Some Eclectic First-Card Poppage

MinorLeaguer

A few of these first-cards below you just don't see very often...

Baseball
NEAR MINT 7 1988 Jones Photo Tuscon Toros Craig Biggio
MINT 9 1988 Legoe Bend Bucks 10 Jim Edmonds
MINT 9 1986 Procards Wasau Timbers Omar Visquel

Hockey
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1978 Finnish SM-Liiga 76 Jari Kurri Hand Cut
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1984 Kelowna Wings 43 Cam Neely
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1986 Kamloops Blazers Perforated Mark Recchi
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1993 Quebec Pee-Wee Tournament 1554 Marian Hossa Tournament
NEAR MINT-MINT 8 1989 Swedish Semic Elitserien Stickers 247 Nicklas Lidstrom
MINT 9 1981 Kingston Canadians 15 Kirk Muller
NEAR MINT-MINT+ 8.5 1981 Oshawa Generals 19 John MacLean
NEAR MINT 7 1980 Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds 14 Ron Francis
EXCELLENT 5 1980 Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds 13 John Vanbiesbrouck Greyhounds (I probably shoulda taken the 7oc)
EXCELLENT-MINT 6 1983 Swedish Semic VM Stickers 134 Ulf Samuelsson (My only head scratcher of the bunch)

miwlvrn

Congrats, this is my kind of order. Always fun to see someone sub some of the same types of cards I've got in my PC.

jackstraw

Do you have a scan of the Hossa? That is an interesting card. What is it and who else is in it and did they
do any other years?

PMKAY

That Kelowna Wings set is really cool. It features not only players from the Wings but several Western Hockey League Alumni including some hall of famers. I've had a few sets but the key cards were never quite good enough to grade as opposed to selling raw.

StamkosFan

Cool sub. As a collector of first card hockey, I can appreciate this sub.
Love the Hossa, but unfortunately I don't think there will ever be a PSA 10 of that card. There are none higher than an 8. It is never centered and I've never seen a centered copy.



Jackstraw, the Quebec Pee Wee Tournament is held every year and cards are given to people in attendance. Do a search for Quebec PeeWee on ebay and you should get plenty of hits.
The problem nowadays, the stupid company Danone has produced reprints of these cards going back to 1998 in one big set I believe. Most of the originals do not have borders. All the reprints
have white borders and sellers don't point that out or know the difference.

MinorLeaguer

<< <i>Cool sub. As a collector of first card hockey, I can appreciate this sub.
Love the Hossa, but unfortunately I don't think there will ever be a PSA 10 of that card. There are none higher than an 8. It is never centered and I've never seen a centered copy.



Jackstraw, the Quebec Pee Wee Tournament is held every year and cards are given to people in attendance. Do a search for Quebec PeeWee on ebay and you should get plenty of hits.
The problem nowadays, the stupid company Danone has produced reprints of these cards going back to 1998 in one big set I believe. Most of the originals do not have borders. All the reprints
have white borders and sellers don't point that out or know the difference. >>



I say the same for the 1984 Kelowna Neely. I've never seen one centered. Of course, I've only seen 10 or so in my lifetime.

The easier bigger name reprints to spot would be '97 Vanek (and the '98 Vanek too), the 2003 Stamkos, 1998 & 1999 Patrice Bergeron and the '98 Nash where the reprints all have a white border where the originals have no border. But be sure to look at the back too as borderless cards like the 1994 Lacavalier Pee Wee is only discernable by the Danone logo on the back. The 1993 Hossa Danone and original both have a Border and can only be told apart by the Danone logo on the back. The fronts are the same. FYI, if u want to take a gamble, Connor McDavid has a pee-wee card from 2009 too.

Get ready to roll eyes...

Stamkos Reprint graded as real:

2003 Stamkos Reprint

Real 2003 Stamkos:

Real 2003 Stamkos

MinorLeaguer

Don't hold me to it, but I think there were Pee Wee star cards made by Danone included in their reprint sets that were not technically reprints of big names like Guy Lafleur, Patrick Roy and even Marc-Andre Fleury. My best guess is they never had their own original cards when they played in the Pee Wee tournament, so Danone added commemorative pee wee cards of them included in their reprints sets.