2016 COMC purchases: MLB Michigan Men

All right, let's start looking at some of my loot from COMC purchases from 2016, including cards purchased during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend!

First up are some cards of six PC guys that all have one thing in common:  they played baseball for Michigan.  Three or four of these guys should be pretty well known to most of you, and hopefully some of you will become aware that I collect the others and eventually help me find new cards of them as well!

On with the cards:

First up alphabetically is Jim Abbott and this Dugout Collection parallel from 1996 Score.  It's a bit of a strange photo to use and reminds me of one of my favorite memes:

I've always admired the simplicity of the '96 Score set, though, and consider Dugout Collection cards (and its relatives, such as Gold Rush) to be solid parallels.

Cronenworth is one of those guys I'm betting few, if any of you, know.  I first wrote about him last May when I started collecting his stuff, which so far is limited to 2015 Bowman Draft/Chrome.  That means chasing a bunch of parallels, but at least many of those are Refractors, like this Purple version (#134/250), which gives me eight of his 19 cards so far.

It's always a celebration around here when I can add new cards to my favorite PC, that of Rich Hill, who I hope continues to enjoy success with the Dodgers in 2017.  First up is Hill's Mini Green Back card (#26/88) from 2008 UD Goudy.  It was the last card I needed to sew up that product, and I may put up a separate post soon showing off the six-card rainbow.

The other card is much more recent and shows Rich with his other 2016 club, Oakland, on his 2016 Topps Gold parallel (#0557/2016).  That's only my second Hill card from the product besides his base card, though I'll soon be showing off another in an upcoming trade post.  For now, these two put me at 252/373 Hills, with a denominator that's grown a bit in the last few months, a happy development in my opinion.

Here's a card that was an easy buy:  I love collecting Larkin, I love '96 Sportflix, and I think Artist's Proof parallels are great.  Plus the nostalgia factor looms large--I opened a bunch of packs of this product when it came out and wouldn't have dreamed of pulling a card like this as such parallels were relatively rare at the time.  As a pleasant surprise the scan turned out quite nicely--I like when you get a glimpse of multiple facets of a hologram-style card like this.

The other player in today's post I'm betting almost none of you are familiar with is Yankees farmhand Michael O'Neill.  That's not a huge surprise since the 2013 third-rounder hasn't advanced past AA yet.  I scored two more of his cards this time to add to my small-but-growing collection.  First up is a new autograph (my 13th), a Green Refractor version from 2013 Bowman Sterling, giving me five of his 10 cards from that product.  As you can see, Paul's nephew has a very nice signature.

The other card is also a Refractor, this one a Pink Wave out of 2014 Bowman Chrome Prospects Series 2.  O'Neill has a ton of cards from 2014 Bowman Chrome products--I count 42--so every little bit helps.  I don't know how I feel about the "Wave"-style Refractors, but pink is a reasonable color for the iconic parallel.

Make it 29/85 cards (including a couple of dual autographs with Yankees legend Paul I wasn't aware of until yesterday) in O'Neill's collection.

Finally, you can see that I got on a nice little run of George Sisler pickups.  As it turned out, Black Friday was a great time to chase a bunch of inserts (and a few base) of Gorgeous George.  First up in this starting nine is Sisler's base from 2002 Sweet Spot Classics, one of my favorite looking sets that I don't own but should definitely grab someday.  A classic photo with a classy design is always a desirable pair.

Next is a trio from one of Topps' best offerings, 2003 Gallery HOF.  Honestly, if Topps made more products like this I wouldn't be crapping all over them in every single post.  These cards are flat out beautiful and well executed.  The first two represent George's base card and then a variation (sans ad on the outfield wall) while the third is the Artist's Proof version of the former.  As usual, Topps nails it with a Gallery product, and I'm going to enjoy having these in my collection.

The next pair comes from a less interesting but still solid product:  2011 Topps Marquee, which should have been named "Why Didn't We Just Make Stadium Club?"  At least it has the borderless design I like along with some cool photos.  The two cards you see there are Blue (#292/299) and Copper (#137/199) parallels featuring foil corresponding to the parallel color along with serial-numbering up front.

Panini's 2013 Cooperstown set has appeared on my blogs a few times thanks to appearances by Sisler and fellow Wolverine Charlie Gehringer.  Here, Sisler makes another cameo in the form of a very nice Blue Crystal parallel (#095/499), which goes along with the base and Green Crystal versions I own.  Stop me if you've heard this one before, but The Scan Doesn't Do It Justice!

Our eighth and ninth hitters both hail from Panini's 2014 Hall of Fame product, and they're two of my favorite inserts that came out of it.  On the left we have a card done up in Donruss' fantastic Crusades design, an insert that dates all the way back to 1998.  These shiny gems used to be highly coveted due to their scarcity and great looks, and I'm glad Panini brought the design back for use with Hall-of-Famers.  And speaking of homages to past designs, our last card is a throwback to Donruss' Elite Series, an insert that was absolutely huge when it burst onto the scene in the early 90s.  While the one Panini used here isn't my favorite, I love the throwback to another early Donruss set.

These nine newbies gave my Sisler collection a nice little boost to 64 cards.

Stay tuned for more COMC, eBay pickups, and trades soon!  Also, please head over to TMM this evening for even more COMC loot.