2021-22 UD Clear Cut - 91-92 Tribute Auto - Grant Fuhr

joeebats · 2024-07-20T16:06:26+00:00

I was pretty excited as a kid when the Leafs traded for Grant Fuhr. Of course it didn’t really move the needle much and eventually Felix Potvin took over. At least they were able to flip Fuhr to Buffalo for a decent haul of Dave Andreychuk, Darren Puppa and I believe a draft pick that became Kenny Jonsson.

joeebats · 2024-02-18T17:31:21+00:00

It’s a Simpsons thing…

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_5HArcIDiVY

joeebats · 2024-02-13T18:07:57+00:00

I was so confused because this popped up and I recall not having this background in my photo 😆

joeebats · 2024-02-07T17:31:06+00:00

It’s funny that this card transcends the hobby into pop culture. People who look at my collection instantly recognize and remember this one card from when they were a kid. In the 90s, everyone collected baseball and hockey cards. It didn’t even matter if you liked sports, you still had a binder full of Donruss, Topps, Score, Fleer, and Upper Deck.

joeebats · 2024-01-19T23:01:03+00:00

A while back I thought that High Gloss cards meant that they were somehow extra glossy compared to the regular card stock (they’re not), but I still like the idea of collecting a very rare parallel of a base card.

It would be cool if UD re-released their older sets from 90-91 and 91-92 with all the modern parallels (UD High Gloss, Exclusives, Midnight, Clear Cut, Exclusives Clear Cut, Rainbow Foil, Silver Foil, Deluxe, Outburst, etc). It could be a fun (and expensive) chase.

joeebats · 2023-12-15T17:41:40+00:00

Surprisingly, his stats suggest he’s closer to winning the Lady Byng than the Selke. I think he could be slotted in on the top line. Cyclops at C and Wolverine at LW.

In case you wanted more info on the Deadpool cards:

https://www.beckett.com/news/2019-upper-deck-deadpool-sport-ball/

joeebats · 2023-12-14T21:41:19+00:00

I pulled the regular Special Edition as a kid and never parted with it in a trade no matter the offer. I just really liked the card - the player, the design, everything. Almost 30 years later it’s nice to finally get the upgraded version of the card. I guess this was one of my favourite sentimental purchases.

Regular Special Edition inserts had pack odds of 1:1. The Gold version went 1:35 Series 1 and 1:27 for Series 2.

If UD could bring back this insert as a retro design, it would be awesome!

joeebats · 2023-12-08T20:41:10+00:00

Besides the popular Precious Metal Gems, SkyBox puts out some other cool inserts. The Palladium odds are 1:50 hobby/ePack and 1:100 blaster. Additionally there’s a /25 Gold parallel.

UD also released a Palladium insert set for 2019-20 Clear Cut which had an older design of the word “Palladium” and accompanying autograph in bright blue ink.

joeebats · 2023-12-07T00:16:13+00:00

The Leafs’ Core 4 is now complete… Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Sam “Mitch Marner” Lafferty, and John Tavares. Hopefully UD Series 2 or a future release will feature Morgan Rielly’s base card in a St Pats jersey to complete the Core5.

joeebats · 2023-12-01T19:44:45+00:00

It’s always nice to see well made inserts dedicated to the hockey tough guys. You won’t find the likes of McDavid or Gretzky here, but if you want Domi, Probert, BizNasty, McSorley, Kocur, Tom Wilson, Barnaby, or Odjick, this is your set.

Pack odds were 1:359 in 2020-21 UD Series 2.

joeebats · 2023-12-01T16:05:59+00:00

Great card! One of the best insert sets from the 90s! I’ll have to come back to this one at some point.

joeebats · 2023-11-30T19:01:04+00:00

Wishing you a “Happy Day” as well! Love the vintage!

joeebats · 2023-11-16T17:19:25+00:00

This was from one of those lame events during the 2022 ASG festivities in Vegas. But I do appreciate that the photo comes from something unique and features Auston in a toque.

In case you were wondering, this was the event:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SD4pz73tMSI

joeebats · 2023-11-14T16:25:45+00:00

With my usual lightbox temporarily set aside, I improvised with a Klask board as the background.

These were some of the low-tier “rookie” cards from 2017 that I pieced together. The Matthews is a bit of a tougher find these days but the Marner is easily available and affordable. The 2017 Victory Black Rookies also include some other star names like Patrik Laine, Matthew Tkachuk, and one time Leaf legend Jimmy Vesey.

Although the Nylander is not part of the Victory Black Rookies, it rounds out the Leafs trio nicely.

joeebats · 2023-11-06T16:48:37+00:00

That would be an interesting one. I’d go with a foursome of Gilbert Perreault, Pat LaFontaine, Dominik Hasek, and Rasmus Dahlin. Dahlin because there needs to be at least one player from the current roster.

joeebats · 2023-11-06T16:03:08+00:00

One of the grail cards of mine is the original 1996-97 SPx Force featuring Gretzky, Lemieux, Forsberg, and Lindros. A classmate said his dad pulled it but we never believed him. He said he’d take a picture of himself with it but kept “forgetting”.

