Card Collection - Summarized Information
A History of Hockey Card Collecting
Prior to the modern era only two major manufacturers of hockey cards existed. In the 1930's O-Pee-Chee began producing hockey card sets, with a few breaks in production over the years. The Topps company started producing hockey cards in the 1950's. Parkhurst also produced cards in the 1950's, but we'll come back to them. From the 1970's through the 1980's, O-Pee-Chee distributed cards in Canada and Topps sold hockey cards in the United States. Topps did not produce a hockey set in both 1982-83 and 1983-84 season.
In 1990-91, O-Pee-Chee and Topps were joined in the NHL card market by Pro Set, Score and Upper Deck brands. This trading card manufacturer competition provided variety and innovation, but it also flooded the market producing large quantities of sports and non-sports cards. This action eventually resulted in much more supply than demand.
In 1992-93, Fleer entered in the hockey card market producing sets for more than 10 years until their rights were later aquired. In 1993-94 Donruss acquired the rights to produce hockey cards, creating the Donruss and Leaf brands of sets. With the NHL lockout of 1994-95 causing a half of an NHL season to be lost, Donruss did not recover. In 1996 Donruss and Leaf brands were acquired by rival Pinnacle Brands, makers of Score and Pinnacle Sets. In 1998, Pinnacle Brands would file for bankruptcy. In 2010, the Leaf brand name licence was resuscitated and relaunched officially as Leaf Trading Cards. Since that time, Leaf does not carry a license with the NHL nor NHL players union and produces cards without NHL logos.
The Parkhurst hockey card brand name was revived and licensed to Pro Set in 1991. The original Parkhurst brand ceased manufacturing hockey card sets in the 1960s. The new Pro Set version of Parkhurst only lasted 2 years, as Pro Set went bankrupt causing the end of manufacturing for both Pro Set and Parkhurst hockey sets. Pro Set's inaugural line of cards in 1990-91 was plagued with numerous printed typographical errors (more than 400) that were not always rectified in the final product. Furthermore, the quality of the first Pro Set branded hockey cards was substandard and inferior to their competitors, as many cards were not uniform in cut size and had wide disparity in color uniformity from their printing process. In the 1993–94 season, the Parkhurst tradename was again revived this time licensed to Upper Deck.
Returning to the 1990-91 season, O-Pee-Chee produced higher quality cards in a Premier version to accompany the OPC base set. O-Pee-Chee Premier hockey became popular with hockey collectors and initiated a trend of manufacturers creating muliple sets differentiated by quality and uniqueness with varying price points. In 1996, O-Pee-Chee was purchased by Nestlé. A licencing branding agreement was signed with Topps. Topps produced the O-Pee-Chee brand along with it's Topps version until the 2003-04 hockey season, the last season prior to the NHL lock out in 2004-05. The entire NHL season was lost and no Stanley Cup was awarded that season.
That same year Upper Deck became the exclusive licence partner of the NHL and NHLPA (National Hockey League Players Association) for the production of official NHL hockey cards. Topps, In The Game (ITG) and Pacific Trading Cards did not retain the rights to produce hockey cards with NHL approval, including logos and depictions. A few years later Topps would gain exclusive rights to Major League Baseball while Upper Deck lost their MLB license to produce MLB baseball card sets. In July 2005, Upper Deck acquired the rights to the Fleer name and began producing Fleer-branded ice hockey cards. In 2006, Upper Deck acquired the rights to the O-Pee-Chee brand to bring it back again as a trading card product, but it was no longer exclusively distributed in Canada.
In 2010, Panini America was granted a license to produce NHL hockey cards. In the 1980s, Panini had obtained its own license to produce NHL sticker sets in Canada. But the competition between Panini and Upper Deck brands lasted only a few years, because in the 2014-15 NHL season Upper Deck again regained its exclusive rights which continue to the present day.
In the Game trading cards began production in the 1998-99 Season, with a NHLPA partnership. This permitted the creation of NHLPA members trading cards without NHL team logos. The Be A Player brand was originally a product from the Upper Deck Company for 1 season in the 1990's, but was rejuvenated with a new manufacturer, In the Game. ITG produced their version of NHLPA exclusive card sets starting at the end of the millennium. After the 2004-05 NHL lockout, when the NHLPA terminated its license agreement with In The Game, the company continued to produce trading card sets featuring active and retired NHL players. In 2014, In The Game brand name, liabilities and remaining owned physical assets were sold to the Leaf Trading Cards company.
