Autos A’Plenty in New Hockey Product

by Rich Klein

In hockey, there has been one basic dynasty, and that has been the Montreal Canadiens. However, in the past 20 years, the most consistently strong team has been the Detroit Red Wings. The Wings are having their best run since the glory days of players like young stars such as Gordie Howe (yes he was actually young once) and Alex Delvecchio along with Ted Lindsay and others. The current group has revitalized hockey in Detroit and in that area, which has always been a collecting hotbed, hockey is still huge. Collectors love their ’68 and ’84 Tigers but they also love the heroes of the ice. That background makes the production of any specialty set focusing on the Red Wings a good idea both in terms of collectability as well as both long and short term interest. In The Game Motown Madness speaks to that.

With all the Hall of Famers who wore the Red Wings jersey in the old dynasty days and the current crop of players who are still popular there is a really good mix of players old and new one can place into this product. In addition, the delivery is ideal in that the boxes contain 12 cards of which five are base cards, four autograph or "Papercut" autograph cards, two game-used memorabilia cards and a Patch of Honor card. For all that, as these cards are about to hit the secondary market, leading on-line retailers currently have this product in the $85-95 range.

In The Game’s specialty hockey products have generally been well received with their various odes to hockey history, proving you can be successful without a standard NHL license.

They rounded up a large number of players for a very healthy autograph checklist. You can get more specific product info here.

So how did we do from our box?

Base Cards: Hank Bassen, Henry Boucha, Johnny Bucyk (yes he started with the Red Wings before his long and storied Boston Bruins career), Kris Draper, Curtis Joseph

Autographs: Red Berenson, Henry Boucha, Larry Jeffrey, Jordin Tootoo

Games to Remember Multi-Player Jersey Card; Mike Vernon, Darren McCarty, Sergei Fedorov, Patrick Roy, Joe Sakic, Claude Lemieux. This is the Red Version, as of today the In The Game Web Site did not have print run information

Tough Materials Gold: Reed Larson

Patch of Honor: Dennis Hextall

Of course, it helps to be a Wings fan to really enjoy this product, but there’s plenty of hockey history here and for less than $100 a box and four autographs, it’s hard to go wrong.

When I went into my local card shop to pick up some supplies tonight we were discussing In The Game and I was explaining how the breakdown of these cards worked. The shop owner agreed that even if every one of these cards were the lowest possible priced card, the book and real world value would be pretty close to the cost of the box. Thus, In the Game has again produced a product which collectors will not only enjoy opening but also be something that provides a good value to collectors.

Rich Klein can be reached at [email protected]