2021 eBay purchase: can't spell "LaMarre" without "rare"

I realize I've hyped up this eBay buy a bit over the last few posts, but before I get to it I should probably explain that it's one I'm excited about for myself, not one that most of you will probably care about. Either way, if you're here checking it out, thanks!

OF Ryan LaMarre, currently on the IL for the Yankees, was born in nearby Jackson, Michigan (about 45 minutes from Ann Arbor) and spent 2008-2010 with the Wolverines baseball team before being taken by the Reds in the second round of the 2010 draft. While he hasn't exactly lived up to that fairly lofty draft status, I'm happy to see him back in the bigs for his sixth Major League season (not to mention sixth team!).

As usual I was hunting for rare stuff of my PC guys on eBay and came across a seller with two very interesting LaMarre items starting at $0.99 each. The night they were ending I looked through that seller's listings and found two more tough-to-find cards that I needed with the same starting prices, and this person was offering combined shipping. I was thrilled to win all four for a final price (including tax/shipping) of $22.50, and now this evening you get to see the fruits of my labor in order of scarcity:

First up is the most common and cheapest card. Nobody felt like going over my opening bid of $0.99 for this 2010 Bowman Draft Chrome Gold Refractor (#34/50) so I happily tacked it onto the other pickups. Gold Refractors often look quite nice--this one sure does!--and the price was right, so why not? Ryan has 11 cards in that product's base/Chrome rainbow (that aren't 1/1s) and I'm now down to needing the toughest: base Red (/5) and Chrome Red (/5) and Orange (/25) Refractors. (I really dislike the use of "paper" to differentiate between Chrome and the "regular" cards, so you won't see me doing that here.) I'm sure it'll be a mighty fine rainbow when I'm done with it.

The next most rare card is from a product I'm plenty familiar with: 2010 Donruss Elite Extra Edition. Considering this Signature Status Gold auto is numbered 5/5 (eBay 1/1!), you should have fairly high expectations for what's coming next. But first let's admire what we have here. I've really appreciated the look of this set and its various parallels--those die-cuts are cool!--since I ran a group break for it at some point close to when it was released, and even managed to pull a different UM autograph (of Michigan P Matt Miller), then worked on tracking down all of the variations. In LaMarre's case, thanks to my $8.50 bid (the highest of the bunch, but no surprise there since sometimes /5 cards feel tougher to find than 1/1s), I nabbed the last autograph of his from the set and just need to find his Status Emerald (/25) parallel for the rainbow--including owning the 1/1 Black auto!

By the way, I like how Panini noted that Ryan (#62 overall) was the highest drafted UM player since Lance's son David Parrish in 2000. A couple pitchers, Tommy Henry and Karl Kauffmann, came close to topping him in 2019 at 74 and 77, and then last year another pitcher, Jeff Criswell, was taken by Oakland at #58 overall in round two, so he currently holds the crown. For those interested, Barry Larkin was #4 overall in 1985, then Jim Abbott was picked 8th three years later, making them the two highest overall Michigan draftees that signed with the team that selected them.

How do you top a card numbered to five copies? You literally can't do better than a 1/1, or in this case, two! This pair came up in my search of printing plates under $10 and got me looking at the seller's items in the first place. We're going back to the 2010 Bowman Draft/Chrome well with the magenta and yellow plates of the base card. Side note: you can tell them apart from the Chrome plates because the image isn't reversed. I already had a 1/1 auto (the one I just mentioned from 2010 Donruss EEE) plus a plate (2016 A&G) of LaMarre, so these two doubled the number of that rarest of rare items in my collection, plus combined with the autograph above they put him at 15 hits in the baseball collection, just the eighth player to achieve that number.

I already indicated that the Elite autograph above was the most expensive at $8.50, but would you believe these plates could be had for $2.98 and $3.01? With prices like that it was easy enough to throw down a bit of extra coin for a tough autograph you don't see listed every day!

This high quality haul bumps my LaMarre PC up to 40 cards of 104 listed on TCDB (yep, I'm #1 by a mile), but out of the rest in my wantlist only around 25 aren't 1/1s, Minors cards, or other issues that get the lowest amount of my attention. I certainly hope that number grows a bit this year, especially if he's able to return from injury and have a bit of success (even if it would be for the hated Yanks).

Putting together this post really makes me appreciate how happy I am having switched from being a box breaker and set collector with no focus to a player collector that still has a ton of options of players to chase. That's provided me with the resources to bolster some of my favorite collections--especially the Michigan ones--with super high-end finds like these. If you get anything out of this post other than "Wow, those look nice!", I hope it's that evolving as a collector is your best chance of continuing to enjoy the hobby instead of getting burned out and resentful of what the manufacturers and flippers have turned it into today. Find a player/team/theme/mini PC to collect and have fun!

With nothing else expected to be headed my way that I'm aware of, it'll probably be back to the Sportlots stacks next time for more baseball fun.

Group break case is here, plus more hot Blowout action

This is not the new case--I'm being e-green and recycling the same picture...again...

Guess what?:
So the group break case arrived today, putting us right on track for the Saturday, 3 pm EST break.  Everybody still needs to pay, and we could definitely use some fresh blood (still plenty of slots open!), but either way, it will be a good time again.  If anything, you should come to see if I come through on my promise to pull an Ike Davis 1/1 for BA Benny (who liked his stuff from the first break, by the way).

A bunch of other people posted breaks on the Blowout forums, and they generally did about as well as we did the first time--dud cases don't seem to be a concern with this product, and I've seen multiple people (besides us the first time) pull multiple Poseys.  Plus, how about a Pete Rose this time?

