The rarest RC of 1991-1992?

Here's a short price list of early 1990s rookie cards:

$0.77 on SportLots

"Super Premium" rookie card of a Hall of Famer. This is the nicest of Jeff Bagwell's four main set(not update/traded) RCs. There's a million of these circulating. 

$1.50 on SportLots

Upper Deck managed to sneak in a "Final Edition" in 1991, and had the foresight to add this future legend. It's the only MLB card depicting Pedro Martinez in his pre-rookie season. There aren't as many of these Final Edition singles as the main set, but they're not hard to find. 

$0.20 on SportLots

Here's the only RC of a Hall of Famer in Upper Deck's inaugural basketball issue, and it's available for the price of a common. 

$2.42 on SportLots

12 year-old me would be crushed to learn that this Shaq rookie card can be acquired so easily. My friends and I ripped open as many $3+ packs as we could get our hands on to try and pull one of these. 

$2.02 - $2.52 (SportLots or COMC)

                                                                               

Score was the only company to include Martin Brodeur in their 1990-91 sets. His two RCs (English and French) are slightly more expensive than Dominik Hasek's RCs but waaaaaayyyyyyy cheaper than Patrick Roy's 1986-87 Topps card. That's because there are millions of 1990-91 Score singles floating around. My mother in law has at least a dozen Brodeur RCs. She could buy a dozen more and still spend less than the cost of a Roy RC.  

$2.73 on COMC

One more Hall of Famer here. Paul Kariya's first appearance in a mainstream set is this basic-looking 1991-92 Upper Deck single. However, this was not a basic card or set. This was a World Junior-only issue released in Czech. And it's still cheaper and more abundant than the inspiration for this post...

I'm pert'near finished with the first ten years of New Jersey Devils cards. There's only a dozen or so singles from 1982-83 to 1991-92 that I don't have, and this Bill Guerin XRC is unfortunately one of them. It's Guerin's only RC, and he did accumulate over 400 NHL goals over a stellar 18 year-career. But he's not a Hall of Famer, and he was never considered a superstar. 

I really didn't like him much during his playing days. He bounced around a lot and often complained about his contract, which is ironic because he's now the General Manager of the Minnesota Wild. He also assembled the US roster that lost to Canada in February's Four Nations tournament. I liked him even less after his pathetic display of groveling to Dear Leader, but I digress. 

Personal opinions aside, this is a Devils card and therefore should be in my collection. It is not, and here's why.

Parkhurst were reeeealll sneaky bastards, even more so than Upper Deck. This 25-card extension was available as a mail-in purchase on series II packs. Per TCDB, it is estimated that less than 15,000 of these sets exist.

Luckily, Guerin is the only Devil among them. 

This is what you can get for about $40+ shipping. Some extra Roy, Ray Bourque, Mario Lemieux, and Brett Hull cards, a playoff recap of the 1991-92 season -- indicating this should count as a 1992-93 release -- and three rookie cards. 

Trent Klatt's card would cost 10 cents in any other format. This one is $2.02 on Sportlots. 

Ray Whitney's RC is an interesting one. The highly underrated forward played parts of 22 seasons in the NHL, accumulating 1,085 career points (more than Guerin) and 385 career goals(more than Eric Lindros). His card should be ten times more than Klatt's but due to the scarcity of the set, they're equal. One - and only one - SL seller has both cards available for two dollars and two pennies apiece. 

He does not have the Bill Guerin. Beckett Marketplace does not have the Bill Guerin. No eBay seller is currently selling an ungraded Guerin (and I'd slide it into a 9-pocket page, so slabbed singles need not apply.)

The only place I could find that has a copy of this card in its intended free-range form... is COMC:

For that price you could buy the Bagwell, Pedro, Mutombo, Shaq, both Brodeurs, and the Czech Kariya. It appears that the Bill Guerin Parkhurst XRC is the scarcest rookie card in any set produced in 1991 or 1992. 

Topps added a High Series to their 1992 flagship and Stadium Club football card sets. Among the half-decent to very good players with RCs in this extension are Cowboys DB Darren Woodson and Packers WR Robert Brooks. 

