LINDEN ITEM OF THE WEEK - What A Unique Find... Or Is It?

Wow!  Post #4 of the month.  I'm flyin'.  I'm on pace for a whopping 50 posts this year or something.

Yes, it's true, my blogging has fallen off a little this year.  There's just been a lot on the plate still (does it ever end?).  But fear not.  Things are ramping up a bit and I just picked up a number of cards for a few of my projects.  Now I just need to clean my desk off, scan some stuff and get typing.

The past couple weeks have been spent over at my sister's place while she and my brother-in-law flew off to Vegas.  I got to hang out with my niece and nephew.  Awesome!  Cards definitely took a back seat, but I still managed to find some cool items when out and about.  Unfortunately I wasn't able to pick them up as the price tags were a little large (antique show....what do you expect).

For this post I thought I'd show off an item that I was pretty pumped to purchase and equally excited to open when it arrived.  But all might not be what it seems.

Anything and everything Medicine Hat Tigers with Trevor Linden on it is of automatic interest to me.  Sadly, the number of items are low....very low.  He played junior at a time when junior cards or memorabilia were not on the radar of collectors.  So this poster/photo was an immediate eye-catcher when it popped up on ebay a few weeks back.

It was surprising to me that the price was reasonable considering that in the 15+ years I have been collecting Linden items I have never seen this piece before.  I contemplated it for a day then hit the Buy It Now button.  I was really thrilled with the purchase.  For a day at least.

What I thought was a rare and unique item turned out to be not quite as scarce.

Not a day had gone by after purchasing the poster when up popped another copy - from the same seller.  So what gives?  Is this item a reprint?  A fake?  One of a billion that he has in his basement?

The envelope arrived in the mail a few days later (as it was coming from a short distance away) and upon opening it was confused even further.

The item is fantastic.  It measures approx 8x9 inches (a bizarre size if you ask me) and is printed on a paper that has the look and feel of something 25 years old.  Do I think it's a fake?  No way.  It looks pretty legit to me.

But I'm tempted to email the seller to see if he has any more info on the item.  How many copies he has...where he got them from...what's his connection to the piece.

Whatever the answers may be (if any), I have no hesitations or regrets when it comes to this Linden item.  It's a great photo that definitely screams of the era.  Bad mullets, cheesy expressions and badly colored wood seats.  How can you possibly go wrong?  Oh, and can you pick out Trev in the mix?  I think I figured it out....but even I'm not 100% sure.