LINDEN CARD(s) OF THE WEEK - A Flawless Treasure Trove

This past week vaulted me back into the Linden collecting full swing.  I landed a few new cards all in different ways.  An ebay purchase, an in person pickup and a card show find.  Can't go wrong with that trifecta.

Especially when all three cards come from Panini's final hockey product (for what might be a little while) - National Treasures.

That just sounds expensive....right?

Well fear not.  I managed to pick up all three cards for what I felt were very fair prices.  One, I even managed to land for a spankin' deal.

Let's take a look at the goods.

2013/14 Panini National Treasures

Past & Present Autographs 

#PP-LK (with Ryan Kesler)  /99

This hard-signed pair really caught my eye when I initially saw the pre-release "sneak peek" photos.  A bit of a bummer that Kesler is no longer with the team, but maybe that helped the price tag a bit.

I was able to pick this up at the local card show (first one I've hit up this season).  People like to set Linden cards aside for me now...I don't know if that's a good thing or bad.  But the price tag on it was more than fair.  It was in cdn dollars and there was no shipping involved.  How could I say no.

The Linden signature is very solid.  I've noticed a few of his penmarks looking a little bubbly or not so solid.  This one is a nice, fresh Sharipe blue.

2013/14 Panini National Treasures
Duals 

#D-CAN (with Markus Naslund)  /25

The first dual was out of 99.  This pair has an offering out of 100.  I like those big, beefy numbers these days - especially on cards this nice.

This card however is the gold parallel /25.  Funny thing though is that I passed on a number of them when they flooded ebay.  Patience definitely paid off as this piece hit my mailbox for less than what most of the versions /100 have gone for.

Ebay....so confusing.

I still need the more common version of this card, but now that I've set the number on the gold version, I refuse to pay more for the other.

I could be waiting a while.

2013/14 Panini National Treasures

Flawless

#181 (with diamond insertion)  /5

Well, well.  If I wasn't "back" before, I am now.

This top-end National Treasures card came about because of an ebay auction ending on a weeknight, by a local seller.  Double bonus.  I knew at least one other Linden collector would be passing on it so I decided to take a shot.

And while it did hit the higher end of my bid, I'm still very happy to have landed this one.  I've seen another copy go for much more.  Not sure how much the final three copies will fetch (if they show up at all on ebay) but I'd like to think that my copy will be one of the lower-priced offerings.

The best part, I got to meet up with the buyer locally for an in-person delivery.  He even compensated me for the shipping cost.  Gotta love that.

Now, I did a little research on the jewel embedded in the card.  Straight from Panini's blog...

"Flawless inserts (are) embedded with real diamonds."

Well, that's a first for a Linden card.  What won't they slap on a piece of cardboard these days?

All three cards are thick stock, quality surfacing and have great photos.  The Naslund dual are sticker autos, but with this being Panini's final push of product I can see them dumping a lot of stickers.

In fact, I'm surprised there weren't more Linden cards included in this release.  No memorabilia at all.  Very surprising.