 19-20 SP Authentic. One of the cards I landed was an Inscribed Future Watch of Nick Suzuki. The first 50 stamped of the /999 print run for some of these cards add the player's debut date to their signature. It turns out those were very much in demand, and when I put it up on COMC, I turned it into about $400.00.

Since it is always easier to spend money on cards when you use proceeds from another card, I took advantage and added a some big wants to my collection.

Such as this. A Tom Seaver autograph was on my wantlist for awhile, but I never really had the courage to put it on the not-so-realistic portion there of. This hits several of my big things I had wanted in a card, being a Mets card, being a nice, large signature that uses the provided space, and being on-card. I hate to call myself fortunate in this regards though, since it does sound ghoulish, but I got around to adding this to my card one week before Tom's death, so this was able to join my collection without having to pay that premium.

As for my other addition, it wasn't one card, but six, with my 2/14 collection getting an interesting group of cards.

Given how long I've been looking for the 'Z' to complete the Ilya Zubov manu-nameplate, it was nice to add this grouping in one bunch. This should have theoretically been harder than the Zubov, since the print run for this was /99 with the Zubov being /399, but all of these were available. For those that care about such things, the numbering for these respectively was 2, 17, 43, 60, 66 and 94, which also means is likely that each 'T' in the grouping represents a different 'T' in the nameplate. This is really a 'suitable for framing' grouping of cards, and I'm probably going to see if I can get a display of some sorts for all 6.

There you have it!

Saturday, 21 November 2020

The last of Series 1?

Here's the final box of the 3 I picked up. You would think that 3 boxes would be enough to put together the 1-200 portion of the set, but I was still 11 short. *sigh* They'll be on the want list soon enough. Still, let's see what this brought forth.

There were still some needed base cards that came out of this box. Such as this rather reflective 2nd year Kirby Dach.

The rink glass also makes for an amazing rinkside photo of Alex Goligoski. This might be my favourite of the base cards in this.

One more gap-toother photo before I leave the regular base cards behind.

Here's the Young Guns content from this box. Foudy is the only one that has seen ice time so far that would qualify him for a card outside of the bubble universe.

Canvas-wise, this really was a hot box for a future trade envelope to Ann Arbor.

A new Sens card among the inserts is their final appearance in this.

One last shiny insert.

One last relic.

And one last Signature Sensations! Not only do I pack-pull my first ever Sig Sensations from one box, but I land a second of these one-per-case cards. Even better, it is a Kitchener Rangers alum! WOO-HOO! That's a great way to end these boxes, even with the collation issues.

Friday, 20 November 2020

Even More From Series 1

What does box #2 hold?

Starting off, here's my favourite base card photo from Box #2 that wasn't in Box #1. The blurry players in the background is really unique for a base card.

UD really made perfect usage of a horizontal format for this base card.

For the second straight year, Dougie Hamilton appears on his base card in the Whalers throwbacks. And this is probably the best look at them so far.

My only other parallel in the boxes was this one. It is a little hard to see here, but where the team's name should be, it reads "Variante Francaise"

Sadly, the team name doesn't change on the back, but much of the other text does, so I'll forgive that this card is for Les Canards.

Only 5 of the supposed 6 Young Guns in the box, but at least one was the Josh Norris. And there's more Senators goodness to come. And yes, Morgan Geekie's name is pronounced exactly the way you think it is.

The Canvas YG cards aren't supposed to count against the total, but here's one anyhow.

Great photo on the front of the Laine Canvas.

Great photo on the back as well. And, even more importantly, he's using the proper football for Canada, especially for an outdoor game from Regina.

A couple second year insert cards made their first appearance here. Nothing too notable about these.

Two game jerseys pulled - both Columbus cards.

Here's the second notable Sens card from the box, with a nice shiny Brady Tkachuk.

This box provided not one, but two case hits. I've never pulled a Signature Sensations prior to this, so this was a really nice surprise to find. And it is a still relevant player as well, from a insert set that can get sticker dump-y at times.

Let's throw in one more case hit for good measure! There's one of these for every team, so my luck on both:

A) Landing one in the first place

B) It being for my favourite team

makes this a really great pull. Mind you, Duclair was not re-signed by Ottawa, so it isn't exactly up-to-date, but that's a pretty mild complaint.

One box left!

Thursday, 19 November 2020

More From Series 1

With the regular base out of the way, let's move on to the inserts/SPs.

Only one paralleli across all the boxes, and this was it. It is a little hard to tell with the photo choice, but this is a clear cut, acetate parallel. These appear about 1 in every 4 boxes, so the odds on getting this over 3 seems pretty normal.

With the abrupt end to the regular season, there YG potential would have been sparse. UD received the go-ahead to use any player that was in the bubbles, regardless if they played in any game that mattered. Harkins was the only one that actually saw action last season. There are a couple of first rounders here with Broberg and Joseph, though.

Canvas remains a familiar insert set, and they're here as well. Strangely with the collation, the YG should appear in every other box, but they were in all 3 here.

Portraits remain in the release. Perhaps if they featured more gap-toothed pictures, I'd be a bigger fan.

Here's a couple of new inserts for the year. Pretty basic, but it does mean that Shooting/Shining Stars have vanished for the year.

The new Dazzlers insert are one per box, and are Dazzlingly bright in hand.

UD Game Jersey is another familiar insert. It is still fun to pull a relic, and I really do like the design this year. Like with last year's Stanley Cup design, a very appropriate window and very reminiscent of the 1982 Topps hockey stick design.

Another acetate card ends this. This oddly-cut card just tumbled out of the pack, and I was immediately curious about it, since it was new to me. These are very rare, dropping out at 1 in every 4000 packs. These are not-numbered, but in a previous appearance were limited to 25. For those wondering how rare 1:4000 is in this release, there are 24 packs in a box, and 12 in a case. So, that's about 1 in every 14 cases.

I can definitely be had for this, though.

I'll show off Box #2's goodies tomorrow.

Wednesday, 18 November 2020

Series 1

Series 1 of UD hockey dropped earlier today, and of course I had to sample a box or two of it. To start off today, here's some of the base card highlights from the product.

Since I always like to judge a product by the first card out, it was a pretty good one this time, with card #1 being a 2/14 guy!

Card #2? A Sen!

Now, if you'll look closely at the cards, you'll notice how the line goes diagonally down the side of the card. That is not the intended design, as both cards were miscut. In fact, about 30 of the cards in this box were miscut.

Also, for the first time in a long time from a base-heavy UD product, there were a lot of dupes as well. About 40 there as well, meaning I only got about 100 of the regular base set of 200. Ouch. But, with that said, let's see what base cards I did get.

There were a few more Sens cards in better shape than Artem's with these 3 appearing. That's a nice, simple cardboard farewell to Bobby Ryan's time in Ottawa.

And at least one of the Kitchener Rangers alums I hot a card of was in good shape.

Some of the photos really highlighted the whip action of the sticks, with Guentzel's being so great it might have knocked the whole card off center.

Lots of alternate jerseys as well in this. 4 Stadium Series jerseys make an appearance for Dallas, Nashville, Colorado and LA. That Avs one is something else. And by something else, I mean hideous. But the great photo on the Jeff Carter makes up for it.

But, if I do have to pick a favourite photo from the box, I can't vote against this great toothless pic of Radulov. That's the type of photo I'd expect on a veteran's card.

And that's it. It was kinda abbreviated due to the dupes and miscuts, but I'll hopefully land the cards I didn't land because of those factors in the second box. I'll highlight those on the weekend, but tomorrow will be time to show off the parallels and inserts, including one that makes an appearance a mere once per four thousand packs.