2018 ebay Purchases: Richard the Third

At long last I'm finally posting my eBay pickups from the first four months of 2018 (though I may be sneaking in a couple more pickups at the 11th hour).  I've got three cards for you today in addition to the ones I just posted on TMM the other day, and they all have one thing in common:  Rich Hill.

Hill started out his 2018 on a positive note with an April 1 win, then followed that up with a four-inning no-decision and five-inning dud of a loss, the latter of which were likely due to his signature blister issues.  He's currently on the DL for those but should be back soon, hopefully with a return to effectiveness (on a team that could really use it!).

Today's all about his original team--the Cubs--though as each card you see hails from a 2008 Upper Deck brand.  Here they are:

I'll start with what I consider the least interesting card, one I just purchased last week.  My opening bid of about $7.50 delivered was enough to gain me this 2008 Upper Deck Premier Silver (#1/5) parallel.  That's right, bitches:  eBay 1/1.  Of Hill's 22 non-1/1s in the product just three of them aren't hits:  the base card (/99), Blue parallel (/25), and this one.  The seven I still need range from 25 copies on down to three!

Fortunately for me one of those won't be this triple autograph from the same product, an Emerging Stars Autographs Trios (#03/25) that also includes former Phillies star Cole Hamels and ex-Pirate (among several other teams) Tom Gorzelanny.  Hamels leads the group with a career 53.1 bWAR, Hill comes in second with 10.7, and Gorzelanny brings up the rear at 5.4.  Hill, of course, is the star attraction for me on my first of the eight multiplayer autographs where he can be found.  You can also find cards pairing him up with one, two, or three players, and hopefully that'll be possible for me to do.  While I'm dreaming maybe I can find more of them as dirt cheap as this one was: just $6.60!

Last up is the new addition I'm most excited about:  the first of two "L" manupatch autos I need from Rich's SP Authentic By the Letter nameplate.  Not quite a year ago I was able to complete the "C-U-B-S" version,

and now I just need one more "L" to spell out his last name thanks to scoring this one (#05/25) for a pretty reasonable $9 in late February.

These additions continue a fun march towards 300 Hill cards overall.  I count 264 of the 411 I've checklisted, with more 2018 issues likely to appear in upcoming Topps products.  In all I have 289 unique Hills with his hit count continuing to lead my Michigan Baseball collection at 130.  While it wasn't a big start to the year in terms of quantity, the quality is unquestionable!

Speaking of quantity I have two more posts (one on each blog) covering a couple other eBay pickups coming up soon, plus at least one trade package to get to.  As the weather is finally warming up here so is my posting!