While I'm trying to keep up some relatively positive posting momentum, here's a look at my personal eBay wins from the months of November and December:
When talking about sets that are important in the hobby's history, 1996 Leaf Signature's one-auto-per-pack product ranks way up there. Thanks to eBay I scored my 10th from that iconic set, and second of PC guy Dean Palmer. In this case it's the Silver version (which you can kind of tell by the stamp), and those were generally limited to 1000 copies (Bronze were 3500, Golds were 500). I already own the Bronze and just need the Gold to round out Dean-o's run of mainstream certified autos. The clean look and relatively low print run meant I didn't think twice about paying not quite $3.25 for this.
Would it be an eBay roundup without something purchased from my favorite seller,
markaguirre22? Back around Thanksgiving I won the pair of Zach Putnam Topps Mini parallels you see above. Again, I don't put much thought or money into the on-demand stuff, but the Blue /10 was just $2 and the Orange /25 half that, so I was cool plunking down $3 plus tax (and free shipping) to add those.
And once again he was super nice to throw in some extras of guys he knows I collect! The Hill minis are from 2008 Ginter and are the A&G Back and Black Border versions. Meanwhile, Larkin's cards hail from 2001 Pacific Private Stock and 2011 Topps mini inserts. I already owned all four but will be happy to use these as trade bait.
Switching over to football briefly, here's a not-quite-maize plate repping my team that will be continuing its playoff quest this Saturday. Standout CB Marlin Jackson appeared on a number of cards in Topps' 2005 Draft Picks & Prospects product back when Topps was able to produce those (and actually did a nice job!). What you see here isn't a base card plate, but one used for printing his Senior Standouts Relics jersey insert. A slight twist is that this is one of those products where you could find both the front and back plates, and in this case we have the latter. Here's the back of that jersey card (which I own) for comparison:
I believe this is just my second back printing plate card to go along with a Topps Mayo of Adrian Arrington. As you can see, the color yellow didn't factor much into the rear of this card, but it's a different story on the front with Jackson seen in Michigan's iconic uniform.
For under $8.50 delivered I scored my first Jackson 1/1 and his 23rd hit overall. The seller took a page out of markaguirre22's book and threw in some cool UM-specific extras:
That's three RCs of former TE/WR Devin Funchess plus a Topps Magic Mini of WR great Braylon Edwards. Once again I have all of these but the gesture was very nice, plus I happen to know someone who could use the Braylon!
Back to baseball. We're coming up on almost seven years since Doug sent me what was my first card of UM pitcher Karl Kauffmann, a player who wasn't even on my radar at the time. Kauffmann had only recently signed with the Wolverines, and even if he'd been with the team for a year or two, it was rare for players who hadn't been drafted yet to appear on cards. But thanks to Leaf's Perfect Game product, I had the start of my PC of the future Rockies prospect.
Flash forward to a couple weeks ago and I snagged my second plate from this same set on eBay. Like the one above, the one Doug sent me (a yellow version) isn't a 1/1, but one of two made instead. I'm not sure how that works with these All-American Classic plates--fronts and backs? Maybe something having to do with these saying "Base - Common"? Still, while not true 1/1s, they're fun cards to find and can still join my plate/1-1 collection. And would you believe that I paid just a bit over $2 to get this in my mailbox? Not bad, eh?
To close things out this evening I have a pair of Bowman Draft plates of pitcher Clayton Richard from two different years and separate auctions. Up top is the Magenta plate from the base 2005 product, which featured Richard's first MLB cards. He definitely looks extra creepy and possessed with his eyeballs looking like they're 100% white in the scan!
The other is from the 2009 product, though I'll mention that Clayton did appear in the 2008 version as well. The 2009 base card included stats from his 2008 MLB debut campaign with the White Sox, though he'd only be with them for part of the season when that card was produced, getting sent to San Diego in July of '09 in the deal that brought Jake Peavy to the South Side.
Thanks to these purchases--$6.64 for the '05 card and $7.63 for the other--I now count 12 different 1/1s in his PC, second only to Rich Hill's ~26 (still TBD) and one better than J.J. Putz's 11. Those are also my earliest plates of his as the oldest I previously owned were three of his four from 2011 Topps flagship.
So once again without spending a crazy amount I added some very nice stuff to a few of my PCs thanks to eBay. I look forward to showing off more additions in the form of the rest of my TCDB deals from this year before the end of the week!
