Collection Montreal Canadiens Collection

About a dozen years ago I worked in a cubicle behind a Packers fan named John. John was the only other Packer fan I encountered on a regular basis. He was a bit of a Boston Bruins fan back in the day, but had lost interest in hockey until he noticed that I was a hockey fan. Something about the Bruins' biggest rival had always bewildered him and so he asked me: why does the Montreal Canadiens logo have an 'H' in it?

I knew the answer to that, and I knew that Les Habitants had won more Stanley Cups than any other NHL team - and more championships than all but one team in North American pro sports.

However, because I didn't grow up in Canada I had hardly any knowledge of the players that continued this winning tradition year after year, decade after decade.

A few years ago my brother in law got us a hockey book as a Christmas gift. By "us" I mean my wife and by "hockey book" I mean the definitive book about hockey, Ken Dryden's The Game.

The Game didn't make me a Montreal Canadiens fan, but it made me appreciate the 1970s-era Habs. I'd never bothered to collect older hockey cards because the few big names that I knew were out of my price range and the "common" singles just weren't common where I grew up. This book inspired me to build a mini-collection of players who contributed to the six Stanley Cups won by the franchise from 1970-1979 (and ten cups in fifteen years going back to 1965.)

I've got about two dozen post-career cards of Canadiens from this era but for this post I'm only going to focus on cards issued in the 1970s.

Terry Harper won five Stanley Cups with Montreal (1965, '66, '68, 69, and '71). This was a gift from the crumudgeon who lived next door until he and his wife moved when I was about 12 years old. There's a small pen mark on the back.

Hall of Famer Frank Mahovlich won four Stanley Cups with the Maple Leafs in the 1960s, joined their arch-rivals in 1971 and helped the Habs win the Cup that spring. He won a sixth Stanley Cup with the 1973 Canadiens. I bought this ungraded for $3.15 on COMC in May 2015. I'm thrilled that it came back from PSA with a high grade - vintage OPC singles are notorious for centering and edge issues.

I somehow snagged this gem for just $5.09 on 4 Sharp Corners in March 2016. I know it's a Topps hockey card, but that seems low for a mint '70s single of an eight-time Stanley Cup champion (as a player.) 

Jacques Lemaire is well-known to my Devils-loving family as the head coach of the 1995 Stanley Cup Champs. The Canadian media critics who derided the Devils for employing the neutral zone trap and suffocating the sport fail to mention that Lemaire learned that strategy from his coach, Scotty Bowman.

Los Angeles Times June 22, 1995

Here's another Hall of Famer who coached a Stanley Cup-winning Devils team. Larry Robinson won six Stanley Cups as a player, three as a Devils coach, and a tenth Cup as an assistant for the Blues. He also won two Norris trophies and saved the sport of hockey from becoming wrestling on ice. This OPC single looks empty without a "1st Team All-Star" designation found on Robinson's Topps card. On the other hand, the ice and the boards are bare and I don't mind that at all. I bought this with a best offer of $6.60 on COMC in February 2017.

Some ungraded 1978-79 singles. Bob Gainey won four Stanley Cups with Montreal in the 1970s then captained the Canadiens to their 24th championship in 1986. I'm not sure where I got his O-Pee-Chee card. The Semi-Final single was picked out of a box at my LCS back in the day.

Pierre Bouchard wasn't a star, but he contributed to Canadiens Cup wins in 1971, '73, '76, '77, and '78. This 1977-78 Topps card cost me 64 cents on COMC four years ago.

I picked up this Ken Dryden for $9 on COMC last summer. I wrote about this purchase at the time since I wasn't expecting to receive my cards until December. Turns out I was a little impatient and had this order shipped to me in September. Good thing I did; the cards I purchased last Black Friday still haven't arrived :/

Dryden is a fascinating guy. He played seven full seasons in the NHL and won six titles. (Take that, Tom Brady!) In 1971 Dryden won the Cup and the Conn Smythe trophy as playoff MVP before burning his rookie eligibility. Naturally he won the Calder trophy as Rookie of the Year in 1972. After winning his second Cup in 1973 Dryden sat out the 1973-74 season in a contract dispute, during which he worked at a Toronto law firm (hold that thought..)

This card is so seventies. It's glorious. I want it.

In September 1972 Ken Dryden and Tony Esposito split goaltending duties for the Canadian all-stars against the Soviet Union in the famed Summit series. Dryden was the winning goalie in the decisive game eight, besting his Russian counterpart Vladislav Tretiak (hold that thought...)

After winning his sixth Stanley cup and fourth in a row Dryden decided to hang up his skates. Years after his retirement, Dryden went into politics and sat in Canada's House of Commons. 