The Brett Favre single in this set is more expensive than his 1991 Stadium Club RC - both of which would cost more than Bill Guerin's Parkhurst card. But they're not rare. I have both of them, as well as the Brooks RC.

Back on the baseball side, 1992 Fleer Update was a fairly limited release. Mike Piazza's RC is included. Jeff Kent and Tim Wakefield, too:

There's a John Valentin RC in this set that I don't have in my Red Sox collection. It's not available on SportLots or COMC. Could it be as scarce as that Bill Guerin card?  Nope!

Every team collector knows it's practically impossible to track down every single. And now I know that it can be an arduous task trying to track down a basic rookie card of a not-great player from the peak of the overproduction era.

Thanks for reading!  

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Taking Inventory

My card collection is once again organized, and due to time and space restrictions I will probably call it complete once these spaces are filled. I can't plan a whole lot beyond the next month or so, and I can't keep making $10-20 sports card purchases every few days. But I can keep detailed records of what I have room for, so I don't add anything I can't squeeze into a box or binder.

This Kevin Dineen Topps RC arrived Saturday along with some other Whalers and Devils from two of my Sportlots orders. It was one of the last significant base cards I needed to cross off the Whaler list.

Ray Ferraro's Topps RC was the other one. I now have every Hartford Whalers base card (Topps and OPC) from 1982-83 to 1990-91. 

I'm seven cards away from completing 1990-91 Whalers in all mainstream sets (need one Score Canadian and six more Upper Deck French/Canadian.) Unfortunately I only have room for one Whalers card from 1979-80 to 1991-92, and my 1992-93 to 1994-95 Whalers binder is completely full. 

I do have room for 17 Whalers cards from 1995-96 to 1997-98, including Carolina cards where the player is still pictured in green and blue. My original plan was to try to accumulate every Whalers base card from 1979-80 to 1997-98; if I had the time and money to see that through I'd need another binder. 

Here's my Whalers wantlist on an Excel spreadsheet if anyone reading this is interested. (note: this includes cards I have in my collection as part of completed sets only.)

As for my favorite hockey team that still exists, I haven't made a detailed Devils wantlst but I'm pretty close to completing the first nine New Jersey seasons. 1982-83 through 1987-88 are complete, and I need just two O-Pee-Chee cards to complete 1988-89. 1990-91 is a bit tougher, I need 14 cards to finish the year - mostly Score Rookie/Traded and Upper Deck Canadian. 

These cards and others were purchased from Sportlots seller barriere, who issued me a partial refund. Not because anything was out of stock, which was my initial thought. He simply gave me 50% cash back perhaps he felt bad taking two dimes for overproduced Kevin Todd commons lol. That $2.67 refund covered the cost of the Kevin Dineen at the top of this post - which was $2.65 from davekas4. Sportlots is so addicting!!

Out of all my various card collecting project the one that I have the most available space for new additions is/are New Jersey Devils cards. My inserts/parallels/relics boxes for Red Sox, Packers, and Whalers are full -- but I have room for 12-15 more Devils hits.

I have room for 20 Packers base cards - mostly in the 2010s-2020s binders. 
I have room for 20 Whalers cards across all three binders.

Devils 1 (1982-83 to 1992-93) has room for 10 cards.
Devils 4 (2004-05 to 2013-14) has room for 6 cards.
Devils 5 (2014-15 to present) has room for 35 cards. Maybe more if I insert additional 9-pocket pages. 

You'd think that it would be easy for me to acquire cards of Jersey's team since I live in Jersey. But my LCS doesn't sell singles, Target rarely has hockey packs/boxes, and the card shows in town always seem to be on a weekend when Mrs. Collector's health is at her lowest. Probably for the best since I'm guessing those shows are 70% Pokemon and overpriced Yankees stuff anyway.

