Booo-urns and a Surprise

 Take one look at this card, and it's hard to recognize the man...

Since these days the on again off again growth of his awesome beard is something he is recognized quickly for. This card is just after his making the jump into the NHL in 2003-04 - such a young guy on this card.

Esche here with his second of two stops in the NHL (after the first few seasons with Phoenix. He played about half of the games for Philly in 2003-04 and 2005-06 before that reduced the following year and he was done in the NHL.

Three needed base cards later, and that's the 5 for today!

15 Packs, 75 Cards, 274 Points

With that pack done - I recently go a surprise package from fellow collector Jeff Scott who has been nice enough to send some cards my way on occasion. I try feebly to send enough back to be as fair and equal as possible and Jeff collects the Boston Bruins, so always keeping an eye of for cards to send him. That said, let's see what I have and what I have to trade off for cards for Jeff )there's always a few of those I try to turn into Bruins).

Jeff knows that inserts, serial numbered cards, autos will all have a place in my collection (in addition to Toronto cards), so he sent along these...

90s parallels galore. I have some Electric Ice parallels, and a couple of the Rink Collection Pinnacle, and other Ultra Gold Medallion set parallels, but these are the first gold medallion parallels from 1995-96. As over the top as these gold medallion designs are, I have to say, I really like them. It's so over the top, it's good I guess.

SNs galore here. In addition to the ones you can see, the Osgood is SN out of 299, the Bonk Extreme LTD parallel is SN 49, and Rucchin is SN 250. Also have to mention, the die cuts always excite me too, just because they stand out and are unusual.

Speaking of standing out...

Holy auto attack! Jeff has sent a couple others my way from these sets - seems to have a bunch of these late 90s, early 2000 In The Game set autos. The products of this time are not generally my favourite - never was a huge In The Game fan, but the fact the autographs are all on card here, is amazing.

Can't pass on sharing the other keepers...

Of the star base cards sent, Jagr is the one I need as far as sets I am keeping.

Three new Halladay cards for the collection. Jeff previously sent me a good number of Roy cards - he probably is responsible for about half the Roy cards I have actually, which is great.

This was a surprise - an unopened pack which I wasn't expecting. This two card (Roenick is on the back) pack is a Kellogg's cereal pack from the early 90s. I have a couple of the cards, but surprised to get an unopened pack - sweet! Actually, should be sweet with all the sugary cereal it spent time with.

Last keeper...

One of, I believe 5, different versions of this card. All the versions are different with how the Marlboro advertising sign which is to the right of Randy's head, is dealt with. This version is the complete black out version, some others have smaller black boxes or tinted red or green. Either way, all are uncorrected errors, and in any form, I need a copy for my eventual set build.

Last up, some trade bait...

Some solid cards here, and if there is any interest, just let me know!