These cards are definitely not commons, haha.

Shortly after retiring as player Dryden joined Al Michaels in the broadcast booth for ABC's coverage of the 1980 Winter Olympic hockey tournament. Tretiak was on the ice for the Soviets in the first period of the "Miracle On Ice" game. Even non-hockey fans know Michaels' famous call "Do you believe in miracles?"; not everyone knows that Ken Dryden was alongside him at the time.

Last week I was shopping for some vintage hockey cards and searched vintage Ken Dryden singles on eBay. I prefer to buy graded vintage, mostly for the peace of mind that the cards haven't been counterfeited or trimmed. Most early Dryden cards are out of my price range in high grade, and since I already have some Topps singles I was hoping to pick up an O-Pee-Chee card.

I found one that looked sharp, and the price was right at just under $30. There was no scan of the back, and I was all but certain that there was a flaw I couldn't see on screen. Those old OPC edges terrify me.

Shortly after adding the card in question to my watch list  I got a notice that it was being discounted to interested parties. Now it was $25 shipped. With tax the card would cost $26.66. I was at work and didn't have much time to deliberate so I hit the "buy" button and paid for it when I got home.

The card arrived in today's mail. I looked at it from all angles and in three kinds of light. I don't see any flaws aside from one slight corner ding. 

For a second I thought that maybe it was a Topps card. But the seller (MainStreetSportscardsVT) knows their stuff. Notice the cartoon on the left? Ken didn't have to wait until his hockey days were through.

I took a bit of a gamble on this card and it paid off. As any skeptic of slabbed cards will tell you, paying a premium for high grades isn't always a good strategy. Take these Dryden singles, for example:

This card sold for $57+shipping (about $62 total.) The top edge is a mess, the bottom edge isn't much better, and there's a big dot on the right side of Dryden's head.

This one is even worse. The edges are a mess, the card appears to be at least slightly diamond cut, and that yellow blob by the 'A' should have been flagged as a print defect. I say this not to insult the card's owner but the card's appraiser - this is an ugly example of a fantastic card. How is this an 8?

I'm very happy with my purchase and I'm definitely going to consider ungraded examples for my Canadiens collection. I still need 1970's-era cards of Guy Lafleur, Steve Shutt, Yvan Cournoyer, Serge Savard, Guy Lapointe, and more. And I don't need to pay $40 for a PSA-slabbed copy of these cards.

On the other hand...this is a pretty good deal at $25....

Should I pull the trigger?

Thanks for reading!





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Summer Sale Six-Pack and more TCDB Trades

Am I the only one who found the COMC Summer Sale a bit unnecessary? Wasn't the Spring Cleaning sale just two months ago? I suppose I shouldn't complain, but I've never been less excited about a COMC sale. There was one card that I really wanted, and it was on sale before the promotion began. Regardless, I charged my credit card the requisite $21.35 or so. 

And then..nothing. My card was charged, I got the confirmation e-mail, but my COMC credit was still $0.00.

I waited, and refreshed .. and waited .. and refreshed. Thirty minutes passed, and I still had three goose eggs staring at me. Where the f*ck is my money?!?!

I e-mailed COMC support. A few minutes later I got what looked like an automated reply confirming that $20 had been added to my account. The next day I got an e-mail from an actual human person explaining that these transactions are not always instant(though they had always been instant for me.)  I guess it's a good thing I wasn't frantically trying to grab a certain card that had just hit the site, or something priced to move in an instant. :/

Anywho...here's the card I'd had my eye on for over a week. As usual, I'm posting about these long before I get them in-hand since I will probably forget to do so in December:

I've been passively collecting Canadiens cards from the 1970's, but as I said before on this blog the main obstacle to this project is Ken Dryden. I didn't think I'd find an affordable card produced during his brief but brilliant career. This might have two strikes against it for some collectors - it's PSA-graded and it's a Topps hockey card. But it was only $9.00.


The next problem I ran into was deciding what to do with the remaining $11. I searched and searched as often as I could, but I was finding cards for other bloggers more than myself.  Finally, I found another card that I had wanted for most of my collecting life:

What?!? Another Topps hockey card?  At least this one's not graded. This is Steve Yzerman's second-year card. I've never been a fan of the Red Wings or Stevie Y but I never disliked them, either. And Yzerman has always had cool looking cards. This one appeals to me for its simplicity; the red and white really pops here. I was thrilled to find a well-centered and (hopefully) sharp-cornered example for just $3.21. 

