Quest For The Cup

 Well, the NHL Stanley Cup was handed out much later this year, so why can't I start my own Quest For The Cup in mid-October?

The set is 140 cards, though the last 40 are SN rookie cards, so I wouldn't count those for the pure base set, which leaves a 100 card pure set of which I currently have a single card.

As for the box here...

We have 24 packs with 5 cards per pack however I am pulling three packs for my unopened pack collection because they have different wrappers...

Which leaves us with 21 packs at 5 cards per pack, so 105 cards. Looking at the odds, there is at least 1 Pacific Complete (a 600 card set that I am NOT collecting) card per pack, and factor in at most one more insert per pack, and we are looking at about 65 base cards in the box. Best case, we get the pure set to 2/3 complete.

Should get a few SN cards and maybe even a hit out of it as well though - only time will tell!

Scoring again...

Base Card	1
Base Sports Card Need	3
Base Variation / Short Print Card	Odds
Base Toronto Card	15
Base Toronto Variation / Short Print Card	5 * Odds
Insert Card	Odds
Toronto Insert Card	5 * Odds
Error Card	Double Score

Let's get to the first pack!

Well, they do a good job of ensuring the Stanley Cup is on every base card. The photos are very small given the front space - so not a great design to me personally on these base cards. I am just glad this was before the 20 different coloured parallels as I could see the foil or even white background colour being played with to have all those parallel sets.

The promised Complete set card is...

Excellent! May not be looking to collect the massive set at all, but didn't have Eddie, so a great Leaf add for the collection. 

Hang on....*looks up 2003-04 Pacific Complete*....sigh....

So this set is essentially a set which is only available through getting cards in other different stand along Pacific products. I guess "complete" meaning you had to buy enough of everything else Pacific to complete this set. I hate to say it, but I guess these count as inserts since you can only get them inserted in other products....

Compared to the Quest base cards - I do like these a lot more with the full phot, if nothing else.

1 Pack, 5 Cards, 27 Points

Since we are talking about quests anyway, and I have been reading more and more about it being a quest just to find cards in stores these days as they get gobbled up and overpriced on resale, be it with local card stores that are not getting direct shipments due to supply shortages, or due to the apparent drive in new collectors who are solely collecting for investing purposes, or flipping for profit, I took a few pics.

The pics below are the Walmart card section at the store across the street from me.

I put in small pics so you can see the shelving as it runs left to right (just click to zoom in). Plenty of gaming cards, and there is hockey still, but you will notice no basketball, no baseball, and the football is scarce. Usually it is just baseball and hockey, the basketball and football has been new the last year or so.

I can't complain, there is still some selection, whereas some people have bare shelves to work with, but can definitely tell certain products are emptied out quickly.

Will be interesting to see if it continues or gets any better as we get toward the holiday season, and as the pandemic wears on. I do look forward to, maybe 5 years from now, when a bunch of the investors who have come to the hobby, leave when card prices ideally come back down to earth, and those cards come out fairly cheap. Happy to gobble up cheap commons - doesn't always have to be about the hits.