First Purchase

After meeting Eric Staal at the RBC Plaza during his autograph session, I decided to create a Hurricanes autograph wall in my apartment. I already had autographed pictures of Erik Cole and Tuomo Ruutu from their signings at Harris Teeter and an autographed oversized Upper Deck card of Jeff Skinner from the All-Star Fan Fest (which I had to wait in line for over 2 hours to get). So, I decided that the logical choice for my first purchase would be Zach Boychuk (@ZachBoychuk), whom I had met at the "Hurricanes U" graduate program the previous spring. I quickly found an autographed Boychuk card on eBay and it became the first addition to my collection (Photo Coming).

The next logical choice was Jeff Skinner, however I quickly found that Skinner cards were probably the most popular and expensive on eBay. So, I decided instead to focus on the player who I think will be the Hurricanes top rookie next season,  Zac Dalpe (@ZacDalpe22). Since (as noted above) I had already discovered that autographed rookie cards were the way to go, I set my sights in that direction and I found this unique autographed Dalpe rookie card, which appeared to be fairly popular amongst collectors on eBay. However, due to the postal strike in Canada, the card was not scheduled to arrive for over a month. So, I decided to make a few more purchases that week.



My next target was Jamie McBain (@jbain4). Since McBain joined the Hurricanes late in the 2009-10 season, his first rookie cards appeared in 2010-11 packs. I decided that I really liked McBain's Upper Deck autographed jersey rookie card (# /799), but was outbid on several auctions. So, I settled instead for his SP Future Watch autographed rookie card (# /999). As an added bonus, the seller also threw in McBain's Upper Deck Young Guns rookie card. This turned out to be a steal since Young Guns rookie cards are considered to be the most legitimate non-autographed or jersey rookie cards.