2024 COMC purchases: Nine from November

With the finish line now in sight I'm even more motivated to get this post done and call 2024 a wrap! Here's a look at the cards I bought for myself during COMC's Black Friday sale:

First up is hit #1 of another UM WR to wear #8 (besides another guy in this post), Ronnie Bell. The receiver/returner outplayed his practically anonymous recruiting rankings and was a key contributor as the Wolverines marched back to respectability under Jim Harbaugh. The Bowman's Best University card pictures him with the Wolverines (instead of the 49ers who'd eventually draft and then release him) and that's a great start for his hits collection! Sure, it's a sticker auto and he signed with his initials, but at least he added an inscription with his jersey number.

The day's other "first" is my second hit but first signature of LB Devin Bush II, a three-year Wolverine who did some nice work in 2017 and 2018 in Ann Arbor. The Steelers took him in the first round in 2019 and he's since bounced to Seattle and Cleveland, but was good enough to appear in an autograph insert (#d /299) in 2020 Panini Legacy.

In spot #3 is the other WR #8, the sure-handed Jason Avant, who was able to rescue the planted Michigan flag in Columbus this past season after Buckeye Jack Sawyer threw his hissy fit once his OSU team lost to Michigan again. Avant never won a Super Bowl with the Eagles but did have a solid 10-year career mostly spent with them, and I was thrilled to add another Triple Threads jersey/auto of his from his 2006 rookie year. The one you see above is the Sepia version /75 and is hit #66 of #8.

Next, RB Chris Evans appears to be out of the league at this point, but that wasn't going to stop me from picking up a third Michigan uni autograph of his. I may have passed on other brands but usually tend to like the simplicity of Score's rookie autos, so I had no problem ponying up a couple bucks for this one.

Sure, we've already had Devin, but what about second Devin? I paid less than $6.50 total for the cool pair starring former Panthers WR Funchess and I think that was a steal. The card on the left is a 2015 Panini Black Gold Sizeable Signatures Rookie Jerseys prime version, and I'm thinking you'll agree that it lives up to its "sizeable" and "prime" descriptors with ease. The other is a 2015 Panini National Convention VIP manupatch auto, which isn't the kind of thing I'd pay a premium for, but I do like seeing athletes sign things other than stickers. Funch moves up to 34 hits thanks to the pair.

I'll move down one spot horizontally to discuss the next card, a Jake Long 2008 Topps Triple Threads Sepia parallel. This one came with three really nice multi-color Dolphins swatches to go along with his signature (and numbering /75, like the Avant above). It's a great looking card to add to a collection that now stands at a very nice 98 hits, though he remains in third place behind our next two players.

Forever #1 guy Chad Henne continues to outpace the rest by a mile with his 146th hit, which happens to be one of the higher-end items in his collection. The 12th 1/1 I've landed for him, the card you see above is his 2008 Finest Yellow Plate (the non-auto version). It set me back a reasonable $14 which I don't mind paying for a top PC guy like Henne, whose hit collection isn't too far off of that from all-sports leader Rich Hill. As always, I'm a fan of when manufacturers do the border thing with their plates to make it obvious which color you have, especially in this case where the back is otherwise normal.

And last but not least is former blog namesake guy Mario Manningham. The 2008 Leaf Certified Materials auto you see above (#d /100) is everything I love about 2000s-era cards of some of my favorites, but it may be the most significant from this post for an entirely different reason: it puts Super Mario at exactly 100 hits, making him just the second player behind Henne in the football collection (and third overall including Rich Hill) to reach that mark! It actually wasn't 100% intentional as I would have been happy for Jake Long (again, 98) or Braylon Edwards (95) to make it first, but I only found one of the former I liked and none of the latter this time. So it looks like I get to celebrate Too Many Manninghams as my 2024 year of collecting comes to a close! (The football hits collection also surpassed the 1700-mark before the calendar turned, basketball went over 150, and hockey moved up to 350, with baseball very close to 450.)

Once again, thanks to everyone for making 2024 a great year of trading, blogging, reading, comments, shows, and more! I'm looking forward to treating you to recaps of the cards I've picked up since 2025 started including (at this point) seven blogger-related trade packages, two shows, and four TCDb deals. Look for a post covering the first blogger trade of January soon!

2023 COMC purchases: check out my last post for 2023

That's right, this post will finally wrap up 2023 for me. At least it only took a third of 2024 to get there!

I'm going to take a quick run through the cards I picked up for myself so I can get ready to finally get started with 2024 stuff. Here's what I scored this time around the Black Friday weekend:

90s inserts rule! Three numbered Gwynns? Don't mind if I do! The first is "limited" to 3000 copies and you'll see the back in a bit. The other two had just 5000 copies made of each. As a reminder, that seems pretty high these days, but these were still pretty rare back then, way before today's era of "absolutely garbage boring insert or one of 200 parallels."

Tigers PCs Dean-o and Phillips each get a tougher parallel for their collections, and I splurged a little for the UD Amazing Greats Ripken, a definite top 10 insert for me since I pulled my first one way back then.

One insert I went all-in on was '97 Pinnacle Inside's Dueling Dugouts. You've seen at least one of these here, but basically the double-sided cards feature two players with a wheel you can spin that will show those players' stats in a given year. These four of some of my favorite player collection guys leave me short just Griffey's card (shared with Andruw Jones) in terms of what I want to collect.

And here's a few backs for you. Gwynn's paired up with the solid Brian Jordan. The other three are guys I really don't care for: Jeter (Ripken), Clemens (Maddux), and A-Rod (Ripken). One-time Pirates prospect Jose Guillen was on the flip side of Gwynn's "Great X-Pectations" insert, and the back of Cal's Amazing Greats (a fun pun of a title to go along with an elite design) is also worth a look.

They don't make 'em like they used to but there's still so much 90s greatness to chase that I may never have to worry about the absolute nosedive inserts took after the 2000s.

And now it's time for the (mostly) hits! I don't count manurelics as I consider those inserts for the purposes of my collection, but they're still fun to pick up on the cheap. My second Blomgren auto is another Michigan uni special and it's die-cut too. Brewer joins the hits collection with his first auto. I now have five signatures of Criswell after picking up a cheapie Heritage Minors auto. How could I pass up a large Granderson swatch? Framed Ginter cards still look miles better than the regular ones, and the signed cards are even better, so I scored my fifth sig of pitcher Tommy Henry. Kauffmann also gets his fifth auto on a great looking Elite Extra card. Larkin's manurelic is a reminder that he was a nine-time Silver Slugger as a SS, and that bat relic is pretty cool too.

