THANKS CHRIS! - Cloutier Tetrad AUTO

Yet another thank you post from yet another awesome guy. I'm a lucky man considering how nice people are toward me and my collection.

On to the story. Chris contacted me for help finding some old Canucks/Kings play-off tickets from 2012. He's a Kings fan and is having a little trouble finding Vancouver home tickets. Over the past months I've been searching like a mad man but with little to show for.

As I was continually sifting through craigslist and talking to the local collectors, Chris e-mailed me saying he had a nice thank you gift. 

I have to say, even after all that searching I still don't have the tickets, but he still sent me the card. What a guy eh?

Now this card is funky in a lot of ways. First, the design is unorthodox (to say the least), the numbering is a sky scraper high /7,750 but oh boy is this a sick card! 

This is my guy Clout in his classic all red pads and bucket helmet from his Greyhound days. This card is cool, cool and more cool!

And for a fourth cool, check out the signature. Notice anything different? Probably not if you're not a Cloutier fan. He signed with number 33 not his 39 he wore for most of his career, not that's unique!

Thank you Chris; this card will sit nicely next to the rest of my Cloutier hits! Plus its another one off the want list!

GO NUCKS GO!

THANKS KYLE - Dan Cloutier Pick-Up

My Dan Cloutier PC is probably my favourite project at the moment and my friend Kyle from Beware the Hockey Card Closet sent me another card that fits right in.

Awhile back Kyle and I figured we had a few cards the other wanted/needed so we did a little swap. I ended up with a Cloutier card I didn't even know existed!

Clout actually shares the card with three other players from the Sault Sainte-Marie Greyhounds of the OHL.

This is the back of the card:

As shown above Dan shares the back of the card with the best name of the four - Joe Thornton. The front has two guys I've never heard of:

The front is covered over with gold foil and has a paragraph along the left that continues onto the back, you don't see that very often. 

I can't say the design is anything special but the card in whole definitely is. This is a card I had never even seen and it's certainly neat to get my hands on a card this unique. The brand "Classic" must not have had an NHL license because most (if not all) of the cards I own of them are from some sort of junior team. 

This card was also a special card to Kyle from what he told me. Apparently, this was one of his very first hockey cards. I'm honoured that you let me have it Kyle, thank you!

Be sure to check out C4K Cloutier for scans of my entire Cloutier collection.

GO NUCKS GO!

DAN CLOUTIER PC - THANK YOU MIKE!

About a month ago, I got an e-mail from a fellow collector who had a couple of really nice Cloutier cards he was willing to part with. His website, The Potvin Collection, showcases some very nice Potvin and Gagner pieces. Unfortunately, with free time at a minimum (evident by my weekly posts) I had to put our potential trade on the back burner.

A little over a week ago though, Mike contacted me again and said he was sending the two Cloutier's for nothing in return! Wow, I can't believe the kindness of hockey card collectors, it truly is a tight community!

Well Mike, before I even show off the two beauties, I have to thank you greatly! And don't think this will go unnoticed, the kindness will be returned!

Anyways, like I mentioned, the cards are some really nice pieces.

I've seen this card on the Bay for awhile but haven't been happy enough with the prices to jump. Thankfully, I can cross this off the want list. The GU window is a little different and the colour swatch the dark Canucks navy blue.

What really pops out at me on this card is the photo choice. The card comes from the ITG Action set so it's appropriate that ITG used an actual action photo, not just a shot of Cloutier in his ready position. Thumbs up ITG!

WOWEEEEE! That's a nice looking piece of GU goodness! That's a piece of his pad by the by. The scanner didn't really show it vert well, but the pad is a white (not so crystal white though) tone with a nice grey seem running straight across the patch. 

Hands down the coolest piece of Cloutier on card memorabilia yet! I'm looking to trying to get one piece from each set of equipment. So far I have: jersey, stick and pad; just need the glove and blocker!

Thanks again Mike! I'm really excited in getting these new Clouts!

As always, check out the website on the right hand side to see my entire Dan Cloutier PC!

GO NUCKS GO!

I GOT RIPPED OFF (But I Don't Mind) - PART 1

Relationships are a weird thing in the hobby.

You make a lot of friends that you might not have made due to our obsessions with cardboard. Sometimes, relationships can make deals harder than they have to be. Such is my life at my LCS.

