2015 eBay purchase: the Mechanical Man cuts right to the chase

I've got some stuff from the show I went to this past weekend to show off, but I'm lazy and I've been wanting to show off what's in today's post for a bit anyway.  Ordinarily I'd post these over on TMM but I'd rather a larger audience get to see these, plus they fit in with this blog's theme anyway.  Also, I hadn't posted over here yet this year!

As I said in a couple posts late last year, the certainty of my budget at that point meant I could swing for the fences a bit as 2015 came to a close.  That resulted in beautiful auto pickups of Lou Whitaker and Greg Maddux, but as 2016 neared I still had a pretty nice amount available should I decide to spend it.  I wasn't just gonna throw away money for no reason, though--what I found would have to justify the cost.

And then I found the perfect way to close out my purchases for the year:  this pair of gorgeous cut autos for under $100 together from one seller:

Charlie Gehringer 2005 SP Legendary Cuts Autograph Cuts auto (#76/97)

Charlie Gehringer 2006 SP Legendary Cuts Legendary Signature Cuts auto (#67/76)

Gehringer joins Bill Freehan as part of a small club of players I collect that played for Michigan and the Tigers, and his cards are easily some of the highest-end in my entire collection.  As you can see he has a top-notch signature (they don't make 'em like they used to!), and these cuts done in ballpoint and sharpie really pop.  As with my first Gehringer cut (I now have three!) I was adamant that I wanted something that included some sort of photo, not just one of those lower-end framed index card types.  These two are exactly in my wheelhouse and they're the type of cut that usually gets listed for closer to the amount I paid for both, if not more, so $95 was nothing if not a steal.

We're just a day away from MLB's Hall of Fame class of 2016 announcement, and I'm sure to be celebrating in honor of one of my other PC guys, which will tie in nicely with my show haul, so keep an eye out for that tomorrow!

2015 eBay purchase: I came upon a Maddux, clear

Yesterday I talked about setting my sights high at this point in the year thanks to the way I work my budget, and my first example of that was a very nice Lou Whitaker autograph (about which I'm still very excited!).  Still, as significant as it was for me to land that card, a couple days later I really made a splash that was a bit more in line with my bigger pickups from last year.

Those of you who follow me are probably aware that I have four main baseball PC guys outside of the Tigers and Wolverines I collect:  Ken Griffey Jr., Tony Gwynn, Greg Maddux, and Cal Ripken Jr.  For a pretty good span of time I've owned at least one certified autograph of three of those legends:  Griffey (pack-pulled by me!), Gwynn, and Ripken (one and two).

Well, I'm happy to report that Mad Dog will be joining that elite group tonight thanks to this card:

Greg Maddux 2014 Topps Strata Autograph Relics bat auto (#02/25)

These Strata cards hail from 2014 Topps Series 2 and are done in a bit of a shadowbox style with a clear layer, on which the signature rests, giving way to a bit of empty space, then the enormous bat relic.  A 2-D image does not do this card justice, though.  Have a gander at this view:

As Milhouse would say,

IT'S SO THIIIICK!

This is very much a super premium card, though you could easily describe just about anything with Maddux's signature that way given his legendary career.  It's also notable that he doesn't seem to have signed as often as others, but regardless, Maddux autos certainly carry a premium.

When I set out to find something "big" with which to end my year of purchasing, a Maddux autograph was at the top of my list, but most of the options were still above and beyond the price I'd be willing to pay, especially since I was set on something on-card (and yes, I believe the card above qualifies) and featuring him in a Cubs or Braves uniform including logos--I wasn't a beggar so I could be a chooser this time.

A couple options fell through, but then suddenly for under $100 I landed the beautiful card you see before you.  The fact that it includes the huge bat piece is a fun plus, especially since Mad Dog wasn't the most helpless pitcher at the plate.  He did produce 272 hits, five of which were homers, over his 23 seasons, and he even stole 11 bases!

I'm beyond thrilled to add such a nice card of one of the defining pitchers of my generation to my collection of signatures, and will happily add it to the 12 jersey relics and manupatch that currently populate my PC of the all-time great.  Fewer than three days remain until Christmas but I'd say this card makes for a very nice early present!

I don't expect to post very much in the next week or so but I should have a short (but high-end) trade package to show off shortly.  Until then, I hope everyone is having a fantastic holiday season!

2015 eBay purchase: Christmas is the time to say I love Lou

December is a fun time of the year for me when it comes to collecting because I know what's left in my collecting budget and that means I can sometimes aim a bit higher than normal (such as last year when I landed my Tom Brady autograph!).  Thanks to some reasonably careful spending this year, not to mention some solid COMC sales, I was in position to take shots at cards I wouldn't really consider most of the rest of the year.

I'm happy to report that I've managed to land two such cards over the last few days, and the first of those arrived today.

