This is a card I've been after for more than a year now. I finally landed it in an auction in which the seller set the shipping price absurdly high, which I think probably scared off some bidders. The Upper Deck Canvas series is one of, if not, the best parallel(ish) set each year, primarily because of the interesting photos they use. Couple that concept with my favorite hockey player from my childhood -- hoisting the Cup! -- and this is a card my collection absolutely had to have. I'm woefully behind in updating my Zistle inventory, but I think I'm approaching 300 unique Yzerman cards at this point...
Shifting to baseball, I've added another card to my very small collection of Topps variations. This isn't the most interesting photo variation by any means, all though it does do a good job of capturing Joey Bats' bad-ass-ish-ness pretty well. Jose is about to enter the final year of his contract, and the Jays are in a tough spot in terms of what to do. He's already in his mid-30's and he's still likely to command something like $20 million a year for four or five seasons, so there's a serious risk that the deal will go pear-shaped before it runs out. But at the same time, the thought of one of the two or three best players in franchise history playing for the Red Sox (they'll need a David Ortiz replacement, right?) is almost too painful to imagine. I'd pay him. But then, it ain't my money.
The same seller with the Bautista also had this variation of current Blue Jay/2015 MVP Josh Donaldson, so that meant I could grab this one with a combined shipping discount. The Gatorade shower is probably overused, but I like that this one also includes a shaving-cream-pie-covered face.
By the way, jumping back to Bautista for a minute: If there's not a card issued next year capturing his epic home run/stare/bat flip against the Texas Rangers in Game 5 of the ALDS this year, then I might just have to quit the business.
I've been hoping to get my hands on one of these 1971 Hockey design inserts from 2014 Topps Archives for a while now, but they always seemed a bit too pricey for my taste. Luckily, the demand seems to be waning a bit and I'm starting to find them for just a buck or two here and there. This is actually a record card for Abreu, who has been a powerful slugger for the White Sox since coming over from Cuba, so it's one of the more expensive cards in this insert set. Nice to be able to check this one off the list in my quest to track down all 20 at reasonable prices.
I think just about every collector -- at least everyone with a blog -- likes these auto parallels from 2012-13 Classics Signatures. They've got a really nice, retro-ish design, on-card signatures and a fantastic checklist for any hockey fans who grew up in the 80's and 90's. And I was able to pick this one up for just a $1, because I tacked it on to a Signature Renditions purchase (which, sadly, was a lot more than than a buck).
But by far the best part of these cards? The narratives on the back. Each tells a fantastic little story in about 100 words. My favorite example is the Cliff Ronning card that explains why he was the fastest player in early EA Hockey video games. I love learning things I didn't know from the back of cards. Companies really should put more effort in this part of the design.
And finally, I picked up a jumbo pack of Topps Update the other day, hoping to land another photo variation or at least the first Blue Jay cards of Troy Tulowitzki or David Price. Didn't have any luck on that end, but the pack was saved when I did pull a card of....me! As far as I know, this is the very first -- and so far only, aside from parallels - card of a player with the exact same name as me. The fact that there's also a Blue Jay on the card is an added bonus. My only complaint? Ever since the Orioles called up Garcia, Googling myself has become more of a pain in the ass.
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