The two largest and most commonly found hockey card producers today are Upper Deck (licenced) and Leaf (unlicenced). Understanding the acquisitions, bankruptcies and brand name ownership changes are complex and difficult to comprehend. When looking at the same brand name across multiple years, the ownership and manufacturing changes result with major changes in appearance and value of hockey trading cards.
Specific Set Notes:
Please be aware of this information when using the search functionality on this website. There can be challenges and difficulties when searching, as you may need to check how the cards are categorized.
For example, Ultra cards will appear as Fleer Ultra in the Library collection, while Topps Stadium Club will appear as Stadium Club. For 2015-16 Panini Anthology Hockey, many of the cards have written 2014-15 on the back as the set was partially produced and then released a year later. 2015 Leaf Best of Hockey set has a foil stamp indicating "one-of-one" unique cards from a prior release year. 2015-2016 ITG The Final Vault Hockey are rebranded cards entirely from previous In The Game sets, each of the cards is stamped with the Vault logo to help distinguish it for collectors. The next section below is dedicated to this specific set.
2015-2016 In The Game - The Final Vault Hockey Set:
2015-2016 In The Game - The Final Vault Hockey may be the most confusing set to clearly understand and collect. In The Game, Inc.’s final release was in 2015-16 season and was called The Final Vault. This is the most confusing set for many collectors who are unaware of its history and background. In The Game (ITG) brand were sold to Leaf Trading Cards in 2014, since the ITG had outstanding debts they decided to liquidate some of their assets in inventory. Some of the assets sold created a major conflict for established hockey collectors. When trading cards are produced by many manufacturers, "Customer Service" cards are created to replace damaged cards that are originally purchased directly in packs by the consumer. For example, In The Game may only produce 10 serial numbered cards of a specific player card. Hypothetically, an original card created was damaged in production, but that damaged card was still inserted into a pack for sale. After a consumer purchases and opens the pack of cards with a receipt, In The Game would allow the damaged card to be submitted to the company for an equivalent replacement. The "Customer Service" card in their warehouse would have a seriel number added to match the damaged card and the new undamaged replacement card would be shipped to the collector.
When "Customer Service" cards, unclaimed redemption cards, or other related cards in the ITG warehouse were sold into the collector market in a unknown quantity an outrage ensued. Thus, a hockey card collector may have had a specific card with only a print run of only 10; identical cards could then be added as duplicates to the limited original 10 that were previously released. Given these circumstances, ITG tried to the best of their ability to reacquire those assets through a buyback program which caused consternation with collectors. It is unknown if all the effected cards that entered the marketplace were reacquired. The 2015-2016 In The Game - The Final Vault Hockey product was created from the buyback program and plus any unsold "Customer Service" cards, any unclaimed redemption cards, etc.
What was actually in the 2015-2016 In The Game - The Final Vault Hockey set product ? In The Game produced cards and sets for sixteen years, therefore the cards in this set were all from the previous 16 years of cards which remained in inventory at the time of the Leaf aquisition. Generally, cards previously produced for In The Game products and not inserted into packs during the previous releases were now being used for this ITG Finaly Vault 2015-16 season set. These 2015-16 cards would mirror ones in the previous sets, however they would now bear an additional new stamp on the front surface. There were no customer service cards produced on 2015-2016 In The Game - The Final Vault cards in this set, since no cards were actually manufactured during a normal production run. Consequently, the 2015-2016 Final Vault checklist is exceptionally large and encompassing to determine, since no official panoptic check list has been found for this specific set that was released.
In order to differentiate The Final Vault set cards from the historic original cards, the vault foil stamping must be examined.
The foil stamping for the cards in the Final Vault varies for the autograph cards and the game-used memorabilia cards. Autograph Cards were stamped with a black V Vault stamp. The amount of each specific autograph player card stamped with a black V Vault is unknown since the amount depended on the cards found in their inventory. By owning an autograph card from this set, you do have an authentic autograph card, but won't know how many of the Black V Vault stamp autograph versions exist. All of the game-Used memorabilia cards are also stamped in this 2015-16 Final Vault set with V one-of-one notations. The game-used memorabilia cards are more challenging and confusing unless you are aware of the following information. The ITG Final Vault memorabilia were stamped with a variety of colors, each version containing a "V1/1" foil stamp. The different foil color stamp determines to an extent how many of these cards were created. The game-used memorabilia card foil "V1/1" stamps utilized a specific color order: Red(Ruby), Blue (Saphire), Green(Emerald), Silver, Gold, Black, Pink, Purple, Copper and Teal. If multiple cards of the same player set and year have a version 1 of 1 foil stamp, are they 1 out of 1 completely unique card? Actually, They are the only version of that V1/1 with that specific color stamp. Thus, they are not a true 1 of 1 in the collector world, a guaranteed unique card produced with no duplicates. However they could be a 1 of 1, if it's a Red "V1/1" stamp, none of the other colors were created and the collector does not consider the originally produced card as a duplicate.
