Surprise Mailday! Having friends in this hobby is awesome

**30ranfordfan** · 01-25-2023, 06:10 PM

This won't be a super long post, but I really need to thank a couple of members on here.

Yesterday, I grab the mail. There's what is obviously a card(s) in a bubble mailer - but I'm not expecting anything, so I'm a little confused. I open it up, and what do I find? THIS:

What do we have here? That would be a Bill Ranford "Future Star" cut autograph. It's a custom made junior card of Bill Ranford (who never had any junior cards) showing him with the New Westminster Bruins (still a teenager in the photo, I believe).

This fills a giant hole in my collection, as the WHL wasn't something that had a lot of collectibles back in the day, there's very little (to my knowledge) that exists as far as any "officially" released merchandise that would show Ranford with New Westminster (I do have a couple of early 80s team calendars, that have team photos on them).

You might recognized the work of Glenn (BigBarracuda), as he's the one who made the card. I have to say he did an amazing job with it. The colour scheme blends well with the Bruins' uniform. The faded action photo does a great job for the card's background.... the colour pose photo in the foreground is as good a quality photo as is out there, and really pops on the card. The cut window is crisp..... and even the back of the card was done really well. A faded out team photo, with Ranford still bold - and text that would be very appropriate if this card had been made in 1985.

In addition to sending my thanks to Glenn, I also must thank my friend Joe (primetimepawich). Joe and I have been friends for quite a few years now, and talk very regularly about the hobby, our collections, and sometimes even life outside of hockey cards! He had a custom card made of Larry Murphy a number of years ago, showing him with the Peterborough Petes. I had commented more than once that it's something I'd like to do (Murphy, like Ranford, never had any junior cards) but simply never got around to doing it.

Joe took it upon himself to work with Glenn, and have something tailor made that fits perfectly into my collection (he tracked down the autograph to be used for the cut too).

I want to thank both of you very much for this card. It's a 1/1, and definitely something that will be locked into my collection for good.