One of my major goals for this year is to complete the run of Topps Hockey sets from 1980-81 through 1990-91 (there were no Topps sets in 82-83 or 83-84), which includes scanning in every card and organizing them nicely in binders. The 80's Topps hockey sets were cards I grew up with and they have a lot of sentimental value to me as a result. I've heard people pose the question "If your house was on fire and you could save only one item from your collection, what would it be?" or "If you had to be stranded on a desert island...". For me, these sets would be near the top of those lists.


Unlike Topps' 80's baseball releases, the hockey sets have actually maintained some value in the marketplace as well. Thanks to rookie cards of guys like Mario Lemieux, Steve Yzerman, Patrick Roy, Brett Hull and Ray Bourque, collecting all of these sets is actually a decent challenge. So far I've talked about the 1989-90 Topps set. Next up is the 87-88 Topps set. I didn't have many of these in my original childhood collection, but I was lucky enough to pick up a complete set a while back. There are 198 cards in the base set. What better way to discuss the set than to show off my favorite cards, as usual. You won't find the base set Whalers in this post, I've already shown them off here. I could probably write at length about any card from any of these sets, but here are a few that stick out to me:

#15 - Mario Lemieux - Pittsburgh Penguins - This is Super Mario's third Topps base card. The Topps/OPC design from this year is pretty darn good. I guess if they made this set nowadays the stick border would have to be composite.

If you're sitting around on this Sunday afternoon wondering what can replace football now that the Superbowl has come and gone, may I suggest Olympic hockey? Two fabulous games are on the docket this afternoon/evening. First the Czech Republic faces Russia at 3 PM ET, then the highly anticipated Canada/USA matchup takes place this evening at 7 PM ET. Need a reason to watch? Here's a list of some of the NHL superstars you'll see during just these 2 games tonight:

Martin Brodeur
Pavel Datsyuk
Sergei Fedorov
Jarome Iginla
Jaromir Jagr
Patrick Kane
Ilya Kovalchuk
David Krejci
Evgeni Malkin
Joe Thornton
Jonathan Toews

Oh yeah, and Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. Convinced yet?

Recently I won this 1939 Play Ball Fred Ostermueller card on Ebay. Believe it or not this is now my oldest Red Sox card. I was intrigued by the card since I had never even held a Play Ball card, let alone added one to my collection. The corners are a bit dinged but the card is crease-free and in great shape considering it's over 70 years old!

Fred (affectionately known as Fritz) enjoyed a 14 year career in Major League Baseball despite not debuting until age 27. The majority of that time was spent with the Boston Red Sox and Pittsburgh Pirates. I don't know the specific circumstances, but sadly Ostermueller passed away at age 50, just 9 years after hanging up his cleats for the final time.

I bought a single 1964-65 Topps hockey card a while back and decided that I'd like a few more cards from this set. Since then I've picked up 7 more cards:

#38 - Billy Reay - Chicago Blackhawks - I believe Billy has more wins than any other Chicago Blackhawks head coach. I'll say it again, I wish Upper Deck would include coach cards in a set.

Like many other collectors I had a frustrating time entering my Topps Million Card Giveaway codes today. I had only 3 cards to enter:

Card #1 - 1993 Topps Milt Hill - "Great..." I thought to myself. This is about what I expected. Milt lasted just 4 seasons in the majors and was out of baseball by 1994. Not to mention, I have about 400 '93 Topps cards tucked in a box in my basement that I'd love to get rid of. There could be a Milt in there already, I'm not even sure...

David Krejci and the Boston Bruins managed a come from behind win in Florida on Saturday night against the Panthers, completing a perfect 4-0-0 road trip before the Olympic break. Capturing all 8 available points on the trip has allowed the Bruins to jump all the way from 12th to 7th (and ahead of the lowly Canadiens) in the Eastern Conference standings. Krejci scored one of the 2 Bruins goals on Saturday night, and also had a huge goal in the shootout to keep the team alive another round.

I'm looking forward to Olympic hockey (how could any hockey fan not be), but the break comes at a pretty inopportune time for a Bruins team that was finally getting rolling. I hope the Bruins can pick back up where they left off in a couple of weeks. On a side note, the Victory Gold parallel cards look really good meshed with the Bruins colors.

Continuing my recent trend of picking up vintage Red Sox, I acquired this 1952 Topps Mauric McDermott on eBay. I think everyone agrees that '52 Topps is one of the most iconic sets ever produced. Unless I win the lottery (which I don't play), this is one set I'm sure I'll never complete. Anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the hobby knows that many high numbered cards were allegedly dumped into the ocean by Topps, making this series extremely rare, desired and valuable amongst collectors. That being said, I think every serious baseball card collection should include at least one example from this classic set.

Today is pay day, and I just blew my entire $60 card budget for this paycheck on a wax box of 2009-10 Upper Deck Series 2 hockey. This is the first wax box I've picked up in quite some time, so I'm pretty excited about it. I'll write up a review sometime in the next couple of weeks when it arrives. In the meantime here are some Red Sox cards I picked up on the cheap last paycheck. I'm ashamed to admit that my collection contained just one single 1956 Topps card prior to winning these 3 on eBay:

#34 - Tom Brewer - This is probably my favorite card of the bunch. It's one of the nicer backgrounds I've seen on a '56 Topps card (although admittedly I haven't seen many).

#93 - George Susce Jr.

After watching yet another Bruins loss this afternoon (now the longest losing streak for the team since 1925) I needed to get out for some fresh air. I still had $20 in my budget for this paycheck so I decided to hit the only hobby shop I ever really visit (probably the only one within half an hour of my house). I've been featuring a lot of hockey cards lately so I decided to focus on baseball during today's trip. I hadn't picked up any 2010 Topps yet so I decided to grab a jumbo hobby pack to see what all the fuss was about. 50 cards (41 base cards and 9 inserts) for $10. Everyone is probably getting sick of seeing these by now but here you go...