Random Snipes From Beckett

In my last post I mentioned the three new additions to my 1970-71 Topps Red Wings set that I recently picked up from Beckett Marketplace. Well, in order to ensure that the cost of shipping did not eclipse the cost of the cards, I added a couple of quarter-bin cards to round out the purchase.

2006-07 Upper Deck No. 73 Chris Osgood

Yeah, not a whole lot special about this card. Ozzie had returned to the Wings for the 2005-06 season after a couple of seasons away with the Islanders and Blues, but an injury early on sidelined him for most of the year. Even still, he posted a 20-6-0 record.

1990-91 Topps No. 34 Daniel Shank RC

Daniel who? Yeah, pretty much. A promising winger, Shank scored 11 goals for the Adirondack Red Wings in the 1989 Calder Cup playoffs to earn a spot with the parent club for the 1989-90 campaign. He had a decent run - 11-13-24 in 57 games - but, after just 7 games with the Wings in the 1990-91 season, Daniel was traded off to the Whalers for Chris Tancill. After one season in Hartford, Shank would spend the reast of his career in the minor leagues. Have a look at the blurb on the back of his card. Man, somebody didn't have a very high opinion of this guy.

2001-02 Upper Deck No. 54 Rostislav Klesla

I actually kinda dig the design of this set. The colors work well, with just enough contrast, and a lot of space is devoted to the front photo and back text. It would have been nice for the back photo to be more than just a cropped headshot of the front, but whatever. A nice card of Rusty early in his career.

More '70s Topps Goodness

And so I returned to the Beckett Marketplace the other day to continue work on my 1970 Red Wings team sets. How I would love to head down to my LCS to find these gems, but the state of hockey card collecting in the state that I live in is, well, literally non-existent. There are a grand total of two brick-and-mortar card shops within 50 miles of me, and neither stock hockey cards. At all. No packs. No singles. It's tragic. Thus, cherry-picking sites like Beckett is, by necessity, my only means of feeding this addiction.

So on to the cards...

1970-71 Topps No. 21 - Roy Edwards

Ontario native Roy Edwards made the leap from the minors to the Red Wings in the 1967-68 season, where he amassed a 15-15-8 record in 41 games. He had a solid year in 1969-70, posting 24-15-6, but by the 1970-71 campaign Roy's time in net had dwindled a bit and he finished the year at 11-19-7. After spending the following season with the Penguins, Roy would be back with the Wings for two more years before hanging up his skates for good.

1970-71 Topps No. 23 - Ron Harris

After a couple of short call-ups with the Wings in the mid-'60s, defenseman Harris played his first full NHL season with the newly-minted Oakland Seals in the 1967-68 campaign. In one of hockey's most unfortunate moments, Ron was directly involved in a play that sent North Stars forward Bill Masterton hard to the ice, causing massive trauma and, not long after, death. Ron returned to the Wings the following season, where he would stay until being claimed by the Atlanta Flames in the 1972 expansion draft.

1970-71 Topps No. 26 - Gary Unger

Gary may be best known as "Iron Man" Unger, having set the record for most consecutive games played at 914 between 1968 and 1979 (a record long since surpassed). Hitting the big league with the Maple Leafs in 1967, the year in which he was traded to the WIngs, Gary scored a career high 42 goals during the 1969-70 season. His time in Detroit would be brief, however, as he would head to St. Louis late in the 1970-71 campaign.

So there you have 'em. I also picked up a few odds and ends in this same order, but those will have to wait for another post.

Hiatus Over. Maybe.

Sure, I've said it before. After disappearing from this blog, I've come roaring back with high hopes and good intentions. Only to disappear once again. And there are reasons for this, of course, not least of which is the generic "life" that so many of us cite as the cause of our absenteeism. In this most recent disappearing act, not only was "life" to blame but so too was still the lingering sting of a lockout coupled with a new hobby that became a passion - vinyl record collecting. Yeah, so I won't go much into that other than to say the vinyl collection continues to grow, weekly, but I've managed to find both the time and the resources to jump back in to the wonderful world of hockey card collecting.

So on to what you're here for. Instead of the random sniping of cards that was my last re-entry to the hobby, I decided to start again with a little more purpose this time. Heading to the Beckett Marketplace (while being sure to comparison shop on The Bay), I snagged the following 1970-71 Red Wings:

1970-71 Topps No. 27 - Bruce MacGregor

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the aesthetics of this series (and that of the mirror O-Pee-Chee set), but I wanted to get my Red Wings collection in order by starting with a significant year. Unfortunately, from a collecting standpoint, this particular line-up includes the likes of Gordie Howe and Alex Delvecchio. So starting at the opposite end of the price-point bench is forward Bruce MacGregor. Bruce was in his 11th and final season with the Wings in 1970-71, ultimately being traded to the Rangers with Larry Brown for Tom Miller, Arnie Brown, and Mike Robitaille.

