Life is Just a FANtasy...

Brad Ference
2003-04 In The Game Action -
NHL All-Star FANtasy Team Sets #495

It's funny how some things annoy me while other things offer amusement...

Never a fan of parallel sets (especially ones that are easily confused for the base set)...

Found this one in a re-pack years ago, and it caught my attention right away.

"In the game Action" has lots of great-looking cards.

Part of the reason I enjoy the card is the nostalgia of the Phoenix Coyotes uniform -
The funky green Kachina (in use from 1998-2003).

This is a really great jersey - Aside from the somewhat busy desertscape that isn't really visible in this shot (which probably makes it look better).

(They came out with a "Reverse Retro" version of the uniform in 2023, deciding that purple might suddenly spark the sales, but I digress...)




Back to the cardboard in question: Clearly stamped with an obnoxious silver foil logo of the 2004 NHL All-Star Game in Saint Paul, Minnesota

In my cynical adult mind, I assume they excess stock and decided to stamp the worthless pieces of cardboard with the All-Star Game logo right smack in the middle.
(rendering the card worthless? Or more valuable?)

Since the number of hockey fans in Phoenix is surely lower than the number of cards produced, they were unable to give them away so they ended up in re-packs.

This is purely my guess (and a bad one at that).

(If a card company s looking for advice on how to completely ruin a parallel set, check out Upper Deck MVP 2019-20 Silver Script for some inspiration)




Still, this card doesn't bother me because I could tell right away that the card was a parallel.
Therefore, it was relatively easy to look up.

It's actually kinda neat to have an oddity like this.
Now that I've confirmed what it is, some additional curiosity over where it came from.


2003-04 In The Game Action -
NHL All-Star FANtasy Team Sets
Total Cards: 624

Brad Ference
2003-04 In The Game Action -
NHL All-Star FANtasy Team Sets #495
(card back)

They must be relatively rare, because only about 5% of the images have been uploaded to TCDB.
(This certainly doesn't mean it's valuable, as they've done a remarkable job of flooding the market with incredibly rare cards of little value)


I'm going to stick up for this set because I like it. Overall it's fairly underrated.

True, the photographs may not be as epic as some of the one's we've come to expect from competitor Upper Deck...

But I'll give these cards a chance. I only have a handful of them in my collection, so it's not really a fair sample. Most seem to contain a photo that is scan worthy.


Just to add a bit of confusion into the mix, there's also a serial parallel set called "NHL All-Star FANtasy" (minus the "Team Sets" suffix).

Fortunately there's only 10 numbered copies of each card, so those particular specimens are highly unlikely to find their way into my collection. (The serial number is stamped on the front, in huge numbers beside the All-Star emblem to make the card even less desirable).