Complete sets: 2002 Fleer Fall Classics HOF Plaques

At long last I can show off this set in its entirety!  For a quick refresher (not that I haven't mentioned it 100 times here), I first learned about the set and picked up 19 of the 30 cards for under $10 at a show last April.  A few months went by before I made another move, scoring three new ones--Ty Cobb, Jackie Robinson, and Nolan Ryan--on COMC for just $5.50.  Needing eight cards at that point, I took advantage of COMC's Black Friday sales to move on picking up four more, and then found Ozzie Smith's issue during the Boxing Day promotions.  As I was nearing the finish line I lucked into digging out Lou Gehrig in a $2 box at a show a couple weeks ago, and that's when I really got my ass in gear.  Needing just the Ruth and Musial cards, I lucked into a very nice price on the Ruth from a seller in Michigan, and thus motivated, nabbed a nice BIN offer for Stan the Man.  The Ruth arrived today and that's all she wrote!

Since I've already described the cards, I'll now present them in all their glory without any further interruption, other to point out that "just" 1,936 complete sets are possible, and that this is the second ever all-serial-numbered set I've completed (the other being the 2001 Donruss Rookie Reprints).  Oh yeah, and one last thing:  I now have literally zero cards on my set wantlists!

Ok, all that said, please enjoy what I think is a fantastic set (especially since it was a lot of work acquiring the cards, scanning fronts and backs, and stitching them together)!

2/7/15 card show report: I'll PCing you later

As has become fairly common for me recently, I hit up the monthly card show at the Taylor Town Trade Center, about a 30 minute drive for me.  As has also become fairly common, although I spent lots of time flipping through boxes, I really didn't spend much at all--just $17.  The damage was 44 quarter cards, four that were $1, and one that was a whopping $2.  Per usual most of that was trade bait, but I do have a few things to show off over here and on TMM.

I happened to be flipping through the $2-or-6-for-$10 box of the guy from whom I'd made my large initial purchase from this set last year when I came across this Gehrig.  It's one of just three I still needed so now I'm just lacking the Ruth and Musial cards, a very exciting development for me.  I may even be able to finish the set very shortly now!  The price was fantastic, too--I was looking at upwards of 3-4 times this amount online.

The rest of today's cards all go towards some of the PCs I wrote about in my previous post on Thursday:

Kirk Gibson 1995 SP Championship Classic Performances

Huh, I wonder what game this card is commemorating?  It's fun to see the different designs that go around this iconic shot.  By the way, I'm pretty sure I have the die-cut version from way back when I was supercollecting Gibby before I even knew that was a thing.  Also, back then he didn't have nearly as many cards as he does now.

Ken Griffey Jr. 1997 Ultra Gold Medallion

Does this card scream "Junior Griffey" or what?  There's Kenny with his trademark backwards cap look grinning with his bat in his hands, and this Gold Medallion parallel of his '97 Ultra card would fit right in for his encyclopedia entry.  By the way, this set arrived the same year Griffey won his only MVP after clubbing 56 HR for the first of two consecutive years; in fact, between 1996 and 2000 he went for 249 dingers!

Tony Gwynn 1993 Leaf Heading For the Hall

Tony Gwynn 1996 Fleer Road Warriors

Tony Gwynn 1996 Pinnacle Aficionado Slick Picks

Tony Gwynn 1998 Topps Stars Bronze (#0562/9799)

Tony Gwynn 2003 Leaf Limited (#203/399)

I didn't mean to have this kind of field day with Gwynn--it just happened!  I was certainly happy with my luck, though, picking up five cards covering about a 10-year span, including the 2003 Limited card from after he retired.  Then again this reminds me of the work I have ahead of me, scanning around 160 cards from my completed sets, not to mention a ton more singles!

