Hockey Card Memories

[Triple B]

I was talking to a dude at work whom I just found out was big into cards back in the 90s and we started trading stories.

I have many but one I look back on fondly was buying cases of UD Hockey as a 15 year old back in 1990 and opening them and sorting them into snap cases and setting up with my 11 year old brother at shows around Toronto and catering to set builders. We’d triple our money on base cards alone and make a killing off of the rookies. Such an amazing time to collect cards. We’d sell out and go back and grab more cases with our stack of cash. The only pain was getting the empty snap cases back home as we’d stop at McDonald’s with garbage bags full of them.

I also had an unhealthy obsession with 1990 Score and the allure of seeing that “Future Superstar” banner.

What are some card related memories that you have that you look back at fondly?

 

[creasecollector]

Slamming change into my pockets so I could walk to the convenience store to buy packs of 2005-06 Parkhurst with a few friends. Loved that product.

I didn't hit anything notable, but still have so much of the base set in a binder and I still really love the look of those cards. I would love to go for the complete base set one day just because of the memories the product it gave me.

Great idea for a thread!

:beer:

 

[TurcoCollector3]

I had a friend who's dad worked for Donruss and Pinnacle back in their last few years. At the time I was in my early grade school years. We always got promos, packs and boxes for birthdays, team windups, any time we went to his house, you name it. My friend had an incredible collection. However, we never appreciated what we had. Lots of the cards were used for table hockey. Using the cards as players and an eraser as the puck in school. The cards my friend had was incredible. He had full sets of mask cards, artist proofs, leaf/donruss numbered insert sets, complete promo sets, totally certified gold cards.

 

[deepbluejacket]

Like TurcoCollector3, my first hockey cards fought epic battles across the bedspread for Stanley Cup glory. So much damage done. I'd typically have a 4 to 6 game season (hey, when you play every game it takes a long time!) and then head to the playoffs...which were never finished.

A crease meant an injury and you'd leave the game. The more severe the crease, the greater the injury. Once my hand slipped and Dave Taylor was folded in half. Out for the season!

 

[quincy]

My first packs since the 80s were two loose Zenith packs in January 1996. And out of pack #2 popped a Lemieux Z-team. And thus began an unhealthy obsession/love affair.

 

[30ranfordfan]

I needed an Ed Belfour to complete 91-92 Score Series 2. Must have cracked 2 or 3 boxes, countless blister packs (the kind with 100 base in them) and at least 100 more packs at 50 cents a pop.... no luck.

There were two card shops in town (not bad, for a town with 2k people). Both sold singles, but neither had the 50 cent BV Belfour I needed.

One of those shops... the owners lived across the street from us, and they did the "cards or candy" thing on Halloween. Halloween 1994, my brother pulled the Belfour in his pack. He traded it to me for "future considerations". I couldn't even guess what (if anything?) I ended up giving him.

 

[chefjason]

1989-90 opc, I can remember my mom driving me around when I was 9 looking for a store that sold packs, I had a neighborhood buddy that collected cards and I was instantly hooked, saved some allowances and begged my mom to take me to the corner store, had no clue where to get them, lol, took a while but I’m pretty sure we ended up at Marlborough mall in Calgary and found a shop that had them, money well spent

 

[terry1hockeyfan]

While some of my friends were buying cigarettes for a quarter at the local store, I was buying packs of cards for the same price. I would get my two dollar allowance and that was usually 8 packs of OPC. I also made some decent coin selling 90/91 Upper Deck and Score at the local flea markets and card shows. Those were the good old days for sure!

 

[BlindThomen]

I can't really remember what was the exact spark to start collecting hockey cards. Still, Parkhurst 1992-93 series 1 was the first set I collected when I was 9.
My brother collected the 1992-93 Score American set with the USA great insert set as well.

I can recall the time I was missing only a few cards from Parkhurst series 2. I heard that the local public swimming pool had packs for sale. Decided I had to get some and rode my bike there for two miles with a lot of uphill. And behold, I got almost every card I was still missing. It was an euphoric feeling riding back downhill being as happy I could be, lol.

- Sauli

 

[IrbeFan4Life]

My first memory starts the beginning of my collecting. My first hockey cards were accidental finds, as when I was a wee lad, my family moved into an apartment in Burnaby, BC and where did my first hockey cards come from? Not from a pack, or from a generous stranger, but rather, from inside the heating unit grate in the apartment. My first Young Guns rookie ever (old school Dixon Ward of the Canucks) and an Alexander Karpovtsev Russian Stars card. Those cards are long gone, but I can still picture them perfectly in my head.