Pretty much anyone that follows this here blog knows I'm a big fan of former Tigers 2B Lou Whitaker--big enough of a fan that he's my first non-UM player collection.  One major PC component of his I've been lacking is a certified autograph (I do have one IP auto of questionable origin and this Leaf Ink card). That isn't too shocking since he doesn't have many of those; I count 11 non-1/1s (I don't include brands like Historic Autographs and ITG), and all but one are fairly limited in production.

Here's the 11th card:

Lou Whitaker 2001 Topps Archives Autographs auto

Maybe it's because I haven't seen the other options, but if I had to pick one Whitaker autograph to own, this would be it.  Retroactive cropping of the four-player card aside, I really like what Topps did with its Archives autos back in the 2001 product, and not just because other Tigers Bill Freehan and Kirk Gibson were also part of the set.  The idea of an autographed rookie reprint simply appeals to me, especially when it's a guy like Lou that's lacking in hobby love (not to mention Hall of Fame respect).

In opening this post I mentioned that I'm able to spend a bit more if I need during a month where I know exactly what my budget will be, but I was surprised that I didn't have to spend nearly as much as I thought for a card like this that pops up on eBay from time to time, but not terribly often.  Believe it or not, about $27 delivered was enough to send this white whale of sorts straight to my PC, and that's much less than I've seen these going for in the last few years.  Hooray for Christmas miracles!

I'm sure my fellow Tigers fans--and possibly others--will agree with me that this is a cool purchase, but I should have an even bigger surprise in store for y'all tomorrow!

Completed sets: 1992 Ultra Gwynn

Here's a post I thought I'd be able to put up weeks ago but had to delay.  Back at October's card show I was able to pick up six cards from 1992 Ultra's insert set devoted to Mr. Padre, Tony Gwynn.  "Cool," I thought, "I can complete this set easily thanks to Sportlots!"  And so I did...or so I thought.  After nabbing the remaining four cards from that site and readying this post to go up I found out that there were two additional cards numbered "Special 1" and "Special 2" (thanks for the Dr. Seuss-style numbering, Fleer), so I couldn't very well call my set complete until I had those two.

Needless to say, I made those part of my huge Black Friday COMC purchase, and that package arrived the other day, so now I can finally get around to showing off this fun insert that honors San Diego's greatest player.

Fronts feature photos from various points of Gwynn's career (in no apparent order) surrounded by huge marble-like borders with the set's name at the bottom.  The background of the backs is a lighter version of that border, and that side pairs a smaller, different photo with a good amount of text about Tony.

This is a 12 card set, thanks to the aforementioned "special" cards, and while the first of those blends in with the rest, the latter includes a brief interview between Fleer and Gwynn, which I consider a nice touch.

Here's a look at the complete set, fronts and backs:

12/6/15 card show report: yes we Ken, Junior!

About this time last month I was showing off my November card show haul, one that heavily featured one George Kenneth Griffey, Jr.  Today I'm back with the spoils of that same show I hit up on Sunday, and this post is once again long on Juniors:

I'll start out with a '92 Panini foil sticker.  Man did I ever love collecting these as kids, and you'd better believe the extra shiny this style delivered delighted my nine-year-old eyes!

Next up, going more or less chronologically, I have a bunch of cards that made me once again break out the "90s inserts rule" label!  My favorite is the '95 Pinnacle Museum Collection parallel as it combines one of the top photos of the 90s with what was easily Pinnacle's best product, plus their signature dufex treatment.  The '96 Ultra Call to the Hall is a very close second, a beautiful, artsy insert that stands up well today.  The lone base card is from Topps' debut Chrome sets, and it remains one of the best of that product's run.

This scan takes us from the late 90s to the early 2000s.  Here I give the nod to the '98 Score Showcase parallel, but the Topps Gallery base from the same year is a very close second.  Also of interest is the paper-then Vanguard Press insert, proving that Pacific took the set's theme seriously!

These are the last of the vertical cards, comprising Ken's '04 Diamond Kings base, a 2005 Leaf subset --here's the front and back:

Definitely a fun throwback to and older Leaf product I enjoyed.  The other two are both numbered, with Griffey's '05 Topps Update All-Star card out of 2005 and a 2006 Black Parallel of a subset that includes HR/K machine Adam Dunn limited to just 55.  Numbered Griffeys?  Yes, please!

And here's the five horizontals I snagged.  I've collected enough of those '94 Triple Play Medalists inserts for other PCs that I may just decide to complete the set.  The SP Baseball Heroes was another artsy-fartsy choice that was easy to make.  And finally, though I don't care for most Gypsy Queen offerings, the photo of Junior sliding at the plate makes a nice addition to his collection.

