Note: Fossils Are Not To Be Eaten

I was going through some of my cards yesterday while dusting and I have a couple of fossil cards, one from the 2008-09 Upper Deck Champs Hockey release and the other from the 2009-10 Upper Deck Champs Hockey release and I noticed that there was an addition of a warning to the 2009-10 fossil card that was not on the previous year’s card.

Look at the area that I highlighted, Upper Deck added a sentence stating this artifact is not intended for human consumption. There must be an interesting story behind this specific addition of something that really should be common sense. This has me wondering if it was a child that got a hold of a card from a prior year’s set or an adult in a “Should I Lick It?” moment?

Rocks And Bones... Cool

I think that Topps has done an amazing job with the various Mars Attacks releases. After 2015 Mars Attacks Occupation came out I was on the hunt for the Woodcut Art cards because of how distinct they are compared to other inserts from the set.

What makes these Woodcut Art cards different is how they are printed and the ink that is used to print them. Instead of a modern day printing press they use a Heidelberg Windmill Platen press which literally presses the paper against the printing plates so only a couple of cards can be printed at a time instead of an entire sheet. Second the Mars Attacks cards are printed using ink that is made up of fragments from the Martian Shergotty meteorite that struck Earth in 1865, Topps misspelled the name on the back of the card. The Dinosaur Attack cards are printed using ink that is made up of fragments from a T-Rex fossil.

The insert set uses image from the base set and was made up 8 cards in the Mars Attacks woodcut cards, which are all red, and 4 Dinosaur Attack woodcut cards, which are all green. When I purchased the cards in 2015 they were about $10 each.

Some Auctions Just Seem To Work In Your Favor

Fossilized lightning struck twice this month, for the second time in 3 weeks I was able to grab up an Upper Deck Fossil card, this time it is a Champ’s Museum Piece Trilobite Fossil. When the gavel struck I walked away with this for $25.75 plus $5 shipping from Canada. I could not believe that I found a fossil card for $30.75 shipped; I was over the moon on this one.

It is a mini version, these things are so damn cool, and it came in the original shipping case that it came in from Upper Deck. It is almost double the thickness of the Auroch Fossil card and it is quite heavy for its size.

When I scanned the card I could not get the scanner lid to close completely so light was let in and the fossil looks blurred out, it does not look like that in your hand. The etchings in the red around the fossil and the “MUSEUM” name are part of the design, not damage.

I am still hunting down an Entomology card and Museum Piece card; I also hope to add a Landmark card some day too.

A Good Mail Day (In The End)

Sunday I was pretty lucky when I won a couple of pretty cool auctions. The first card showed up yesterday, when I opened the mailbox and saw the yellow padded envelope with the eBay shipping label I have to admit I got a bit anxious wondering which card would show up first. My daughter pulled out all of the mail and handed me the padded envelope. When I grabbed the envelope I felt a tear on the back side so I flipped it over and saw this…

 

The back side was ripped nearly the entire width and the tip of the card was sticking out. It looked as if either the card had fallen out and someone pushed it back in or someone pulled the card out to look at it and put it back.

 

Had the card been one of my normal pick-ups that cost a couple of dollars I would not have minded but this was one of those cards that I finally splurged a little on…

 

I have wanted a fossil card since they first made the scene but they were always pretty pricey, I finally gave in and chased one down. Two weeks ago I was in a bidding war for one of the Mammoth Femur cards and lost out by $1 when the auction closed. This time there was no bidding war and I got the Auroch Femur card for $5 less than the Mammoth card so that was pretty cool.

 

In the end, the seller had packaged the card securely in a snap tight case and there was no damage, not to mention these cards are quite thick and sturdy (about the thickness of an iPhone), but I am a little disappointed with how my mail carrier delivered it. She even placed the card in the mail box with the tear facing down and away from the rest of the mail in my box so you would think she knew of the rip. Oh well, all is well that ends well and I have now scratched another card off of my bucket list, next up is an Entomology card or Museum Piece card.

2011-12 Parkhurst Champions Fossils & Artifacts Cards Redemption Set Finalized

Upper Deck has completed the redemption cards for the 2011 Parkhurst Champions Fossils and Artifacts set and posted up some images of some of the cards. I know there are collectors who do not like non-sports cards in sports card sets but you have to admit that Upper Deck has done an amazing job with the fossil and artifact cards. There are 18 cards total on the checklist, this includes both regular and mini-cards. There are 4 cards that are available as both mini-card and regular (Roman Coin, Greek Coin, Aztec Blade and Auroch Skull) and 1 mini (Raptor Tooth) that is only available as a mini-card.

Some of the photos that they posted (Raptor Tooth, Aztec Blade and Greek Coin) appear to be the mini-versions. There is currently one mini-version of the Aztec Blade up for auction with a $350 BIN price. The card up for auction looks like it sits inside a large white border, probably a holder or protector for the card.

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.