My shop has been open for about 25 years and is owned by an older couple. They're rough around the edges but really nice folks. Problem is, everything in that store is ten dollars overpriced. Of course, they'll always give you a "deal" but it'll still be overpriced.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not mad. In fact, I think that is great business sense by both of them. They really play up the Vancouver market well, but sometimes I feel ripped off.

For example, I go into the store with a 20 dollar budget. Basically my goal was to go check out their old Canucks base binder for Cloutiers and see what GU and AUTO's they had in stock. With even a 20 dollar bill I thought I could get a lot done, wrong.

 I got two base, one parallel and an insert; let's take a look at them and then I'll let you know what I paid for them.

The one you see on either side of this text comes from what I think is my favourite Upper Deck Series 1 set - ever. Bold statement, I know. Nostalgia has a huge part in me saying that. I just love the borders, the full sized pics and the boxiness of the back design. Plus this was the set I seemed to see most of when I was trading with my buddies.

I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to see this card. This is also very nicely designed; the all foil and pop out figure on the card is quite neat! 

I also like how the back has that red section that is titled "Bowman Briefing." It's that creativity that I believe is missing in a lot of base sets today. You could tell there was great time in writing the "Résumé," "Skills" and "Evolution" portions.

Speaking of nostalgia, this is the definition of the word! McDonalds hockey cards, otherwise known as another excuse to go grab a happy meal as a kid. These things were so fun to rip open with friends. I remember my uncle would come over sometimes and have like 25 packs of this stuff for me to open with him (and the packs weren't cheap)! If you hit a cool insert (especially die-cut ones) or a hot rookie, you were the guy to talk to the next day.

Good old grade five... I know that hitting an AUTO or GU card was near impossible, but if you did, you were a rich man!

I remember when this insert came out and wanting to have it so bad. I did eventually get my hands on a copy but for some reason lost it along the way. Fortunately, I picked this one up with the other three cards at my LCS. Plus, it's in much better shape than my last copy was!

Looks like four pretty solid pick-ups to me. Probably my most exciting low end Cloutiers I have, but what did I pay? Well at a flea market in Florida I would have probably gotten all four card for a dime. At my LCS, I payed two bucks a piece. Yup, eight bones for four cards.

But like I said in the title, I don't mind.

I got to look through three binders packed with IP and TTM AUTO's and laugh at a few good stories with the gentleman store owner. I got to talk hockey (lockout, concussions etc.) But most importantly, I went home with cards I liked and was happy AND the owners got paid so they were happy AND we both had a good time doing it.

That is what the hobby is all about.

But hey, my wallet still had 12 bucks to spare before I hit my cap. Unfortunately my heart thought it had about 32 bucks left...

Stay tuned for "I GOT RIPPED OFF (But I Don't Mind) - Part 2"... There are some interesting cards coming up.

As always take a look at C4K CLOUTIER and mozy through my Dan Cloutier PC.

GO NUCKS GO!

VERSUS: Dan Cloutier Hit VS. 2012-13 Certified

Money in my pocket. Oh why do you taunt me?

With some pocket change to spare this week, I passed by my overpriced but extremely welcoming LCS to pick up some cards. I decided to pace myself...really I did! Of course, things don't always go as planned.

I was talking to the husband (it's a husband and wife that own this shop) and he was telling me one day when I have more time to stop in to see the massive binder of Cloutier cards he has. I agreed and asked him to quickly show me some of his GU and AUTO's of my favourite player.

Turns out he had two on hand. One was an AUTO from the most recent BTP (the one I already have) and the other was a high serial numbered GU card of his.

I asked the price of the GU piece of cardboard and to my utter shock it was a whole 20 bucks! No way José, he knew I wasn't gonna pay anywhere near that price. He then brought it right down to it's BV of 15 bucks.

I politely said "I was thinking more like 5." He smiled and said we could package something up. In the end I bought one pack of Certified and the Cloutier card at a clean 20 bucks total. Perfect for another edition of "VERSUS!"

So let the battle begin:

DAN CLOUTIER HIT

Like I said, high numbered GU card. It's pretty basic and I believe on eBay I could have probably nabbed it for 3.99 plus shipping, but the owners a nice guy. I think that's what it's all about in the end, meeting stand up guys and gals in the hobby. 