My best hockey memories, though, are the new ones I make every day with friends in the hobby, but I would say one of my personal favorite takes me back to last week actually. I am assuming that a hobby shop in Red Deer went under a decade or more ago (that's not the good part, I hate livelihoods getting destroyed), but this owner had his stock likely in a storage unit for all these years and he finally consigned it to a local auction house here in Edmonton. They were too numerous in quantity for the auction house to individually break it down so they got his blessing and they were committed to selling it off...and I mean committed. I ended up buying a decent quantity of the collection comprised of boxes and boxes and binders of cards, among other things and the whole pile I took probably weighed as much as me.

The next day, when I finally had the time, the sorting through those boxes and binders in my living room made Christmas seem like amateur hour. It was probably the most fun I had ever had in my entire life going through that stuff and finding some amazing treasures within! To some people, skiing in Jasper, or parachuting from a plane is exciting, but for me, nope, give me an entire sports collection to sort through with not just common 1990s cards and I'll be on cloud nine...as I was.

I honestly wish I had bought even more!

 

[joshpackham]

One of my favorite memories was sitting sorting my 90-91 pro set card and in any way possible. I would sort by number, by team, by position, and would make up any excuse to rearrange the cards in the binder.
The worst part of this is my own son was sorting his pokemon cards the other day and I was telling him to just leave them so they didn't get wrecked. As I was telling my mom this she reminded me of how much time I spent sorting for the sake of sorting.

 

[SNobles]

Opening my first box of 1990-91 UD. What a trill that was at the time. Hoping to pull that Gretzky that was on the box. Only to find out years later it was a promo card.

Still the rush of opening that box of cards at Christmas is something I will never forget. The feel of those foil packs and the smell of pack fresh cards.

I have lots of great memories from my early years of collecting but that has to be the one that stands out the most.

Great thread.

 

[bprice]

In 1954 I would go to Lover's Variety store at Keele and Calvington in Downsview and buy packs of Parkhurst hockey cards from the funds I received from taking in empty soda bottles from the construction sites around my home. Beside the counter with the boxes of cards they had a waste paper basket. I took long range shots to try and throw the balled up wrappers from those cards into the basket. Oh how I wish I had saved those hundreds of wax wrappers. By the time I finished I had two large cheeks filled with gum and hundreds of cards each week. I was very fortunate that my mother never threw out any of my cards and I have kept many of them to this day in excellent condition. Little did I know at age seven that I would own the Parkhurst company 36 years later.

Brian Price

 

[SNobles]

In 1954 I would go to Lover's Variety store at Keele and Calvington in Downsview and buy packs of Parkhurst hockey cards from the funds I received from taking in empty soda bottles from the construction sites around my home. Beside the counter with the boxes of cards they had a waste paper basket. I took long range shots to try and throw the balled up wrappers from those cards into the basket. Oh how I wish I had saved those hundreds of wax wrappers. By the time I finished I had two large cheeks filled with gum and hundreds of cards each week. I was very fortunate that my mother never threw out any of my cards and I have kept many of them to this day in excellent condition. Little did I know at age seven that I would own the Parkhurst company 36 years later.

Brian Price

Now that is a unique memory and a cool inside look. Thanks for sharing.

 

[odjickfan]

Slamming change into my pockets so I could walk to the convenience store to buy packs of 2005-06 Parkhurst with a few friends. Loved that product.

I didn't hit anything notable, but still have so much of the base set in a binder and I still really love the look of those cards. I would love to go for the complete base set one day just because of the memories the product it gave me.

Great idea for a thread!

:beer:

I remember going from shop to shop buying a few packs hoping to find an opened hot box with 3 SPs per pack. Finally found a shop with an opened hot box, bought every pack they had. I still have the SP subset with Crosby and Ovechkin pack-pulled rookies in a binder.

 

[weasel-king]

I collected and traded baseball in the late 80s in middle school, but I was a late bloomer with hockey. I had a college roommate from Detroit who more or less introduced me to hockey. It started out with us playing Faceoff 95 (I think) on the Playstation and the card thread picked itself up from the old baseball days. It was mainly some retail boxes of 95-96 Pinnacle and Pinnacle Mint. I would go late-night after classes and work and grab whatever they had. I believe my first "hit" was a Bondra Press Proof parallel that I probably still have somewhere.

