Somebody wanted this card....

One of my Dodger buddies was lamenting the other day about this card not being issued. Either Night Owl or GCRL, I can't remember which now.....

but now here it is. Magic! OOoooooooo...........

a very cool mail day, 1/1 !!!

Friday's mail brought a bill, lots of junk mail, and one yellow envelope. Inside was a card I'd been waiting for. It features my favourite soccer player, keeper Edwin van der Sar of Manchester United. Only it's not from Panini, or Topps, or Upper Deck. But a little known company out of Texas. Big D cards.

 the backs are unusually personal and informative. Well, about care instructions anyways.

and each and every card comes hand signed by the owner of the company. Awesome.

Thanks bud! It looks great in my player binder. Now, if I can only get you to do one of his days playing for the Nederlands.

oh, and if you're interested in my latest card show story (or at least the first half of it) check my other blog at Just A Bit Offside. Thanks.

My latest custom....

if you're interested in seeing my latest custom masterpiece, head over to 'Just A Bit Offside'

LINK

and please let me know what you think....

$5.5 million? Really?

It's the greatest time of the year. The Braves are about to win the World Series, soccer has started, football is about to start, and hockey preseason is only 2 weeks away..... my wife, however, disagrees. But that's another story.

Getting back to hockey for a moment, my team, the Montreal Canadiens, have gone through a wee bit of turmoil over the off-season. If you'll remember from last spring's playoffs, they entered as the 8 seed and knocked off the #1 and #2 seeds before falling in the Conference Finals. All because of smart defensive play and their wonder goalie, Jaroslav Halak.

A week later, they had traded Halak to St. Louis for a new Zamboni and a bag of beans. The fans were shocked. Outraged! Halak had beaten Carey Price for the job, and almost taken them to the promised land, only to be dumped.

What's even better is that the genius braintrust did all of this BEFORE they had Carey Price under contract for next season. Oops. Can you say leverage boys and girls? Yeah. So Carey and his agent held out, waiting for Montreal to come to them.... and waited.... and finally Montreal caved. $5.5 million for the next two years. Antii Niinema only got $2 mill, and he won the freaking Stanley Cup!

Now do you understand why I hate the french?

Anyways, in honour of my team finally getting a goalie under contract 7 days before training camp begins... I created this.

A 1972/73 OPC Carey Price.
The shade of green is off a bit, but Paint.net doesn't have the right one. I thought about doing one of those Birth Year cards that WhiteSoxCards does.... but that would mean i'd have to work with a 1987 card........ and that depresses the hell out of me.


*can you tell I have no money for actual cards, so I just spend my time inventing them instead?

The continuing story of the Cards That Never Were.

Jacques Plante, one of the greatest goalies to ever strap on the pads, played 18 years and 837 games in the NHL. The last 8 of those games with the Boston Bruins at the end of the '72/73 season.

Neither OPC nor Topps decided to make a card of Jacques in their '73/74 sets. So I did.
Three hours later, and my eyes are bleeding, but there it is. Jacques went 7-1 for Boston with a 2.00 GAA. After the season he jumped ship to the WHA to play one last season before retiring.

All the kids are doing it.....

I've always been jealous of the talents that certain bloggers have. Making custom cards. I can't do it. I fail miserably. If someone would like to walk me through it, I'd be eternally in your debt.

But I was looking at Joe Collectors customs yesterday... he made a bunch from scratch. So I thought I'd try it too.... if I can't edit existing cards, maybe making them from scratch would be easier.

My first attempt. I used a program called PAINT.net v.3.5.1. and it took me about 35-40 minutes.
any criticisms are more than welcome.... also any how to's.