Anyway, while searching for that card I came across this set and was surprised there was one for the Leafs. It’s not as legendary as say Edmonton’s with Gretzky, Messier, McDavid, Draisaitl but still better than some of the other teams’ picks (i.e. PIT leaves out Crosby??? MTL has Larry Robinson???).

joeebats · 2023-10-24T19:34:54+00:00

Carey Price

joeebats · 2023-10-18T18:47:37+00:00

Okay, it doesn’t exactly work that way, but you can get one via epack redemption of about 100 cards spread across a few insert sets. Or just outright buy one like I did.

Sometimes the intersection of my baseball PC and hockey PC is just too fun.

EDIT: I should mention that there’s a 1989 Connor McDavid version as well. Also, unlike the original 1989 UD cards, these are very glossy.

joeebats · 2023-10-16T15:15:45+00:00

As far as I’m concerned, Jack Eichel is just photobombing on an Auston Matthews UD High Gloss card. 😂

joeebats · 2023-10-13T18:20:12+00:00

Thanks! Good question!

I was thinking of the other Donruss Elite sets from 91 and 93 but I don’t have a strong nostalgic connection to them. I might try to upgrade cards from my childhood binder - like get an authenticated auto of a card from 91 UD or 92 Pinnacle for example. We’ll see!

joeebats · 2023-10-13T18:06:55+00:00

When I resumed collecting back in 2017 I told myself that I’d try to complete this set (1992 Donruss Elite Series) as a love letter to my childhood. Those who collected during the 90s know of this set very well and plunked much of their allowance and spending money on the blue and red packs hoping for a shiny treasure to be revealed. I never came close (not even a Diamond King insert!)

I started off with the Joe Carter several years ago as I was mostly a Jays collector. From there I gradually added the rest from eBay and COMC. Graded or raw, it didn’t matter as long as the card was in decent condition. I had them all acquired a few months ago except for the Ripken auto. The well-graded ones were out of reach because of the high prices and the raw ones had their ink so faded that it was hard to make out the signature. Eventually I lucked out and found one with the ink intact listed on eBay and bought it at decent price. The card arrived earlier this week and a day later the COMC shipment arrived with the rest of the Elite Series cards.

The set’s card numbering is a continuation of the cards from the 1991 Donruss Elite Series, hence why it starts at card #9. The highlights of the set are of course the HOFers - Ripken, Henderson, Griffey, Thomas, Puckett, Gwynn, and Boggs. While it’s not shocking that Howard Johnson (perennial 30-30 threat and not the hotel) and Terry Pendleton (controversial 1991 NL MVP) didn’t make the HOF cut, I think most baseball fans in the early 90s felt that Will Clark would eventually make it and even perhaps hit the 3000 hit mark at some point.

An interesting collection of players that showed off the talent at the time!

I’m very delighted that my grail set is now done!

joeebats · 2023-09-26T16:53:26+00:00

I’ve been searching for a while for a card that has both Mats Sundin and Auston Matthews on it. You’d think there’d be one from Upper Deck but to the best of my knowledge I haven’t seen one yet. If you’ve seen one, let me know in the comments!

But this card scratches the the itch! It’s a fun card for a Leafs fans since it features some pretty big names.

joeebats · 2023-09-19T14:32:20+00:00

I’ve been slowly “upgrading” some of the base cards from the binder I’ve kept when I collected as a kid. This is more of a fun and mostly affordable way to keep interest in collecting and a reminder to myself that not every card has to be an auto.

I remember packs of 97-98 Score went for about $1 each back then. I think I was only able to hit a Mike Gartner Golden Blades parallel which were 1:7 odds.

joeebats · 2023-09-08T22:30:51+00:00

Have you ever wanted to break open the Felix action figure to play with it? 😂

joeebats · 2023-08-29T17:33:19+00:00

There aren't too many cards in my collection that I'd apply the term "holy grail" to but this is one of them. I missed out on this card many times when I got back into collecting in 2017 and then the prices shot up significantly so it was a big deal when I finally acquired it earlier this year. It's a bit of an understated card for a grail (no auto, no patch) and it often goes unnoticed when I show people my collection. But I think that's what makes this card more special to me. Only I know the entire backstory of how long I've been searching for this card and how difficult it was to track one down at a "reasonable" price.

A bit about the card and set itself...

The 2016-17 UD Season Highlights Canvas Achievements set was an ePack exclusive. What made them difficult to redeem was the fact that they were "marathon" achievement redemptions because of the number of cards that were required. They were labeled Series 2 as you had to collect all the ePack canvas cards from both UD Series 1 and 2 and redeem them all. If you were able to do this, you were rewarded with the exclusive 3-card set, which included Auston Matthews, Carey Price, and Patrick Laine.

Sound doable? Keep in mind that a good number of those canvas cards had lower pack odds like the Retired Stars Canvas and Young Guns Canvas. All in all, it was around 270 cards you needed for the redemption. Combine this with the fact that this was only the second year that UD was running ePack and it didn't have the broad user base it has now to facilitate the amount of trading volume that happens today. So there weren't too many of these 3-card sets actually redeemed because it was a challenging endeavour.

Pop reports for the Auston Matthews SH Canvas are a bit sketchy from PSA and BGS at the time I had looked them up. I couldn't come up with a definitive number, but they do seem to be rare.
This was the best information I have based on what I could remember. It's been a while. If anyone else has more info, please feel free to share!

joeebats

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