Ah, I've been discovered! I post on the Beckett forums a lot, and they did a thread asking people to submit their goalie collections for the annual goalie issue. I'm known around Beckett as the Sebastien Charpentier collector - who is only two cards away from getting every one there is. I wasn't going to submit my name at first because I figured there would be plenty of Brodeur, Roy, Hasek, etc. collectors who would probably be featured. As it turned out, Al Muir, one of the editors who is also active on the forums, likes the fact that I chase Charpy cards so intently, and he encouraged me to enter. I actually did it for Charpy moreso than me. I had images of him playing the NAHL for St. Hyacinthe Cousin, seeing the issue somehow, and getting all sparkly that he was included in there with the big names.
What resulted was this: http://sparkly7575.fotopic.net/p15587026.html (you can click the photo to enlarge it and then click the box at the bottom right of the image on the next page to scroll at a readable size). I got into the goalie collector tribute. Not only that, but the owner of the only true 1/1 Charpy card (who beat me out on eBay when I couldn't afford to go over $100 U.S. for it) contacted me after seeing the article. I now own not only the 1/1, but #1/100 of his Upper Deck Top Shelf Rookie Card. I traded to get them, so they didn't cost me anything new.
It's all temporary, really. Once I finally reach 100%, I want to gift the collection to Charpy himself when I can find an in-person opportunity. He deserves it. Of course, now that's he's signed in Russia as of July 2005, I won't get the chance to see him for a while. Gives me time to find those last two buggers from 2003-2004. I have my Charpy page with scans of everything I own, and that will continue even after I no longer own the cards.
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This message has been edited by ReneeCapsFan on Aug 4, 2005 9:17 PM This message has been edited by ReneeCapsFan on Aug 4, 2005 9:15 PM
Yes, you've been discovered!! I couldn't believe there was nothing posted here about it, so I wasn't sure if I should post it or not. Then I realized, it's an article in a widely-published magazine--if she wanted to be secret about it, she wouldn't be in there!
I was so surprised and stoked to see your face Renee! I turned the page, and just stared for a second, stunned, then said (to myself, as I was alone at the time!) "Hey, that's Renee! HEY! Renee is in my Beckett Hockey Collector!! I've seen that picture before!!" Hee! Really, so very cool and a great surprise! And a wonderful article to boot, very nicely written and so sweet. It's great that they picked your story out of all of those entries--well-deserved! I don't really collect anymore, and that was actually my last issue of my subscription, so I'm so glad that I didn't miss your feature.
It's terrific that the deep-pockets collector contacted you and that you got that 1/1; I was going to ask how much email you've gotten since that was published! And then to learn that you are going to give the whole collection to Charpy when you're done, well, that's just too cool for words.
Great to see your face again Renee! Hope you and Chris can visit us down here in D.C. soon!
Yeah, by the time I finish the collection, I'll have probably spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $500 on everything. It's all good though. I've always really liked Charpy, and he was so nice when I met him. I adopted him as my top priority project, one because he's a deserving player who no one else seemed to be honoring with a complete player collection and one because he had a reasonable checklist with 57 cards. Of course, there were plenty of annoying cards to find in there - ECHL ones from Hampton Roads, three that were numbered of only 10, one numbered of twenty. Plus, many collectors only "advertise" the biggest names, so it took a lot of mining for treasure to find what I needed. There's very few Caps collectors on Beckett.
I've since found two more player collectors going for 100%. One is in the Portland area and the other is from Williamsburg. The one from Williamsburg got me the 1/1. He said he had the same idea I did about gifting the entire collection, but he's still eight cards away and has no time to keep up with the search. He'll have credit for the two amazing cards he contributed when the magic day finally arrives. He told me that he knew Charpy when he played for the Admirals, and that he'd probably give me a stick or something for the cards. That's not what I'm in this for at all. I just want to make a favorite player's day. If I was only interested in what I could get, I could wait for a half-off sale at Mei-Gray and get a game worn Charpy jersey for all the money I've spent on cards! Since that 1/1 will be in there, it will truly be a special gift to honor his career. No one else can own that one card to have 100% of the Beckett list. Plus, I found an oddball Turkish bubblegum card on eBay so he'll have an extra in there as well.
