2019 COMC purchases: the 12 cards of COMChristmas

I'm going through another one of those periods where I want to get some posts up, especially so I can catch up to new stuff from this month, but I don't feel like writing.  It also doesn't help that work's been stressful lately, plus there was the tragedy of the helicopter crash yesterday that cost Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and other families their lives.

Solution:  don't write much and just get posts up!  Pictures something something thousand words, right?  So here's the baseball loot from my latest COMC shipment, mostly comprising purchases from the Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions:

Today's only autograph is my first card of Nationals pitching prospect James Bourque, an Ann Arbor native with a pretty strong mustache game who pitched for Michigan in 2013 and 2014.  He got a one-game cup of coffee (Shot of coffee?  Drip of coffee?) last season five years after the team drafted him in the 14th round.  He's got lots more Bowman Chrome autos (like this one from 2019) to chase as well as a 2019 Topps Update base and its 50,000 parallels, and is the 27th member of my baseball hits PC.

2001 marked my first year of college and it was also an excellent year for collecting, falling right in the middle of that '95-'05 decade that I love so much.  Upper Deck was still around and they obliged relic-hungry collectors back when that was still quite a novelty.  For just a few bucks each I scored three such cards of Tony Gwynn, all from products I'm very familiar with:  SP Game Bat Edition, SPx, and UD Legends.  I believe I now own 10 relics (plus an autograph) of Mr. Padre, and I'll happily add more of these whenever the price is right.

Although he's known better as a Yankee during his brief (failed) foray into baseball, Drew Henson was a Red for a bit before being flipped back to the Bronx.  That makes the color of this Mirror Red parallel of his 2003 Leaf Certified Materials bat relic somewhat appropriate.  Donruss/Leaf/Panini/Playoff/whoever made some beautiful cards like this in the aughts and the price was low enough to add another Henson relic (#074/250), giving him 15 in the baseball collection.

Don't worry, I'm not boring you today with a post that's just hits, which I'm guessing a number of you would ignore as they're not your taste.  Looking for something else?  I got you, fam!  The "90s inserts rule" tag makes another heralded appearance today in part because if this amazing '97 Leaf chase card called Knothole Gang (#1046/5000).  Leaf layered a thin, wood-like material die-cut in the shape of a fence with a large hole in the middle over a photo, in this case Barry Larkin doubling up Braves stalwart Jeff Blauser.  These are too cool and I believe I'm chasing a few other PC guys, so I hope I'll have more to show off soon!

It's been long enough since I finished up my purchases on COMC that I can't remember for sure (and don't feel like doing the work to verify this), but I believe I came out of those sales with 19 printing plates/one-of-ones intended for my PCs and Christmas Cards packages.  Something like eight of those stayed with me, including this 2019 Topps Update Black plate of PC dude Clayton Richard, who appears with the Blue Jays for the first time.  Richard is now one of three Michigan Baseball guys with nine or more such cards in his collection, joining J.J. Putz (10) and Rich Hill (23) with nobody else above four.  Also, this marks my 130th plate and/or 1/1, though I may revise that collection a bit in the near future.  Anyway, I'll be casually on the lookout for the other three plates to go with this one!

The three jerseys of Gwynn above are awesome but this trio of Ripken inserts might be my preferred group of the two.  Up top is the '97 version of UD's amazing, um...Amazing Greats insert.  These also have a bit of a wood grain texture with a diamond shaped slide/cel insert on the right.  The '98 iteration is beautiful in its own right, and they're so different that I'm happy to appreciate both.  Oddly enough, Cal's my only example from '97 while his '98 card is the only one I lack of the Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken group.

The other two get me a bit closer to the fun 2000 Fleer Gamers Cal to Greatness set.  #s 6 and 9 here give me the full run of 1-10 while I'll now have to track down the rarest ones, #s 11-15.  Those were a tough 1:144 while the first five were 1:9 and the others 1:25.  This might take a bit of time and money.

I don't harp too much on HOFer "Gorgeous" George Sisler having played at Michigan, do I?  Nah, I'm sure I don't.  In case you forgot, here's a great photo of him courtesy of Panini's 2015 National Treasures Collegiate Multi-sport product.  It's a numbered base card (#74/99) and I initially balked at the price of more than a buck for such a card, but I eventually relented, especially as I'm trying to get him past the 100-card mark.  Hopefully the next time I add some they'll be this nice!

I'm happy to end today's post with a pretty nifty card of recent HOFer Alan Trammell.  Back in the early 2000s the Playoff brand was responsible for a product called Absolute Memorabilia, and boy did they make some great looking cards.  One of their most notable issues was the Tools of the Trade insert, one that came in autograph, memorabilia, and combo versions.  And when I say "combo" I mean you could get six-plus game-used pieces and maybe even a signature!  No matter what you got, the design looked great, like this here 2004 card of Tram (#088/250).  This bat/jersey duo appears to give me a nice split of five each of autos and relics of the Tigers legend.

Hopefully I'll get the next post in this series up a bit sooner.  For now I'm planning a combo basketball/football post, then more football for the big finish.  That way I can finally get around to covering a huge trade package, a show or two (the next one's this weekend!), and one eBay card, and get to where I'm somewhat caught up.