Latest LCS Finds (and the Winner of the Giveaway)

    The winner of my blogoversary giveaway will be mentioned at the end of this post. You can bear with me, or just skip to the end if you'd like :) 

    A couple weeks ago I went to my local card store for the first time in a few months to pick up the prizes for my football pick 'em and blogoversary contest. Unfortunately for me, 2025-26 hockey cards still haven't made their way into the store yet. There was a Dallas Stars box, however. There were very few autos, which is probably good for business, but not for my giveaway. Oh well.

    While I was there, I skipped the quarter boxes - a rare move for me - and looked through one of the dollar boxes and the Stars box. But not before grabbing a fistful of binder pages for the new hockey binder I'm putting together. I realize that most of my collecting habits at the current time are hockey-related, but when baseball season comes back around I imagine I'll be collecting more baseball cards.

    Though I spent most my time looking into the Stars box, I did grab a handful of baseball cards from the dollar box. And when I was paying I noticed a few quarter Buster Posey cards that were added into my little stack. All in all I ended up walking out of the store with a dozen cards added to my collection and twenty binder pages for my binder.

       2016-17 UD Artifacts #74     2016-17 UD Trilogy #26       2018-19 O-Pee-Chee 

                                                                                                                   Platinum #88

    I grabbed this trio of John Klingberg cards for one reason and one reason only - you guessed it! He's with the Sharks. But the cards look pretty nice too. I know Klingberg's been in the league for awhile and that he was originally with the Stars, but a quick look into Hockey Reference showed that he spent the bulk of his career with Dallas, from 2015-2022. He was a productive player offensively (though he's a defender), and scored 67 points in the 2017-2018 season.

2000-01 UD e-Cards #EC2

    Not only does this 2001 card of Hall-of-Famer Brett Hull look very cool, but I also notice the giant 'e-Card' slapped onto the front. There is a code included, under which are the directions, 'Go to upperdeckdigital.com to digitize your e-Card.' However, when I tried to visit the website my computer told me that I entered a website likely to have viruses 😅 It's a good thing a quick scan came up clean, but it stinks I couldn't check it out. I probably wouldn't suggest checking the website out unless I messed up the address - I'm not even going to try and find out.

2008-09 UD Biography of a Season #BS5

    Another really cool-looking card. Brunnstrom's career wasn't very long, spanning only three seasons and 104 games, but at least they gave him a neat card to show for it.

2022-23 UD Credentials #141

    I've always thought that ticket access cards were cool. I didn't notice until writing this paragraph that the card is actually serial-numbered 231/999. It looks like Fredrik Karlstrom had an assist in the final period of his NHL debut in the 2021-2022 season. He only played seven games after that, but it looks like he's currently active, skating in the AHL with the Islanders organization. 

2024-25 UD MVP Hockey #127

    Heiskanen is on the current Stars team that's tearing up the NHL alongside the Avalanche. It's a shame they're in the same division as Colorado and can't meet in the Stanley Cup Final. Heiskanen has been productive all year and has paced a talented Stars defense in points while also playing as one of the league's finest defenders.

    That does it for all the hockey cards I added to the collection at the LCS. Now onto the baseball cards.

2025 Topps Chrome Power Players #PP-8 and Chrome All-Etch #CAE-15

    The colors on these two cards are so vibrant it's impossible not to notice them. As far as inserts go, I really like the Power Players, and All-Etch isn't too shabby itself. I forgot exactly how many inserts there were in 2025 Topps, but I can only remember the names of a handful of them off the top of my head, so many.

             2013 Bowman #200                 2017 Topps #675                 2019 Topps #157

    And these are the trio of quarter card Busters. We have three nice action shots of Posey batting here. I'd like to think Posey will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer when he first hits the ballot in 2027. As of right now he still has a job in baseball as the president of baseball operations for the Giants, where he has made some big decisions, including the off-season appointment of Tennesee Vols coach Tony Vitello as manager. All in all I think he's done a very good job and that he belongs in his current role.

    That'll do it for my latest LCS additions. I hope to pop in again fairly soon and make some additions to various PCs.

 

   And now onto the winner of my 2nd Blogoversary's Giveaway:

   

    11 people entered the giveaway this year, and the one to have his name landed upon three times was...

 

    Congrats to Seager for the Win on winning my giveaway! I'll have the cards on the way in a few days.

    Thank you to all those who read my blogoversary post and to those who entered my giveaway. It's so fun for me to have one on the blog's birthday, and I hope to continue doing it every year.

    That does it for today's post. Thanks for stopping by the blog, have a great rest of the week, and happy collecting!

Digitally Collecting Cards?

     I've heard a lot about collecting cards digitally the last six or so months, and I read about it once again on another blog about a week ago. This time my interest was peaked. 

    I looked around for a few minutes to find a free digital collecting website, and before too long I found one, Upper Deck e-Pack. I ended up joining e-Pack a few days ago to check out the concept of online collecting and see how I like it. 

    e-Pack is free and easy to join, and every day you log on to the website you get a free small pack of cards. There is always the opportunity to buy cards digitally, but at this point I'm sticking with what's free.

   The bulk of the cards you'll see are hockey cards, but you can also collect football, golf, and wrestling, as well as entertainment.

    The website is very easy to navigate, and there is a legend on the top left-hand side of the page which shows what the symbols you'll come across on the website mean.

    In addition to collecting, e-Pack offers you the opportunity to connect with other users via a couple forums, similar to TCDB. But the coolest part of e-Pack, in my opinion, is the ability to trade your digital cards with other collectors on the site.

    Another interesting perk that I read about is the ability to buy the physical copies of cards on the website, and Upper Deck will go ahead and send them to you. This feature, combined with the ability to trade with the other site users, may very well come in handy in the future.

    I've only been an Upper Deck e-Pack member for a handful of days now, but it looks like a pretty cool website. I will make an update on how it's going at the end of every month as I continue to learn about the site and use it more (starting in February). I'm thankful to get the free opportunity to try something new regarding card collecting, and I hope it turns out to be a cool experience. I was also recommended the BUNT app shortly after joining e-Pack, which I'll likely check out if I enjoy the former.

    That's all I've got for this week. Make sure to come back on January 22nd for my Blogoversary post (I don't know why I'm pushing this so hard 🤣)

    Thanks for stopping by the blog, hold out until this evening and then have a great weekend, and happy collecting!