Although the Kid made up the bulk of my purchase, I did hit three other PCs:

Oddly enough, both of my Gwynn additions today are die-cuts.  The first is from the 2000 Metal Hit Machines insert set, and I have to say Fleer did some fun and interesting things with that theme back when the product existed.  The other probably looks familiar to quite a few of you since it's from this year's Stadium Club, and it features a great throwback image of Mr. Padre.

One good Junior deserves another, so why not Cal while I'm at it?  I landed a five-spot of the HOF SS, including '94 Topps Black Gold, '95 Fleer All-Stars, '95 Topps D3, '96 Pinnacle Starburst, and '96 Topps Gallery.  First, here's both sides of the All-Stars insert:

How good is this HOF SS combo?  These two were your starting All-Star shortstops every year from 1984-92 and 1994!

Like the Griffey equivalent above, my favorite is the dufexed-up Pinnacle parallel, this time from '96.  While I don't care for the 1996 Pinnacle design quite as much as its top-notch predecessor, I do very much like the "Naturals" subset, and this Starburst card really pops.  I also managed to track down a very nice Topps Gallery of Ripken, in this case from the set's debut.

Lastly, I did track down one card of this here blog's namesake--hey, it isn't easy to find cheap Verlanders that close to Detroit!  In this case it's a 2012 Finest Refractor, and as far as I know there's no such thing as a bad Refractor (don't prove me wrong, Topps--PLEASE).

I also managed to get out of there with a few nice trade bait additions that will go well with some Christmas cards I'll be sending soon.  And of course, as usual, there's a few other purchase to check out over on TMM, so please make sure to head over there too!

2015 Sportlots purchases: more than three quarters worth of Sweet Lou

I think it's about time that I finally get around to posting all the Lou Whitakers I landed from some Sportlots packages in the last few weeks:

1984 Donruss;  1985 Leaf;  1987 O-Pee-Chee

1988 Leaf;  1989 Sportflics;  1990 Sportflics

1992 Topps Gold;  1992 Upper Deck Gold Hologram;  1993 O-Pee Chee

Lots of variety here:  vintage, Canadian, holograms, and useless parallels (the UD card has a gold hologram on the back, trust me).  My favorites in the scan are the Diamond King (because duh) and then the Sportflics cards because they're always interesting.

1994 O-Pee-Chee;  1994 Triple Play;  1995 Collector's Choice

1995 Collector's Choice SE Silver Signature;  1995 Donruss;  1995 Emotion

1995 Flair;  1995 Fleer;  1995 Pacific

This is actually kind of a blah group of cards.  I do like the multiple fielding shots, though, and it's kind of fun to see some of the stuff Fleer threw out there in the 90s to see what would stick.  Spoiler alert:  Flair lived on in several incarnations while Emotion pretty much disappeared.  I'll award the Collector's Choice SE insert the best photo with the Emotion card as a reasonably close second.

1995 SP Championship Die-Cuts;  1995 Stadium Club Super Team World Series;  1995 Stadium Club Virtual Reality

1995 Topps D3;  1995 Topps Embossed Golden Idols;  1995 Ultra Gold Medallion

1996 Collector's Choice Silver Signature;  2004 UD Legends Timeless Teams #234 and #271

Now we're back on track, with eight pretty good cards surrounding an absolute turd.  Topps' D3 was their too-late attempt to try to compete with Sportflix, but besides the stupid logo I kind of like how they look.  The Embossed set is one for which I'll never forgive them, though.  Embossed sets rarely look presentable, and this one rates a Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas on the ugliness scale; the gold parallel proves that you can't polish a turd.
I've always enjoyed the "tribute"-type cards UD and Fleer made around this time period, though, especially when that effort resulted in something like the Collector's Choice card above.  And finally, UD's Timeless Teams set was a fantastic idea that was executed very well.  There was never really any question which two teams they'd choose for Sweet Lou, and I hope I can track down the various autographed versions of those two beauts.

1988 Topps Big;  1990 Topps Big;  1991 Topps Micro;  1992 Topps Micro;  1993 Topps Micro;  1994 Fleer Extra Bases

Finally, here are the oddball-sized cards that warranted a scan of their own.  It's fun having all of them on one page since it really messes with your sense of scale--nothing here is a standard size at all!

That's 33 new Whitakers, and adding them to my existing collection gives me a new total of 221/292, good for more than 75%!  A large chunk of those I'm missing are going to be tough-to-find hits so for now I'll take what I can get and see how much I can track down of the stuff made before he retired, but I'll keep plugging away!

11/8/15 card show report: yes we Ken!

Last Sunday I hit up the usual monthly show in Taylor and had my usual good time digging through boxes for cards for my PCs and some trade bait.  $66 later I had some of both, with the tally leaning more towards PCs this time.

Keeping up the "usual" theme, please check out my other purchases over on TMM this evening.

