2014 Sportlots purchase #1: done and (almost) done

With my baseball set wantlist disappearing faster than Broncos bandwagon fans, I hit up set-building favorite Sportlots for some football help, specifically my 2000 Topps wantlist.  I needed a total of 12 cards and was able to score all of them via three different sellers, bumping the shipping cost up a bit, but coming in at a reasonable total when considering I had knocked off another set.  Here's the goods:

Considering the set came out around 14 years ago, I'm happy to recognize some of the names, specifically Rattay, Abraham, Porter, Sylvester Morris, and Franks.  Of that bunch, Abraham and Porter are definitely the best.  Abraham, a DE, was the 13th overall pick in 2000 by the Jets, and he's played every year since then, playing for the Falcons and Cardinals as well.  Porter, a 3rd-rounder in '99 to the Steelers, also played OLB for Miami and Arizona during his 13-year career, and just re-joined the team that drafted him as a coach.  As for the other players, Samuels was the highest rated of the bunch, the #3 overall pick in 2000 as a tackle out of Alabama, and was chosen by the Skins, for whom he played his entire 10-year career.  Simon, Taylor, Franks, and both Morrises joined him as 2000 first-rounders.

The set holds up decently more than a decade later, as I can definitely say I'm a fan of the color of the border, if not of its size.  The "2000 Topps" running up the right size in gold is a bit goofy, but the photos are pretty good.  Anyway, it's nice to have the formerly oldest set on my football set wants out of the way, and I'm down to just six I'm working on overall, so not bad!

While I was at it I continued to look for the trio of 2002 Upper Deck Honor Roll Update cards I needed to complete the sole remaining set on my baseball wantlist.  Previously I noted that a seller had one of the three I needed... for $5 (not counting shipping).

Screw that noise.  Amazingly, I found another guy with TWO of the three cards I needed, and they were just $0.40 each!  Shipping added to the total a bit, but who cares?  I got these two knocked off my wants:

Wesson, on the left, was a 1995 14th-rounder for Houston and got in a few games with them in 2002, and then a few more with the Halos in 2003.  So of course he needed a card.  The creatively-named Smith (whose $5 version is still available on the site for some reason) was a 2000 fifth-rounder for the Jays, and went 0-3 in 14 contests in 2002, then gave up for earned runs in a single three-inning start for the 2006 Twins before disappearing from the league for good.  These guys don't even belong in Bowman, much less Upper Deck!  Anyway, that leaves a mere ONE CARD on my baseball wantlist:

2002 Upper Deck Honor Roll #179 (Jose Rodriguez)

If you have this card or can get it for me, please let me know and I'll give you something very good for it!

Stay tuned for a couple new trade posts very soon.

First You Complete Me post of the new year is a big one

You Complete Me is already back for 2014, so you know what that means:  I completed more sets!  I should note that quite a few of these cards arrived in 2013, but I waited until now to show off everything now that their sets are finally complete.

It took multiple purchases from Sportlots, COMC, and eBay, but I can happily knock two more sets off my baseball wantlist:

2002 Upper Deck Victory Update:

 

I needed 15 total cards, all of which you see here.  Four of them came from Sportlots, but the real story was the 11 I landed on eBay.  One seller had all but one I needed for $1 apiece (plus shipping) as it turned out I had JUST missed out on the Finley.  Fortunately he found that one in another box and threw it in with the others while also accepting my request for a small discount; see that?  Not everybody on eBay sucks!

Victory is one of the three 2002 UD Rookie Update sets I've been chasing, with Honor Roll and Ovation being the other two.  I finished up the minuscule Ovation set a while ago but am still chasing three from Honor Roll.

Still, Victory is the story today.  2002 Victory ended up as a 660-card set, and Update comprised 110 cards of that.  #s 551-605 are generally traded players and guys that didn't appear in the original iteration while 606-660 are the Rookie subset you can see above.  The rookie class isn't terribly inspiring as the best of the group are Jose Valverde and...Aaron Cook, I guess?  Maybe Freddy Sanchez?

Victory was a decidedly low-end product but that didn't mean it wasn't interesting to collect.  I was more hooked by the fact that it was an update set anyway, and just didn't realize how difficult it might be to find some of these in the future!  No matter, now it's done, and I'm one happy collector.

2005 Topps All-Time Fan Favorites:

Regardless of how small my set wantlist was at the time, this was my favorite set I hadn't yet completed.  I own a few other years of Topps' Archives/Fan Favorites offerings and I sure as hell wasn't going to skip this one.  Again, Sportlots furnished most of the cards thanks to, I believe, three sellers.  One of them shipped my cards only for the USPS to lose them (what a shock), but he was good enough to get me a refund, and I was able to grab the same two from a different seller.  COMC had a better price on the Ozzie Smith and possibly one other card I can't remember.

When all those arrived I was left needing just one card.  But I couldn't find it on COMC or Sportlots, Beckett's Marketplace prices with shipping were laughable (plus it's Beckett--screw them, even if the sellers aren't really affiliated with their nonsense), and eBay was hit or miss.  Thankfully, waiting until this month worked out as I got some free money in eBay bucks and didn't have to pay a dime of the $3 shipped for #107, Walt Jocketty--the former Reds and Cardinals GM.  Don't ask me why it was so hard to find, I have no clue!

