Early Preview: ITG The History Of Hockey

In The Game is known for their hockey sets, unfortunately they do not have an NHL license, but that has never stopped them from putting out some quality releases. The newest product on the horizon is the History of Hockey release. So far no release date or price information has been announced. The product will be limited to 4,000 total packs.

Each pack/box will contain 4 cards: 1 Greatest Moments in Hockey, 1 Rookie card, 1 Autograph card and 1 Buy-Back card. The Greatest Moment cards are all hand painted original-art cards created for the set while the other 3 subsets are buy-back cards and encased as part of this set. The cards will include labels that are color coded to distinguish each category, the Greatest Moments have a silver label, the Rookie cards have a gold label, the Autographs have a white PSA/DNA label and the Buy-Backs have a green label.

Greatest Moments in Hockey:

This 145-card set will include some of the greatest moments in hockey like Wayne Gretzky’s 802^nd goal, the 1980 US Miracle on Ice and Martin Brodeur’s All-Time Wins Record. Each card in the set is hand-painted and limited, the first 60 cards in the checklist will be limited to #/10 (1 Gold version and 9 Silvers) and the remaining 85 will be limited to #/40 (10 Gold versions and 30 Silver versions).

Jared Kelly and Mike James both have artwork included in the set. The preview image that ITG released of Bobby Orr’s flying goal is one of the two cards that Jared has included in the Greatest Moments checklist. Jared included a "Before" image of the Orr card on his website showing what the card looked like before the relic was added.

Rookie cards:

ITG went out and found rookie cards of some of the greatest players ever, which they encased to protect, and included one in each pack. There are some amazing pulls here including:

1911 C55 Georges Vezina
1951-52 Parkhurst Rocket Richard
51-52 Parkie Gordie Howe
66-67 Topps Bobby Orr
2005-06 Upper Deck Young Guns Sidney Crosby

Autograph cards:

ITG bought a number of cards from various players (not sure if they purchased them already signed or had the players sign them) and then had the autographs authenticated and encased by PSA/DNA.

Buy-Backs:

ITG went out and bought 4,000 cards dating back to when they opened their doors in 1998, half of the 4,000 cards are autographs and the other half are memorabilia cards. The cards were encased and marked as part of the History of Hockey set.

Personally I would probably end up busting some of these cards out of their cases, I know that they protect the cards but if I have pull the 1911 C55 Vezina card I would have to consider selling it, which would probably sell better being graded. Most of the rookie cards would fall in to this category for me.

Sneak Peek At Sportking's National VIP Cards

Sportkings has announced their National Convention VIP Cards. Sportkings has two offers, the first is the VIP Puzzle cards which will be included (redemption card) in the VIP bags and the second is a product redemption set.

In the VIP bags will be a Sportkings redemption card; you bring the redemption card to their booth and exchange the card for 9 puzzle pieces. There are 9 subjects in the puzzle checklist: David Robinson, Gordie Howe, Gale Sayers, Bjorn Borg, Ken Griffey Jr., Franco Harris, Annika Sorenstam, Tito Ortiz and Man O’War.

There is also a separate redemption program too; purchase a box of Sportkings Series E (Currently $90-100 each) from their booth and you can exchange the box top for one game-used Sportkings memorabilia card. There are 20 subjects with 19 being Silver Subjects and 1 Gold Subject. Memorabilia cards can have between one and three memorabilia relics inserted in the card. All of the redemption relic cards have a “33^rd National” logo printed on the card to differentiate them from the regular Series E relic cards.

To add to the chase, purchase a 16-box case of Series E and you will get a National 1/1 Spectacular Patch card.

Another redemption program that Sportkings was already running connected to the Series E product is the Chase Cards. Each box of Series E includes a base card with a letter on the back instead of the standard card back. If you collect all of the letters to spell out “SPORTKINGS” you will receive a special #/10 Premium Sportkings Quad Memorabilia card, collect enough letter chase cards to spell it out twice and you get a 1/1 Premium Sketch card and if you can get enough chase cards to spell it out five times and you will get a 1/1 Premium Art Card hand painted by artist Jared Kelley. I am not sure if the art card will also have the “33^rd National” logo or if it was one that he created for the set.

