Great One keeps streak alive

Hot hockey teams going into the playoffs usually make a deep run.
The Blackhawks couldn't recreate last year's playoff magic, but the mojo kept going in our most recent hockey break.
In the past month, we've hit two pretty sweet cards out 2010-11 Upper Deck hockey: A #'d to 10 Marcus Johansson Young Guns Spectrum and a 1-of-1 Tyler Seguin Young Guns printing plate. Johansson sold for close to $96, while Seguin nearly hit $160 after coming out of a loose pack.
The Son and I headed to Charlestowne Mall in St. Charles on Friday to check out a show that wasn't a part of the usual routine around the the northwest suburbs. The same guys are always there, which are the same guys at Fox Valley Mall and Golf Mill, but it was something to take a chance on.
As usual, only one dealer with packs/boxes. The Son wanted Topps Series 1 because he likes the Diamond Giveaway, so got him six packs. I grabbed six packs of Topps Heritage and two packs of Gypsy Queen.
We had to get hockey because, frankly, no one ever has much hockey even at the bigger shows. Deciding between an Upper Deck Series 2 box and a Black Diamond box came down to a couple of bucks, but opted for the Black Diamond because of the Ice box topper pack.
I've always thought Black Diamond to be somewhat underrated, even if the "diamond" gimmick to distinguish quality of player is silly. The hits are usually decent, as we got the expected pair of Quad jerseys - Tim Thomas and Ryan Miller. One ruby quad rookie card of Zac Dalpe and a ruby Gordie Howe were both #'d to 100.
In the middle of all the about-average ripping, the hot streak went to another level.

An amazing - and tough - pull to say the least. The only downside is that The Great One ran slightly off the sticker's right edge with his signature. We briefly thought about what this could get us at auction or in a trade, especially with a few Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane rookies on our want list.
Despite the potential, not to mention all the bad things Gretzy and his Oilers did to the Hawks in the 1980s, The Great One will stay in the collection with the Mario rookie and Kaner's The Cup rookie.
It might be time to stop buying hockey. How much hotter could the streak really get?

Campana's Corner is written by Dan Campana, a media consultant, former newspaper reporter and longtime collector living in the Chicago suburbs with a sports-minded 6-year-old and an understanding wife.

Sometimes the breaks go your way

As much as The Son and I prefer to buy boxes knowing, roughly, what we should get, every so often we just grab whatever packs await us at the monthly Rolling Meadows show.
The options weren't great this past weekend, especially with a scant few new baseball products out there right now. Being hockey guys, we never see as much as hockey wax out there as we'd like.
We've already finished off our Upper Deck Series 1 set, which meant we'd pass on the box despite its $55 price. Instead we grabbed the last nine packs of Series 2 sitting there looking lonely and, probably, devoid of any hits.
For $27, why not? If nothing else, we'd be getting a start on our Series 2 set.
Some times the breaks go your way.
In just nine packs, we pulled two no-name Young Guns (one-third of the box's allotment); a UD Exclusives #'d/100 (usually one per box); a no-name Rookie Materials and a Roberto Luongo 2-color game jersey (two jerseys in a typical box); and a 1-of-1 Tyler Seguin Young Guns Printing Plate (one every two-plus cases, likely higher ratio for Young Guns.
Any pack searchers who dared feel up this box before we arrived should probably stick to their day job based on what they missed.
This was just the second 1-of-1 pulled - not including the 2007/08 The Cup Marc Staal plate that came from a case break - in the three years since returning to the hobby. The other was 2010 Topps National Chicle Joe Saunders card that had a leather or ball-like surface texture.
Coincidentally, we pulled a Marcus Johansson Young Guns Spectrum card #4/10 - a difficult pull in itself - from our last box of Series 1 last month. A happy Washington Capitals fan picked it up for $95 from us on eBay.
The Seguin hit eBay last night. We'll see if any Bruins fans will spend enough for our next box buy.
More times than not, we're gonna buy a box, but we'll never completely overlook the loose packs.

Campana's Corner is written by Dan Campana, a media consultant, former newspaper reporter and longtime collector living in the Chicago suburbs with a sports-minded 6-year-old and an understanding wife.