Like some of the other versions Topps made, this was a great looking set.  I don't believe many of these were done as straight-up reprints, so most of the time you get a player on a random previous Topps design.  In the positive column, Topps made the numbers on the back easier to see, incorporating them as they would have appeared on the original design.  My biggest annoyance continues to be Topps mutilating the multiplayer rookies, making them into awkward single-player versions like the Ryan and Schmidt above.  Honestly, if they were going to go that route, why not use hindsight to make versions that include other stars that didn't appear on the originals?  Whatever, we all know Topps doesn't care.

This was one of my larger recent projects as I had to acquire a crazy 46 (of the 142) cards to complete the set.  Still, based on some of the stars and others included (a new Jim Abbott!  That awesome '75 Bench!) it's great not only to check off another project, but have something else fun to look at.

And then there's the best result of this flurry of purchases; want to see what's left of my baseball wantlist?  Here it is:

2002 Upper Deck Honor Roll Update: 131 179 185

Did you miss it?  Wanna see it again?

2002 Upper Deck Honor Roll Update: 131 179 185

Yep, I literally have one set missing three cards on my set wantlist.  I can't remember it ever being this low, and now that I'm focusing more on player collections, I think that's a fantastic development.  That's not to say that I won't add to it once again in the future, but I can almost taste the awesomeness of a completely empty list, which now becomes a major goal for the year!

2013 SportLots purchase #1: 2002 called, it wants its cards back

Hi all, sorry for my more-than-usual extended absence.  Life's been pretty busy lately (in a good way!) and blogging has taken a back seat to that.  Fortunately I have some cool stuff to show off now that I'm back.

Last week I made my first SportLots purchase of the year.  This one came about mainly because I owed a fellow trader some cards (which should be going out today or tomorrow!) and had some great luck finding them.  While I was at it I decided to try to get out of the rut some of my older sets were in and attack those as well.  Finally, I picked up a trio Michigan player collection cards, which you can see over on TMM.  Did I mention that these all came from the same seller?  Well, they did, which is the way to play the game when it comes to SportLots.

I spent around $30 this time, but considering what I ended up with, I think I did just fine, especially when it comes to sets from 2002:

Here's the three main stacks, details of which you can see below.

Card #1 is this 2002 Bowman base of Chin-Feng Chen.  Why did I start off with this one?  It officially closes the book on that set for me.  At some point during my previous SportLots pickups, I failed to realize that I needed this one, and then I think a seller sent me the wrong card, so I was still left needing the Chen.  This particular seller had it, and I jumped all over it.  Make that another set done and another box that'll get a big old check mark on it when I get around to putting these away (I'm terrible about that).

Next up I grabbed a total of 42 2002 Topps Total base cards.  This set was a bit of a catch-22 for me--I didn't feel motivated to work on it because I still needed so many, and I needed so many because I don't make the effort to pick them up.  Well, I grabbed every card I needed that this seller had, and now I'm down to a slightly more manageable 44 cards needed.  These will be fun for me to put away because I store them in a binder, just one of two sets ('03 Topps Total) I do that with because otherwise I'd be up to my eyeballs in binders.

I highlighted a few interesting players here, including the retiring Mo, a trio of former Tigers, and a few throwbacks.  Remember former 20-game winner Pat Hentgen?  Remember his ridiculous mustache as a member of the Orioles too?  How about Kaz Sasaki, proof that closers are often a dime a dozen?  As always, this set is a lot of fun, and shame on Topps for killing it and replacing it with more and more of their shitty, overpriced products.  How many guys do you think made this set that wouldn't have otherwise appeared on a baseball card?  BRING IT BACK, TOPPS!

These next two sets were part of a 2002 Upper Deck Update product, which included updated runs of a few of their 2002 products.  Unlike Topps Total, I'd really done VERY little with these since I'd opened them, so I needed quite a few.  Fortunately, this guy had a pretty good number of them for me.  We'll start with 2002 Honor Roll Update, of which I grabbed 14 cards (leaving me needing just four!).  This set included some more season highlights and prospects, finishing off the job of the main set.  In my scan I included some more fun highlights, including former legend-in-the-making Mark Prior, Chicago White Sox megabust Joe Borchard ("2001 Top-Rated White Sox Prospect," LOL Jeff), a pair of Tigers (including Tim Kalita #2) and one of a pair of Jason Simontacchis (remember HIM?).  Hopefully I'll get this one completed before much longer.

Finally, I nabbed 23 cards from 2002 UD Victory Update.  Victory was sort of like UD's answer to Topps' lower-priced entries, and therefore a large set, but UD added to it just like their other products that year.  I'm now 16 cards away from finishing this update set, which is fantastic news.

I highlighted a few traded players, plus most of the rookies I picked up.  Phillips and Colon, of course, were both involved in that ill-fated deal for Montreal that brought Cleveland many of its better young players for a few years.  I included Durham because how can you hate a guy like Ray-Ray?  Hey Eckenstahler, what happened to the logo on your hat?  And there's Simontacchi #2.

As I often like to do, I'll show off the damage to my wantlist this purchase did, before:

and after:

Sweet!  As I find money in my monthly budget the rest of the year, I'll see if I can't make even more headway on my baseball set wantlists, which are getting ridiculously small considering where I was at just a couple years ago.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have some cards to put away!