Very few card bloggers collect hockey and I don't have any connection to a Canadian trader who can get their hands on low-mid end Devils inserts and relics like I can with Red Sox cards. So it's all online ordering for me, which is a total drag. I used to fill my boxes with 30-cent ePack crap from COMC -- but they've completely jacked up the shipping charges, discarding their flat $5.99 rate (which was $4.99 not that long ago) in favor of a per-card charge. I'm probably never ordering from them again. 😢

Next week, I'll update my NFL inventory. I should have the rest of my Packers purchases in hand by then.

Thanks for reading!

 

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The Devils Post

This is the New Jersey Devils square of my card album bookshelf. It's full.
 

I only keep base cards in these binders, and the Devils are the first of my four team collections to reach 100% capacity. Which is a bummer because I still need hundreds of NJ base cards. 

Here's a list of cards I need from just the first ten years of the Devils:

1984-85 O-Pee-Chee #116, 361(upgrade)
1984-85 Topps #87(upgrade)
1985-86 O-Pee-Chee #30, 36, 66, 84, 127, 163, 249
1985-86 Topps #66, 84, 127, 139, 163
1986-87 O-Pee-Chee #10, 37, 208
1986-87 Topps #37, 85
1987-88 O-Pee-Chee #101, 135, 140, 157, 191
1987-88 Topps #58
1988-89 O-Pee-Chee #84, 94
1990-91 O-Pee-Chee #27, 73, 172, 178, 224, 245, 284, 306, 334, 358, 457
1990-91 O-Pee-Chee Premier #8, 15, 67, 113
1990-91 Score Canadian #19, 34, 62, 109, 209, 239, 278, 389, 401, 406, 439
1990-91 Score Traded #43T, 63T, 74T, #82T
1990-91 Topps #30
1990-91 Upper Deck French #66, 88, 161, 267, 288, 290, 311, 441
1991-92 Bowman #271, 279, 284-289, 408
1991-92 Parkhurst #98, 317-324, 444, 453
1991-92 Parkhurst French #98, 99, 100, 102, 103, 316, 318, 320, 324
1991-92 Pinnacle - need most
1991-92 Pinnacle French - need most
1991-92 Pro Set #132
1991-92 Pro Set French - need most
1991-92 Pro Set Platinum #260, 288
1991-92 Score #151
1991-92 Score Canadian need most
1991-92 Score Canadian Bilingual #342, 595
1991-92 Stadium Club #24, 47
1991-92 Upper Deck French - need most
1992-93 Bowman #46, 102, 191, 242
1992-93 Topps #513, 516

But... I have a solution. You see, the fourth binder on the shelf is full - just not with Devils cards.

This album holds my complete sets of 1993 SP Baseball and Football. So if I wanted to add more Devils to my collection, all I have to do is buy another hockey card album and move this one.

That would make room for 560+ new Devils cards. And even if I added the pages from the small binder resting on top, I'd still have room for about 380 Devils cards. The small binder holds my 2020s Devils, and I filled the very last page thanks to my most recent order from Sportlots.

Ugh.. I can't wait to be able to scan again.

Picked up some extended series base for 20 cents each, a fantastic deal considering my LCS sells 12-card packs for $14. I even threw in a couple parallels even though my Devils 'hits' box is nearly full.

These red border parallels were also 20 cents each; I had to have the Zacha in particular because, well...

There's absolutely no reason UD should have made a Devils Zacha card in 2023. He played for the Boston Bruins the prior year - as shown on the back of the card.

Maybe he was traded back to Jersey after the 2022-23 season? That happens once in a while, right?

Nope! Pavel played for Boston last year, too. And he'll do so again this year as he's still on their roster today. Upper Deck just doesn't care anymore.

Anyway, I've got room for about five or six more Devils in the parallels/inserts/relics box (fewer if the cards are thicker) Two in particular that I'm trying to secure are Young Guns rookie cards of NJ's top young defensemen, Luke Hughes and Simon Nemec:

These should set me back about $45-50 for the pair, which isn't bad considering their pedigree. Hughes was the #4 overall pick in 2021 and was a Calder (Rookie of the Year) finalist last year at age 20. Nemec was the #2 overall pick in 2022 and had a solid rookie season last year at age 19.