Cal Ripken Jr. 1996 Fleer Checklists

Cal Ripken Jr. 2000 Topps (#238C) and Topps Opening Day (#107)

Finally, here's $0.75 worth of Ripkens.  The '96 Fleer Checklist had a fun picture of the Iron Man on it, so why not?  And the Topps/Opening Day pair was a happy coincidence.  I couldn't remember exactly which version(s) of the former I have since there are five different variations honoring different moments in his career.  Since this is the one I found and it's probably my favorite, I gladly spent the quarter on it.  I hadn't realized that the same year's Opening Day set featured a similar card (with no variations), though one that highlights a slightly different moment.

And yes, putting these with the rest of Cal's cards made me realize I'll really need to break up the work of getting his stuff scanned so I don't go insane.

I was a bit disappointed that I didn't find more to bring home with me, but I still left with some cool PC stuff for me and a bit more trade bait, and now I have whatever else I would have spent leftover in my budget to use elsewhere, so that's a positive.

Don't forget to check out TMM tonight for a few other pickups!

2014 COMC purchases: plaque good

I had a blast picking things up on COMC during their Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales this year, and luckily for me that included a bonus $20 shopping spree plus another $5 free for shipping 100 or more cards in November.  A nice number of those cards went to traders and readers like you, and I've been glad to see people posting and showing them off!

Speaking of posting and showing off cards I have just four for you to see on this blog, but there'll be a bunch more over on TMM.  Here's what I bought:

This is a quartet of 2002 Fleer Fall Classics HOF Plaques I needed towards the set I'm building.  I originally debuted this set back in April after I picked up a huge chunk of it from quarter and $0.50 boxes at a show.  Before November I still needed eight cards, so now I'm missing just four (as seen on my baseball wantlist):  Ruth, Gehrig, Musial, and Ozzie Smith.  With just a few days left this month I doubt I'll finish it before 2015, but that's ok since it's literally the only set I'm building right now!

I definitely ended up with a pretty nice group here, and I believe I landed each of them for less than $3.00.  As with the rest in the set, these are serial-numbered to the year each player joined the Hall of Fame and have a die-cut HOF plaque-like design with text on the front and back.  As I continue to promise, once I land all of them I'll show off the set in its entirety--fronts and backs!

Well, I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and that the good cheer lasts into the new year!  I'd call my own holiday so far good, but is it plaque good?

2014 COMC purchases: JV and the HOF

It's time to show off some more COMC pickups!  As usual most of what I scored this time will be displayed over at TMM, but I did find a few things I wanted to highlight here.

First up is a trio of cards from the 2002 Fleer Fall Classics HOF Plaque set:

I was surprised that I was able to land these three greats for a total of just $5.50 considering what some of them go for.  You may recall that I started the set back in April when I found 19 of the 30 in quarter and $0.50 boxes for a total under $10 at a show.  Well, I now have three to add to that pile--and three GREATS, to be more specific, leaving me needing these eight:

1  Ruth
3  Wagner
6  Young
9  Gehrig
12 Musial
20 Bench
26 Brett
30 Ozzie Smith

If any of you has any of these available for trade, please let me know as I'd love to be able to show off the set in its entirety soon!  As a reminder, it's the only set left on my baseball set wantlist, which means it's literally the only set I'm still chasing now that I've completed everything on my football and hockey lists.

While I was at it I dug around for some cool Tigers stuff and came up with this:

Justin Verlander 2014 Topps Commemorative All-Star Rookie Team Cup manupatch

As far as Topps manurelics go, I thought this was kind of a fun one.  I got it for a low enough price that it doesn't matter to me that it's not a "real" relic.  Instead, it highlights Verlander as a member of the 2006 Topps All-Star Rookie team, and of course he earned that distinction after being named the AL Rookie of the Year thanks to his 17-win debut.

This is actually my third Verlander manurelic as I received this All-Star Stiches card and this rookie reprint manupatch in separate deals.  I've still got a ton of his stuff that needs to be scanned (which I'm obligated to mention every time I post his stuff), but that'll be a good winter project.  Here's the link to the album again.