I didn't want to keep the Beckett feature a secret, but you know me, I'm pretty low-key about stuff like that. Like I said, it was more about Charpy than me.
I'm not collecting anymore either, actually, except for those last two Charpy cards I need. I made that decision back around May of this year. Since I moved to Canada, I haven't found a permanent job. I got my legal work status in April 2004, got my Social Insurance Number in June, and then I did a six-month contract with IBM from the end of June through December. I HATED it. They wanted to hire me on, but the stress was just ridiculous. I even went to the E.R. with sky-high blood pressure from the stress level...and then they asked me to work overtime plus a Saturday the next day I came into work!
After IBM, I did a five-month contract with a local polytechnic school. Again, bad work environment. They wanted to extend my contract through December, but I declined. I'm job hunting again, and this time, I'm looking to get out of an office and into a place that I enjoy a lot more. That means taking a pay cut. I can live with that, and we can still make our budget, but there has to be something that falls to the side. I still need to give to charity regularly, so I decided to stop collecting cards.
Most of my collections will end up in the hands of the players themselves, or else moved as a whole to another big fan. I had a nice John Madden collection going, and there's a guy in Ontario who likes him as much as I do, so I sold them to him. I'm keeping my very favorite cards (about 300 instead of 3,000...LOL), and then I'll try to pass on the collections like Todd Harvey and Mike Ricci that are over 60% of the Beckett checklist. I'm sure their families will really like them. I'd rather give them and know that they are really appreciated than try to make some money back. The money's not important because I had a lot of fun along the way collecting.
The only e-mail I got from the article was from Jay about the 1/1, actually. A few people from the boards saw the feature and commented as well.
Anyway, how long is this post...geez! I better shut up for now. I haven't really posted much at all on any board for the last few weeks. I read but I don't post. Now that there's hockey again, maybe that will change.
Marie, that's a reasonable question, silly. The answer is that in the world of sportscard collecting, you don't just have a list of regular cards to chase. You have the regular (base set) card, and usually you have some annoying "parallels" that are the same card with some type of variation. For example, Be a Player Memorabilia for the 2003-04 release had the base set, plus a ruby parallel set numbered of 200, a sapphire parallel set numbered of 100, and an emerald parallel set (usually the bane of a collector's existence) numbered of 10. There's tons of base cards out there, but only 200 rubies, 100 sapphires, and 10 emeralds. They are serial numbered on the cards, and they look just like the base cards except for different colors on them (red, blue, and green in this example).
What is really making the sportscard collecting hobby aggravating as a player collector is the introduction of 1/1 cards - yes, that means there is only one of that card in existence. In that 2004 set mentioned above, they released a gold parallel set. There is only one of each gold card for each base set card. Lots of player collectors like me decided they had enough of overpriced parallels. Some of them now just chase when they can get, but others who are completists (like me) said to heck with this! There's a ton of 1/1 cards, and trend is growing. That's enough for me. It was fun while it lasted.
In the case of my Charpy collection, I used to just mark out that evil 1/1 on the Beckett list. I hoped to get 100% of the rest of the list to give to Charpy someday. I already knew that someone else owned the 1/1 since I bid it up to $100 USD when it appeared on eBay. I figured that it was a moot point. I already had three nice cards I'd tracked down that were numbered of only 10. Now that I have Charpy's only 1/1, it will make the gift even more special. I traded big to get it, but it's worth it.
P.S. To make things even more confusing, there's a ton of "show promo" cards that are numbered 1/1. The companies issue cards numbered of one and ten every time there's a big expo. They're exactly like the pack pulled cards, but they have special stamps for "Toronto Spring Expo" or "The National" or whatever. The promo cards are generally considered by collectors to be nice to find, but they don't count toward the Beckett list of pack issued cards. I have a few of them in Charpy's collection, but I don't go out of my way to get those.
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This message has been edited by ReneeCapsFan on Aug 10, 2005 4:21 PM
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