OT: Senators Hockey Cards

[aragorn]

True story:

Day after Karlsson scores his first NHL goal, he comes into the theatre I used to be a manager at to see Avatar.

I see him in the box office looking sort of confused, so I waved him over to Guest Services. Turns out he wanted to see the 3D version, but bought the 2D show by accident.

The computer was being used to sell like $1000 in gift certificates so we chatted for a little while until the computer was free.

I congratulated him on his first NHL goal, and told him about how after seeing his 1st pre-season game, I went out and ordered his jersey, and had him sign it during a Bighamton game. (Funny/longer story there that he got a good laugh at)

After I sort out his tickets he asks if I will be around when his movie starts. I tell him yes, and he tells me that he has something at his house he wants to give me. I tell him it's unnecessary, but he insists.

A couple hours later, he came back with two signed rookie cards for me, gives me a wink and goes to see his movie.

Will forever be one of my favourite people on the planet.

Nice story. Some hockey players are really good people. I especially like that Turris went to the Condors Banquet after scoring the GWG rather than out celebrating, it tells you something of the character of the guy.

 

[atmx093]

I'm up for some trading as well!

This is a link to my traders:
Bucket

And a link to my personal collection (there are some traders in there too):
Personal Collection

And proud owner of this jewel:

 

[Big Papi]

I'm up for some trading as well!

This is a link to my traders:
Bucket

And a link to my personal collection (there are some traders in there too):
Personal Collection

And proud owner of this jewel:

you got some nice high end cards there!

 

[Xspyrit]

That is pretty cool, what's the ballpark value?

/edit/ just noticed your 2nd line, so you dont know, whoops.

Yeah, value vary from year to year, IIRC I paid it like 1300$ or 1600$ (would have to look it p in my files)... but it was in ~2010, and since Hedman and Karlsson became top-3 D-men so hard to say now...

So sweet!!

Thanks!

I wouldn't sell them unless you need the money/aren't interested in them anymore because a lot of those might be very hard/next to impossible to get again.

I don't know how Karlsson's other cards are doing, but his Young Gun is sky rocketing. This is probably a safe time to sell them, but he's a hard player to predict. I'd guess his Young Guns might go back down a bit once Ottawa is eliminated (and the run on his other cards) but I don't think it'll ever be down to where you can get a Karlsson YG for 20 bucks after all this hype. If the Sens win the cup, they'll probably continue to go up for a little bit longer. It is hard to tell if they will peak in the playoffs or if his YG will become one of the few 100+ YGs long term ala Toews, Kane, Price, Crosby, and probably McDavid+Matthews.

That's an insane collection.

Thanks a lot, I was crazy to put this together lol

Problem is I might need the money to buy a more expensive business. The more cash down you have, the easier it gets when the time comes to convince the bank.

But I am not sure what I am going to do as I have a lot of other cards to sell anyway, problem is it takes a lot of time and time is something I don't have much these days

I have also a Cowen PC, Lehner PC, Zibanejad PC, Regin PC, etc... Damn Jared.

If I was richer, I would never look to sell them.

is this like Kijiji? Can I offer you a few daigle rookies or a complete 90-91 proset, ah, set for it?

awesome card man, I'd for sure hold on to it.

Well, I was going to contact you so we can for trade #2. I'd be very interested in that pro set series II if you have it

You can get at least 2Gs for that.

I'd hope more!

 

[great1]

I too have some shields. The first is much more relevant now then when it was first released with Stalberg and Karlsson now teammates -

and my favourite card of all time -

 

[Engineer]

Do you guys get these super rare cards in packs or do you buy them from collectors?

edit/ with 1 of 1 on the card, i assume you bought them, how much did those cost great1?

 

[danielpalfredsson]

Do you guys get these super rare cards in packs or do you buy them from collectors?

edit/ with 1 of 1 on the card, i assume you bought them, how much did those cost great1?

My guess would be that most people would have purchased these 1 of 1 cards on the secondary market after other people pull them and sell them. The cards being posted here that are 1 of 1s are from really high end products, some that cost over 500 dollars for a single "pack" of cards.