I'm going to speed this up since I want to discuss TCDB trade packages, too. The rest of my "COMC Blaster" included a P.K. Subban relic for $1.75:

This Upper Deck Compendium Grail Glory insert that I probably paid too much for since it's tied to ePack I couldn't pass up for $2.10:

A serial numbered Brett Favre redemption prize from 1995 Classic Pro Line that was way underpriced IMO.

I was happy to add it to my cart for just $0.65. The cheapest remaining copy is $3.40 on sale.

Finally (and I do mean finally) I can cross the Nikola Jokic RC off my 2015-16 Donruss need list. 

This will be the first/only Jokic card in my small but growing basketball collection. So if anyone has some Jokers they can spare, let me know and I'd be happy to return fire with something you collect.

The $3.05 I spent on this Jokic RC brings my total to $19.76. I've been able to add some challenge credit to the remaining 24 cents so I might not be done with this sale just yet. But that's my "blaster."


Since my last post on Wednesday I received five trade packages in the mail. I'm not going to scan all the cards but I'll summarize them here and show off a few highlights:

I sent sixteen surplus singles from 2016 and 2017 Topps to TCDB user jt58203 for 12 cards: some set fillers for 1994 Fleer, 2018 Topps, 2019 Topps, and three cards for my team PCs.

Roger Bailey was featured in my post about New Haven Ravens. I don't know if I'm going to do any more Connecticut Cards posts. Initially I thought about creating a second blog and writing a very brief summary of a different card every day - but who would read such a blog?

In early June I made an offer to TCDB user Hundomatic for some 2017 Topps Heritage needs. He never responded. I tried again in July, and again he did not respond. That's when I noticed he posted a question in the forum - and another user asked him to respond to their trade offer. So I piled on a bit, and eventually Hundo and I agreed to a deal:

The reason I was so persistent is the Beatles card at the top right; it's the last one I needed to complete the News Flashbacks insert set and the only other user who has one for trade isn't trading.  

One more trade for today. This one comes from user aint56cool (side note: yes it is) Mike is endeavoring to complete every Topps baseball card set all the way back to - you guessed it - 1956. I wanted to help his cause so I offered what I could, which ended up being 14 cards from 1971-1982. In return I got two envelopes. One was a surprise gift:

Pro Set Packers! Unfortunately the only one I needed for my '90s Packers project was Head Coach Lindy Infante - and I didn't fit him into the scan. It was a nice thought, though.

These are the cards I traded for. It wasn't easy to get quality in exchange for quantity, and I really appreciate Mike working with me on this trade. If you're on TCDB and you've got some vintage-ish singles to trade, hit him up.

Here's a closer look at the '71 Scott - the gem of the trade in my opinion:

I've got a few more trades (and a 4 Sharp Corners order) incoming but my next post will feature some sports-related items from my childhood that my mother recently uncovered.


Until then, thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your weekend!



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The Man Who Saved Hockey

About a week ago I was watching Deadspin's latest installment of "Let's Remember Some Guys" (if you haven't seen it, it's a series in which one person opens a pack of old trading cards and the other has to "remember" as much as they can about the players in the pack)

In this episode, a pack of 1991-92 Stadium Club hockey cards were opened. The writer remembered Randy Caryle - a Norris trophy-winning defenseman before her time who would go on to win a Stanley Cup as a coach - but did not know anything about Larry Robinson (who is also a Norris trophy-winning defenseman before her time who would go on to win a Stanley Cup as a coach.) That led to a comment that led to this post:

 

Wait a second...Larry Robinson saved the sport of hockey? My pre-Bettman era knowledge of the NHL is admittedly very limited, so I watched the grainy fight footage. It seems that at the time of this brawl, the NHL was at a crossroad. The Montreal Canadiens were the class of the league in the early 1970s and the late 1970s. In between, the Philadelphia Flyers won back-to-back Stanley Cups by bullying their opponents into submission. If they kept on winning, the rest of the league would be forced to match their brutality - Slap Shot style.

That's where Robinson comes in. By all accounts, Larry was a tough but clean player who didn't instigate. In the first four minutes of this biography, you get a sense that the Canadiens were fighting for the soul of the game:

It took a player like Larry Robinson to show the Flyers - and the hockey world - that the Bullies can be beaten - physically, and on the scoreboard. Montreal swept Philly in the 1976 final, and didn't relinquish the Cup until 1980.

I wasn't born until that summer (and I didn't start watching hockey until the '90s) but I can appreciate the legendary lineup Les Habitants had in those years: Robinson, Serge Savard, and Guy Lapointe on defense. Guy Lafleur, Steve Shutt, Pete Mahovlich, Yvan Cournoyer, Jacques Lemaire, Bob Gainey...and of course Ken Dryden in goal. 

