6/3/2017 card show report: a GGMR sampler and more

About a month ago I hit up my usual monthly show, visited my usual seller, and left with my usual bunch of cards having spent my usual $20-$40 (right in the sweet spot at $30 this time).  Nothing at all unusual, but that was a good thing because I was finally able to sew up a few trade packages (pretty much all of which have been posted, I think) and add a handful of PC cards for myself.  There's seven to look at right below where you're reading (if you're still reading this) and another eight of the football variety on TMM if you like that sort of thing.

I'm glad I got my Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken scanning project pretty much done for many reasons, and for tonight's post it was timely because I scored at least one card for each of them, plus one of another guy:

Hi, I'm "another guy".  This Jim Abbott is from an insert set out of 1993 Upper Deck called On Deck.  Jim's first in the 25-card set as it's sorted alphabetically by last name, which makes me irrationally happy.  While the design is pretty standard for the time, the gold foil facsimile autograph is interesting--I hadn't realized UD utilized this feature before '94 Collector's Choice's signature parallels.

As always when it comes to this Upper Deck product, "Masterpieces" couldn't be more apt!  This here is one of Griffey's two appearances from the maiden (and, sadly, penultimate) voyage of this product that arrived in 2007.  I don't have the other to show off just yet, but here's a great look at the finish to my favorite swing in baseball history.  I'm betting Junior is admiring another bomb while wearing that awesome Reds uni--and while another former slugger, Adam Dunn, looks on.

This Gwynn, which hails from 1987 Donruss Opening Day, is definitely the oldest card in the post, as if you couldn't tell by looking at Tony's hilarious old hairstyle.  Those of you not quite as familiar with 80s stuff should note that the dark red borders give away that the card belongs to that oddball-ish box set and not the black-bordered base set.  The back includes career stats through the '86 season but note if they player did anything notable on--you guessed it--opening day, 2017.

I obviously had the most luck with Maddux this time as his haul equaled the other three major PC guys' alone.  The bookends of this image are a pair of shiny early 2000s base cards from products that ran for a decent number of years:  Fleer's 2000 E-X and Donruss/Playoff's 2004 Leaf Certified Materials.  Dead center is a fun insert from 2002 Upper Deck Series II called Superstar Summit.  While the Series I version included six players, (five of which made it into this one--all but Mark McGwire) II's got bumped up to 15.  It looks like the cards were put into three groups of five players, so for example that same quintet of Maddux/Griffey/Helton/Ichiro/Sosa shows up on each player's card.  That interested me enough to add it to this trio!

I couldn't leave without a Ripken after finding the other three guys right?  RIGHT?!  No problem, I dug out this '95 SP Championship Series Die-Cut of the Iron Man.  This is the die-cut version of one of his four base card appearances in the set, and it's actually the first one of Ripken from that product entirely.  It puts me just a bit closer to the 700-card mark, and maybe a couple more shows will put me over the top.

Please don't forget to check out the football content over on TMM if that interests you!