Hockey Cards

[Oil Stain]

I'm trying to get back into collecting hockey cards. All the ones I bought in the early 90's are absolutely worthless.

Anyways I'm hoping some people here will have some advice on which brands to buy. Apparently its only Upper Deck that still makes cards but they make 15 different series every year for some reason.

So far I've bought a box of MVPs and a box of Rookie Updates.

The MVP was pretty good.

I got Prucha, Perry, Perezhogin, Steen, and Richards rookie cards as well as an Ovechkin and a Phaneuf Rookie Breakthrough cards.

The Rookie Update just ****ed me off though. The best rookie in that was Mikko Koivu, and I kept finding "rookie gems" like Dennis Wideman, Colin Hemingway, and Chris Thorburn. Along with other notables like Andy Wozniewski, Tomas Mojzis, Jon Ferlund, and Steve Goertzen.

Anyone have any tips on which brands to go after and which to avoid? Any help would be great. Thanks in advance.

Or if you just want to brag about your autographed limited edition Dion Phaneuf rookie card that's cool too.

[HitterD]

To be honest... i havent collected since the early 90's for the same reason, the cards were worthless. Once i stopped thinking cards were cool they were of no use to me, because of the lack of value. I havent kept track of the new ones, but i doubt they are going to be any more valuable down the road, because they are too many of each card on the market

I've always found the best way to collect is to hit garage sales, and hopefully pick up some gems from 1980's O Peechee (sp?) sets. I managed to find myself an almost complete 1985-86 set, where a certain young goalie by the name of Patrick Roy had a rookie card. Sometimes you just get lucky

[FurnaceFace]

I bought full sets off ebay just a couple of months ago. It was much more enjoyable as I knew I'd get a full set and not get stuck with a bunch of duplicates I didn't want. I bought both series of 05-06 UD cards and the Rookie Class box. I'm happy with all the sets.

I also bought a some old mixed lots on ebay for a buck each. 50 cards of Calgary, Winnipeg, and Quebec. I was rather pleased with the lots, yeah they are cards from the late 80s and the 90s so aren't really worth much but I only got them for nostalgia purposes.

[Barnes]

Don't buy the MVPs or that rookie set. Stick with at least series 1 or 2 Upper Deck. Just pulled a series 2 Nystrom RC to go with my series 1 Phaneuf.

[Flames in 07]

the interest (ie resale) has gone from sets to hot rookies. Last year was a bumper crop - probably one we'll never see again. If you are doing it to make money, don't buy packs or boxes, go to ebay and buy higher value cards.

[Hanna Sniper]

Like Flames in 07 replied...
It's a different hobby then it once was, collecting sets pretty much doesn't happen and if you were to collect the sets that matter, you would be pretty much left broke... top cards can reach past 400 very easily. The thing I would do would decide what it is that you would like to get from the hobby and go that route and not be distracted by anything else... and always remember what the reasoning behind your collecting is.
E-bay will be your best route of collecting, once you get a strong idea of what market demand is for certain cards you're have a great understanding when deals present themselves. Before e-bay I was pretty much paying 90-110% of the value of the card… through Ebay I was able to cut that margin to 30-60%... plus you’ll always be able to find high demand cards that will never show up elsewhere… Another way to save money is to be selective in what you would like to collect and be ahead of the hype. It is a misconception that the Hobby has died off or is over-produced. Today they just go around it by lowering the number of cards to numbers out of 25.

But remember, have fun with it, be careful not to be caught in the hype… collecting is not a business and those that approach it as such only destroy it for the hobbyist.