Here's the cards I purchased relevant to this here blog:

Today's post is about 95% Griffey thanks to a guy who had a 25-cards-for-$10 box with a bunch of Junior inserts!  I didn't really scan them in any particular order and mainly tried to make them more presentable by separating the horizontals and verticals.

Scan #1 has a nice mix that mostly hails from the 90s except for the upper-right Fleer insert.  This is great representative bunch of inserts from that decade ("90s inserts rule" tag deployed) featuring holograms, foil, and more.  If the decade is remembered for one thing it's home runs, and three of these inserts focus on the longball (along with a few others in the next scans), with titles like "Home Run All-Stars," "Power Brokers," and "Bomb Squad."  The latter includes 1994 NL MVP runner-up Matt Williams, who hit 43 dingers in the strike-shortened campaign (Griffey had 40 and also finished second in AL MVP voting).  By the way, I found the Griffey/Lofton/Grissom Dominators card interesting since the theme was their common CF position, but Griffey's game couldn't have been more different than the other two!

More good stuff here.  I'm a sucker for cards that reprint or use the theme of magazine covers, and I may have the actual issue of ESPN pictured on the above insert.  The Metal Universe card is emblematic of that product's run.  And the 2001 Private Stock "parallel" done up on a canvas-like card was another fun insert innovation back when inserts were still cool.

I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a bad card out of Sportflix (not to be confused with Sportflics), especially when it comes to inserts like the Detonators card above, which continues the power theme along with the "Yard Work" and "Power Rally" issues.  I've always thought that the 2000 Paramount Season in Review set looked great (I previously owned a Nomar Garciaparra) especially thanks to the old-school film motif going on on the left.  Finally, the Memorable Moments insert (one of two from that set in '97) has a cool wavy die-cut thing going on, which is soooo 1990s.

I grabbed one more card from this seller that set me back a few more bucks:

Tony Gwynn 2002 Upper Deck People's Choice Game Jersey jersey

Honestly, how could I turn down a pinstriped early 90s jersey of Mr. Padre?  This is my seventh Gwynn hit, six of which are relics, and of those, five are jerseys.  It wasn't really much longer after these were made that relic swatches were less generous and interesting so I think I did well here.

That's it for this time, but I should have another show post in a few weeks.

10/2/2015 card show report: baseball bonanza!

Only more than two weeks late, I'm finally getting around to posting my haul from the monthly Taylor Town Trade Center show I hit up on Friday the second.  I believe I made two purchases, one of which was a lot of base/inserts and the other of which was some nice trade bait hits that have since been sent out.

In contrast to my usual habits, this time I managed to land a bunch of stuff for my own PCs.  Some of that, per usual, is over on TMM today, but with the playoffs in full swing, here's your bonanza of baseball stuff!

Leading off is a cool numbered (to 299) Magglio from UD's 2007 Future Stars product, and that's followed by another former Tiger, manager Sparky Anderson, who's pictured with the Reds on this lovely 1974 Topps issue.  That's as far back as these go, and the next five are all of 90s it kid Ken Griffey Jr.  The shiny Leaf Statistical Standouts is my favorite, but the last card is the Original Backs version of his 2010 Topps Cards Your Mom Threw Out (because she's so fat):

A single Maddux insert from 1994 Stadium Club joins copies of Griffey's and Gwynn's cards, the latter of which you'll see in a second.  Lastly, a nice 90s Gwynn insert kicks off a nice run of his cards in this next scan:

The first six cards are from a 1992 Ultra set devoted to Gwynn, and while the border is huge and tacky, they do feature some nice photos.  I've already got the last four from the set on the way from Sportlots, because why not?  The aforementioned Stadium Club insert is joined by a couple more shining examples of 90s insert goodness--just check out that radical Score logo from '96!

The rest of my haul from this seller was 20(!) mostly oddball cards of Calvin Edwin Ripken Jr.:

There were so many that I just dumped them on my scanner in random order until I could look them up later.  There's a nice mix from the 80s and 90s.

I'm old enough to remember when Rite Aid was Perry Drugs!  In the first two scans we get issues from them as well as Quaker and KMart.  The latter two cards in this scan are from "normal" sets including a fantastic photo from 1992 Score's Dream Team subset.  Iron Man, meet the iron horse!

The last two cards are actually pretty good.  First up is one of the several highlights variations from 2000 Topps Chrome, this one noting Ripken's streak finally ending.  The other is from 1996 Fleer Update, and I love any card that highlights Cal's glove skills.

Oh yeah, I found one other relevant card from the seller that had some nice hits:

Ripken relic, baby!  This single-color swatch is from 2002 Sweet Spot Classics and is my 9th relic (including manupatches) of Cal.  Would you believe it set me back just five bucks?

Back with more stuff soon, maybe!