No, I'm not going all-in on Rogers as Detroit's catcher of the future, but including the last card in the previous scan, I found three signatures of his that I really liked: Diamond Kings with a couple of swatches plus the top-notch Stadium Club design and the Chrome version. Stewart is also a newbie to the Michigan PC, a rare Michigan State-to-Michigan (grad) transfer drafted by the Angels in the 9th round in 2022

One of my two basketball pickups, which unfortunately didn't scan well, is my first autograph of "Sauce Castillo" himself, Nik Stauskas. While I owned 10 hits including a crazy five plates of the ex-Wolverine, I hadn't scored a signature until now.

And now it's time to talk about football stuff I picked up before the team beat Alabama and Washington to become National Champions. Anthony transferred to Oklahoma for the 2023 season but spent 2021 and '22 in Ann Arbor, highlighted by a six-catch, 155/2 TD performance against his hometown Spartans in the suspect '21 loss. The Darboh is my 49th hit, all but 15 of which are signed, but I wasn't passing up a cheap one! Eubanks was a fun TE who bounced around the NFL the past few years after going undrafted. Kinnel played DB from 2015-18 and appears to be out of the league now. LB Cam McGrone played in 2019 and '20 for Michigan and was drafted by the Pats, though so far he's only appeared in NFL games with the Colts.

Cade was the guy that somewhat rescued Michigan during that weird/hapless 2020 season, bringing the team back from the brink of a terrible loss to Rutgers. He transferred to Iowa and said some stupid stuff, and there are rumors he gave successor at QB JJ McCarthy the could shoulder while they were teammates, but he was a key part of the 2021 Big Ten champs who defeated Ohio State, so I'm happy to have him in my collection. Nordin was a huge big-legged kicking prospect and Jim Harbaugh famously slept over at his house during his recruitment. He could be as inconsistent as any other kicker, booming some and missing easy ones, and he kind of had a Rickey Vaughn vibe. I thought the multi-piece Toomer jersey looked badass even if I don't really have any love for the Giants these days. And I finally scored a certified auto of Vaughn, the RB/FB who bravely spoke out about the sexual assault he and many of his teammates suffered at the hands of team doctor Robert Anderson. I continue to commend his courage in coming forward despite his trauma to make people aware of this monster's horrible acts and how the athletic department did nothing.

Last up in this scan is a lone hockey player joining the collection, center Cooper Marody. A native of nearby Brighton, the three year Michigan icer was drafted by the Flyers in 2015 and got a couple very small cups of coffee with Edmonton, though he's mostly toiled in the AHL since leaving school.

And last up we have the horizontals. Like I said, if they're cheap enough, I'll pick up the occasional manurelic like the Larkin above. Mo Taylor is the other new basketball auto I added this time and it's from back when those cards could look really cool (no surprise it's from Bowman's Best). I don't know if two counts as this kind of volume, but I scored more bunches of Funchess in the form of a jersey auto and sick five-piece relic card. Those put him at the 25-card mark, so, not bad! My third hit of Buckeye-destroyer Hassan Haskins is a cool patch (or prime jersey) auto. And last up, I believe the last card I added before shipping everything was one of the best looking Jake Longs in his (currently) 97-card collection of hits: a true patch/auto.

And with these I'll call it a year on 2023. As always I had a blast trading with so many people, getting out to shows, buying elsewhere where I could, and sharing stuff for those of you who are nice enough to follow me here.

I'll also take a brief moment to celebrate a big milestone I hit at some point last year even with some reshuffling of categories: 2500 Michigan sports hits! My official count appears to stand at 2570 and includes

• 38 baseball subjects
• 32 from basketball
• 248 representing football
• 61 hockey folks
• 4 from other sports

You might be able to tell from how I described my haul above that I put more effort into guys I'm missing in my hits collection with a special focus on trying to get at least one certified autograph of as many as I can. Once again, thank you to all who've contributed to this chase, one I'll be happy to continue for however long I keep collecting, which I expect to be a long time!

I'll try to be back soon to get started on 2024, for which I believe I already have something like four blogger trades received (and a bunch from TCDb too), a few shows, one eBay purchase, and two cool Facebook Marketplace buys. Thanks to those who've stuck around while I've dragged my feet on posting, and I hope to be back with more soon to keep everyone interested.

2022 COMC purchases: check out who's back!

It's 2023 but I still have some 2022 content to cover before getting to some great adds already this year.

Tonight you'll get to see the entirety of my first COMC order since late 2020. A number of factors, some pandemic-related, made the site a lot less attractive for a while as their processing speed for adding and shipping cards dipped below acceptable standards. After seeing that things were closer to normal late last year, I once again dove in during their big Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals.

About $160 later, I had a nice stack of cards for myself and some Christmas card packages to boot (some of which still need to go out once my oft-mentioned Sportlots box ships!). Here are the items I scored for my own collections:

Baseball part 1. God do I love me some 90s inserts, and few could compare to Upper Deck's Amazing Greats in 1997 and '98. Both versions look stunning, and the Maddux you see above is from the former. Its wood grain design and clear inset player image look great, plus I love the punny name of the insert. From the same year you also get a look at another GOAT insert technology: Pinnacle's Dufex. I nabbed PC guy Dean Palmer's Museum Collection parallel for under a buck, and boy does it look nice in its own right.

To those I added a five-pack of ex-UM pitcher autos, all of which I believe were less than $2.50. Bourque's is a Refractor of the only other hit I owned of him, and that's numbered /499. New Rockie Jeff Criswell gets a nice trio added to his total out of Bowman Chrome, Elite, and Topps Pro Debut, and of course the middle card is my favorite since it features a college uniform photo. He now has four such cards to his name in my collection. And I ended up with a single card, but a spiffy one, of Criswell's potential Colorado teammate, Karl Kauffmann, also from Elite. It's a Status die-cut parallel numbered /99 and gives him four autos also out of six total hits.

The other two baseball items deserved their own scans. I thought the 2013 Panini America's Pastime booklet of former Tigers (and Yankees) A-Jax and Granderson was just too cool to pass up, especially for just $6.45. I don't have many booklet cards in my collection and getting one with large relic swatches from two of my favorite Tigers OF was a coup in my book. The one you see above is the Gold version numbered /49. The Granderson pinstripe is a nice bonus!

Card number two here was I believe the most expensive one I landed for myself, but well within my price range for a card of its type. My purchase history says I dropped $8.34 for Clayton Richard's 2018 Topps Cyan plate, one of five 1/1s I bought this time (but the only one for myself). That gives the former QB/P 13 total 1/1s to his name, 10 of which are plates.