Preview: 2012 Sportkings Series E

Henderson Base

Sport King is finishing up the final stages of Sportkings Series E and is set to hit shelves on May 3, 2012. The price for each 5 card box is $100 and you will pull 3 Base cards (with the possibility of pulling a mini version) one Base card Premium Back and one insert (Game Used Memorabilia card or on-card Autograph card). Cases include 48-box/packs and are actually broken up in to 3 separate 16-box inner cases. Each 16-box inner case will include a Cut Signature card, a Spectacular Patch card or a 1/1 Art card painted by Jared Kelley.

Thomas Mini

The set includes a 48-card checklist and each base card has a mini parallel (1:2 boxes) and there are also Silver (#/7) and Gold (#/3) mini parallels. The Premium Back base cards will include a letter on the back, collect all the letters to spell “Sportkings” and you can win a Quad Game-Used Memorabilia card, a 1/1 Sketch card or a 1/1 Art Card.

Navratilova Mini Gold

Sport Kings may not have licensing, so all of the athletes included are retired, but Dr. Price has worked serious magic and got some of the greatest sports stars every to sign for this product. Some of the people who signed (on-card autographs) for Series E include Ken Griffey Jr., Bill Walton and Kyle Petty.

Griffey Gold Auto

I have seen a handful of the 1/1 painting cards that Jared Kelley has done for the release, so far the Magic Johnson, Ivan Lendl, Rocky Marciano Seabiscuit and Angelo Dundee preview images have been released.

 The rest of these cards are Case Hits, along with the Kelley Painted cards above, include Cut Signatures and Spectacular Patches.

The First Wayne Gretzky Parkhurst Masterpiece

Upper Deck released the 2011 NHL Parkhurst set just about a month ago and a carry-over from other Upper Deck sets is the Masterpieces, a hand painted card limited #/10. Upper Deck created the Masterpieces set with a 30-card checklist with each card limited to 10, there were multiple artists including Ben Young and Kelly Akins.

The big names on the checklist, Gretzky and Howe, were painted by an artist that regular readers of my blog will recognize, Jared Kelley. Last Friday the first Wayne Gretzky card (#7/10) showed up with an opening bid of $10 but was at $100 in only 23 minutes. After 7 days and a number of bids the card closed this evening with a winning bid of $312.65, well above the other Parkhurst Masterpiece cards currently up for auction.

 It makes you wonder if the painted Parkhurst Masterpieces will become as popular as the painted Presidents from Goodwin Champions.

Jared Kelley Signs With In The Game

Back in July I highlighted artist Jared Kelley and his Upper Deck Masterpiece cards of Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe and Mark Messier. You may also recognize his name if you are a fan of the 2011 Upper Deck Goodwin Champions release, Jared is the artist who painted half of the US Presidents Goodwin Masterpieces cards. A couple of his Presidential Masterpiece cards are currently up for auction including a James Madison, a James Monroe and a Zachary Taylor.

He is in collecting news again with his recent signing deal with In The Game where he will be producing work for the 2012 Sport Kings Series E; set to be released early next year. According to Dr. Price, he is hoping to add something new to his products and as a fan of Jared’s work I am looking forward to his new artwork.

I have talked with Jared and he let me know that the Magic Johnson card that is appearing with the announcement is in fact one of his paintings that will be included in the 2012 Sport King Series E release.

To keep up with his work you can follow Jared’s blog.

Preview: 2011 Parkhurst Champions Original Artwork

I wanted to create a seperate post highlighting the original artwork by Ron Stark and Jared Kelly that will be included in the 2011 Parkhurst Champions set being released this Fall. These images are of the original artwork created by these artists.

The Gretzky and Bourque paintings are original artwork by artist Ron Stark used to produce the mini cards, the minis will not be actually painted cards but reproductions of Mr. Stark's original artwork.

Wayne Gretzky Mini Artwork

Ray Bourque Mini Artwork

The Masterpiece cards are all original artwork by artist Jared Kelley and limited #/10 of each player with each card signed by Jared Kelly. The first card of each player will have a hand-painted gold side-border.

Wayne Gretzky Masterpiece

Wayne Gretzky Masterpiece Closeup

Wayne Gretzky Masterpiece Back

Gordie Howe Masterpiece

Mark Messier Masterpiece

All images that I used are from Grant Soundground's video that has been posted on Upper Deck's blog (as can be seen from the time stamps seen in some of the images). I would like to thank Upper Deck and Chris Carlin for making this video available so the collectors can have a preview of these amazing cards.