That, or they participate in what are called group breaks. Group breaks are where an online store will divide up the cost of a box or case of a product into multiple slots. A common format would be one slot for each NHL team. This way, people who specifically collect for one team can get a case worth of cards of that team without having to pay 1000s for a case. Usually, the more popular teams are more expensive. Ottawa is a cheaper team to collect for.

Most UD boxes are awful value wise. Unless you're cognizant that you are gambling, and would rather gamble on hockey cards than buy scratch tickets or go to the Casino, there's no reason to consistently buy sealed product as anything other than a fun treat where you know there's a good chance you're gonna walk away with 20 percent of what you spent in value. With this in mind, the best way to collect is to buy the individual cards you want. Hockey cards are extremely cheap compared to more popular sports. Your average low-mid end box is about 100-150 Canadian and will get you 1-3 autographs/jersey cards and maybe a few rookies. Outside of really big names like Orr, Gretzky, or Crosby, you can buy a majority of lower to mid end auto and rookie cards for anywhere from 1 to 10 dollars....so it's pretty easy to imagine with $150 bucks, you can get much better value buying singles than boxes. You can probably buy autographs of every single current Senators player other than Karlsson for an average of 3-4 bucks a card on the secondary market. Even Thomas Chabot who is one of the hottest rookies the Sens have had in a while, you can pick up an autographed card of for 10 bucks on the low end.

 

[Big Papi]

My guess would be that most people would have purchased these 1 of 1 cards on the secondary market after other people pull them and sell them. The cards being posted here that are 1 of 1s are from really high end products, some that cost over 500 dollars for a single "pack" of cards.

That, or they participate in what are called group breaks. Group breaks are where an online store will divide up the cost of a box or case of a product into multiple slots. A common format would be one slot for each NHL team. This way, people who specifically collect for one team can get a case worth of cards of that team without having to pay 1000s for a case. Usually, the more popular teams are more expensive. Ottawa is a cheaper team to collect for.

Most UD boxes are awful value wise. Unless you're cognizant that you are gambling, and would rather gamble on hockey cards than buy scratch tickets or go to the Casino, there's no reason to consistently buy sealed product as anything other than a fun treat where you know there's a good chance you're gonna walk away with 20 percent of what you spent in value. With this in mind, the best way to collect is to buy the individual cards you want. Hockey cards are extremely cheap compared to more popular sports. Your average low-mid end box is about 100-150 Canadian and will get you 1-3 autographs/jersey cards and maybe a few rookies. Outside of really big names like Orr, Gretzky, or Crosby, you can buy a majority of lower to mid end auto and rookie cards for anywhere from 1 to 10 dollars....so it's pretty easy to imagine with $150 bucks, you can get much better value buying singles than boxes. You can probably buy autographs of every single current Senators player other than Karlsson for an average of 3-4 bucks a card on the secondary market. Even Thomas Chabot who is one of the hottest rookies the Sens have had in a while, you can pick up an autographed card of for 10 bucks on the low end.

Awesome post! And I agree 100%. I picked up a Da Costa card that was both signed & had a piece of a jersey for under $1.50. On the flipside, I've been trying to get any Henry Burris NFL card (I don't care what card) off comc for a while, and the lowest I've seen is like $50 USD.

I don't buy boxes, way too expensive for what I am collecting (i.e. Sens cards). much more cost effective to buy via ebay where people do Team sets of base cards for $2-3 bucks, and use comc for non-base cards & RC's. Chabot's rookie is going for less than $4 right now. I picked up Wideman, Driedger RC's for like 35 cents, & sprung $2.25 for a Harpur RC in a higher end set.


My card blog:
http://senscardcollector.blogspot.ca/

 

[Big Papi]

Someone else asked about Card shops in Ottawa, there are a few. Just wondering if anyone has any reviews or recommendations?

I've been to Gamebreakers on Baseline, and they seem pretty nice and have lots of cards, and some cool eye candy in the display case.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

Awesome post! And I agree 100%. I picked up a Da Costa card that was both signed & had a piece of a jersey for under $1.50. On the flipside, I've been trying to get any Henry Burris NFL card (I don't care what card) off comc for a while, and the lowest I've seen is like $50 USD.

