because you just never know.

At the February card show, I didn't bring home too much. In fact, the show was fairly disappointing.

But since I was waiting to meet someone, I stuck around a bit longer.

It's a good thing for me that I did.

Someone was unpacking a box of miscellaneous stuff, and my eye caught a stack of OPC mirrored retros from 2010/11.

As I casually shuffled through them, I found this...

Black bordered Josh Gorges /100 AND I needed it for my team set.

I asked him how much.... he replied with; " How about $2?"

As I was fishing out my toonie, he said to me; "what's up? you never buy from me!"

I wanted to say that's because your crap is usually WAAAAAY over priced, but I was nice and said it's because he never has anything I want.

And off I went.

15 minutes later as I was wondering past his table once more.... I see even more OPC retros. So I leaf through them quickly and find this!

AND I need this one too!!! Big Hal only cost me a buck.

Sweeeet!

It just goes to show.... after not being able to find any of these for well over a year, I find TWO of them from a guy I normally never deal with.

Never give up, and always keep digging, because you never know.

Now if I could just find the rest of these that I need....... *sigh*

$10 and a card show.

I am woefully behind on a bunch of trade posts, so why not procrastinate some more and show off what I picked up at the card show this past Saturday? Seems like a good idea to me.

from one seller I managed to grab this Hi # SP card from this year's OPC set. Cost- $1.

 I also got three other cards from him, but they were football and baseball related, so I'll put those on Waxaholic.

From the next seller, I picked out two cards from his .50 cent box.

 a Carey Price Contenders base card and an...

 UD MVP insert Carey Price from '08.

The next seller had a brand new Carey Price from just out Artifacts.

 this one out of /999 set me back $3. A bit much if you ask me, but what the hell.

One of my favourite sellers had a few cards I liked. First, two cards for my growing Lyle Odelein collection.

 '94/95 Topps Stadium Club and '94/95 Fleer base cards...

 And I picked up this Montreal team set from '95 Parkhurst.

 I wanted to grab a few of these for autographs through the mail....

 but I ended up getting the whole set, even though some of these gentlemen are sadly deceased.

 in the interest of space, I'll scan the other 18 cards in sheet form.....

 I also replaced three tall boys of Charlie Hodge that I had just sent out for ttm autographs. Now my set is complete again.

total costs for all of those cards from him was $5. I love pick ups like that. He's also scrounging through his boxes for more for me at the next show.

So how do you think I did? And if anyone has any '10/11 OPC they want to trade/donate, hit up my wantlist link on the side. The '11/12 set launches tomorrow. I would really like to finish this one.

Oh, and totally unrelated to hockey, if you like soccer and comic books, check out the latest offering from Obsessive Recreation. Guy and TJ always have the latest for you...

Knocking off a White Whale. Well actually, a black one....

I have been after this card ever since the day it was released into the wild. A lot of you know I'm chasing not only the '10/11 OPC set, but the master team set for Montreal. That means the base, retro parallel, rainbow retro parallel, and the uber black rainbow retro parallel card for each Habs player in the entire set. This also includes the 100 card SP hi numbers, for which Montreal has 5 players included.

The black bordered rainbow retros are #/100 and are included at 2-3 per box. If the SP's are dropped at the same rate as the regular base inserts.... then you will find them at 1 per 200-225 boxes. So me not finding one in the 5-10 packs I rip every trip to my local card shop should not come as a surprise to anyone. And yet somehow I'm always disappointed when I don't get it. I almost always pull at least one black border... but it's never the one I want.

To the secondary market we go. I found one at a card show, but the guy wanted $80 for it and wouldn't budge. Although he would sell me the black bordered Gretzky SP for $50. Figure that one out.

Saw one, then two on ebay... the first went for $77... the second one I missed and have no idea about the final price. Then I saw another.... and I bid. I went all in. For a cheap bastard like me, this was new territory. I put a max bid into my sniping program (don't judge me) of $50.

Later I changed my mind... spending $50 on a new card... on any card... isn't me. So I decided to cancel my snipe.

Except I got distracted and forgot.

So the day before the postal strike began, I won my White Whale, which is actually a black bordered whale, for $38.77 shipped.

 I was so happy and so confused at spending that much for one card I didn't know what to do. But I paid my bill, to wake up the next day to a nation wide postal strike.
Awesome.
Two weeks later, still no mail. Crap.
But then the strike ended, and 11 days later, I found a yellow bubble envelope in my mailbox with one lone card inside.
It was finally mine.

I think the black bordered Patrick Roy SP will be the next killer on my list.

Does the search ever end?????????

If you're still with me... what's your current White Whale?

The Joy of a Completed Page... Retro Style.

So if you've been reading my stuff for awhile, you know I like the retro hockey stuff. Every year, OPC puts in a retro parallel set with the regular base cards. Two years ago was an epic set. Make that Epic. Capital 'E'. Last year was, meh. A nice design of a card, but not super collectible. This year was a huge hit! Well, with me anyways... not a lot of other people liked it. But I love it. Love it!