Hot player-on-card action:
Some of you probably saw my review of 2010 Bowman Draft baseball blasters this weekend.  Well, as I sometimes do, I posted a smaller version of that on the Blowout break message board, and interest came pouring in for the Machado and Valencia Purples, among others (sorry, Beardy!).  I struck up a nice deal with a guy, trading those two, a couple other inserts from the break, and a Chase Utley bat card I didn't want for 70+ BDPP base cards I needed, plus a nice bonus.  I won't bore you with scans of the base cards, but here's my favorite of this haul:

It's the Wolverines' own Ryan LaMarre, a Reds draft pick and target of my collecting this year--not to be confused with

The trade put me up to something like 84 of the base set and 83 of the Prospects (out of 110 each).  I'll post wantlists soon, but in the meantime I'll just say that I'm happy to have nabbed about 3/4 of the base set mostly by trading, plus I got this guy:

a.k.a. the offer I couldn't refuse.  I'm also making it a goal to work on my Porcello collection this year in the event that he blows up (not literally, that would just be crazy).

The moral of this trade is that sometimes it pays to post box breaks on Blowout's forum because it can lead to mutually beneficial deals.  Oh, one other moral--Beardy has dibs on all of my future Orioles cards, so don't even bother asking for that Brady Anderson III blugenta (a popular color in the future) printing plate autograph White Whale Mirror Blue I'm gonna pull in 2025, and don't act like I didn't give you fair warning.

2010 Bowman Draft baseball blasters (x3)

Well, it had definitely been since December that I bought any retail packs, mainly thanks to my BlowoutCards forum spree and a couple case breaks.  But I was compelled to go to Meijer today to grab something, because cards were again 20% off, plus they had an additional 15% off $25+ coupon, meaning cards were a relative steal today.  I saw a few rows of 2010 Bowman Draft baseball and finally bit the bullet on them, ending up with three blasters, the equivalent of 24 packs, for about $41.  Yes, I could have gotten myself a hobby box instead and been guaranteed an autograph, but this gave me a shot at one, plus a better chance at colorful Refractors.  The damage:

Purchased from/price:  Meijer, $41.00 (normally $59.97)
Packs/cards:  8 packs of 7 cards (x3)
Set size:  Base:  110;  Prospects:  110 (plus their Chrome versions)
Key features/cards:  a pretty good rookie class, but especially guys like Jason Heyward, Manny Machado, and, yes, Strasburg

Base cards: 

Base:
Set completion:  43/110 (39%) (including Heyward, below, and Strasburg)
Doubles:  4

Chrome Base:
Set completion:  18/110 (16%)
Doubles:  0

Prospects:
Set completion:  38/110 (35%)  
Doubles:  10

Chrome Prospects  Set completion:  20/110 (18%)
Doubles:  1

Inserts:  34 

Gold:  24 different (1:1, 24 expected)

Blue Bordered:  1, Josh Sale #375/999 (1:61)

Refractors:  2, Travis Wood and Alex Wimmers (1:11, 2 expected)

Purple Refractors:  6, John Hester, Danny Valencia, Jeanmar Gomez, Ryan Bolden, Marc Brakeman, Manny Machado (1:4, 6 expected)

 

Blue Refractors:  1, Brad Davis #088/199 (1:123)

Best card:  Manny Machado Purple Refractor

Quality control and collation:  15/20  I got the usual array of doubles in a Topps product, but strangely, almost entirely just base, not Chrome (only one Chrome double), which makes me think those are more randomized than the base.  That or it's just because you get fewer, I don't know.  A couple cards had chipped corners, but overall, nothing to speak of.  You'll notice I got every insert I was due, plus beat the odds on a couple more.
Base set: 16/20  I really like the overall look of the set, but I ding it a point for being broken up into two different subsets (plus Chrome versions) and three for the horrific numbering on the back ("BDPPPDPBOMGWTFBBQ10").  The overall design is sharp.
Inserts:  15/15  Yep, I really like all the various inserts I pulled, and that's the big draw of this set anyway--the different colored parallels and Refractors.  The blue and purple are great, and I thought it was cool that I pulled a couple odds-busters.
Hits and extras:  8/15  Nothing extra here, at least not in my three boxes, but I did luck out with some tough inserts, so that was a plus.
Value:  25/30  Let's be honest--you're gonna need a lot of packs whether you're opening hobby or blasters to be able to finish a given subset, much less everything.  But what you pull from any of these pretty much justifies the $19.99 price.  You should end up with an average of 15 base, 6 Chrome base, 13 prospects and 7 Chrome prospects, plus a Refractor and two Purple Refractors, give or take some base and other inserts (you'll also get 8 Gold cards, but nobody gives a lick about those).  If you're not after the Chrome cards then these aren't as great, but then packs aren't the way for you to go anyway.  I'd suggest trying to get these on sale like I did, but grabbing one or two for a quick fix doesn't break the bank and you should do ok.

Overall:  79/100
Recommendation:  Buy a blaster or two if you're doing some impulse card shopping, but if you're serious about the set, grab a couple hobby boxes instead once they get cheaper.  Or, if you're just interested in acquiring the set, grab a base or master set online.


I'm going to stash these away in boxes for now but may revisit completing the set at a later date.  Pretty much all the inserts (and all the doubles) are available for trade, however, so if you see something you like, let me know.  UPDATE:  the Machado and Valencia purples, Wimmers Refractor and Blue Sale have all been traded.