Switching over to football, it was easy to split these into vertical and horizontal scans. A couple players got the most love this time but I also added a pair of new names and lots of college action cards so I spent my money well.

My first autograph of stud WR Nico Collins was one of my biggest steals at just $3, and I couldn't complete the purchase of it fast enough at that price given they usually go for more (plus the whole Michigan uni thing). Darboh got four new additions to his count (two more below) including a sweet triple jersey/auto and a green parallel of his 2017 Prestige autograph (/150) seen here. I love the latter's use of an action shot from a home game in the Big House.

Chris Evans made his debut in my hits collection thanks to the crazy cool 1/1 Matt sent me, and now I have a college uni autograph to go with that, also courtesy of Prestige. Talented DB Lavert Hill is making his first appearance with a 2020 Prizm autograph, and so is the guy on the last card of this scan, outstanding C (and current New Orleans Saint) Cesar Ruiz out of the same year's Playbook product. I'm making a more concerted effort to add hits of players missing in my collection and that work paid off here with some great looking cards of two recent Wolverines, both in their alma mater's duds.

And who could forget the namesake of my former other blog, Mario Manningham? I scored three verticals and one horizontal card (in the next scan) of the Super Bowl hero. One's from '08 Absolute and it comes with a football chunk plus jersey swatches in the shape of his number. The second is one of his two appearances in 2008 SP Rookie Edition and is done in the style of SP's '93 product. And the last one seen here is 2010 Prestige auto limited to a somewhat strange 113 copies.

Over on the X-axis we start with the other two Darboh cards. The current iteration of Leaf is pretty sketchy but you still get some extremely cool cards from them sometimes, like Amara's inscription-laden Trinity auto seen above. The jersey/auto/RC next to it from Panini's Illusions was also pretty cheap and further enhances one of my quieter quality collections, which now stands at 47 cards!

I occasionally chase cards of some of the guys that transferred out such as QB Ryan Mallett and found a good price on the slightly flawed (bit of a crease between his first and last names) auto/jersey from 2011 Timeless Treasures. That kind of thing doesn't pop up much in the other places I tend to look, so why not drop $2 for a solid hit?

The final Manningham card--though four is NOT "too many"--is from the hit-laded 2008 SPx product, and this one's a dual jersey with the swatch windows also in the shape of his jersey number. Mario's just one hit away from joining the 100-club in this collection, which currently includes Chad Henne and nobody else! (Jake Long remains at 97 and Braylon Edwards is chilling nearby with 93.)

One of my most interesting pieces I scored this time is the Denard Robinson 2013 Panini Black Rookie Shadowbox auto you see above. I thought the card enclosed a small mini jersey but it turns out it's just a flat image in a shadowbox-type design. That's still extremely cool, plus it's a new autograph of Shoelace for my collection, and it was just $2.25, so I'm very happy with it. That appears to be hit #54 of the dual-threat QB.

And this evening's final addition is my fifth hit and third autograph of DT Chris Wormley, a Ravens draftee who now suits up for the Steelers. He's the final recipient of a college uni auto for his collection, in this case out of 2017 Elite Draft, a product that was made for collectors like me. He's got a very good signature, especially with how low standards have gotten, and this one wasn't even $2, so it happily found a home in my football collection.

I was glad to be able to take another ride on the COMC train in 2022 and score some nice cards at great prices, plus they even arrived in time for me to send some out before Christmas! I hope those of you who follow the folks I sent them to (and will be doing so soon) enjoy seeing even more spoils on other blogs and social media.

As for me, while I wait for Sportlots to send me my now-ready-to-ship box cards, I get to show off some fun early 2023 items thanks to two fantastic trade partners plus some spoils from last weekend's show. It was a great start to the year in collecting and I'm looking forward to another enjoyable one with all of you. Happy new year!

2022 trade package #3: Bob Walk the Plank

This evening's trade package comes from a guy who blogs maybe slightly less than I do--I mean, come on, it's March already! Matt, who used to blog at Bob Walk the Plank, and now can be found more commonly on Twitter, hit me back in our longstanding back-and-forth dealing by directly shipping a package of goodies from COMC. They even arrived in the same year he requested his shipment! (Seriously, they do seem to be getting better on that front.)

Matt surprised me with some quality stuff (as usual) including a couple deep cuts that show how much he pays attention to the players I collect.

Here's two pages of some outstanding additions to my collections!:

Scan #1 opens with six cards from Brett Adcock's 2016 Bowman/Chrome Draft rainbow. Adcock, a P drafted by Houston in 2016, never made it beyond AA and was seen pitching in indy ball last year. He has just 31 cards to collect according to TCDB (making him today's deepest cut), with five of those being minor league issues and 10 more that are 1/1s, so my collection of 11 is pretty solid (#1 on TCDB, baby!). Up here you can see the Blue Border /150; Chrome Gold /50, Green /99, and Purple /250; and Gold Border /50 and Green Border /99. The remaining five I need for the rainbow are #d /150, /25 (x2), and /5 (x2). Well done, Matt!

Next up is a lone Hal Morris, but given that I'm at 302 of his 469 (#1 on TCDB, baby!), anything new is a good find. Better yet, this is a numbered '90s insert: 1997 Circa's Rave parallel, which is limited /150 copies, quite rare for the time!

Right after him is another pitcher, though one that's not quite as obscure as Adcock. Murray pitched for the Padres, Tigers, and Indians, and trades like this one keep me inching toward his 39 cards. Thanks to these I have 29 (#1 on TCDB, baby!), including his '97 Bowman Blue Ink auto and '98 Bowman Chrome International Refractor. The latter's especially nice as, besides being a Refractor, it's a somewhat tougher find given the era. I need to track down two more of his '97 Bowman signatures and another '98 Refractor /5 to sew up his non-minors (and others, including a buyback) collection, which is pretty cool.

Scan #2 beings with a bit more baseball before veering off into other sports. First up is card #218 in my collection of former Mariners/D-Backs closer J.J. Putz (#1 on TCDB, baby!) a surprisingly rare 2014 Topps 1st Edition. Hit the link to see how those were inserted and you'll see that just 10 copies were made of each card! They're not serial-numbered but at least have the obvious logo up front. This is a very rare card I was unlikely to get myself so it was perfect for this envelope.

Speaking of rare and former Michigan pitchers, next is a numbered pair of Clayton Richard, who's near a milestone at 147 cards (#1 on TCDB, baby!) out of his 437. On the left is a beautiful 2008 Bowman Draft Chrome Gold Refractor /50, and its diminutive partner is the Pink parallel /25 from 2019 Topps Mini. Very cool cards of the former QB-turned-pitcher.

