Another Day, Another European Card!

I received another card for the Enroth collection today, all the way from Latvia!

Another day, another card!

While this card may not look like much, it is one that I'm really excited to add (and lets be honest, sometimes it's hard to say that about base cards). 

Today's newest card is from the 2021-22 SeReal One World One Game KHL Platinum Collection product. This release was initially delayed and not released until January 5th, 2023. Up until that point, I had been eagerly awaiting the creation of new Enroth cards. However, once the product was released, I realized the cards from this product may be a lot difficult to obtain than initially thought. 

Due to what I beleive to be COVID-19 related production issues, which also explains the late release, this product was extremely limited as far as the number of cards produced. This isn't rare when looking at previous SeReal releases, as they don't print as many cards compared to Upper Deck, but the lack of abundance when it came to this release was the first thing I noticed. For example, these base cards have a limited print run of 45.  I don't think I've heard of any major release having a base card print run that low before. 

The second big concern when looking at this release is the location. Due to the war overseas and the necessary postal bans  applied, there is no way to transport these cards from one owner to the next, depending on where you are located. Even though the card manufacterer (SeReal) are located in Latvia, I know that a lot of this product has ended up in places that Canada Post currently does not accept mail from due to the ongoing conflicts. 

So with all that said, I wasn't expecting much from this release and I had already came to the conclusion that I may never get the opportunity to add them to my collection due to these factors, or maybe it will take many years. After a few months, I was lucky that a collector / employee of SeReal was able to break a few more boxes and make the cards available online.  After a quick deal, I was able to add this base card with a print run of just 45 copies. This may be the most I ever achieve with this limited release, but I am content with that. 

​Now onto my next update...
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Lineup card - Front

Lineup card - Back

A "found" collection piece: Located on the inside back panel of a team issued Line up card, this dual All-Star promo card for Enroth & Gretsky was something I didn't know I had before today due to this being folded up in a binder!

This next addition for my collection is one that I already had, but didn't know I owned already. 

Let me explain. 

Back in February 2020, I had written about a new oddball pickup for the collection I received from someone overseas. They had wrapped this lineup card around the card to protect it during shipping. Thinking nothing of it, I scanned it and stuff it back into a binder, not thinking much of it. 

Fast-forward to today, and I was looking through some things and I stubbled upon this lineup card again.

​After looking at it once more, I noticed it was folded, so I unfolded into its larger form and noticed that this wasn't just a random lineup card distributed by the team, but an oversized "card" Dinamo Minsk used to promote their two players who were eligible to be voted into the 2020 KHL All-Star Game, and I thought that was pretty cool.

I have seen oversized lineup cards with players depicted on the front/back before, usually released by some NHL teams over the years, so to see a similar concept played out here was a nice surprise on this Team Issued card. Although Enroth did not attend the All-Star Game, he was successfully nominated by the fans as one of the All-Star Goaltenders in the league that year. 

So, that's all for now! I hope you can stumble upon some cool pieces of your own for your collections soon. 

Happy Collecting,

​- CREASE