Preview: 2011 NHL Parkhurst Champions

Schedule Release Date: Fall 2011

Box Configuration: 5 cards per pack, 20 packs per box

SRP: $77/box

Box Break:

2 Signature cards

5 Wire Photo cards

2-3 Renditions cards

20 Champ’s Mini cards

My Thoughts:

The return or Parkhurst hockey, a product that we have not seen since 2005, should make collectors very excited. The Parkie brand started in 1951 before disappearing in the 1960s, but made a resurgence in 1991. Between 1991 and 2005 the brand bounced around from Pro Set to Upper Deck to In The Game back to Upper Deck before being shelved for a bit. Now Upper Deck has gone full force in another resurrection of the brand and they have done a wonderful job in this re-release of the brand.

 Being an artist myself the wonderful artwork included in this set is a huge draw for me, Upper Deck goes above and beyond finding the right artist for their sets and it shows. Going back for many years now Upper Deck has shown love to the art world with their releases and this set continues that tradition.

Upper Deck created a 160 card base set and each card also has an autographed parallel version (hard signed too):

Regular Cards (100)
Wire Photos, Single + Multi-Plyr. (30)
Renditions, Color + B/W(30)

Not included as part of the base set is a 57 card mini card set which are based on original artwork created by artist Ron Stark. Minis come 1 per pack.

The product has some huge positives including hard-signed autographs parallels, multi-signed Wire Photo cards, Parkhurst Masterpieces, Champ’s Signatures along with fossils and artifacts.

Like the Goodwin Champions Presidents Masterpiece hand-painted set Parkhurst Champions will include a hand-painted Masterpiece set made up of 3 players- Gretzkey as an L.A. King, Gordie Howe and Mark Messier as an Oiler. There will be 10 beautifully hand-painted copies of each star signed by artist Jared Kelly and the first card of each player will have a gold painted side-border to differentiate it from the other 9 cards.

Pros:

Hard-signed autographs

Beautiful artwork by artists Jared Kelly and Ron Stark

Multi-signed autographs

Fossil and artifacts

Cons:

Not a “Parkhurst” design but an Upper Deck product with the Parkhurst name

Based on retired players so modern player collectors may not be interested

Fossils and artifacts do not appeal to all collectors

Rating: 

I rate this at 4 1/2 out of 5 because the product is solid and really relies on players from the history of hockey, these are the guys who laid the foundation for what we see on the ice today.  I am a old-school collector so that may be the additional draw for me to this release along with the love of fossils and other artifacts.

 

 I want to include Upper Deck's list of the break down of the product because I do not feel like I can do it justice by listing the products out in my write-up. This list is posted on their Facebook page:

Regular Set:
Regular Cards (100)
Wire Photos, Single + Multi-Plyr. (30)
Renditions, Color + B/W(30)

Product Highlights:
Regular Card Autograph //’s (1:22)
Wire Photo Autograph //’s (1:400)
Parkhurst Masterpieces (# to 10)
Champ’s Fossils & Artifacts (1:1,280)
Champ’s Signatures (1:90)

Box Break: (on average)
Two Great Hits Highlighted by 1-2 Signature Cards
Five (5) Wire Photos cards (1 multi)
Two-to-Three (2-3) Renditions cards
Twenty (20) Champ’s Mini cards

Case Break: (on average)
Ten (10) Renditions B/W cards
One (1) Fossils & Artifacts OR Champ’s Red Ink (SP) Sig (# to 15) OR Parkhurst Masterpiece Sketch (# to 10) OR Wire Photo Multi-Player Autograph card OR Renditions B/W, Color Autograph card

Wire Images Autograph Parallels include players like Gretzky, Lemieux, Yzerman, Beliveau, Lindsay/Howe, Esposito/Bucyk/Orr all hard-signed.

Key Inserts:
Wire Photo Autographs:
Orr, Gretzky, Messier, Lemieux, Clarke, Beliveau, Lindsay; Howe/Bower, Hull Mikita, Messier/Kurri, Esposito/Orr; Esposito/Bucyk/Orr and more!

Renditions Autographs (Black & White variation):
Roy, Lafleur, Beliveau, Hull, Howe, Lemieux, Gretzky!

Champ’s Signatures:
Orr, Mikita, Brett Hull, Messier, Lemieux, Bossy, Shutt, Bowman, Robitaille, Bucyk, Kurri, Sakic, Bower, Neely!

Some of the artifacts and fossils includes Greek & Roman coins

The brain cavity of an Auroch

and teeth from a Spinosaurus.