the things I do for $1600....

Casey from Drop the Gloves is having a contest. The winner gets $1600 to spend on ebay*. But before he gives out the cash, he needs to make sure you're worthy, so he wants to see how you'll spend it.

Here's one way....

I debated for a few days on this... I'm a set collector, so that's how I wanted to go originally. But $1600 doesn't go far in vintage sets, and since entertainment is the goal around here, rather than post one picture of a 300 card set, we'll go with a bunch of pictures of cards with writing on them.

That's right, autographs. The rules are simple... they have to be autos that I don't already have. So no Dryden, Lafleur, Beliveau... no Chipper or Murphy.

You may disagree, but then you can get your own $1600. From the top, in no particular order....

That's right, it says it all. Mr Hockey. Possibly the greatest to ever play the sport .. although Joe Malone might have something to say about it. Spent $99

Wayne Gretzky. One of the best modern day players. We don't like Edmonton, and trying to find autos of him in a Blues sweater is tough. So we went for Team Canada. Something we can all cheer for. Spent $199

 

One of the greatest, if not the best, pure goal scorer in history. The Rocket. Maurice Richard. Spent $99

 

Here's a guy, were it not for all those damn injuries, would've made people forget all about #99... Mario Lemieux. What could've been... Spent $119

An all time great, and the face of the WHA, Bobby Hull. His kid almost made the cut for this exeercise... almost. Spent $ 75

One of the best d men of all time. I wanted the best, Doug Harvey as well, but could not find one, so Bobby is by himself on the blue line. Spent $75

This one pains me a little.... but you can't argue stats. He managed to hang around long enough, and was lucky enough to play with some great players to become one of the top point getters in hockey. Mark Messier. Spent $65

Switching over to current players... I needed to grab a Crosby. Spent $105

and no Crosby is complete without an Ovechkin. If only this dude wanted to play every night. Spent $49

Now onto baseball... baseball autos are a lot cheaper than hockey ones. Probably because the card companies have printed millions of them.....

no explanation needed... Hank Aaron. Spent $150 .

The greatest lefty ever. End of story. $35 Why don't I have this already???

The Braves greatest 3rd baseman, and one of the few 3rd basemen in the Hall, Eddie Mathews.
Hmmm... maybe Chipper is now the greatest? We'll see how time remembers him...
Spent $30

Now we get a little funky.

One of my favourite quarterbacks, Mr Don Meredith. Spent $245

I know Don is popular, as well as a Cowboy, but $245? Ouch.

Turn out the lights...... the party's over.......

Now for my final card.... a little back story. I've been following this card since it hit ebay, what? 8 years ago? Yeah, around that long. Sometimes it disappears, but it always comes back. The owner, well, he's a douchebag. No beating around the bush here....
He refuses to be reasonable about the price, or even listen to serious offers. I'm pretty sure he's now doing it out of spite.
In fact, I'm fairly sure the card is long gone, and he just keeps the picture up to torment me and a couple of other guys.
One of the many reasons we hate the french.

Anyways... my white whale as it were.... a dual auto fo Chris Nilan and Lyle Odelein
Spent $250

$250????? Douche is too nice of a word for him....

I think that's $1593.... if I could just get the rest on a gift certificate, that would be great.







*I think that's what he said.... but I haven't confirmed it. I should probably re-read his post, but I'm too lazy for that... so we'll just go with it.

It's been a long time...

I get distracted easily. To some of you this is not a surprise. You may even suffer along with me. It's odd because outside of this hobby, I'm very focused and efficient. But as for collecting little pieces of cardboard, I'm all over the map. I need help.

One of the downsides of being so scatter brained is that certain parts of my collection get ignored for awhile. One of those parts was my hockey individual player collections. I have binders going for Carey Price, P.K. Subban (just started that one) Chris Nilan and Lyle Odelein. And I may start one for Larry Robinson. Still debating that one.

While I have added a lot of new cards to my current players, Price and Subban, I have neglected my retired players, Nilan and Odelein.

A quick trip to ebay town rectified that in short order. I actually lucked out. I found one seller with two cards I wanted. For $3.50 shipped, I got not one, but two autographed cards of Lyle Odelein.

From the '96/97 Be a Player set...

 and the 2000/01 Be A Player set.

These on card autos are a great addition. And for under $2 each I cannot complain. Now if I could only find some relic cards of his.... especially the dual relic with Chris Nilan. That would be the end all be all card for me.