Loaded Hockey Box from Cardsone

I been sitting on this box since I got it in June. I ended up being too busy and barely got the time go into full detail til now. Middle of the year I was going through one of my boxes and found Dollar Tree packs from a company called Cardsone. I notice they have a website so I checked them out and, lo and behold, they are still around. They are selling packs Dollar Tree used to sell to boxes and lots from various sports to comic books and supplies. I decide to order from them including a loaded hockey card box. There was few problems as few of the items I ordered were out of stock. Even though I wasn't charged for out of stock items I wish they updated their site daily to not include them. On to the loaded hockey card box it contains 100 cards, 10 packs, and 10 cards from 1970-1979.

The packs I received in the box are 1990-91 Pro Set, 1990-91 Bowman, 1990-91 Upper Deck, 1991-92 Score, 1991-92 Pro Set Platinum, 1991-92 Pro Set french edition, 1992-93 Pro Set, 1993-94 Topps Premier, 2003-04 In the Game Toronto Star, and 2006-07 Victory. You can find most of my card pulls on A Pack to be Named Later with links to it. I counted the cards and I end up with total of 125 cards. Looks like I got extra loaded box. Some of the cards have dinged corners or scuffed up. For the 10 vintage cards I got the following:

1972-73 Topps: Serge Bernier and Bob Baun

1975-76 Topps: Tom Williams, Phil Russell, Ross Lonsberry, Gary Dornhoefer. Not bad on Williams who was part of 1960 US hockey team that won the last gold for US before Miracle on Ice.

1976-77 Topps: Bill Clement, Curt Ridley (X2). I got two of Ridley's card. A good pull as in Clement who was two-time All-Star. Known to hockey card collectors for the infamous horrible Capitals airbrush on 1975-76 card.

1978-79 Topps: Ron Sedlbauer

Things with those cards they are in excellent to near-mint condition which pretty good consider that era of cards. These are 115 modern day era cards I got from the box. Instead posting everything I going to post examples of what I received.

89-90 O-Pee-Chee: Tony Hrkac, Gary Suter, Peter Stastny, Brian Bellows, Aaron Broten, Bob Brooke. Box starts with cards from solid OPC set.

1990-91 Pro Set: Doug Bodger, Dave Taylor, Trevor Linden, Bob McCammon.

1990-91 O-Pee-Chee: Neal Broten

1990-91 Topps: Paul Reinhart. Same design as OPC but Topps had fewer cards than OPC.

1990-91 Upper Deck: Wayne Gretzky hologram sticker, Joe Murphy, Greg Adams, Mats Sundin. Gretzky hologram would have sold alot back in the day. It's Mats first year card who was chosen first overall in 1989 draft.

1990-91 Score: Jyrki Lumme. Troy Loney, Mats Sundin

1991-92 Classic : Marcel Cousineau. Only played 26 games in four seasons.

1991-92 O-Pee-Chee: Allen Pedersen, New York Rangers, Calgary Flames, David Reid

1991-92 Score: Brian Benning, Peter Bondra

1991-92 Pro Set: Bob Sweeney, Jeremy Roenick, Russ Courtnall, Brian Skrudland, Denis Savard, Vincent Damphousse, Theo Fleury (All-Star), Dave Gagner (All-Star). Ace Bailey Benefit Game, Sylvain Turgeon. 10 cards from this set. Gagner card was heavily dinged up on the corner and the card.

 

1991-92 Pro Set Platiunm: Craig Billington, James Belushi. According to Jim he's a Blackhawks fan

1991-92 Upper Deck: Markus Ketterer, Benoit Hogue, Ken Baumgartner. Ketterer had two season stint in North America playing AHL before returning back Sweden. Good shot Hogue's card as his jersey getting pulled on

1991-92 Pinnacle: Kevin Todd. French edition of the card.

1992-93 Classic Prospects: Dallas Drake, Todd Nelson, Terry Chitaroni

1992-93 Classic Draft Picks: Sergei Klimovich (X3), Denny Felsner. I got three of Klimovich cards in this box. Felsner trying emulate Bobby Orr

1992-93 O-Pee-Chee Premier: Toronto Maple Leafs

1992-93 Topps Stadium: Checklist

1992-93 Upper Deck: Darryl Sydor, Chris Lindberg, Kelly Buchberger, Joe Mullen, Patrick Roy, Neal Broten, Derian Hatcher, World Championship checklist, Joe Juneau (X2), Dean McAmmond, Tommy Sjodin. Dozen cards from this set including two of Joe Juneau. Roy can sure leap high.

1993-94 Classic Prospects: Jason Arnott, Alexandre Daigle, Chris Gratton, Jim Montgomery, Derek Plante (X2), John LeClair, Colin Chin, Jason Smith (X2), Tyler Wright, Yan Kaminsky, Ed Jovanovski, Brett Lindros, David Cooper, Cammi Granato, Erin Witten (X3), Manon Rheaume. This is equivalent of 1990-91 Bowman hockey in Fairfield hockey repack. Got 20 cards from this set counting the repeats. Manon card would fetch big money for a while. Cammi Granato cards would go up for a while after US woman hockey won the gold medal in 98 Winter Olympics. Classic would re-use Arnott photo for their Four-Sports set

1993-94 Classic Four-Sports: Grant Marshall. This set consist of prospects from baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Marshall would go on having a 11 year career

1993-94 Parkhurst: Brent Fedyk

1993-94 Fleer Ultra: Stephane Richer, Patrik Carnback, Dean Evason (X5), Petr Klima, Darren Puppa. Yes I got five cards of Evason.I got a TTM on him back in 2014.