What I really like about this card though is actually the info on the back. It says "In 2003-04, Dan wore this Canucks sweater and recorded his 100th win." Now that's cool! 

To think that this jersey is actually a hallmark in Cloutier's career is crazy!

This ten bucks was well spent, but did it beat out my single pack of Certified?

FINAL SCORE: 8.5/10

2012-13 CERTIFIED

This one pack out of ten was a long shot for anything good, but for ten bucks it was worth the gamble; and boy was it worth it!

I won't get into the base cards too much, but I like them. I'm not going crazy over them, but I do think they are really cool. It may not seem like this in the scan but you can see the background through the foil. 

The BIG hit of the pack was this beauty...or soon to be beauty!

My very first redemption! I'm not sure why I'm excited because these things are a huge pain in the arse, but hey it's my FIRST ONE! 

Now let's dissect this bad boy. It's a DUAL Signature numbered to 100 copies and the player selection is of the Adam Henrique and Taylor Hall variety.

WOWZA! This is gonna be a good one!

I already redeemed it via paniniamerica.net and I put my time frame as 4 months. So hopefully this card shows up before then. 

My question is should I raise the time frame to 8 months (if possible)? What do you guys think, from experience, will be the time frame between my redeeming it online until I see it in my mailbox?

By any means this 10 dollar pack of cards get's a well deserved high mark of...

FINAL SCORE: 9.5/10

DAN CLOUTIER - 8.5/10     <     CERTIFIED - 9.5/10

This was certainly a fun one!

Because of that redemption goodness, I bought two more packs of the 2012-13 Certified product.

I'm weak.

More on that tomorrow!

GO NUCKS GO!

DAN CLOUTIER PC - Update

Just a quick little post for today. I wanted to mention that I'm now completely caught up on my Cloutier PC website called C4K CLOUTIER. I went mad and put up ALL my base, insert, rookies etc. from my Cloutier collection.

The only thing missing are two GU cards, I need to scan them and quickly pop them on. Other than that, it's all there!

I put a lot of work into showcasing my virtual Cloutier collection, so let me know what you like, what you don't like and everything in between!

As always, e-mail or leave a comment if you see any cards I don't have for my Cloutier PC!

In other news, I got a great response for the first "OOPSIES" contest yesterday! I'll give it one more day and then I will reveal the answer and the points list! If you haven't entered yet, see below!

And make sure to click the link on the right to visit C4K Cloutier!

GO NUCKS GO!

CLOUT PC - Guess Who's Back, Back Again?

Thanks Slim Shady...

With an introduction like that, this must mean big news right? Well it's big news for me at least. You can imagine my excitement when I saw this yesterday on the Canucks official website:

DAN CLOUTIER IS BACK! Yup, my favourite childhood hockey player is making a return into the Canucks organization as a "Goaltending Consultant", I'm guessing it's not quite a Goalie Coach but one step below that.

To celebrate lets take a look at another Cloutier card I added not to long ago to the collection.

This card will join my Silver Patch variation. This has got me back in a Cloutier kick so expect some more great buys in the near future!

Lastly, I'm doing a new segment called "Versus" which involves spending the exact same money against two different products and seeing which one results in better cards! The first post should be coming up soon. Spoiler alert it involves Score, OPC, Donruss and SpX!

GO NUCKS GO!

CLOUT PC - A S"nazzy" Double Hitter

Quite literally this card is a "double hitter". The card comes from an early 2000's set which is right around the time GU Memorabilia cards started picking up steam. Pacific Trading cards came out with a number of neat different sets during the late 90's to early 2000's and I got a neat little taste from the Real DFG's community box break. Unfortunately, I didn't get any Cloutier hits (which was a long shot) but it did inspire me to see what was out there.

In this case we have Private Stock Titanium "Double-Sided Game-Worn Jersey" card, featuring my guy Dan Cloutier on one side...

I like seeing the different pads Cloutier wore throughout his career. I use to be (and still sorta am) really obsessed with goalie equipment and how it has evolved throughout the years. I remember as a kid I use to draw pictures of Dan and when he got a new set of pads it was such a thrill to get to draw a different design. I was such a simple kid. Anyways, as you can see the swatch is silver, most likely coming from a piece of the arm or a stripe from the bottom. I'm not sure if you can see this but there is a small bit of stitching on the right hand side of the swatch. The card stock is lifted slightly on the corner also which leads me to believe the stitching continues. 