Speaking of QBs, heading over to the gridiron I was very happy to see a new Chad Henne for one of my larger football PCs. I currently count 313 cards of the former UM gunslinger in my collection (#2 on TCDB...CRAP!) and few are as rare as the 2014 Rookies & Stars Longevity Black (#d /10) parallel you see above. Then again, I do have a cyan plate to go with that. Well, I did say "few", didn't I? This is certainly a nice addition to one of my favorite PCs.

And next we have a pair of talented college wideouts in David Terrell and Amani Toomer. The Terrell is card #157 in his collection (also #2 on TCDB...for now), a 2002 Pacific Adrenaline base with a "Pacific Nights Special Edition" stamp and digital serial numbering /10, making it one of the rarest cards in his bunch. I don't know much about that promotion that looks to have appeared across a number of Pacific's products, but I love the rarity and am happy to have the card.

Meanwhile, Toomer's card, #318 (good for a distant 3rd on TCDB, maybe I should stick to baseball) is somewhat similar, from a set called 2002 Playoff Honors Player of the Week Panelists. The backs are numbered, also to just 10 copies, and the write-up about each player's qualifications is pretty nice, if Amani's card is any indication:

Hail, hail, indeed!

And we'll finish up on the ice as Michigan Hockey heads into conference tournament play before hopefully securing a #1 seed and eventual Frozen Four appearance. One guy who was no stranger to those was former WolverWing and head coach Red Berenson. My 39 cards (tied for second on TCDB by just one card!) of the Wolverines legend include this amazing pair. On the left is a 2004-05 In the Game Franchises US East card depicting him with the Rangers, one of his four NHL teams, albeit the one he spent the least time with. It's #d /10 with a Chicago National Convention stamp that seems to be more accepted than some of the random ones you'll see pop up at times. That's joined by a card from one of the cooler hockey products in recent memory: 2012-13 In the Game Motown Madness. The Gold parallel you see of the five-year Red Wing isn't numbered but is said to be limited to just 10 copies. Sweet!

Last up this evening is a technical Michigan uni card of a goalie who almost took the team all the way to the top in 2011. Shawn Hunwick was out of his mind that year and eventually made an emergency appearance for Columbus in the pros, leading to a few cardboard appearances. I own 37 of them (hey, #1 on TCDB, baby!), and the one you're seeing today is a Sapphire parallel #d /85 of his 2012-13 Upper Deck Artifacts RC. It's been tough sledding finding his cards at reasonable prices so I really, really appreciate Matt including this one as much as anything else in this envelope.

Matt, thank you once again for a very thoughtful mailer that clearly shows how much effort you put into finding some great cards for my Michigan PCs, even chipping in towards the ones where I'm clearly #1 on TCDB (baby!). I always love our deals because we both value sending some top notch stuff to each other, and I promise that'll continue from my end after I build up enough to send a package your way.

Up ahead: lots more trade packages and eventually cards from TCDB deals!

2020 COMC purchases: look at these 'graphs (and more!)

Time to finish up a look at my late-year purchases from COMC so I can close the book on cards I bought in 2020, a year that often felt as bad as a Nickelback song.

I decided to throw all of the football content in one post and just try not to get too verbose about it. That way I can get this stuff put away and move on to other incoming items and stuff I want to post about. I'm showing off 35 cards tonight and the vast majority include signatures, hence today's title and the meme above. Let's get down to business:

The other 34 cards fit nicely into two scans each of nine (vertical cards) and eight (horizontal), so I'll give the only non-hit its own spot here to start. Old Ty joins Amani Toomer (back-to-back in the set, in fact) in my collection of the amazing 2000 Bowman's Best Acetate parallel, which is so cool I scanned both sides for this post!

Ok, on to the (mostly) 'graphs! Many of the cards you'll see were excellent deals that fortified some of my better football PCs. Avant's from the era of shiny stickergraphs and is numbered /125. Breaston did play a couple seasons for the Chiefs, who could repeat as champs tomorrow evening. J-Booty's auto comes on an Optic card, making it shiny in a different way than Avant's. Taco (Michigan uni!) was drafted by Dallas but is now potentially in line for a ring as a bit player for the Chiefs. I continued to bolster Darboh's collection with the three autos you see here (and more in a bit), and Jeff and I have lots of those in common which I noticed while adding them on TCDB. Braylon's huge Browns swatch (/150) was a nice value. And I scored another, uh, signature? of Gary, who had a solid sophomore campaign with the Pack.

Now this is a top three I can get down with: a trio of college uni cards! Gentry's tiny John Hancock graces a Prizm card, Big Mo is one of those acetate cards from Leaf Trinity's Clear line, and I tracked down auto number two of former lineman Trezelle Jenkins. Then it's on to just four out of an absolute bounty of Jake Longs, including a quad jersey/auto, autograph, and not one but two plates (2008 Topps Mayo and 2010 Topps), the first I've acquired of the former #1 overall pick. It's been a while since I've posted a new pickup of former college star DL Mike Martin so why not celebrate his return with a beautiful UD Black signature (/199)? And I enjoy seeing former stars like Toomer get recognized after their careers in Panini's various products, like this Certified jersey (/49) of Amani "It's Not A" Toomer.

Not everything was autographed in this bunch but most was. One of the exceptions was a cool rookie year Avant jersey (/499) where the shininess of the card is better than the swatch. Leaf's cards are fantastic values for college collectors like this sick giant patch/auto of WR Jehu Chesson that cost me less than $3. The three other Darboh cards I found were jersey/autos, two of which came with nice pieces of what's becoming a familiar Seahawks jersey for me as a collector of his cards. Braylon's Topps "patch" isn't terribly impressive but was a cool find for under a buck, and the large jersey number relic card (/25) is even better. Panini's Contenders/Draft products are also outstanding for those pursuing cards of their favorite schools, and here I was glad to find my third signature of former DB David Long.

And the last grouping allows me to end the post with a bang. I was very pleased with my Long haul (pun intended), nine cards for about $33 that also included four jersey/autos and an auto/manupatch. The Gridiron Gear card is one of those where the signed swatch can be pulled out, similar to the Denard that follows the group, though I think in Shoelace's case the signed piece isn't from a jersey. I was thrilled to add another of A-Train's beautiful signatures to my collection. And we'll end on a non-auto, a dual relic of WR Marquise Walker, representing Tom Brady's Bucs in this post.

