Wednesday, October 22, 2008

So what do 25,200 hockey cards look like? *

I'm trying to do a little fall cleaning. Windows open with the breeze flowing through the house, the Autumn-colored place-mats already out on the table. Kind of a refreshing feeling to be honest.

The place that keeps getting more clogged than a fat man's arteries is my office. I'm saving myself the embarrassment of showing pictures of that. However, one place that could really help out is my closet. In it remained the boxes full of hockey base cards, from my many years of collecting.

So where can the veterans like Howe, Plante, Roy, and Gretzky rub cardboard elbows with the new kids like Brust, Dawson, Smid, and Price? In my trash can, of course.

A veritable plethora of dead trees and ink, gloss and great action photos, stats and pronunciations, holograms and logos. All gone. **

It was fun flipping through them, but depressing thinking about how much money I sank in box costs in hopes of hitting those big cards. But it evened out. For every good box I opened up 4 bad ones.

So what sets did these thousands of cards come from?

Topps, OPC, BAP, BAP All-Star, UD Foundations, BAP H&P, Artifacts, Trilogy, Ice, Between the Pipes, Invincible, Prism, Crown Royale, SP Authentic, the Chrome quadruplets (Bowman CHL, Topps, OPC, and Bowman), Classic Portraits, SPx, SP Game Used, Parkhurst Retro, Topps Premier Plus, Bee Hive, Hot Prospects, Black Diamond, Franchises, Vanguard, Original 6, Victory, SPx Top Prospects, Leaf Preferred, Bowman's Best, Omega, Gold Label, Paramount, Pinnacle, Score, OPC Premier, Revolution, Dynagon, Donruss, Donruss Preferred, Gold Reserve, Greats of the Game, Stadium Club, Private Stock, Titanium, Legacy, MVP, Vintage, Young Stars, Top Shelf, Heads Up, Stanley Cup Champs, Topps Total, Archives, Challenge for the Cup, HoloGrfX, UD3, and plain old UD.

Notice I didn't break them out in years, as the list would be terribly long.

And I'm not even sure what sets are in the other boxes.

So goodbye Gretzky checklist card, later Iginla Hot Prospects, see ya' Datsyuk Parkhurst. It was fun.

With no further delay, this is what 25,200 cards look like:

Next up, what ever shall I do with all my complete sets?

Footnotes:

* The 25,200 total was a safe estimate based on the full boxes and some added in for the stacks tossed, as well.

** OK, so they're not all gone, I just ran out of those small plastic bags. I find those bags have a nice balance of card volume versus weight. I have a couple more 3200-count boxes and s few stacks tucked away in my closet.

1 comment:

Tony Island Blog said...

WOW!! What a collection. My non-sport collection isn't nearly as big.

What did you end up doing with all those cards? I hope you found them a good home. I've heard people mention dropping the cards off at a children's hospital.