1970-71 O-Pee-Chee No. 154 - Gary Bergman

Bergman was quietly one of the Wings' staunchest blue-liners throughout the '60s and early '70s. He wasn't necessarily known for "rough" play or offensive output, but he certainly held his own against opposing skaters. The 1970-71 season was the Ontario native's 7th campaign with the Red Wings.  We lost Gary in December of 2000.

1970-71 O-Pee-Chee No. 158 - Nick Libett

Nick Libett was a rising star in the Red Wings organization during the 1970-71 season, his 4th with the parent team. Having scored 20 goals and 40 points in the previous campaign, Libett's production dropped a bit to 16-13-29 but he would ramp it up to 31 goals during the following season. Nick would spend 12 seasons in Detroit before finishing up his career after two years in Pittsburgh.

TTM Success: Craig Smith

Sent: 21 February 2013
Received: 13 March 2013
Transit Time: 20 days

Here's a nice, relatively quick return from one of Nashville's youngsters. Centerman Craig Smith was drafted by the Predators in the 4th round of the 2009 draft and spent a couple of years with the University of Wisconsin Badgers before joining the NHL club last season. The Wisconsin native put together 36 points (14 goals and 22 assists) in the 72 games of his rookie season. This year has been a bit of a sophomore slump for Craig, however. I sent this 2012-13 OPC base card to the team address just after Craig scored his first goal of the season - against my beloved Red Wings, no less.

Current TTM Stats:

32 Sent; 13 Received; 20 Pending - 41% Success Rate

TTM Success: Keith Yandle

Sent: 25 October 2011
Received: 21 February 2013
Transit Time: 485 days

Wow. This return shatters my record, by a mile, for the longest transit time. I guess this sort of thing lends credence to that whole "never give up hope" mindset that some people are always shilling. I sent out this 2010-11 Donruss card of Keith just after his two-point night on October 23rd, 2011, when he scored the game-winning goal against Anaheim.

While the photo of Keith that graces this card is a fairly decent action shot, I am dismayed by the Red Wings fan sitting against the glass in the background (just to the left of the number "3" on Keith's shoulder). Really, kid? Wearing your hat sideways? Like it's still 1994? Sad.

Current TTM Stats:

29 Sent; 12 Received; 17 Pending -  41% Success Rate

TTM Success: Nick Foligno

Sent: 24 January 2013
Received: 9 February 2013
Transit Time: 16 days

Traded from Ottawa to Columbus on July 1st of 2012 for blue-liner Marc Methot, Nick is one of several new Blue Jackets taking to the ice for the 2013 "season". Born in Buffalo (where his father Mike played for the Sabres), Nick has had a solid career over five seasons as a centerman for the Senators. So far this season his production is off his recent performances (1 goal, 4 assists), but if Monday night's puck handling exhibition was an indicator of things to come it won't be long before Nick starts racking up the goals again.

I sent this 2011-12 Score #325, the most recent card I have of Nick, just a couple of days after he scored his first goal as a Blue Jacket during the team's season opener against Nashville. Not a bad signature along with his #71 (which is a reverse of his dad's number 17).

Current TTM Stats:

24 Sent; 11 Received; 13 Pending - 46 % Success Rate

Back in Blue

It's been a couple of weeks since my last post, which seems to be a recurring theme on this blog, but to get rolling again I'd like to showcase my latest eBay wins - a couple of Blue Jacket relic cards that I picked up from a seller in Canada for less than $4.25 (including shipping).

The first is this Derick Brassard 2010-11 Upper Deck Game Jersey insert (GJ-BR) from Series 1.

The swatch isn't very exciting (but it was game-used) and the card design, particularly the font, is rather meh, but a jersey card is a jersey card. Brass, who along with Derek Dorsett and R.J. Umberger has become the face of the Blue Jackets since the departure of Rick Nash, isn't having a spectacular year so far. But then again, he's not at all an offensive powerhouse. Although he has only 2 goals this year, his goals-per-game average is actually right on the money when compared to his output from last season.

Next up is this Gilbert Brulé 2005-06 UD Ice Cool Threads insert (CT-GB).

Brulé was a big deal for Jackets fans in the mid 2000's. As the club's first-round pick (6th overall) in the 2005 draft, fans and team executives expected a lot out of the Edmonton native. Instead, Brulé turned in three forgettable and injury-plagued seasons before being shipped off to the Oilers for Raffi Torres (who is also no longer with the team, leading me to consider the G-man one of the worst of the 1st-round busts). The card isn't much more exciting, especially considering that this is a "photo shoot jersey", but as I repeatedly say when dealing with Blue Jackets relic cards - a jersey card is a jersey card.