2026 eBay purchases: rare cards and a coin

Well at least I didn't let the entire remainder of April pass before I posted again! It's been a lazy month for me hobby-wise and as usual I wasn't dying to put the effort into posting, but now I have some motivation to catch up thanks to a couple trade packages that arrived this month.

It was an interesting one for Michigan fans: the highs of the basketball Wolverines winning just their second national title followed by the even more favored hockey team falling once again in the semis of the Frozen Four to the hated Denver Pioneers, who've lapped Michigan in hockey titles, much to my chagrin.

But I can hardly complain about the results, along with football spring practice in the books that has me looking forward to the fall (but not until I've enjoyed some warm weather for more than a few days at a time, please!).

So apropos of almost nothing, here's a look at my four eBay pickups from the first third of 2026:

My first eBay purchase of any type this year, way back in February, was my second 1/1 of beastly Super Bowl-winning LB LaMarr Woodley. For a hair under $9 I'm now the proud owner of this 2007 SAGE HIT black plate of the 46th overall pick way back in '07. It's from the era when a brand like SAGE was allowed to use full team logos, names, and uniforms, and that makes the Michigan uni aspect a bonus.

Here's the base card for comparison:

Not bad at all. Like I said, that's 1/1 #2 to go along with a plate from 2009 Topps, and it marks hit #12 of the big hitter who piled up 58.0 total sacks, 319 tackles, and nine forced fumbles.

A few weeks later in March I scored one of my biggest cards so far of the young year. For whatever reason, my collection of WR Amara Darboh boasts some of the best looking items in my Michigan Football collection, and the rich got richer here. I was willing to go all the way up to almost $20 for this National Treasures plate/prime jersey/auto combo. Why? Once again, there's the Wolverine-ness of the thing: a Michigan uni shot, the logo on the back, and most of all, the fantastically large maize/blue/white jersey swatch. It's a thing of beauty!

Darboh's 51st hit marks his first 1/1 in the collection (surprisingly enough, given the overall quality of his PC), and one I was thrilled to add for sure.

Just a few days later I was finally able to rectify a small issue from a purchase from the February show. As I noted here, I grabbed what I thought were three 7-11 Slurpee Coin sets, but one of them--the 1986 Central Region version--was missing probably the biggest coin: Carlton/Ryan/Seaver. A bit over $6 shipped was enough to snag me two copies of this coin along with a couple dupes of another. And that's one more set knocked off the wantlist!

I was glad to catch the note at the bottom that states, "Nolan holds the all-time mark for K's, followed by Steve and Tom." That was indeed the case at the time, but the list looks a bit different some 40 years later. Ryan still stands along with a crazy 5714 over a crazier 27 seasons, but Randy Johnson (4875) and Roger Clemens (4672) topped Carlton's 4136, and Bert Blyleven (3701) snuck above Seaver's 3640. Those are your top 6, with Justin Verlander hoping to return to health to pitch enough to take over 7th place, currently held by Don Sutton. Only 20 K's separate the two!

And finally we have my most recent pickup. For a penny under $12 I scored my latest Manningham of (too) many just last week. This here is a black plate from Upper Deck's 2009 Heroes product, specifically for the Blue Retail Jerseys insert. Do I happen to own that card like I do with the base of the Woodley above? Could I claim I have "too many" Manninghams otherwise?

While I don't like the 2009 set as much as the 2008 version, which included RCs of Manningham and a bunch of his other teammates that are favorites of mine, it's still a cool looking set, and, I mean, since when am I not gonna chase a rare Mario I need?

Since I threw out numbers for the others I'll note that this is my second 1/1 of Manningham (the other is a National Treasures auto/plate that I showed off on TMM almost EIGHT years ago) and hit #103 of the namesake of my former sister blog.

As always, money well spent, I'd say!

And now I'll try to get back to work on a couple other posts before getting back to trade package action. In the meantime, bring on the warmer weather and more baseball!

2/6/26 card show report: February fun

I did end up going to my monthly show yesterday (as opposed to Friday) which was kind of a nice change of pace. You'll get to hear all about that eventually, but before then I'll be giving you a look at what I brought home earlier in February.

My total spending on that Friday was $98, split almost down the middle between my usual seller ($50) and one I've checked out a few times lately for some more oddball stuff ($48), especially the 6/$5 tubs.

Speaking of the latter, I picked up a lot of 14 of the 1967 Topps Posters for $23:

This isn't all of them as I set a few aside for other collectors, but I do have these available for trade. If it isn't obvious, there are dupes of Campaneris and Wagner. If you'd like to claim these, please do so and we'll work out a trade!

