RAISE THE CUP - Cleaning Off The Desk

Well I had a few moments tonight to clean up my office desk.  Seems there's been a massive explosion, and the result......cards, cards everywhere.

Most are ones that need to go into trade binders or monster boxes (as they've been downgraded from the toploader world) a handful are from various projects and a couple are "reminder" cards.

What they're supposed to remind me to do.....who knows anymore.

But I came across three cards that were easy to place and a quick check on a project binder showed me that I needed to do some scanning.....and some show & telling.

This Mario Lemieux card is a real eye-catcher.  Even when I look at it close up, it has that drawn/sketch feel to it.  But it's not.  It's just a slightly overexposed photograph.

Inserted into the 2006/07 Power Play insert set called Cup Celebrations, this has slowly revealed itself as one of the earlier Cup raising insert sets out there.

I picked it up at a trade night a few months ago.  Crazy enough - I traded for it.

A lot of LA Kings Stanley Cup cards of late (but not this year).  I really like a lot of the horizontal offerings in my project.  The background really gives the card depth and makes the Cup punch out even more.

Kopitar looks truly overjoyed.  What a great moment - and a perfect example of what I like about this collection.

Uh oh.....we need a ruling.

A while back I made the decision to take some cards out of my Raise The Cup project.  I decided that some of the parameters include...

1. Photo must appear on the front of the card
2. Stanley Cup must be raised over the player's head

Well, clearly you can see that we only have 50% on the test.  But boy is this card ever nice.  You can tell that this photo was taken literally moments after Toews was presented the Cup.  The expression on his mug is perfect and there's good energy in the shot.

Plus it's Jonathan Toews....not Mark Messier.  I was able to throw out a card of The Moose because he had the Cup at his side.  A good reason as any to get rid of it.

This card on the other hand - is going in.......for now.  I'm sure I'll change my mind at a later point.

But I get to do that.  It's my project.

Current Collection - 120 cards