Hockey PROMO Cards? I thought they were a 90's thing?

Jhonas Enroth 2017-2018 SeReal KHL Exclusive Collection (Part 1) Game-Used Stick 'Promo Card' - Only 10 Copies Exist

For those who are new to the hobby, you may not know what Promo cards are, but they are primarily used to, you guessed it, promote the product, or signal a certain stage in production when producing the cards themselves. Promo or Proof cards were mainly a staple in sets from the 90's, as they were mixed in the gigantic wave that wase parallels at that time in the hobby. While there still are a lot of parallels that exist today in the hobby, they aren't as myseterious as they were back then.

These Promo Cards from the 2017-2018 SeReal KHL Exclusive Collection Game-Used Stick set take that to an entirely different level. 

Back in June, a European collector reached out to me regarding an Enroth card he had and he wanted to send me an email about it, stating that I didn't have it yet. While I have a fair bit of Enroth cards in my collection and have the majority of what's out there, I was very intrigued by his offer. Once I provided him my email address, I received a picture of a card I already owned, but this one had an odd twist to it, as it was the "Promo Card" version of the Game-Used Stick card of Jhonas Enroth. Totally blown away after seeing this, I quickly messaged the collector to find out more about these mysetious Promo Cards from this set, as I have never seen anything like it from SeReal's KHL Exclusive Collection (Part l or Part ll) to date.

Apparently, these Promo Cards were personally gifted directly to the players in the set and were meant for them to keep, which I find very cool. I'm sure it happens more often then we think, but up until that point, I had only heard of one "Player" parallel released in an early In The Game set that were given directly to the players' themselves and were obviously not meant for public circulation on the secondary card market. I wasn't aware that in 2017/18, card companies still offered special cards to the players themselves to keep. 

As for these Promo Cards specifically, my new collector friend in Europe told me that only 10 of these Game-used Stick Promo Cards were made and all of them were given to Jhonas Enroth himself. He received this copy from Enroth, personally, before deciding to move this card to my collection. Seriously, how cool is that? I now own a card that used to be owned by Enroth and was specifically made for him to own. 

But then the bigger questions still remain: Are there more Promo Cards from other sets that I don't know about already? Will they ever see the light of day? Honestly, who knows. But the fact that I was able to track down at least one of these mysterious cards makes it all worth it.

Enjoy my recent collection update! 

- Aaron / crease