The Devils drafted another defenseman with the 10th overall pick this summer, and have 1st overall picks Jack Hughes(2019) and Nico Hischier(2017) centering their top two lines. If we don't won the effing Cup by 2028, I swear to Satan...

It shouldn't be hard to find a thick card or two on COMC to fill out the box, if and when I do acquire these. However, there's a third section of Devils cards in my collection -- oddballs. I have a box of team-issued sets, ePack exclusives, Tim Horton's singles, and other things that won't fit in the inserts/parallels box:

If I buy another binder and put these in, then push every mainstream base card back.. I'll have room for about 75 Devils cards. That's a much more manageable total, and would give me room to add newer base cards like these:

2006-07 UD Sweet Shot #63
2006-07 UD Trilogy #60
2007-08 UD Ovation #18, 72, 168, 169
2008-09 UD Ovation #31
2009-10 Upper Deck Ice #9
2010-11 Panini All Goalies #48-51
2010-11 Score #300, 302
2011-12 O-Pee-Chee #112, 337, 389
2011-12 Panini Contenders #66
2011-12 UD Artifacts #9, 59, 78
2012-13 Black Diamond #150
2012-13 Score #291
2013-14 O-Pee-Chee #96, 194, 447
2013-14 Panini Prizm #259, 261, 308, 309, 368, 369
2013-14 Panini Titanium #45
2013-14 Score #669
2014-15 O-Pee-Chee #221, 247, 440
2015-16 O-Pee-Chee #140, 248
2015-16 UD Full Force #39
2015-16 Upper Deck Ice #91
2015-16 Upper Deck Trilogy #95
2016-17 O-Pee-Chee #115, 397
2017-18 Upper Deck Ice #91
2018-19 O-Pee-Chee #262, 329, 431, 466
2019-20 O-Pee-Chee #568
2019-20 Upper Deck Allure #85
2019-20 UD Credentials #35, 45
2020-21 O-Pee-Chee #568
2020-21 SP Signature Legends #128, 290
2021-22 UD Artifacts #91
2021-22 UD Credentials #40
2022-23 O-Pee-Chee Platinum #24, 114, 178
2022-23 Parkhurst Champions #55, 70, 281
2022-23 UD Credentials #49, 50

My consolation prize for missing out on the East Coast National this coming weekend could be driving down the Jersey Shore near Asbury Park to check out a new(to me) card shop. I'll be on the lookout for the above listed cards in particular (I'm posting these lists so I can refer to them later.)


Why am I focusing on Devils cards in the middle of August? Oh... no reason...

Thanks for reading!

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The Road to 666 (& Free Card Friday)

 

My 660th TCDB trade arrived yesterday, courtesy of proxyj99. I sent Jeff 20 duplicates from 2023 Topps and received mostly hockey cards in return.

Some commons for my 2022-23 Upper Deck set build. The only star players here are two dudes I do not like - Johnny Gaudreau and Chris Kreider. Once my latest order from baseballcardstore arrives, I'll have every base card in series 1 (though the Markstrom at the top could be upgraded) and almost every card from series 2. I'm not concerning myself with the gimmicky series 3/extended crapola.

I also got some '80s O-Pee-Chee cards from the great white north:

Want a good score in Immaculate Grid? Use Ray Ferraro as a Hurricane and a Ranger.
Want a great score in Immaculate Grid? Use him as a St. Louis Blue and a Winnipeg Jet.

That off-center Rich Preston card gave me an idea: I should ensure that my 666th TCDB transaction includes Devils! New Jersey Devils, that is. But, since not everyone collects hockey cards (shocker, I know) I expanded the offer to include Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Duke Blue Devils and, if I'm really lucky, Arizona State Sun Devils. Particularly this guy:

I'm hoping to squeeze in two or three more trades by the end of next week. 