V 1 of 1 Colors and meaning:
• Ruby Red 1/1 Foil Stamp - it was the first card stamped, and there are possibly 1 to 10 Cards with "V1/1" stamps
• Saphire Blue 1/1 Foil Stamp - it was the second card stamped, and there are possibly 2 to 10 Cards with "V1/1" stamps (the Red must exist)
• Emerald Green 1/1 Foil Stamp - it was the third card stamped, and there are possibly 3 to 10 Cards with "V1/1" stamps (Red, Blue exist)
• Silver 1/1 Foil Stamp - it was the fourth card stamped, and there are possibly 4 to 10 Cards with "V1/1" stamps (Red, Blue, Green exist)
• Gold 1/1 Foil Stamp - it was the fifth card stamped, and there are possibly 5 to 10 Cards with "V1/1" stamps
• Black 1/1 Foil Stamp - it was the sixth card stamped, and there are possibly 6 to 10 Cards with "V1/1" stamps
• Pink 1/1 Foil Stamp - it was the seventh card stamped, and there are possibly 7 to 10 Cards with "V1/1" stamps
• Purple 1/1 Foil Stamp - it was the eighth card stamped, and there are possibly 8 to 10 Cards with "V1/1" stamps
• Copper 1/1 Foil Stamp - it was the ninth card stamped, and there are either 9 or 10 Cards with "V1/1" stamps
• Teal 1/1 Foil Stamp - it was the Tenth card stamped, and there are 10 Cards with different "V1/1" color stamps
In The Game did not create a clear checklist of the cards in this 2015-2016 The Final Vault Hockey set. When a Mario Lemieux Card has been identified from this set, that specific card's information has been incorporated into this website documented collection. Some collectors may choose to classify a 2015-2016 In The Game - The Final Vault Hockey card as the original card in their personal collection from the prior 16 years of ITG, if they don't already have that original. Other collectors may collect this as a set completely separate from the originals ITG sets.
Metatdata Information Available:
- Year Manufactored
- 1983 to Present
Note: most years of the cards are based on the NHL season, for example 2003-04.
- Card Number
- Numeric and Alphanumeric
Note: most cards have a numeric value, but alphanumeric card numbers are not uncommon. Dashes "-" do appear often in many sets.
- Manufacturer / Producer
- Over 100 different Producers, including unlicenced cards
Note: Examples include Donruss, Fleer, In the Game, Leaf, O-Pee-Chee, Panini, Parkhurst, Pinnacle, Pro Set, Score, SkyBox, SportKings, Topps and Upper Deck.
- Type
- Approximately 30 different Types
Note: Examples include Base, Box Bottom, BuyBack, Coin, Error, Insert, Odd (Odd Ball), Metal, Parallel, Promo, Proof, Sticker, Unlicensed.
- Set Name
- Name of the Set
Note: Examples include Premier, Limited, Preferred, Black Diamond, Ice, MVP, Victory, etc.
- Subset or Insert Set
- Name of the Subset, Related Set or Insert
Note: Examples include Ice Kings, Nifty Fifty, Lemieux's Best, Retrospective, Franchise Players, Frozen in Time, etc.
- Players
- Official players on the card
Note: If no players are listed, it is a Mario Lemieux specific card. Official multi-player cards will contain Mario and all other players listed for that card.
- Print Run
- Print Run Information (Short Print, Print Run, Serial Numbered)
Note: Short Print indicate less cards were produced than the regular card production amount and are harder to find. Print Runs are an exact known production amount that has been verified from the manufacturer, Beckett, Cardboardconnection or other reputable public source. Serial numbered cards will have a visible serial number on the actual card, allowing the known number produced and the unique number assigned to that specific card.
- Pictures
- Pictures of the Card (if available)
Note: If available a picture of the Front and Back of the card.
- Additional Notes
- Additional Notes can include information on the specific card or set information
Note: More detailed information on a card or set for helping determine that exact card from others with similar resemblance or attributes. This can assist a collector when a visually similar card may exist. Particular indicators on a card front or card back can help to determine the veracity of the card.