Once again I had a great time landing some amazing pieces for my collection at pretty nice prices, even if my trade bait purchasing was less than ideal this time around. Just a few quick collection notes: Long zoomed past Braylon thanks to his big day, with the OT hitting 97 to the WR's 93 (Manningham's in between at 95), and threatening to become the second member of my 100-hit club (Henne). Despite his cards being relatively recent, Darboh's already over the 40-mark to 41. And Avant gets to 65 hits, good for sixth overall. Michigan's former WRs feature heavily at the top of my collection with #s 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 16, and 17.

With these finally able to be put away in their boxes I'm not sure where I'll go next: possibly my first Baseballcardstore.ca order, or perhaps an interesting purchase from a new vendor, not to mention an incoming trade envelope. If I manage to get myself to put up a Super Bowl-related post tomorrow I know which one it'll be, and I'm curious to see reactions to it.

2020 COMC purchases: Dean-o and more new cards you haven't seen-o

Before I get to today's cards I just wanted to highlight a minor miracle that occurred since I last posted: last week my first COMC shipment containing the items I purchased for Christmas card packages finally rematerialized and appeared in Detroit, then Ann Arbor. I've since managed to put together all but one of those envelopes and send them out, so you may see some belated Christmas card posts soon!

Besides getting those done I've been hard at work ordering buttloads of cards from Sportlots (almost done!) and my first try with baseballcardstore.ca (ordered!), so I'll be showing those off in due time.

Ok, onward to tonight's content, which is 100% baseball:

Former slugging 3B Dean Palmer was one of two big winners today, and the guy who got the most new items added to his collection (now 160 cards strong). I'll get to the two most prominent items in a minute, but first, it's "90s inserts rule" time! The '94 Pinnacle Museum Collection design isn't nearly as good as '95's in my opinion, but it's still a great looking parallel. A year after the Preferred brand debuted as a Leaf name, it switched over to Donruss and was responsible for some very nice looking inserts, such as that Cut to the Chase die-cut parallel.

A Silver base card from '97 Finest gives me both of Dean's entries in the regular set, with the only two Rangers earning spots in the rare Gold versions the exact two you'd expect--Pudge Rodriguez and Juan Gonzalez. And '99 Black Diamond has some very fine parallels that are nicely differentiated both in coloring and numbering. Above you see the Double (/3000) and Triple (/1500) versions, meaning I still need the Quadruple (/150) to complete the mini rainbow.

As if 90s insert greatness wasn't enough, I managed to score my second relic (also a bat) and first autograph for my Palmer PC. The signature hails from the well known auto-per-pack 1996 Leaf Signature product and is the most common Bronze version, limited to 3500 copies. The writing is a bit squished but fairly legible otherwise. And speaking of hit-per-pack products, the bat was found in 2001 Private Stock packs I remember quite well, busting many back when relics were more novel. Both of these make for a nice boost to that growing collection.

This next group is a bit of a mix, comprising two former Tigers and another favorite PC. It may not have been too many© but I did find two new Granderson jerseys from 2008--SP Legendary Cuts and Topps Heritage--getting me to the 10 hit mark, for just $1.50 and $1.25, respectively. I also came up with a 2016 Donruss Stat Line insert for under $0.50 which was exciting since I've loved the parallel since it first appeared in 2001. This one's numbered to 263 for his career HR total through 2015, and he's put up 81 more in his final four seasons for a solid total of 344. And after all that we're not quite done yet with Curtis....

First let's have a look at the other cards here. Gwynn was one of the two subjects (Griffey's the other) I wanted to track down from Leaf's 1997 insert called Knothole Gang. Leaf took the motif seriously and came up with a super cool design. These are numbered /5000, which you should remember was pretty tough back then! 90s inserts rule and this was an easy purchase for me. Would you believe it was a "Freedom Isn't Free" special at just a buck-oh-five?

Former versatile Tiger (and player for five other teams) Tony Phillips, like Palmer, is another PC I've been starting to build up in the last year, and this '97 Refractor was the cherry on top of this order, the last card I snagged with my dwindling credit before seeing about shipping my two groups of purchases (trade bait and personal). 1997's design happens to be one of my favorites of the brand so I didn't mind paying $0.75 for this shiny 90s gem.

I said I'd get back to Grandy, didn't I? After naming this here blog after him more than 10 years ago I was finally able to add a plate to his collection. As you can see, this one's from 2017 Donruss and is of the yellow variety, and it was right in my $5-10 wheelhouse at around $8. I'm super excited to add another 1/1 of a favorite player, and I may have to put together a display for whatever "-fecta" I end up with. Right now I could do a RC, relic, auto, 1/1, and manurelic, which is a pretty nice group!

Switching over to the Michigan guys, here's today's last group. Leading off is the Mechanical Man and a 2012 Panini Cooperstown Crystal Collection parallel. This is the regular version, numbered /299, and it completes the trio for me as I already had the Red and Blue versions--a trifecta rainbow!

Next, I was ecstatic to score my first UM uniform autos of 2019 draft picks Tommy Henry (D-Backs, 2nd round) and Karl Kauffmann (Rockies, 2nd round). Elite Extra is perfect for collectors like me because of just such cards. In each case it's also my second auto but obviously my favorite for both given the college photos.

Staying relatively recent, I continued my slow progress towards P Clayton Richard's collection with a 2019 Topps Walgreens Yellow parallel. While the hues aren't quite right, combined with the blue of his team's uniform, it makes for a very appropriate card for a Wolverine!

I'm pretty sure buddy of the blog John, who's definitely already enthused by this group, will like this next card the most. My fellow Freehan collector would be all over this 2005 SP Legendary Cuts Glory Days jersey, one that was surprisingly new to me as I got down to my last few bucks of credit. I already owned the Gold (/75) version of this but not the unnumbered regular one you see above. $3 was a small price to pay for my 25th hit of one of the franchise's best all-time catchers.

And last but not least is the end of my baseball gets, namely a Getz. Hailing from 2008 Just Minors' Just Autographs set, this is a Gold autograph that's numbered on the back (digitally, on a foil stamp), which set me back $1.33. I ended up snagging it instead of the paradoxically more costly (on COMC, anyway) base version. This one getz (sorry, not sorry) his hit total up to 16, with all but two of those (a couple of plates) featuring his signature.

This is quite a nice haul to look at and I haven't even gotten to my football stuff yet! I haven't even scanned that yet, much less figured out if I'm going to break it up into multiple posts, but between the card stuff I mentioned above that's been keeping me busy and putting together this post, I've neglected a couple really nice trade packages I need to show off, so look for those to be my next two posts before I possibly get back to the rest of my COMC loot.