 

In other news, I replaced a couple of my wantlist tabs with the Sarah's Surf Shop supercut - so if you missed it, the entire story is now in one place. There's another tab up there, too. I'm sure that one will get more clicks ;)

As a small token of my appreciation for those of you who read my short story, I'm extending an invite to partake in my initial Free Card Friday offering. Matt K., Fuji, and Derek please feel free to claim up to 12 cards on the Free Cards! page.

I've got a COMC order on the way as well, and I'm strongly considering a PSA submission through them. Probably not worth the $24/card fee but I don't buy nearly as much new product as I used to, so there's some room in the budget for 10-15 cards.

Also I should have a major card collecting milestone to celebrate right around my birthday. We'll see if it arrives in time...

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!



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Red Hot Hockey

It's been a rough year for my favorite NFL team. The Green Bay Packers keep pushing out the rotting corpse of Throw Rogan, aka Aaron Rodgers, instead of giving Jordan Love a chance to show what he can do. I'm pretty sure the Pack could go 4-8 with Love, practice squad sensation Kurt Benkert, or the recently retired Ryan Fitzpatrick behind center - but I'm no NFL GM. 

The only three Packer cards I brought home this Black Friday

 
Lucky for me, the '22-23 NHL season is overflowing with hot streaks and milestones, with more on the way.

The Seattle Kraken are in second place, just four points behind the league's second-newest team in Vegas. Seattle is riding a franchise-high six-game winning streak. Mark Giordano was traded to Toronto last year, but Jordan Eberle is still here and scoring at a point-a-game pace. I'm always on the lookout for Kraken cards, like these two cheapies from my recent COMC order. Ron Francis + nautical theme + blue-green color scheme = my favorite western squad. They're basically the Whalers, right?

You know that annoying thing some football people do, where they refer to the Giants and Jets by their proper home of New Jersey - but only when they suck. And now that both teams are in playoff position those same football talkers claim they've earned the "New York" name? Yeah, it's bull crap. If the team plays in New York, they're New York. If the team plays in New Jersey, they're New Jersey.

And right now, the NHL's best team is the New Jersey Devils. Try taking credit for this, NYC (No You Can't) The Devils have the same amount of points and wins as the Boston Bruins (ooh, I bet NY is just seething)  but the Bruins have one less loss, so technically they're on top. Both teams have had incredible winning streaks this season, and neither squad shows any signs of slowing down.

 I picked up a few Devils cards recently:

 

These were COMC purchases. I grabbed the clear-cut single in the center for $2.25, sold it for $5.70, and then bought it again for $4.00. So technically I paid 55 cents for it?

I paid slightly more for this bad boy:

Most of my Young Guns rookies were sold to fund the 1956 Topps set build, but I had to have a high-grade RC of Jack Hughes, the Devils' top scorer and franchise player. This was one of three high-end cards I picked up after selling a chunk of my Brett Favre collection. Perhaps I'll detail that eBay 'trade' in my next post.

Some more hockey pickups here, including a quartet of Alex Ovechkin cards. The Great Eight just broke Wayne Gretzky's career goals record... well, one of them, anyway.

This Tim Horton's single just arrived in a trade with TCDB user Galtview. I got a bunch of Blue Jays and Whalers in the trade, too although one card was missing.

Back to the COMC box. I had to jump on this Exquisite Ovechkin card celebrating his 700th career goal...

...which he tallied against the Devils, way back when they were lousy.

Here's a few more hockey cards I ordered on COMC over the past few weeks:

I've got more of these incoming. I'm halfway done with the Uncommon Rookies portion of the 2003-04 Pristine set.

Pretty Prizm Parallels are pretty much the only way I'll purposely purchase Rangers and Jets cards.

Cheap ePack Whalers.

Not-so cheap Whaler (this one was $2.25)

Cheap ePack tallboys for my 6-pocket pages.


 

And finally, 6 more Paiges 😍😊

Thanks for reading!



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That's Not Wright

 Kingston Center Shane Wright was projected to be the first overall selection in the 2022 NHL Draft. 

The Montreal Canadiens owned the 1st overall pick, while the New Jersey Devils had the second pick. Most mock drafts had Wright going #1 to Montreal, followed by Slovak winger Juraj Slafkovsky going #2 to the Devils.

