2021 eBay purchases: Rich and Charlie's awesome Christmas

Yep, still lots to post, but today I'm going with the fewest cards instead of posting nothing! The two you see below should be my final eBay pickups of the year.

I had a good last couple months on the site, largely picking up some better stuff for Doug's Christmas package, and I also scored two pretty big cards for myself in November. Here they are:

Behind door #1 is Rich Hill's 2008 Bowman Chrome Yellow Plate. I'd go so far as to refer to it as "maize" in recognition of his Wolverines career, though of course the border's more of a highlighter  hue than the classic UM color. My latest Hill 1/1 (I believe I'm at around 30 when including my unidentified 2008 Triple Threads White Whales) set me back around $15 in early November thanks to a late bidding war, but I refused to be denied considering my spending was so responsible this year. It'll make a nice addition to the '08 Bowman/Chrome rainbow I've already put together:

I already had one plate to include in the bunch, the Bowman Cyan (not exactly a Michigan blue either!) you see at the very end, and now I can add a Chrome plate to that as well. As usual the Chrome plate's image is reversed due to that set's printing process so you get a rare look at old Dick Mountain as a righty!

I'm closing in on 150 hits of the southpaw who's making yet another return to Boston, and I hope to maintain my self-assigned rep as Hill's #1 collector with more scores like this in 2022!

As usual if I'm starting off with a plate or other 1/1 I have something even bigger to show off and that's true here! I occasionally search eBay for Charlie Gehringer autographs to add to my collection after having had lots of success doing so in the past, and often I try to find those made by Upper Deck brands because they feature nice designs. Cut autographs necessarily have less room for design elements like photos, but I still opt for those when I can.

In this case I happily made an exception, and even went away from the UD brands to go with a Topps Co-Signers card from way back in 2006. The fact that it paired up the Mechanical Man with my first autograph of fellow Tigers star Harvey Kuenn was enough argument for me! The roughly $50 total cost, very reasonable in my opinion, was also a factor.

Though their careers didn't overlap--Charlie was in Detroit between 1924-42 while Harvey spent his first eight MLB seasons in Motown from 1952-59) they're both well-known Tigers from before the 60s. Kuenn was the '53 AL ROY and went to All-Star Games in eight straight seasons (two each in '59 and '60, the latter in his first season with the Giants) and played his best ball here, though the team failed to make it to the postseason during his Tigers tenure.

Other than lacking images of both players this is an excellent cut design. Both players' cut pieces--a Kuenn check and the usual Gehringer HOF plaque postcard--fit well in the windows set up for them and the signatures aren't cut off like you often see these days. The biggest flaw here, and no surprise from Topps, is that Harvey's last name is spelled "Kuehn" on both the front and back for some reason. QA's never been Topps' strong suit, though, so I'll give them points for getting this mostly right.

And anyway I'm thrilled to add not just my first signature of Kuenn, but also my 10th of one of Michigan's (state and school!) and Detroit's all-time greats, Charlie Gehringer. I think it's worth another look at all of them here:

That may be it for my eBay spending in 2021 but I still have lots to show you: three blogger trades, one TCDB deal, the results of the show earlier this month, and then possibly a show this weekend as well! Until then, stay warm and dry and enjoy the holiday season!