3rd post in 3 days. I’m on some kind of a writing roll!
My latest addition adds another layer to this card-origin mystery that I’ve been slowly uncovering throughout this year.
I picked this up from eBay late last month, and it is yet another 2010-11 ITG Between The Pipes He Shoots He Saves card of Ryan Miller, Patrick Lalime, and Jhonas Enroth.
This He Shoots He Saves triple memorabilia card was originally part of a limited redemption set originally numbered to just 20 cards that were distributed through a mail-in redemption program by In The Game (ITG). These were made as a backup and kept in In The Game’s warehouse in case of damage to the originals to fulfil customer service requests. This card features a Red Vault 1of 1 stamp on the bottom-right corner.
After seeing yet another come up for sale, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. After not adding a Vault card in a couple years, having multiple come up for sale in the back half of this year – all from the same set, has been quite the surprise. Here’s all three!
Like I explained in the initial article HERE, the stamp styles differ slightly from the majority of ones found in the 2015-16 ITG Final Vault release, as the stamps on these cards use the same style used in the Superlative & Ultimate releases over the years.
Due to this, and as confusing at it may sound, these may be the only 3 stamped versions from this specific set if going by the stamp style on the card. For reference, the original Superlative & Ultimate Vault releases only had these 3 colours represented throughout those products: Green, Blue and Red. When looking into the ITG He Shoots He Saves set out in the wild, I have only seen these 3 ITG Vault stamp colours represented. Anecdotal evidence for sure, but it’s something.
While it’s very likely different stamp styles were utilized in ITG Final Vault due to various production methods, it is still unclear which stamp colours exist when looking at most of the many subsets sets included within the product.For reference, the Final Vault release had a lot more more stamp colour variations across a wide variety of ITG sets over the years. While a checklist was never released, some cards had the potential to have up to
10 different stamp colours: Red, Blue, Green, Silver, Gold, Black, Pink, Purple, Copper and Teal.
While this may forever remain a mystery, this is the kinds of stuff that makes me love the hobby so much. The stories that go into these cards are what makes the whole card sometimes.
As an added bonus, I had this other Vault card waiting for me in the mailbox recently as well from 2010-11 ITG Between The Pipes dual memorabilia subset featuring just Enroth and Miller.
For those counting at home, this brings the grand total up to 39 Vault stamped cards in this collection. All these years later and I am still having fun finding these types of Vault cards!
Happy Collecting,
Aaron
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