Until then, please enjoy looking at these pickups while we all wait for pitchers and catchers to report!

2020 COMC purchases: hockey new year!

I hope everyone had an excellent holiday season, I know I did. After taking a few days off, though, I decided I was ready to get started posting in 2021, and fortunately I happened to have some worthy content handy.

Although I'm still waiting on my original COMC order (which is pretty much all trade bait destined for Christmas packages), a package that's been in limbo since 12/14, the second one I had shipped days later made it to my mailbox before the year was up. All but one of the cards in this one were for me, so at least I've got that going for me!

I ended up doing quite well with the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales so I have a nice fat stack of cards to show off. Because of that I'm going to break them down into (at least) three posts by sport. As you might have guessed by this post's title, hockey is first up:

While this is in now way a huge haul, I'll remind everyone that I don't tend to search out hockey very much, and I largely went after these due to their ridiculously low prices. Here's a bit more about each:

Chris Brown 2013-14 Upper Deck Overtime Autographs auto: once again, ladies and gentlemen, it's the pride of Flower Mound, Texas! $0.90 was all it took to grab this Coyote colored (:chuckles Phoenixly:) signature of Brown, my ninth including an auto of 12 total hits (and 15 cards overall). It's a rare addition to his collection by me since much of what I own is courtesy of The Buckstore Kid, naturally. Fellow Wolverine Jacob Trouba can also be found here so this may not be the last of the set you'll see!

Greg Pateryn 2013-14 Crown Royale auto RC (#450/499): Pateryn is something of an unheralded D-man but he's managed to hang in the league on and off for approaching a decade, which is nice to see. He was originally drafted by the Leafs but made his debut and played his first few seasons with the pictured Canadiens here. Crown Royale's die-cuts just about always look nice, and the fact that this is also a numbered RC is a plus. At just $1.25 I was glad to make it his third hit (two autos and a plate) out of just five total cards.

Jeff Tambellini 2005-06 Parkhurst Signatures auto: the last auto of the group belongs to the son of former Oilers GM Steve. Jeff was a dynamite college player during my school days in Ann Arbor, though his NHL career was nothing special. But, man, could he take over a game and carry the team on his back when they needed it! I had no second thoughts about paying a buck for his signature on such a nice design, not that I was surprised that the classic Parkhurst name offered up a good look like this. Five of my eight Tambellini hits feature his John Hancock (out of just 14 cards overall).

Mike Cammalleri 2008-09 Black Diamond Jerseys Quad quad jersey: only one hockey Mike today so I'm not gonna use the tag, but I am quite happy with the new addition. Everyone knows relics have kind of lost their luster over the years, but it's not because of cool ones like this. The four swatches on my copy resulted in three different colors, which is definitely a win, as was nabbing the card for $1.25. TCDB tells me Cammalleri is #3 in my hockey collection (76 cards) and it's no wonder when I can add cool hits like this, my 18th of the former sniper.

Dylan Larkin 2019-20 SP Game Used Showcase Standouts Jerseys jersey: no, it's not a Wings card, but when you only have to pay $1.05 ("Freedom isn't free!") for a relic of a star like Larkin you go for it. And it looks like instead of being the now infamous "event-worn" crap that involves throwing on a jersey for five seconds to meet the definition, it was at least used in action at that event. Larkin's prices make many of his hits cost-prohibitive so this was a fun, cheap way to grab relic #5 (of seven hits) and card #40 overall. I'm glad the Wolverwing will be back in Motown for at least two more seasons after this one.

Since this was just five cards, plus I needed some back scans for TCDB, here's the backs of everything.

I would expect my next post to cover all my baseball purchases next, but we'll just have to see!

Announcing 2020 Christmas Cards!

It's about time for one of my favorite yearly traditions: Christmas cards! Not the Hallmark kind, mind you, but the kind we all love to collect. I'm happy to announce this evening that despite everything that's happened this year, I'll be continuing my own version of a secret-ish Santa in 2020.

Of course, because I haven't been able to get out to a show--my biggest source of quantities of cards for packages--since March, fewer of these will be going out this year, and they'll be smaller than usual on average.

That said, the eight-to-ten folks on my "good" list who are getting presents from Grandy Claus (Verlandy Claus?) should still be reasonably happy, I think. In many cases I grabbed a few things for them during COMC's recent sales, such as player collection items or cards to help with wantlists. It's not much, but hopefully I can make it up to everyone when shows are back on the menu.

Speaking of COMC, while I didn't love forking over the additional credit for expedited shipping, mainly to overcome their singleminded focus on eBay auctions to the detriment to every single other aspect of their service, I will say that they held up their end of the bargain, not only shipping on time, but even a few days earlier than estimated. However,

Louis "DeLay" DeJoy's intentionally crippled USPS stopped reading at "held up" and have stepped in to do just that, meaning it's pretty unlikely the cards will get to me in time for them out to everyone before the big day where everyone celebrates the Winter Solstice. That possibility is about as likely as tonight's twice-seen Sean Bean surviving an entire show or movie.

I can live with that, though. It's not like there's anything I can do about it, plus the thought of those of you getting cards from me getting to enjoy opening one more present after Christmas is kind of nice.

I may make an announcement when I've managed to get everything shipped, assuming it gets to my state from Washington safely, but otherwise, some of you should be watching your mailboxes throughout the rest of the month.

In the meantime, stay tuned for either a roundup or individual posts covering the Christmas cards that were sent to me by some very cool people who are also feeling the holiday spirit!

2019 COMC purchase: a 1/1 of #1 from before 1/1

For today's post we're going waaaaaay back to late last December. It was the 28th, smack dab between Christmas and New Year's Eve, days before the calendar would flip, and months before, well, :gestures vaguely to all of this bullshit:. It's been almost nine months so I don't remember exactly why I made this final COMC purchase for the year, a few weeks after having my most recent package shipped from the site. Maybe it was FOMO since this was a fairly nice deal.

Anyway, I'm only showing off that final pickup of 2019 now because I only recently had a few cards shipped from COMC: one for me, which you'll see shortly; one for Paul--the Dionne jersey seen here; and three more that'll probably get posted in the near future by my favorite Canadian trading partner.

Here's what all the fuss was about:

I love me some bunches of Funchess! This 2018 Score Black plate stars the erstwhile wearer of jersey #1 in Ann Arbor, a guy drafted by the Panthers who signed with the Colts, got hurt, signed with Green Bay, then opted out of this season. Before most of that stuff, though, he was enjoying a nice 2017 season, his third in the NFL, with career highs in pretty much every important stat, including targets, catches, yards, and TDs. He's pictured here looking well on his way to padding all of those numbers. The cost for all of this coolness? Less than $5. I'll take that over a questionably edible Subway sandwich any day!

