Even in today’s information age, there are still things that are difficult to find out. Take for instance the subject of this mailday post.
I’d seen this card off and on eBay a few times and had never bought it. I had questions about it, the first being that while the player certainly looks like Andrew Shaw, he is wearing the #81 sweater. Marian Hossa has worn that number since before Shaw even joined the team, so that was the first red flag. I searched online in attempt to find anything about Russian hockey cards and couldn’t find anything other than KHL cards. Because of this, I passed. Then I passed again.
It wasn’t until I got two custom cards that I’ve previously written about, that I decided to just go ahead and make the purchase. It cost a little more to ship than normal, coming from Russia, but the card and shipping still set me back less than $10, so it was worth the “gamble.” Even if it’s not legit, it’s something different to add to a collection that’s tough to add new pieces to anymore.
I did take to both Sports Card Forum and Clouts’N’Chara to ask fellow collectors there if they knew anything about this card or could shed any light on it. I was really happy that the first reply on CnC was able to give me some general information. It wasn’t specific to the card itself, but about Russian (which I do not speak).
“Hi, Russian speaker here. On the front of the card it says Shaw Andrew instead of Andrew Shaw, not sure if that is how Russian cards are supposed to be but that’s interesting. The world about 11-12 and 12-13 is season, and above the team name, which does correctly say Chicago Blackhawks, it says “Komanda” presumably which means team but the character before the a is not a Russian character which I find very odd.
In terms of its legitimacy, I would lean towards no. I’m also not sure when Andrew Shaw wore Marian Hossa’s jersey? (Hossa has always been 81 on the Blackhawks)”
I also received a reply from an SCF member that seemed to know a little bit more about them and after this, I was certainly satisfied with what I (now) know about it.
“They were made by Russian ICE. Its really just a custom card more or less that I consider to be random unlisted cards. European players have more of this kind of stuff olympics and KHL. This particular card was probably part of a made team set for the Hawks 2nd cup”
Also, multiple folks pointed out that during the pregame skate on the night of Marian Hossa’s 1,000th game, the Blackhawks all wore sweaters with the #81 on them.
That being said it’s essentially a custom, or as they used to be called in the 1980s and 90s, a “broader” card. I don’t care if it’s not what most consider legit. At the end of the day, it’s worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. I was willing to pay what I paid. There’s nothing that actually makes this “worth” any more or less than a card produced by Upper Deck. It’s just a picture with some text and numbers on a piece of cardboard. I’m just as happy to have this in my PC as my other Shaw cards.
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