1993-94 Pinnacle: Greg Johnson

 

1993-94 Score: Pavol Demitra

 

1994-95 Classic Hockey: Andria Hunter (insert), Ryan Smyth (X2), Clayton Beddes, David Vyborny. Another repeat card as in Ryan Smyth

1994-95 Score: Gaetan Duchesne

1994-95 Parkhurst: Randy Wood

1994-95 Pinnacle: Cam Neely

1994-95 Topps Premier: Steve Konowalchuk, Sergei Nemchinov

1995-96 Collector's Edge: Jamie Allison. I never heard of this set before. First card I got off them and I bought lots of Fairfield hockey repacks when it was available

1995-96 Upper Deck Swedish Elite: Mattias Ohlund (X3), Ulf Sandstrom (X2), Peter Eriksson, Per-Erik Eklund. Now cards I really never seen before and first time getting my hands on it. Upper Deck goes to Europe with release of Swedish Elite League cards. I got repeats on Ohlund and Sandstrom. All three cards were set inserts. Ohlund had 13 year career in NHL. Sandstrom never made the trek across the pond. Eriksson played for 89-90 Oilers in his only NHL season. Eklund is a base card. His only trip to North America is 97-98 season playing in the AHL. One of opposing teams is sponsored by McDonalds.

1995-96 Upper Deck Be a Player: Petr Nedved. Another set I never seen before. Licensed by NHLPA but not the NHL. The logos are airbrushed off.

1996-97 Donruss: Todd Marchant

This was fun box go through but is it worth $20 price? As long you in it for fun and not attempt to flip for a profit. Outside the vintage cards most of the cards and packs going around the junk wax era. No a single card from 2000 and only two packs are from 2000. I got 24 repeats out of 125 cards sent to me. I wonder how they randomly stuck cards in their loaded box. Several things on Cardsone. Company isn't up to date on their stock which is frustrating when you make a purchase only get an e-mail do they not have it. There been complaints for the lack of service as they been hard to reach. There is their website now. They updated from the last time I visited and its a giant mess to navigate through. Pretty much order at your own risk.

....And One Day They'll Stop Signing For Free Through Mail

Agent Mike Maguire posted a photo on Facebook few days ago. The photo was over four years of unopen fan mail and autograph requests from former MLB All-Star pitcher Dave Stieb who doing a private signing. Both went through the box and what they found was alarming.

Photo provided by Mike Maguire

About half of the mail contains 8 or more cards with some at 10-12 cards. In fact one request package contains 17 cards and 10 index cards wanting 2 or 3 inscriptions. The sender sent the request TWICE! About 15% wanted Stieb to chip for return postage. A dozen sent him same generic copied autograph request from the internet instead sending a handwritten note. Three letters contained player's name crossed out and replaced it with Dave Stieb. The amount that sent him a donation to sign? 1%. Dave Stieb said he stopped signing because he gets taken advantage. In his long out of print book he gave his stance on not signing when someone took out a loan under his name using index card he autographed. I don't blame him one bit. Sooner or later the player, whether current or former, will stop signing through mail for free altogether mainly at fault of the collectors. The collectors have gotten too greedy with their autograph requests bombarding with multiple cards and items to sign. The through mail autograph requests have became too much and taken up the player's time that some have gone to Past Pros or hire an agent to set up private signings to limit the amount of items to be signed. Or another case, the player chose the route of no longer signing at all. You know who stopped a signing not long ago after years of being "automatic" autograph return? Former Astros player Denny Walling. He was accommodating to fan's autograph request through mail. What made him stopped signing few months ago when someone sent him NINE cards to get signed. According to SCN he returned them unsigned and have stopped taking items. Way a go! Some collectors are ungrateful complaining about receiving only one back signed despite sending multiples to the player. I'll be glad to get at least one back signed. Some collectors are cheapskates complaining when a player put a price tag on signature per item even if its for donation or low as a $1. Collectors have set off a chain reaction thanks to sites like SCN. Users posting success rates of autographs through mail as well amount items sent and got back signed it. If they see collector got back over 4 or more items back signed other collectors will likely follow suit. Often the collector will re-pay the player's free generosity by putting the signed item on Ebay or being advertised to be sold on various Facebook autograph groups. I'll be not surprised if up to 70-80% of players, former or current, go through private signing route hooking themselves up with an agent instead giving away free autographs through mail in the future. At the end it will be greedy collectors fault on ruining autographs through the mail. It takes one autograph collector to ruin it for everyone.

Late Grand Slam Arrival From Topps

When Topps offer this card from Topps Now series I knew I had to get it. I did, but waited for a month to arrive. It came in the mail few days ago and this what I received.

This card featured San Diego Padres hitting grand slams in four straight games, a first in MLB history. All of them were against Texas Rangers in a series as Fernando Tatis, Jr. first to tee'd of them in first game of the series. After Rangers perceived Tatis grand slam being disrespectful during a blowout made the Padres super motivated to hit grand slams in the remaining games of the series. At the end of the series Padres showed the Rangers on who's their Padre. I checked the print run of the card and its at 2133....and I owned one of them.