 

[will-411]

I dabbled a bit through the 80s with the odd pack here and there, half hearted attempts at Panini sticker albums. It wasn't until my Grade 11 year that I was reading through a copy of the Hockey News and they had a listing of the values of hockey cards. My comic book shop sold cards and I was intrigued how I could spend $20 on a set of 89/90 OPC and have $30 worth of cards (I didn't say I was smart!). I got into buying the 90/91 UD set and Score set the following year, and was buying 'older' cards from people at school all the time... lots of good condition 82 through to 88 OPC sets. Unfortunately, I traded most of the good cards at the time for 90/91 UD boxes...

Still, it was fun, and it got me hooked on the hobby, and taught me a lot... some lessons which were painful, but not ultimately harmful. lol

I'm grateful for the friends the hobby has introduced me to over the years, and that's what I take away from it now.

Cory

 

[primetimepawich]

I have plenty of early hobby memories. I come from a farm outside a small town in Manitoba near the US border - the nearest card stores would've been in Brandon (1.5 hours away) and Winnipeg (even further). So my friends and I could only ever get singles in the "big city".

You could buy packs from some local businesses though. I remember our grocery store carrying CHL 7th Inning Sketch cards and thinking how cool it was to be able to chase cards of players "before they were stars". There was rumor of one local guy pulling an OHL Lindros when he was all the rage, and a friend's brother pulled a WHL Scott Niedermayer when he was a (secondary) big deal. I knew a bit about Niedermayer and his hype; I had (still have) his Pro Set CC card. I was envious of that WHL card and wished I could get it, but I didn't have much in my trader box at the time. Eventually I was able to acquire it, but I'll be damned if I can recall what I gave up. Whatever small price I paid, you couldn't put a price on it as one of the first cards I'd wanted and actually been able to trade for. I still have it. The next year, I think over time I pretty much bought our grocery store out of their QMJHL 7th Inning Sketch box trying to get a Daigle. Never did. Not sure if I'm the loser for not getting one or for even trying in the first place.

I also remember going on vacation with my family (within Manitoba, mind you) when 90/91 UD2 was the new release and Fedorov and Bure were the hot YGs. I knew nothing about those players themselves, all I knew was this new Beckett magazine had both trending up big-time and worth a fortune in kids' terms. On our "holiday", a store was carrying the product. My dad will never be mistaken for a hockey fan, but God love him, he sensed my excitement, played along, bought me some packs and fully supported my chase. I doubt he would be as supportive of what I've spent on cards since that time, but that's a story for another day.

Our wax-ripping partnership unearthed 1 Fedorov, multiple Bures and other good rookies of the day. Upon our return home, I proceeded to show my good business sense by flushing our nest egg down the toilet and trading many of the doubles (including Bures) to a friend's older brother for a majority set of 91/92 Pro Set Series 1. Why I thought this was a good idea, I'll never know. Boy I sure could've used this site back then eh? A simple poll would've set me straight. I somewhat redeemed myself though a few years later when I traded a friend a Fleer Ultra Selanne 2nd year for a Wendel Clark OPC RC right before he rocketed up the Beckett charts with a 46 goal season in Toronto. Like the Niedermayer, I still have the Fedorov and Clark to this day.

Since we had to travel so far to get to a card store, "vintage" ('80s) singles were slow to trickle into my circle but always a big deal whenever someone got some. I remember being envious when a friend bought some '80s staples including a Gilmour RC among others. Eventually, he came looking for money as kids that age do and sold me the Gilmour. Same guy bought a Larry Murphy OPC RC around the same time. I couldn't figure why - pretty sure he was one of the people making fun of me for hyping him up. But when he looked to liquidate that one too, I was more than happy to save up the same $8 CDN he'd paid and get it as well. Still have that one, and look what it started...

Joe

 

[Boom Boom]

Heading to the corner store as a 9 year old on my trusty banana seat bike in small town Ontario to buy Popeye candy cigarettes and those wonderful bagged yellow chunks of Gold Rush bubble gum along with packs of 79/80 OPC.

Then heading back to my friends house to open our packs and chuck them against walls, put in our bicycle spokes and subjecting them all other manner of abusive treatment.

Including the Gretzky RC's...…*face palm*

 

[hawkeenut]

I go way back before the 90's, but since this is about the 90's, I'll share a story.
When the B cards surfaced out of Score or Pinnacle(can't remember....age thing), hitting one of those out of a pack, was like what the heck is this??
Somebody needed it and I traded it, only to find out these were rare and worth some $$$
Oh well!!!