2018 Sportlots purchases: Gwynning streak

I don't know if I'll get two more posts on each blog for this series done by the end of Thursday (to be done by the end of February) but at least I can say I'll have gotten two up this evening!  One of those is another RB special over on TMM and you can find the other right here.

The star of today's post is Mr. Padre, the second of my four big non-Tigers/Wolverines PCs, so let's check out some new Tony Gwynn cardboard:

We'll start with quite the range in years here:  1992-98.  Leaf's shoulda/coulda/woulda Black Gold parallel from '92, the one that should have been the base design, is a fun way to lead things off.  Then we go super shiny with Pinnacle's '94 the Naturals boxed set that was totally on-brand back then.  Sportflix's UC3 product from 1995 was redundant, plus the regular version was much better, yet the two you see above, including a Cyclone Squad insert, are still interesting relics of the time.  Everything else is fairly standard base card fare from 1995-98, though I always love seeing that Ultra design!

I'd say things get a bit more interesting here as we move on to 1999-2001.  The base cards are from shiny and/or interesting products like Finest, Bowman's Best, Ultimate Victory, Absolute Memorabilia, and the underrated Upper Deck Gold Glove.  2000 Bowman's Best is one of my favorites in that product's run, other than the fact that they're already Refractor-ized.  A trio of Upper Deck inserts from 2000 make me fondly remember ripping some of those products back then.

Scan #3 is where class meets flash.  I was excited to land a mix of UD's Sweet Spot and SP Legendary Cuts issues along with an '06 Greats of the Game base.  Each of those look amazing and offer a nice variety of design.  Compare those to 2005 Leaf Certified Materials and the first bunch of horizontal cards, ranging from '93-'06, and bask in the fun of the variety we used to enjoy.  I think the Upper Deck Diamond Gallery hologram card from '93 is a particular highlight here, and the type of card I bet used to draw in younger collectors at the time.  Pinnacle's 1996 Aficionado is a pretty solid mix of style and substance, though.

And at last we reach the end with a few more horizontals.  While I have the '97 Bronze Coin from Pinnacle Mint I'll have to track down the '98 version to go with the die-cut base card above.  I also came up with both versions of Tony's 1999 Pacific Invincible Sandlot Heroes cards, and while I'm not sure why Pacific made multiple versions for each player I'm glad they're at least easy to tell apart.  The back of his 2000 UD Statitude insert notes that he compiled a career-high 220 hits in 1997 before picking up #3000 in 1999.  And I'm happy to end on a high note with one more classy offering from 2005 SP Legendary Cuts, another beautiful example of the quality that product brought year after year.

That all amounts to a very solid 33 new Gwynns for a new PC total of 629, making him another player to cross off a milestone during this series.

Stay tuned for two more posts in this series before I finally get to some very nice COMC loot!