Madness? THIS IS BLOWOUT! (and eBay)

Warning:  this is a long post with lots of pictures (some of which are related to the subject matter) and YouTube videos (none of which are), but I know you all love it when I scan in all my Blowout purchases, so enjoy and help make this my new #1 post if you feel like it.

First up, a quick happy 30th to Beardy (yesterday) and happy 25th to SpastikMooss (today)!  You two are simultaneously making me feel old and young, so thanks for that.  That's a cheap segue into one of my favorite Walk Hard scenes, where Dewey suffers through rehab:

Anyway, all the best to two awesome bloggers.

I put Blowout in the title, you read this post:
I just need to quickly point out that there will be zero references to Spartans in this post despite the obvious references to 300.  This is a Michigan Wolverines-centric blog and I will not sully it with images associated with that stupid school to my northwest (unless there are Kirk Gibson cards involved).

That being said, I had quite a week on the interwebz.  Three different transactions led to some nice acquisitions for my various personal collections, so let's get right to it:

Blowout deal #1:  trade bait + Wolverines:
A Blowout seller (who turned out to be awesome and very easy to work with, which happens sometimes) posted a few four-card lots for $20 each.  One had a Braylon Edwards I wanted plus three other trade-worthy cards, so I pounced on it.  The guy wrote me back and said he might be putting more lots up, so I checked his Bucket.

He then demanded it back

Lo and behold, I found another six Michigan football cards I couldn't do without, and a second small Paypal transaction later, they were mine. First, the three trade-bait-type cards:

A 2010 Topps Chrome Ben Tate auto-RC, a 2010 Bowman Sterling Taylor Price jersey-RC and a 2010 Press Pass Dexter McCluster auto.  All of these are available for trade, so make your offers now!

Here's the part of the haul that I most cared about:

Braylon Edwards 2010 Bowman Sterling auto jersey:  My 24th Braylon (which almost makes my top three) happens to be my fifth autograph.  I still remember when I didn't have any of those this year!  I hope he ends up signing with a decent team, preferably with other former Wolverines.  As mentioned, this was the fourth card in the original $20 lot, in case you forgot.

Desmond Howard/Tony Martin 2001 Pacific Vanguard dual jersey:  Des becomes my 49th different Michigan PC player, and I thought it was pretty cool that I started off my collection of him with a jersey of him during his Lions stint.  The seller pointed out that this was double-sided, in case that bothered me, but I could care less who the other player is when I'm getting my first card of Mr. Heisman.

Marlin Jackson 2005 Bowman's Best auto-RC:  Marlin Jackson #8 for me is a sweet looking Bowman's Best autograph.  I loves me some Bowman's Best!  Serial #d 181/599


Marlin Jackson 2005 Press Pass auto:  Maybe I can pass this off as a Michael Jordon.  Anyway, I love the Michigan uni, as usual.

Jake Long 2008 Donruss Threads Rookie Collection jersey:  Oh look:  a green Jake Long Dolphins jersey swatch, I don't have any of those.  Serial #d 365/500 which is probably appropriate since I think I average picking up about one Jake Long hit per day.

Jake Long 2008 SP Rookie Threads Rookie Threads dual jersey:  I'd seen this one a few times but I had yet to pick it up somehow, maybe because it paled in comparison to its more desirable cousin (<Simpsons>Because they're so attractive!</Simpsons>) about which more later.  As you can see, this one is #d 061/125, and using a font that looks blockier than something from an NES game, it notes that Jake is in fact an offensive lineman.

Chris Perry 2004 Upper Deck NFL Legends Future NFL Legends jersey:  My 12th Chris Perry is this relatively simple but still reasonably nice jersey.

By know you want to aggressively kick me into a bottomless pit (don't kill the messenger!) because you're wondering about the title of my post (or maybe you already got it).  Well the Michigan portion of this transaction--all of seven cards--put me exactly at 300 unique Michigan football hits!

Yes, I know it says 301 there, keep reading.  For now, this seems appropriate:

Blowout deal #2:
Following Tim's lead in trying to suss out some Seneca Wallace cards for his crazy-ass PC, and on the heels of local stories about his likely imminent call-up, I let it be known that I was looking for Zach Putnam stuff.  I already had seven cards I liked, but there were definitely more I was interested in, especially his Razor Letterman cards (of which I pulled exactly ZERO out of two cases!) since I had one unnumbered and one /20.  I only got one good reply, but it was a worthwhile offer:  this guy had Putnam's 1-of-1 letter "M".  He wasn't sure how much he wanted for it so we haggled and I looked at his Bucket.

Actually, I use Picasa Web Albums

Wouldn't you know it, he had a Tigers card of a particular player I liked.  I pulled the old combine and save strategy and got a great pair of cards, plus more, which you'll see in a minute:

Because this is a one-of-one, I thought I'd also scan the back as proof:

Pretty slick, right?  I now have a "U", "N" and "M" meaning I need a TAP-a TAP-a TAP-a.

So what was the other nice pickup for me in this deal?  Perhaps you've heard of this guy, a former Tiger and current All-Star starter:

Yep, my first Grandy (non-RC) hit is a doozy--this 2010 Topps Peak Performance jersey/auto, which you can see is numbered 21/50.  I know these are pretty tough to pull because I haven't seen a ton of them for sale (you might remember I pulled a Ryan Howard auto-bat a while back, but still).  We negotiated a fair price for the pair, but when I asked him to come down a couple bucks to make it a nice even price (and just because) he offered to throw in a couple Verlanders:

This one's a 2005 Zenith RC.  I can't say I love the design, but I love the fact that it's a Verlander RC and that's mainly what counts here (plus it was essentially free).  While he was at it, he threw in this gem:

A 2003 USA Baseball jersey of JV--my third jersey of the Tigers' ace and my first of him in a USA uniform.  I'm very happy about this deal which netted me a huge Putnam for my collection (and puts me closer to working on his nameplate, which I might just have to do now) and my first big Granderson hit (which puts me closer to actually living up to my blog's name).

eBay deal:
Yeah, I lifted the embargo (which had more to do with selling anyway considering the way eBay likes to treat sellers like the Gimp from Pulp Fiction) because I had already bought this card TWICE and still hadn't received it.  It really is true that the third time's the charm:

My 28th Jake Long (thanks to the three others I picked up this week) vaults him back into first place and makes him card #301 in the PC.  This is probably the card I've been working the hardest to get since I acquired all my other Michigan letter autos.  I had extremely bad luck trying to nab it twice and not receiving it for whatever reason (coughassholesellerscough) so I wasn't going to let other bidders keep me away from this one--I mean there's only so many in existence, but statistically the incompetence of the USPS couldn't keep one away from me forever.  I ended up paying a bit more than half book plus shipping (another reason I favor Blowout) and today, praise the Flying Spaghetti Monster and his noodly appendage, it showed up in my mailbox.   To say I'm ecstatic is an understatement right now, seriously.
While I was getting this in a reasonable protector, I thought to pull out my other various Michigan letter autos and snapped a quick picture:

In alphabetical order we have Adrian Arrington, Jason Avant, Leon Hall, Mike Hart, Chad Henne and Jake Long.

I hope to add to this collection in the future, my favorites being the SP Threads that look like they came right off a Wolverines jersey, but any will do--Eric knows where I'm coming from.

Since I've probably used up all of your bandwidth, I'll end here, but I hope you've enjoyed one of my more epic weeks in PC acquisitions.