I already had the base card this plate is 25% responsible for, from one of my perennial favorite products, and now count 61 cards of the star WR in my collection, including two plates (2017 Score Cyan) and 14 hits overall. This addition also puts me at an unofficial count of 147 plates & 1/1s, a number that'll change as soon as I can ID a few more and potentially excise one or more fakes/backdoored items.

Obviously COMC is in a state of flux right now as much as any similar seller, so I'm not sure when I'll next have cards from them to post. That makes it even nicer to be able to show one off from the before times!

Up next will be...I don't know. I think I may have one or two things heading my way soon, but in the meantime I may finally buckle down and find a way to show off the two huge TCDB deals I made earlier this year.

2019 COMC purchases: 2019 was an a-maize-ing year!

It's the second Sunday in February, 2020, and I'm finally ready to close out my 2019 pickups so I can move on to this year!

Today's post will cover Michigan Football guys that I consider PCs in the sense that they have their own albums, though I may change how I present those soon to make things a bit easier for everybody.

Let's get to the cards:

QB #7 Chad Henne had himself a day (or a sale weekend, as the case may be) with this seven spot of new hits.  I scored a new auto out of the 2008 UD Icons product I'm not exactly in love with (but a signature's a signature!) and two relics from 2011 Panini brands:  a Gridiron Gear "prime" piece and a normal Dolphins green swatch from Limited.  Those photos look preeeetty similar....

On the horizontal end I came up with three more 2008 SPx cards from the Rookie/Winning Materials sets that have multiple configurations.  The first two are /75 and the last is /50 but all three are dual swatch versions.  A quick check tells me I have 15 different cards featuring Henne from this product, 11 of which are from the two inserts I mentioned.  They're joined by my third example of a 2008 UD Premier issue, all of which include four swatches and an autograph.  This is the Silver and is #d /60.

These additions are fun on their own but they also happen to bump my Henne collection over 300 to 306 total cards, second only to Charles Woodson, not to mention 136 hits, tying him with baseball leader Rich Hill!  I look forward to adding more of his stuff this year.

I think I promised a good showing in my posts leading up to this one, and maybe you'll agree that I delivered between the Hennes, these vertically oriented offerings, and the horizontals in the next scan.  Here we start with my second "A" and third letter overall in Jason Avant's 2006 Donruss Threads nameplate.  I'll keep looking for the "V" and "T" I need so I can have another completed project to show off.  His former teammate Alan Br--

--ANCH KILLS QBs!

Branch, gets a 17th auto to his collection, and we'll see him again shortly.  The final 1/1 this time is a 2011 Inception Yellow plate of Braylon Edwards, and I love the border that makes it abundantly obvious which version it is.  Leon Hall and David Harris help maintain the offense/defense balance in this scan with signatures from 2007 Bowman Sterling and 2011 Prime Signatures.  I was able to sneak in a fairly cheap Manningham in the form of a dual signature with Marcus Monk from UD's 2009 sticker dump SP Signature, which works for me!  That's hit #94 of my former blog namesake.  Denard, who we'll see again in the next scan, can be seen on a rookie year 2013 Topps Triple Threads Purple parallel /27, with cutouts for the swatches spelling out his various positions.  I wish he'd been given a shot to play QB in the NFL just for fun.  Last up is Gabe Watson, who I forgot isn't one of my PC guys since he's only at 30 cards.  Oh well, that 2006 Absolute auto (his 8th) is still pretty cool!

The horizontals start with a cheap Avant relic and then a 2007 UD Premier dual auto that pairs another couple guys we've already seen in Branch and Hall, who were fellow rookies in the stacked '07 class.  Jake Long gets his own 2008 SPx appearance, joining fellow '08 Dolphins draftee Henne, and this dual jersey /99 is my 10th of Long from the set and 8th from the Rookie/Winning Materials versions.

Then come three new 2013 Denard autographs.  His prices are low enough that I can pretty much pick up stuff like the ones you see above for under $3.  The Prominence card includes a helmet thing but I don't think I filed it as a manurelic; Panini's Totally Certified came with a nice jersey swatch; and Topps Platinum called the third card a patch auto, so that's what I'll go with.  Those additions plus the Triple Threads above were enough to put Shoelace right at 50 hits, making him just the 10th player in my collection to hit that mark!

The last card of the last post for 2019 is a cool rookie auto of yet another star defensive guy from 2007, LaMarr Woodley.  It's funny to end with this card because it's the very first one I bought toward this last shipment, way back on September 8, or almost three months before the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales responsible for the rest of my purchases.  I couldn't let this Ultimate Collection signature slip away after it went on sale for just $1.75.

2019 was yet another great year of collection for me, and maybe I'll go back to that well one more time with a summary post soon (or maybe not!).  Either way, I finished it with fewer than 25 hits to go for 1500 in the football collection, and I'm fairly close to fun milestones in the other sports as well.  Although I may revise my definition of "hits" for those collections, for now I can say that I began the year with more than 2200 such cards of former Wolverines, which is a great place to build from in 2020.

Whew!  With those finally done I'm excited to show you my first trade package of 2020, eBay pickup #1 of the year, and recaps of both card shows I hit in January, plus I have a couple other interesting ideas in mind.  It may be February, but happy new collecting year!

2019 COMC purchases: superb basketball and football

It's been a superb Sunday here in Ann Arbor weather-wise considering it's just the second day of February.  Temperatures got up in the 50s a day after we were dealing with the usual cold and snow, and I definitely took advantage.

Now I'm sitting here putting together a post while glancing at the game every now and then, between two teams I don't really care about.  But the fact that it's Super Bowl Sunday is a good reminder that I still haven't covered all of my 2019 pickups.  This COMC recap and one more should do it.

Today I'll be showing off my basketball scores and, yes, some of the football as well!  (A quick note:  I don't have all of the former cataloged in my own albums or on TCDB yet as I've had to create their checklists myself, which sometimes takes a bit.)

I believe I mentioned the crazy number of plates I purchased in the last post, and a large chunk of the ones staying with me are surprisingly from basketball, my least favorite of the four major sports.  I'm not the type to pass up a good deal when it comes to my Michigan collections, though, and four of these were under $4, with the other less than $5.

