LINDEN CARD(s) OF THE WEEK - A Patch, A Parallel & A Perfect Ending

The past couple of months have been pretty slow on the Linden card front.  I've probably snagged about a dozen or so cards for the pc - with many of them being base, low-priced jersey cards and easy parallels.

I've been passing on a ton of ebay auctions...the exchange rate is just too brutal to justify grabbing cards that I KNOW will be there down the road.  Really, the cards I've grabbed have fallen into one of two categories - "Gotta have it" or "Lazy pickup".

These three cards I'm about to show you all go in the first category.

2014/15 Upper Deck Premier

Mega Patch - Chest Logo

#PMP-TL Team Canada  03/27

I absolutely LOVE these patch cards.  They are huge.  They are Team Canada.  And for the most part....they are reasonably priced.

I gobbled up the first one I saw hit the open market, but knew immediately after seeing it in person that it wouldn't be the last one I grabbed.

With this upper left portion of the maple leaf, I now have 4 of the 27 cards to build the entire crest.  I know that 4 others have been spoken for.  While I'm a realist and fully knowing that I won't be able to grab all of them, I'd love to be able to snag at least a scan of all 27.  It would definitely be cool to piece it all together - albeit digitally.

Neat story with this card too.  I saw it as part of a lot of cards on ebay a few weeks back.  I was considering bidding on them all (hoping I could then recoup my dollars by selling the other dozen or so cards included).  Well, I missed the end of the auction completely so I was devastated by that (I would have won it too).

So I e-mailed the seller hoping to find the winner of the auction and hopefully convince him into selling the Linden.

Well, less than a week goes by and I see the card up on ebay again.  This time by the new owner...and without 12 other cards surrounding it.

I had the alarm ready and bid at the end - winning it by a hair.

2014/15 Upper Deck The Cup

#86 Gold Spectrum  /5

I always cringe slightly when I learn that Trev is included in the high-end product The Cup.  This year however brought a bit of a smile.

He's got the ever popular base card /249, a Gold parallel (seen above), a Black 1/1, four printing plates, a beefy shield card (wow) and a Program Of Excellence triple auto (with Joe Sakic and Curtis Joseph) /3.

In sheer numbers, not many cards.  But most of them are going to be near impossible to obtain.  And I'm perfectly fine with that.

It's when there are 12-15 cards that are mid-range that I get a little antsy.

So when I saw this gold parallel pop up - and with a very fair price IMO, I jumped at it.

Might be the only one I pick up from this product (other than the regular base card), but again....fine by me.

2002/03 Be A Player Signature Buyback

#129 99/00 Millennium Signature Series

Last - and most certainly not least - this simple signature card.

It does look that way doesn't it?

But it is not.

This card has been on the wantlist for over a decade.  It's the first time I've ever seen a copy of it.  The moment I saw it posted on ebay....I honed in big time on it.

I even e-mailed another Linden collector to confirm what I was seeing was real.  And I e-mailed the seller to do the same (and see if he had any others).

This card is different than the original auto card from that set in the sense that it has a Signature Buyback stamp in the upper right corner.  Be A Player released 5 (maybe 6) cards of Linden in this fashion back in 2002/03....using cards dated from 1998 to 2002.

I had picked up three of these cards years ago and the others have sat on my list ever since.  In fact, I have a note questioning the existence of one of them since it has never been seen by anyone.

Anytime I see that foil "X" in the upper corner.....I go to the list.  And this time it showed that I needed it.

So how excited was I when I landed this card?  To put it bluntly...I'm more giddy about this card than any other Linden I have picked up this year.

And that's a bold statement.

More than the mega patches, more than the rare numbered cards, more than the shiny green parallels, more than the blank backs, more than the 1/1's and even more than the 11-year-old Red parallel that eluded me for so so long.

More than all of them.

I could honestly say that this is the Linden Card Of The Year and it wouldn't be a stretch.

Hmmmmmm.......I might have to start prepping another post.