Achievement Unlocked: 2007-08 Upper Deck Rookie Class Set Complete!

A while back I had hit a point where I knew it was no long "if" but "when" I would finish this set. About three years ago, I picked up a bunch of set needs from a collector that got me down to only needing two more from the 2007-08 set. After a short while, that become one more: the Ryan Callahan card.

Callahan is actually a decent signer. He's been known to TTM and is good in-person. TGhe problem is I rarely have access to visiting teams in Dallas, and since hockey TTM seems to go through phases of reliability/unreliability, I never mailed off. I had an offer of help from a member at a message board, sent him the card, but he was never able to get it done.

I even have a notice set up on eBay to email me every day with any new listings of Upper Deck Rookie Class hockey autographs.

Well, a few managed to slip through the cracks on those emails. Like the Callahan card that didn't use the word "hockey" in the title. I don't know how long it had been listed, bur when I saw it for $3, I had to snap it up.

And with that, the set was finished!

Bobby Ryan, Ondrej Pavelec,
Patrick Kane, Kris Russell, Matt Niskanen,
Andrew Cogliano, Jonathan Bernier, Marc Staal

Nick Foligno, Peter Mueller, Jiri Tlusty,
Brett Sterling, Petr Kalus, Rob Schremp,
Andy Greene, Frans Nielsen, Martin Hanzal

Devin Setoguchi, Matt Smaby, James Sheppard,
Kyle Chipchura, Ryan Parent, David Krejci,
Lauri Tukonen, Anton Stralman, Tobias Enstrom

Tyler Kennedy, Mason Raymond, Thomas Greiss,
Drew Miller, Curtis McElhinney, Ryan Callahan,
Brian Elliott, Vladimir Sobotka, Jonathan Sigalet

Ville Koistinen, Torrey Mitchell, David Perron,
Jannik Hansen, Chris Bourque, Milan Lucic,
Tuukka Rask, Jonathan Toews, Sam Gagner

Jack Johnson, Carey Price, Nicklas Bergfors,
Erik Johnson, Bryan Little, Nicklas Backstrom

As always, a big thanks go out to those who helped complete this projects with trades, 50/50s, and anything else, notably Paul Buxton, Arron Littleton, and Peter Fallon.

And now, time to start looking for upgrades! Chipchura used a terrible pen, as did Kalus. Hanzal is pretty badly smeared. The rest are at least passable. I might try to get a few black pen guys in blue (Koistinen for one-- already got someone in Germany offering to help me with that one).

I'll have an April TTM/IP update coming soon...

Achievement Unlocked: 2003-04 Choice AHL Top Prospects Set Complete!

Wow. There it is. After a little over 11 years of work, I have completed a signed set for the first time. My final one-- an eBay purchase of the Niklas Kronwall card-- arrived in my mailbox this afternoon and I finished off a set that I wondered if it would be possible to complete after several players bolted for Europe.

Fortunately, trades with people in Europe and in minor league cities helped me complete everything. The vast majority of these were traded for, though I did get a decent chunk in-person and via mail.

Without further ado, I present the set!

Anton Babchuk, Jason Bacashihua, Ryan Bayda (all trades)

Brad Boyes (IP), Ilya Brysgalov (trade), Peter Budaj (trade)

Carlo Colaiacovo (trade), Ray Emery (IP), Kurtis Foster (TTM)

Denis Grebeshkov (trade), Chris Higgins (IP), Jiri Hudler (trade)

Ryan Kesler (trade), Mike Komisarek (IP), Lukas Krajicek (IP)

Niklas Kronwall (trade), Brooks Laich (TTM), Pascal LeClaire (trade)

Kari Lehtonen (trade), David LeNeveu (IP), Ross Lupaschuk (trade)

Justin Mapletoft (trade), Jay McClement (TTM), Ryan Miller (IP)

Shaone Morrisonn (IP), Maxime Ouellet (trade), Johnny Pohl (trade)

Jason Pominville (trade), Mark Popovic (trade), Jani Rita (trade)

Derek Roy (IP), Patrick Sharp (trade), Charlie Stephens (trade)

Aleksander Suglobov (trade), Tomas Surovy (trade), Jeff Taffe (IP)

Petr Taticek (IP), Hannu Toivonen (IP), Fedor Tyutin (trade)

Scottie Upshall (TTM), Stephane Veilleux (TTM), Kyle Wanvig (trade)

Stephen Weiss (IP), Kyle Wellwood (trade), Jeff Woywitka (TTM)

So, there it is. Major thanks to anyone I've traded or 50/50ed with to get this done, notably Peter Fallon, Arron Littleton, Jeff Tyson, Joe Dahms, and Russ Crowell. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few others but I know for sure that those four helped me out on this.

Hey, I got quoted!

I follow Sports Collectors' Daily's Facebook page and they put out a call for memories of collecting as a kid for an article. My submission got picked!

Click here to read it!

Anything Can Happen Thursday: Good grief, I'm famous, sort of, part time...

Paraphrasing (read: blatantly stealing) from a chapter in Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick's book The Big Show with this title. Read it (the book, I mean, not the title since you probably already read that) if you get the chance.

A few weeks ago a crew from the NHL came through at Panini showing how cards are made.

Guess who ended up as the photo editing representative at about the 3:20 mark?

Check it out here!

I was hoping to embed the video but I'm not having much luck with it. Oh well. Click the link and check it out!

Random score from the Dallas Stars!

It's been good to take a couple weeks off.  I skipped graphing the Rangers and their opponents just so I could take a break from it all before hockey season starts up this coming week. I hit up a couple garage sales to look for cheap cards and stocked up on Stars and Capitals via SportLots, but other than that, it's been time to myself.

As I stopped in to pay my rent today, the assistant manager told me that I have a package. I almost said "Yeahhhhhh I do," but I thought better of it.  It was a UPS bag with "RTS" written on it-- Return To Sender.  Fortunately she recognized my name and held it for me, knowing I'd be in to pay rent fairly soon.

The address was the Dallas Stars, and the reason it was RTS'ed was because they put the wrong apartment number on it (apparently my 3's look like 1's when I write them).  I opened it and inside was a 20th Anniversary puck signed by defenseman Trevor Daley.  Unfortunately the autograph is upside down, but still, this is pretty awesome.  No rhyme or reason for why they sent it, but they did it. It most likely was from putting my name in to have a shot at winning a jersey at the Training Camp and the September 15 preseason game. There were no other prizes listed aside from the jerseys they were giving away, but still, I'll quite gladly take it.

At worst, with the autograph being upside down, I can remove it and get it re-signed by Daley or someone else from last year's team.

Texas Rangers, take note: you're doing it wrong.