 

New Jersey has selected #1 overall twice in recent years, taking centers in 2017 (Nico Hischier) and 2019 (Jack Hughes). Devils fans would have been happy to have a 6' 4" 230 lb winger fall to them at number two... but Montreal flipped the script and selected him with the first pick.

It's rare for a consensus #1 pick to not go #1 overall, in any draft. There didn't seem to be much dispute over Shane Wright's standing as the top prospect available - though he wasn't seen as a generational superstar such as Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews. Scouts compared Wright to Patrice Bergeron, a future Hall of Famer who excels on both ends of the ice but has never been a top-tier scoring star.

Perhaps Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald could have traded the pick, acquiring a veteran scoring winger to pair with Hischier and/or Hughes. Instead the Devils used the second overall pick to select.. not Shane Wright.

Perhaps Simon Nemec will develop into a franchise cornerstone like Victor Hedman or Drew Doughty - two other defensemen taken #2 overall. Perhaps Fitzgerald will regret passing on Wright, who was selected #4 overall by Seattle.

Far too many NHL "experts" assumed that New Jersey had no need for the highly-touted centerman. The Devils are set at center was the common refrain. No one even paid lip service to the idea that a team that missed the playoffs in 9 of the last 10 seasons should take the best player available.

 

Jack Hughes is a star in the making. He's also 21 years old and hasn't played a full season in the NHL. Hischier - who was also seen as a two-way center in the Bergeron/Kopitar/Toews mold - just finished his fifth season, in which he set career highs with 21 goals and 60 points. 

New Jersey had one player in the NHL's top 50 point scorers - left winger Jesper Bratt. Hughes didn't finish among the league's top 100 point producers. Hischier didn't rank among the NHL's top 100 goal scorers.

But we don't need Shane Wright. We're all set at the center position.

Here's my rebuttal to that, if the 'best player available' mantra doesn't work for you.

In 2004, the Pittsburgh Penguins had the 2nd overall pick. They selected Evgeni Malkin, a center.
In 2005, Pittsburgh won the lottery and selected 1st overall. They chose Sidney Crosby, a center.
In 2006, the Penguins again had the 2nd overall pick, which they used to select Jordan Staal.. a center. 

 
In 2008 the Penguins reached the Stanley Cup final. The next year they were Cup champs. Who were the top three scorers on that championship squad?

Want a more recent example of a team drafting three centers in the top three? Let's look at Edmonton:

In 2011, the Oilers had the #1 overall pick. They selected Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, a center.
In 2014, the Oilers had the #3 overall pick. They selected Leon Draisaitl, who is also a center.
In 2015, the Oilers once again picked first, selecting Connor McDavid. Guess what position he plays?

Edmonton hasn't won a Stanley Cup or even made it to the final with their haul of high draft picks. However, they were in the Western Conference final this past season. Three of their top four point producers were, in order: McDavid, Draisaitl, and Nugent-Hopkins.

Let me be clear here - I am not comparing Hughes/Hischier to Crosby/Malkin or McDavid/Draisaitl. Sid, Geno, Leon, and Connor have all won NHL MVP trophies and scoring titles.That's my point.

Hughes and Hischier are not on that level yet, and it's unlikely they ever will be. So why would a non-playoff team pass on a prospect like Shane Wright, whose ceiling is higher than Hischier's by all accounts, simply because they're all centers? Nico would be a heck of a #3, just like Staal was and Hopkins is. 

If scouts or GMs or talking heads want to make the case that Simon Nemec has more upside as a future top-pair defenseman, or that Wright had plateaued - perhaps even regressed - in his draft year, I can't argue those points. But the notion that New Jersey doesn't need another talented center doesn't make sense to me.

I'm happy the Kraken selected Shane Wright 4th overall, not just because they're my 'girlfriend' team but because Philly had the fifth pick  😯

Here's hoping that both the Devils and the Kraken got the .. right guy. Sorry, I had to!

 

Thanks for reading!


 

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