Next up is the baseball bunch from the usual guy. I believe the Briceno came from his box of cards that are $1 each or 6 for $5, and though it's not a RC, I thought it might be a good time to pick up something of one of Detroit's better catching prospects. The Bunnings all came from the dime box, and I didn't mind that all four picture him with the Phillies instead of the Tigers. There's three great brands plus Gypsy Queen in the quartet. Speaking of HOF pitchers, the Red Prizm of Maddux is a bit of a color match for his Braves.

And then there's the biggest card I scored for myself this time: a Jack Morris auto from 2004 Upper Deck Etchings. Numbered to 375 up front, it's obviously a sticker-graph, but a cool one in my opinion since it's not the boring old clear sticker that often gets signed. The card itself looks great too, not that I'm surprised given UD's output of classic looking vintage-themed products during that decade. I'm also happy to keep up a streak of autos of Morris with the Tigers instead of his other well-known teams (Minnesota and Toronto), with that count now at five. This was a great way to round out my purchase at that seller's tables for a reasonable $10.

Before we go back to my loot from that seller in football form I'm going to show you my other keepers from the second seller. Once again I scored some of the previously mentioned 6/$5 bin items, and you'll get to see one in a minute, but in addition to that and the Topps Posters above, I grabbed these:

For a combined $20 I scored a trio of 7-11 Slurpee coin sets. These lenticular "coins" are among my favorite oddball collectibles and I couldn't pass them up! Also, I know I'll definitely be getting a comment from Fuji on this post!

Scan #1 shows off the complete 1984 Central Region set. Per TCDb, these have an "E" suffix for the card numbers (which are Roman numerals) as opposed to "H" for the East and "K" for the South. There are 24 total and you see each of those above, with plenty of stars mixed in with other favorites. Lou Whitaker and Ted Simmons are my PC guys here but I'm happy to have the whole set!

The second scan starts with 15 of the 16 coins from the 1986 set (also the Central Region, which you can tell since the fronts have blue borders and the backs are yellow). I didn't realize until I got home that while what I bought came with 16 coins, one of them was a dupe and I was missing probably the best one: Steve Carlton/Nolan Ryan/Tom Seaver. No biggie, I may be able to score that on eBay soon. Anyway, this set is even more reminiscent of the very similar Sportflics cards as it opts for trios (except for the Dwight Gooden that leads the set). Those obviously work well on this style of card and I like how they look. PC guys for me include Cal Ripken Jr. (on an MVPs coin with Keith Hernandez and Don Mattingly), Jack Morris ("Ace Pitchers" with Bert Blyleven and Rick Sutcliffe), Lance Parrish ("All-Star Catchers" with Carlton Fisk and Tony Pena), Chet Lemon ("Star Outfielders" with Brett Butler and Willie Wilson), Darrell Evans ("Home Run Hitters" with Tom Brunansky and Cecil Cooper), and Kirk Gibson ("Big Hitters" with Paul Molitor and Greg Walker).

The last set here is the Detroit Region version made in 1987. From what I can see, Detroit is the only area that had its own team represented by itself. Chicago got a 16-coin Cubs/Sox split, the East got Mets/Red Sox/Yankees, Mideast got Orioles/Red Sox/Cubs/Mets, and West got Angels/Dodgers. This set was made close enough to the '84 World Series team that the biggest stars are still present, and there are only two players (Darnell Coles and Dwight Lowry) that I don't collect. Gibby, Tram, Sweet Lou, and others are all there, plus relative newcomer Frank Tanana, in the 12-coin set. Cool!

Before getting to the final item from this seller I thought I'd grab an image of an example back of each coin.

Besides those, like I said, I kept one of the 6/$5 items for myself. That was the complete 12-card set of 2015 Topps Update's Pride and Perseverance. Thought it wasn't in the greatest of shape since its team bag got bounced around in the tub plenty, I thought it was worth it for less than a buck. While the design is typically fairly boring in the usual Topps way, the idea was a great one: examples of players who overcame adversity. It's inspiring to read about how these guys defeated obstacles that could have prevented them from playing. Former Detroit Tiger Curtis Pride and Jim Abbott feature in this set, and I'm glad to have it in my collection.

And now we'll close things out with some football, mostly from I believe the dime and quarter boxes. Score-A-Treat and Donruss feature heavily, but I did manage to find a colorful Absolute parallel of Corum, a Mosaic of Moody, and Topps Resurgence base of Woodson as well.

This could have been a decent trip if I'd stuck to my usual guy's tables, but the 7-11 coins definitely upped the experience to an excellent one. And I'm glad to say I had an enjoyable time yesterday as well, but like I said, you'll have to wait a bit for that. I still need to show off a couple TCDb PIFs, a pair of eBay purchases (with one on the way), and at least one March trade envelope. Until then, may the weather continue going in the right direction as we get deeper into spring training!