I've got a very small collection of Canadiens cards from this era, and now that I have an appreciation for Robinson's role in shaping hockey history I'll focus on his cards in particular.
Here are a few of my favorites:

Robinson finished his career with the Kings in 1992 - a year before L.A. lost to Montreal in the Stanley Cup Final. 

I thought that Robinson's 1991-92 issues (like the Stadium Club card at the top) were his sunset cards, but he had one card in 1992-93 Bowman.

After his playing career ended, Robinson coached the Devils, Kings, and Sharks. Now a senior consultant with the St. Louis Blues, he has contributed to ten Stanley Cup championship clubs.

This is my most recent Robinson addition. It's one of 302 cards I just received in a blockbuster trade with TCDB user Shaw Racing. Most of them were set fillers and Packers of the 1990s, but I did select a few singles from 1979-80 O-Pee-Chee.

One more Robinson story I almost forgot: when I was in high school my best friends were friends with a big metalhead guy who wore dark, baggy clothes even when we played baseball. His name was - you guessed it - Larry Robinson. But this Larry Robinson was nicknamed "Sheep Dog", not "Big Bird". I'm not quite sure why.

I came across his Facebook profile some years ago, and his profile pic was Robinson's jersey:

Thanks for reading!



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I Love The '70s

I've mentioned before on this and other blogs that there is a very large gap in my sports card collection: The 1970s. I went through a classic rock phase once, when I listened to a lot of Led Zeppelin, Boston, Peter Frampton, The Who, etc.. and I gobbled up '70s movies from dystopian sci-fi like Soylent Green, The Andromeda Strain, and Logan's Run to sports classics like The Bad News Bears, Slap Shot, and Rollerball - which is kind of both.

 Yet somehow sports cards of the 1970s never got top billing in my collection. Until now..

One of my most frequent trade partners has been Bo, author of the blog Baseball Cards Come To Life! (I reisted the urge to call this "Bo knows trade packages"..and it's possible I've used that before.) Bo has been hoarding vintage cards lately, and had plenty of dupes to trade.

I offered up a small lot of '60s Sox featuring my 1969 Topps Tony Conigliaro dupe, which got the ball rolling on a swap. Bo sent me one in return - Hall of Fame skipper Dick Williams, the year he managed the "Impossible Dream" Red Sox of 1967.

 The rest were all swingin' stars of the seventies, baby..

Let's start with some sluggers from the 1970 Topps set. Harmon Killebrew's 49 homers in '69 (giggidy) led the A.L. ...but did you know who led the league in WAR that year?

 Rico Petrocelli, who appears in this trade package four times. Dig it.

 

Fred Lynn finished third in the A.L. in RBI in 1975 but led the league in runs scored, doubles, slugging, and OPS. He was the first player to win Rookie of the Year and league MVP in the same season. Dyno-mite!

 

Nearly every Topps set of the seventies was represented in this trade package. Here's another 1970 card. I don't know much about Dick Schofield (Sr.) but his son's Angels cards popped up often enough when I was a young collector. Apparently he's Jayson Werth's grandfather. Far out, man!

Here's a guy I'm familiar with. Ted Simmons was one of the top catchers of the decade and in my humble opinion, should be a Hall of Famer. This is his second-year card, and one of my favorites in the stack. I'm all out of '70s catch phrases.

I also picked out this '73 Dick Allen over a '70 issue of his..didn't realize from the pic that it was miscut. It's too bad I don't know anyone who collects miscut cards and White Sox.

The colorful 1975 Topps set is represented by the colorful Dock Ellis - who is pictured wearing what appears to be a batting glove. I've never seen a pitcher wear one while pitching before.

Here are some Hall of Famers from the 1976 Topps set, the legendary Ty Cobb..

And a trio of league-leading aces. Jim Palmer won the Cy Young award in '75, leading the A.L. in new-age stats like adjusted ERA+ and WAR..as well as the old-fashioned favorites like Wins, ERA, and shutouts.

The only years that didn't appear in this trade package were 1974 and 1979. It just so happens I made a small PWE trade with TCDB user John5150. John is working on the 1979 Topps and 1984 Topps sets. I sent him a few from each set and got a couple of his dupes in return:

 I also picked out a pair of Sterling Sharpe Packers cards, and some basketball stars:

That's Vince Carter on the SP Authentic card. The Shaq Ultra brings this back to Bo...

...who threw in 100 basketball cards, including a bunch of 1993-94 Ultra needs - and a postcard of the big Aristotle:

This was the first thing I pulled out of the package. According to the text on the back, it was what fans would get back from Shaq instead of a TTM auto:

  

Must have been disappointing for a young fan to receive this instead of a real auto. This trade package, on the other hand, was radical. Thanks for the trade, Bo!

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