I don't buy boxes, way too expensive for what I am collecting (i.e. Sens cards). much more cost effective to buy via ebay where people do Team sets of base cards for $2-3 bucks, and use comc for non-base cards & RC's. Chabot's rookie is going for less than $4 right now. I picked up Wideman, Driedger RC's for like 35 cents, & sprung $2.25 for a Harpur RC in a higher end set.


My card blog:
http://senscardcollector.blogspot.ca/

COMC is great for picking up cards. Especially anything with ePack as there are a lot of people who rip and flip who drive down the price of ePack cards on that site compared to eBay. UD is now putting higher end sets like SPGU and Ultimate on ePack which is great if you're a buyer of singles, bad if you're paying to crack boxes.

Burris' NFL cards are a pretty niche item so you'd have a pretty hard time finding them. Seems like the type of card that would have a limited audience so if you find one at auction, you might get it for cheap, but are hard enough to find that anybody holding them that knows what they have could ask a high BIN price. Keep an eBay alert set, maybe you'll get lucky....

Someone else asked about Card shops in Ottawa, there are a few. Just wondering if anyone has any reviews or recommendations?

I've been to Gamebreakers on Baseline, and they seem pretty nice and have lots of cards, and some cool eye candy in the display case.

Miraj Trading is a good local store price wise. I've never visited their store, but online they tend to have pretty competitive prices at least when compared to other Canadian card shops.

 

[Engineer]

My guess would be that most people would have purchased these 1 of 1 cards on the secondary market after other people pull them and sell them. The cards being posted here that are 1 of 1s are from really high end products, some that cost over 500 dollars for a single "pack" of cards.

That, or they participate in what are called group breaks. Group breaks are where an online store will divide up the cost of a box or case of a product into multiple slots. A common format would be one slot for each NHL team. This way, people who specifically collect for one team can get a case worth of cards of that team without having to pay 1000s for a case. Usually, the more popular teams are more expensive. Ottawa is a cheaper team to collect for.

Most UD boxes are awful value wise. Unless you're cognizant that you are gambling, and would rather gamble on hockey cards than buy scratch tickets or go to the Casino, there's no reason to consistently buy sealed product as anything other than a fun treat where you know there's a good chance you're gonna walk away with 20 percent of what you spent in value. With this in mind, the best way to collect is to buy the individual cards you want. Hockey cards are extremely cheap compared to more popular sports. Your average low-mid end box is about 100-150 Canadian and will get you 1-3 autographs/jersey cards and maybe a few rookies. Outside of really big names like Orr, Gretzky, or Crosby, you can buy a majority of lower to mid end auto and rookie cards for anywhere from 1 to 10 dollars....so it's pretty easy to imagine with $150 bucks, you can get much better value buying singles than boxes. You can probably buy autographs of every single current Senators player other than Karlsson for an average of 3-4 bucks a card on the secondary market. Even Thomas Chabot who is one of the hottest rookies the Sens have had in a while, you can pick up an autographed card of for 10 bucks on the low end.

Interesting, thanks for the details, I see what you mean I just looked at the Upper Deck "pack" of 6 cards that is $150, never knew there was such a thing.

 

[Big Papi]

Interesting, thanks for the details, I see what you mean I just looked at the Upper Deck "pack" of 6 cards that is $150, never knew there was such a thing.

I don't think I could ever justify that.

if you thinking about getting back into it, you could always start with upper decks e-packs. It's free to join and you can open one free pack of cards (3 cards) per day. They have different sets available for the free packs, and you can trade with other people online with the digital cards. You can turn the cards into physical cards by getting 10 of the same card and combining them. You then have a few options to ship those physical cards out if you choose. I've been doing this for a few months now and have managed to trade my way to a Thomas Chabot RC, and a Craig Anderson memorabilia card without dropping a cent on buying e-packs.

My card blog:
http://senscardcollector.blogspot.ca/

 

[Xspyrit]

Do you guys get these super rare cards in packs or do you buy them from collectors?

edit/ with 1 of 1 on the card, i assume you bought them, how much did those cost great1?

