Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Lanny McDonald Swatch Card

As many of you know, I'm a big fan of Lanny McDonald - both the player and the mustache. I received a TTM answer from his last year, resulting in these three signed cards; I also pulled this jersey card a year or two ago.

I also got this one around the same period, perhaps in 2011, from a pack of Upper Deck's 2009-10 Trilogy set:
It's card #HS-LM in the set (the Honorary Swatches sub-set), and features two decent-sized swatches of ''NHL game-used memorabilia'', one blue and one white, obviously from his days with the Toronto Maple Leafs, despite picturing him with the Calgary Flames on the card. And since it was released the same year as the Champs card I mentioned earlier, it's probably from the exact same jersey.

I don't mind that UD would use the same jersey to stock cards from different sets, but I really don't like their habit of not associating the player with that team on their card. It makes you doubt the validity of their white swatches at all... say they purchase a white Atlanta Thrashers jersey of Chris Chelios, likely at a bargain price, but insert pieces of it in cards of his with teams in which he mattered, like the Montréal Canadiens (Stanley Cup, Norris, co-captain, first American-born captain), Chicago Blackhawks (captain, Norris, hometown hero) or Detroit Red Wings (multiple Stanley Cups), wouldn't it alter the intrinsic value of the cards themselves? Doesn't the guarantee of being ''game-worn'' lose a tad of its credibility, since it wasn't worn with the team labeled on the card? How far do they have to stretch the truth before it becomes a lie?

I really didn't want to use a Lanny McDonald card to make this point, because I respect him so much, as one of the two Flames I identify as their all-time best captains (along with Jarome Iginla, of course). But I've been siting on this card for so long because of that exact point, so I figured I might as well get it off my chest.

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