If you didn't clue into the bad pun in the title yet, it's about to be revealed now. The other side of the card features former Canucks captain and jersey retiree - Markus Naslund (Nazzy).

I was more of a Bertuzzi fan compared to Naslund but he still holds a beloved part in Canucks history, so you gotta respect the guy. His number hangs in the rafters of Rogers Arena along side Stan Smyl and Trevor Linden. This happens to be the second GU card of Markus in my collection.

Happy to add this to my Cloutier PC, it's nice to focus on one guy now that I have opted out of Hodgson collecting. His cards are triple or more the price of an equal Cloutier card so it keeps my wallet out of harms way. 

Don't forget to check out C4K Cloutier to browse the entire collection. 

GO NUCKS GO!

DFG's Group Break Goodies, Thanks Tim!

For all those that participated in the Real DFG's Box Break in August, you'll know that for just 10 bucks you get a butt load of neat hockey cards. I received the package a couple of days ago and was happy to see some really neat stuff for my Cloutier PC's, Canucks binders and even a GU hit!

42 BASE CARDS

Excluding Dan Cloutier cards I received 42 base cards split right down the middle (half Lightning and half Canucks).

Sick flow Nazzy...

















I've never actually seen these type die-cut cards before the group break...

These are some of the coolest Crown Royale base card designs, the die-cut technology is really well done on these cards...










4 INSERTS

These are some neat looking parallels for goalies. Even the name "Gauntlet of Glory", neat name, but wouldn't it make sense if all the pictures were of the goalies making glove saves?

Who?

MAXIMUM OVERDIVE! Excessive? Maybe a bit. But they make it look like Naslund's going really fast so, its cool.

Neat idea for an insert set. I've seen this before but this is actually not badly executed.











1 GU HIT!

Awww...shucks, I'm a sucker for GU cards. Even though this is just when GU hockey cards were starting to jump in the hobby, I don't mind the cheesy card design. I do slightly remember Andrew Cassels as a kid, I've always liked his name.

DAN CLOUTIER CARDS

Five base cards, three of which or not doubles. Plus another "Gauntlet of Glory" insert, this time of my main man - Cloutier.

GO NUCKS GO!

Dan Cloutier PC - BTP AUTO

Since I bought that big lot of Cloutier cards months back I still haven't gotten around to showing you all the neat types of cards I acquired. So today we will take a peek at one more page of Cloutier cards and then an eBay pickup that's in the form of an AUTO.

All these cards are from Cloutier first couple years and as you can see he is wearing Rangers gear in all but one of them. That card on the bottom right hand corner comes from a really cool set called UD3 "New Era" (whatever that is). On the opposing left we have Cloutier in what looks to be his junior gear on a card of a company I have never heard of - TetRad. That pillar down the middle is horrendous and the back of the card is no better!

I'm glad that TetRad company is out of business cause that card is just plain weird! 

Now onto the good stuff, an autograph of good old Clouts!

Cloutiers AUTO looks a little weak compared to some of his other stuff, but it stills brings back nostalgic memories. This is one of two sigs Dan has in the regular AUTO set BTP puts out. His other is included in "La Belle Province" subset and is an SP. That might cost a couple more loonies but I should find a deal sooner or later...

The AUTO designs this year don't fall too far from the tree compared to the past couple years but they still show a more modern, sleek looking design. Hey thanks for the AUTO Dr. Price!

GO NUCKS GO!

DAN CLOUTIER PC - Hot New Patch

It's been awhile since I've gotten back into collecting but it seemed that there has always been a hole in my personal collection. That hole WAS a patch card. But between the patch card I pulled in my 2011-12 Titanium box and the card I'm about to show, I'm at a good start.

This patch card is quite cool if I do say so myself! I'll let the scan do the talking:

This is a 3 colour patch with a nice thread seam down all three colours. This obviously came from the older Canucks orca jerseys from Dan Cloutier's era. This comes as my first card from the 2011-12 BTP want list of Dan Cloutier cards. 

Like the back of the card says this is the Silver Version. That means there are /19 copies of this card. The price you ask? 11 dollars and it was shipped right to my doorstep. That's what I love about collecting Cloutier cards. A low numbered card with a sick patch is a very reasonable price!