Ebay

I hate buying packs. I did when I came back to collecting in 2006 (after like 12 years out) and found out quickly that it was not worth it. Unless you're really lucky (I did get a Malkin 1/1 once though lol)

 

[danielpalfredsson]

Not so much for high end cards, but COMC is a great place for buying individual cards. Especially jersey/auto cards. It is basically a giant warehouse that houses multiple sellers cards, so unlike with eBay you can buy from multiple individual sellers but only pay a single shipping cost while also waiting until you accrue enough cards you want before shipping.

My only advice would be to cross check any cards on eBay to see what they have sold for because COMC is sort of its own environment and cards can sometimes be listed at much higher prices (or sometimes lower) than on eBay. Although, there isn't anything wrong with paying a bit extra on COMC for a single card since you make that back through saving on combined shipping.

One upside to being a small market team is that autos/jersey/rookie cards of our players are super cheap. Majority of the players, you can buy autos/jersey cards for 1-5 dollars on places like ebay/comc. The only major exceptions might be Thomas Chabot right now because he is the hottest rookie we've had for a while, Daniel Alfredsson who Upper Deck autos will be 10-20 bucks, and Erik Karlsson whose cheapest autos would be in the 20-40 range.

Ebay

I hate buying packs. I did when I came back to collecting in 2006 (after like 12 years out) and found out quickly that it was not worth it. Unless you're really lucky (I did get a Malkin 1/1 once though lol)

Especially now that there is only one company holding the license (Upper Deck) with no competition, packs are garbage. There are a few rare exceptions where a product gets discounted and if you really like the inserts/subsets they can be decent buys, but especially for someone collecting a single team (and a cheap team to collect for at that) packs make no sense. Pretty much the house always wins with packs. Someone just interested in building a collection of autographs/rookies/jerseys or whatever could take the $150 they'd spend on a mid range hobby box and go on eBay or COMC and buy anywhere from 20-40 lower-mid end Sens hits.

There's nothing wrong with buying packs if people enjoy gambling and that's what they wanna do. But if a person's goal is to build the best collection possible, singles are the way to go.

 

[Engineer]

This may seem like a silly question, but what do you all store your cards in to keep them in pristine condition?

 

[tony d]

Don't have any Ottawa Senators cards. In fact I gave up collecting cards the yr. before they came into the league. Still some great cards for sure, should start collecting again I suppose.

 

[danielpalfredsson]

This may seem like a silly question, but what do you all store your cards in to keep them in pristine condition?

It depends on the cards. I don't really have any high end cards like the some of the ones shown in this thread. My most expensive cards are probably worth 10s of dollars, not 100s like the Shield cards shown by other posters.

For regular auto, jersey/patch cards, or higher end rookie cards you can use a penny sleeve+top loader. (google both). Penny sleeves come in packs of 100 for a buck, top loaders are generally about 25 cents each give or take. You can buy stands for toploaders if you want to display cards. There are different thicknesses of cards which require different sizes of top loaders....so it can get a bit confusing at times. But most lower-mid level cards will fit in the same size top loader. It's mostly higher end cards like The Cup, or really thick patch cards that require bigger top loaders.

For base cards, which are the cards that make up the main set, it doesn't really matter. I wouldn't even bother with penny sleeves for them because they aren't valuable enough to worry about slight damage. I throw mine in a binder with those 9 card sheets, but I rarely buy packs or boxes so I don't have a lot. You can also buy what are called "500 count" boxes, and you can just throw them in there if you need to store them in the closet although at that point I'm not sure what the point is in having them boxed away.

You can pick up "hard" cases, that open/close either with a screw or a magnet. The magnet ones are called "1 touches". These are often used for higher end cards. If you're collecting cards worth 1-10 dollars, you probably don't want to bother with these unless you really like them for display purposes.

I'm still in sort of the early stages of collecting, and a lot of my cards are still sitting in my COMC account waiting to be shipped so my setup isn't fully realized but I mostly stick to toploaders w/stands. I don't really have a permanent setup at this point, but eventually I'd probably pick up a large DVD shelf or something as that seems to be a good way to display toploaded cards since it is only a few inches deep.