While I'm trying to build the set, or buy one (that's another story in itself) I decided to also try and do a Master team set of Montreal. The retro parallel, the rainbow retro parallel, and the black border rainbow retro parallel. The black bordered are numbered /100.

Difficult yes, but not impossible. Or so I thought.

Anyways... I finished my first page the other day.

There are 24 different cards for the Montreal team set, meaning I need 72 cards to finish the master team set.
I'm currently sitting at 48/72
Only 24 to go.

If anyone can help.... with either the Montreal master team set, or the regular opc retro set, drop me a line...

Neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night.....

This weekend was Card Show weekend here in south Calgary. Only one problem. I woke up Saturday morning to almost 20 inches of snow in my driveway. And it was still snowing. And the wind was blowing.

Two options. Back to bed, warm and safe. Or venture out in the insane weather just to go to a card show.

A no brainer if you ask me. On to the card show!

An it's a good thing I did. Although I spent 50 bucks. And I never spend that much. Oops. Let's see how I did. Then you can vote, Epic, or Epic Fail.

First up, table #1, 3 cards for $2. All for future ttm attempts.

A 1972/73 OPC Frank Mahovlich with razor sharp corners...

 an '88/89 OPC Adam Oates card that I was told was his rookie, but turns out it's not. I knew that, but I bit anyways. Oh well.

 and a '74/75 OPC Lanny McDonald rookie. And this is his rookie. Not bad for .67 cents.

 Table #2 brings us to 6 cards for $5.

A Black border rainbow retro box hit #/100 of Ducks sniper Bobby Ryan...

 and another of Derick Brassard, also #/100

 A '10/11 OPC retro of Johnny Bower. I've been looking for a good card to send to Mr Bower for an autograph. This will do nicely. No way am I sending out his rookie or anything....

 An older insert of Miikka Kiprusoff.

 An Adam Pardy Young Gun rookie...

 and Sid the Kid #/999.... all that for $5.

 Now this next part, all from Table #3, is my favourite buy from the show. What you see fom here, cost me $15. A steal. There's currently a warrant out for my arrest.

First, seven '10/11 OPC retro inserts on my quest for a complete team set....
Carey Price, All Star Goaltender.

 Brian Gionta

 Jaroslav Spacek

 Benoit Pouliot. There's a drinking game involving watching Pouliot play, but I won't get into that here...

 Travis Moen

 The older Kostitsyn brother, Andrei

 and Holy Frak! A P.K. Subban retro insert SP rookie. Pernell was also at the All Star Game.

 now, five of the '10/11 OPC Rainbow Retro inserts, again, in pursuit of my team set.

Roman 'I can't believe he's still playing' Hamrlik

 Tommy Pyatt

 Maxim Lapierre. Max was traded to Anaheim a wee while ago....

 our leading scorer, Mike Cammalleri

 and Hall of Famer, a SP of the Big Bird, Larry Robinson.

 finally for our $15, I grabbed two 2010/11 Donruss team sets...

one of Montreal

 and one of Calgary.

Can you believe it? All that for $15??? Sweet.
As I was leaving, I also grabbed a complete 2006/07 Parkhurst set for $8 and a box of Ultra Pro pages for $15. I'll feature some of the cards from the Parkhurst set later... it's a really cool set featuring some of the all time greats.

So? How did I do? Was I a thief? Or should I have stayed in bed?

Wait no more....

Okay, so I'm finally getting around to posting this. A wee while ago, I mentioned stopping by my card shop and coming home with a few things, among them 7 packs of 2010/11 OPC. And a couple of you actually said you wanted to see what I got.

So here are the highlights...

An Atlanta Thrashers Team Leaders insert from last season. Interesting that Kovalchuk isn't there anymore, and neither is Hedberg.

 A black bordered rainbow retro parallel of Paul Stastny. One or two per box.

 A rainbow parallel of Maple Laff Tyler Bozak. Leaf. I meant Leaf, not Laff..... heh....

 In the same pack as Bozak, I got Dion. Talk about a team pack. Is he still dating Elisha? I miss Elisha.

 Also among the seven retro parallels I got was future superstar Erik Johnson

 and a 'Legends' retro of the human sieve, Grant Fuhr. You knew if anyone was going to pull him, it would be me.

 I didn't get any SP Legends cards, but I did pull five SP Rookies. Out of seven packs, that was pretty good. I think.

Zac Dalpe, a 21 y/o center for Carolina has 3 goals and 1 assist in 14 games this year.

 Jared Cowen, a 6'5" 230lb defenceman of the Ottawa Senators has only played in 1 NHL game so far, but was a man among boys at the recent World Junior Championships...

 Dustin Tokarski. Can anyone tell me why, with Tampa's horrid goaltending, Dustin has not received his shot at the NHL yet?

 Bob. Bob has come out of nowhere to become the #1 netminder for the Flyers. Really happy to pull this card.

 Oh. And some kid outta Edmonton. Is he any good? Anyone?

Anyways, them da hits. Not to mention all of the wonderful base cards towards my set.

Regarding the retros... I love these. Love 'em. If any of you have some, and feel inclined, send them my way. I'll leave a light on.