Very excited to add this to the collection and I hope to add more cards like this is the near future!

GO NUCKS GO!

DAN CLOUTIER PC - Once Upon A Time...Cloutier Was A King

Before I go to bed for the night I needed to get my hockey card blogging fix in. So here's a short little show off segment of a Dan Cloutier card I picked up a few months back.

This card is from the tail-end of Cloutiers NHL career. You knew it started to go down hill once he ditched his bucket mask. He decided to adopt the new modern look of the design cluttered NHL cages. It's weird seeing number 39 in black, purple and silver. But I'm almost certain that swatch of jersey came from a Canucks jersey. Unless, UD was quick enough to acquire a Cloutier GU jersey from his short time in LA. Who knows?

Like I said this card was acquired months back in that big lot of over 70 Cloutier cards that promised 3 hits (2 GU and 1 AUTO). 

Not much of a card compared to those crazy patch and GU equipment out there. But it's good enough for little old me!

GO NUCKS GO!

DAN CLOUTIER PC - 70 Card Lot (Part 2)

After a heartbreaking loss to Spain in PK's today I pour out my heart through the form of blogging. This isn't an easy one to type...

Awhile back I started a small feature that showcases a lot of Dan Cloutier cards I purchased on eBay. Today I'll show off two full pages as well one of the three hits that came along with it.

Again the word on this lot is diversity. There is a wide variety of sets, pictures and colours which really makes these sheets fun to look at. My favourite of these nine have to be the upper left corner card from the "Parkhurst Retro" set which I had never heard about before acquiring this card.

What I find particularly cool is the back of the Parkhurst Retro card. It's completely blank, a little different compared to your normal "Retro" designs. Usually the theme will be consistent on the front but won't flow so well when you take a look at the back. But this card stays true to its heritage and I appreciate that greatly.

Again different teams, colours, sets are all involved here. What I find particularly intriguing are the two cards on the upper right hand corner. The card in the middle is the regular base card from the set but the card on the right is just one of 8 parallels from that set. All with different funky patterns and colours this parallel hunt should be a fun one.

I saw how Brett over at "My Hockey Card Obsession" also put together that entire parallel set and when put side by side in a 9 pocket holder they look pretty cool!

As for the second of the three Dan Cloutier hits...

A pretty basic design for the Signature Series. I do have the same AUTO from a year before so that's kinda nice, I'm creating sort of a lineage of these AUTO's. I really like the close up on Clouts face and his old bucket mask. 

Here's a link to PART 1 of this 70 card lot and as always look at all these cards individually as well as my progress with this PC at C4K CLOUTIER.

Now I think it's time to sleep off my sorrows from the earlier loss today...I'm still a proud Portuguese!

FORCA PORTUGAL!

GO NUCKS GO!

DAN CLOUTIER PC - 70 Card Lot (Part 1)

Over the next few weeks I'll be slowly but steadily showing off my new 70 card Cloutier lot I picked up a few weeks back. It's just the kind of statistic pumping lot I needed. It also promised 2 GU Cloutier cards along with an AUTO, all of which were not doubles in my collection.

Since I don't have a heck of a lot of time, let's look at one page of cards plus a GU hockey card.

As you can see this page has just about all the variety you can get. From vertical to horizontal to die-cut and chrome, base, parallel, insert etc. There are some really great action shots and designs in this bunch. My favourite card is actually the insert in the middle row to the left called "Showstoppers". It has a nice texture and looks really nice in person.

Most of the back designs flow with the front. As you can see from the bottom right card, that is a BTP redemption program. Cloutier's card was worth 1 point and if accumulated with others you would get some sort of redemption card.

Here is an extremely crooked scan of one of the GU Cloutier cards I picked up from the lot. I think this card is so poorly/cheese-ily designed that it looks cool. I especially like the early 2000's "*Authentic Game-Worn Jersey*" stamp of approval they put on the front. The jersey is all white and has a very heavy feel to it. You can tell it is not as breathable even compared to what we wear 10 years later.

That's it for today. As always check out my updated scans and stats at C4KCLOUTIER.

Finally, I'm going to go out and say that even though my Canucks didn't win and the favourites (the Rangers) got kicked out (which I had them in Casey's pool) I'm still sticking with a team for the SCF and that is the New Jersey Devils. Game just started too, so catch you later!

GO NUCKS GO!