With November just a couple days away I may put more time into getting some nice Tigers (and other baseball) stuff on my watch list for COMC's Black Friday specials, which are usually worth it if only for the usual free shipping deals, not to mention credits based on how much you buy.  Hopefully I'll have more nice stuff to show off to you in a few weeks!

April 19 card show report part 2 of 2: quarter/$0.50 boxes and more!

It's Thursday and I'm finally getting around to showing off the rest of my haul from last Saturday's show.  My post on Sunday covered the 2013 UD Football box I grabbed while my TMM post on Monday included the Wolverines I landed.  Today's includes cards I kind of alluded to in that TMM post, when I mentioned my two non-box purchases:

• Three hits in a three for $5 deal, plus a pair of Wolverines for $10, totaling $15
• 25 quarter cards from a box where they were 25 for $5, and 24 $0.50 cards where the deal was 12 for $5, so another $15 there

Besides what you see below, a bunch of what I picked up was trade bait, mostly of the variety that'll allow me to send out a bunch of PWEs very soon!  Nothing huge, but fun stuff for everyone involved, I think.  Considering I flipped through probably eight monster boxes worth of singles, I think I did pretty well.

Here's what I landed for myself:

These all came out of the $0.25 and $0.50 boxes.  I hit two of my major non-Tiger PCs in Gwynn and Maddux, and I'm always happy to add fun inserts of guys like that.  If you guys like the middle UD Gwynn insert, I'll give a little teaser that someone's gonna get that insert of a player they really like!  I already have the '96 Ultra On-Base Leaders Gwynn (a set that taught me about the statistic, by the way), but this one is the Gold Medallion version, as you can see in the bottom-right corner.  The rest of this scan goes Braves heavy as I picked up both the 10th Anniversary Preview and 10th Anniversary Team inserts of Maddux from 1999 UD.  The Chipper was a cool looking insert celebrating Atlanta's '95 title, and I have good memories of him playing in the '90s and 2000s.  Next, I found a pair of Hudson Refractors, which seemed like a good idea since I'm starting to collect him a bit more.  And finally, I dug up a Lou Whitaker 2nd-year card from 1979 Topps, which was as "sweet" as Lou was.

Next up is the majority of cards I found in the $0.50 box.  A few--maybe three or four--were together early on and my interest was piqued.  Then I found more and assembled all I could find.  As it turns out, these are the Hall of Fame Plaque inserts from 2002 Fleer Fall Classics.  It's a 30-card set done up in the style of a Hall of Fame plaque (including die-cutting) that features an embossed image of the player on the front and a brief write-up that spans both sides, followed by serial-numbering to the year of the player's enshrinement, like-a so:

It looked like a fun set to work on, and since I was able to pick up 19 of the 30 cards for under $10, I decided to go for it!  The group of 11 I'm missing includes some of the bigger names, but I doubt I'll have too much difficulty completing the set at a reasonable price.  You can find my wants on my recently-reinstated baseball set wantlist.  I'll show off the whole set when I have it.

Troy Tulowitzki 2007 Ultra Rookie Autographs auto (#284/499)

Finally, I landed this Tulo autograph (my second, actually) from the other guy that also had a couple Wolverines for me.  When I saw this card in the 50-count plastic case with other hits, I figured he'd tell me it didn't belong there, but to my surprise he didn't bat an eyelash.  How much do you think I paid?  $10?  At least $5, right?  No way, dude--this was one of the three hits I landed for just $5 total!  Did this guy know something about Tulowitzki I don't?  Whatever the case, it was a great score for me, along with a couple hits I'll be sending in a future trade.  I'm adding this to my baseball autograph PC, but I'm also open to trading it if anyone would like to make me a tempting offer.  There was no way I could go wrong getting this card for less than $2, either to keep or trade, and I'd have to call it my find of the show.

So that's how I did this time.  As usual, I'm not sure when I'll be heading back, but I'll probably hit up at least one more before the year's up.  Stay tuned for some more new stuff soon!