Here's the backs so you can tell who actually appears on each card.  I landed my first plates of Burke and THJ (times two!), second of Rice, and fifth(!) of Sauce Castillo himself, Nik Stauskas.  All of them are from higher-end products meaning Panini did their thing where they affixed the plates to super thick pieces of cardboard.  Those are totally fine but I really like what they've done with colorful backs on the actual metal the last couple years.  Three of these were inserted into the following year's National Treasures products so checklisting them can take a bit of work.  But who cares, because five new basketball plates!

The football section is quite good as well, though you're in for a pretty good show in the final post of this series.  WR Amara Darboh's up first with a cool pair from 2017:  a Playoff autograph and Absolute dual jersey/football auto RC (#282/299).  As long as Panini keeps producing Playoff cards with college photos like that, I'll keep buying them!  Those two bookend my first 1/1 of former QB (and one-year WR) Devin Gardner.  It's a magenta plate from his only NFL card out of 2015 Topps Field Access, a product known more for its plethora of sticker autos.  He's looking quite acrobatic there for sure.

The middle contains three new players to the collection.  First is DL Rashan Gary, a former top college recruit who went to the Packers in the first round last year.  I came up with a 2019 Panini Legacy auto of him in a Michigan uni, which is awesome, though his signature is anything but.  Hey, they can't all look like Griffey's and Rivera's!

Next is his fellow New Jersey native Ron Johnson, not to be confused with the former Michigan RB.  This one played on the D-Line and was part of that same recruiting class, but he transferred out last year.  He's one of a few future college players I can name from the autograph portion of that 2016 Upper Deck USA set.

The last of the newbies is another former QB that changed positions like Gardner, but in Zach Gentry's case, the move to TE stuck, and it worked out ok for him since he got drafted by the Steelers.  His 2019 Contenders Draft auto looks pretty cool, which doesn't surprise me a bit, and he has a somewhat interesting signature too.

Moving on we have another QB, transfer guy Ryan Mallett.  As I think I've said a few times, I occasionally collect his stuff as long as he's not shown in an Arkansas uniform.  Here you can see a 2011 Plates & Patches jersey/auto RC (#080/299) followed by a Topps Magic signature from the same year.  Both are cool in their own right but Magic is a somewhat recent Topps product I actually like, so that's notable.

Ok, we're on to the last QB of the day, I promise.  John Navarre, the gumpy signal-caller from Cudahy, Wisconsin, gets another of his very occasional appearances; this is just my 13th hit of him.  Luckily I found a cheap new addition in the form of a 2004 Bowman's Best Green auto (#189/499).  I already had the base version, which I prefer mainly because the green ink doesn't look great here--the parallel version of the card is fine otherwise--so it's nice to have them as a pair.

Last up is former Michigan DL Chris Wormley, who's often a fun follow on Twitter:

I hit the trifecta today! I got pooped on, peed on, and puked on by my lovely daughter. 👍🏽

— Chris Wormley (@Chris_Wormley43) January 29, 2020

My second auto and third hit of his is a rookie year 2017 Donruss Optic Rookie Autographs Blue auto (#23/75).  What better color of a parallel could you ask for in terms of a former Wolverine?  He's seen a decent amount of playing time with the Ravens and hopefully that increases enough for him to earn a rare non-rookie appearance in some Panini products.

That's it for today but stay tuned for another blowout post where I cover the rest of my football purchases.

2019 COMC purchases: the 12 cards of COMChristmas

I'm going through another one of those periods where I want to get some posts up, especially so I can catch up to new stuff from this month, but I don't feel like writing.  It also doesn't help that work's been stressful lately, plus there was the tragedy of the helicopter crash yesterday that cost Kobe Bryant, his daughter, and other families their lives.

Solution:  don't write much and just get posts up!  Pictures something something thousand words, right?  So here's the baseball loot from my latest COMC shipment, mostly comprising purchases from the Black Friday/Cyber Monday promotions:

Today's only autograph is my first card of Nationals pitching prospect James Bourque, an Ann Arbor native with a pretty strong mustache game who pitched for Michigan in 2013 and 2014.  He got a one-game cup of coffee (Shot of coffee?  Drip of coffee?) last season five years after the team drafted him in the 14th round.  He's got lots more Bowman Chrome autos (like this one from 2019) to chase as well as a 2019 Topps Update base and its 50,000 parallels, and is the 27th member of my baseball hits PC.

2001 marked my first year of college and it was also an excellent year for collecting, falling right in the middle of that '95-'05 decade that I love so much.  Upper Deck was still around and they obliged relic-hungry collectors back when that was still quite a novelty.  For just a few bucks each I scored three such cards of Tony Gwynn, all from products I'm very familiar with:  SP Game Bat Edition, SPx, and UD Legends.  I believe I now own 10 relics (plus an autograph) of Mr. Padre, and I'll happily add more of these whenever the price is right.

Although he's known better as a Yankee during his brief (failed) foray into baseball, Drew Henson was a Red for a bit before being flipped back to the Bronx.  That makes the color of this Mirror Red parallel of his 2003 Leaf Certified Materials bat relic somewhat appropriate.  Donruss/Leaf/Panini/Playoff/whoever made some beautiful cards like this in the aughts and the price was low enough to add another Henson relic (#074/250), giving him 15 in the baseball collection.

Don't worry, I'm not boring you today with a post that's just hits, which I'm guessing a number of you would ignore as they're not your taste.  Looking for something else?  I got you, fam!  The "90s inserts rule" tag makes another heralded appearance today in part because if this amazing '97 Leaf chase card called Knothole Gang (#1046/5000).  Leaf layered a thin, wood-like material die-cut in the shape of a fence with a large hole in the middle over a photo, in this case Barry Larkin doubling up Braves stalwart Jeff Blauser.  These are too cool and I believe I'm chasing a few other PC guys, so I hope I'll have more to show off soon!

It's been long enough since I finished up my purchases on COMC that I can't remember for sure (and don't feel like doing the work to verify this), but I believe I came out of those sales with 19 printing plates/one-of-ones intended for my PCs and Christmas Cards packages.  Something like eight of those stayed with me, including this 2019 Topps Update Black plate of PC dude Clayton Richard, who appears with the Blue Jays for the first time.  Richard is now one of three Michigan Baseball guys with nine or more such cards in his collection, joining J.J. Putz (10) and Rich Hill (23) with nobody else above four.  Also, this marks my 130th plate and/or 1/1, though I may revise that collection a bit in the near future.  Anyway, I'll be casually on the lookout for the other three plates to go with this one!

The three jerseys of Gwynn above are awesome but this trio of Ripken inserts might be my preferred group of the two.  Up top is the '97 version of UD's amazing, um...Amazing Greats insert.  These also have a bit of a wood grain texture with a diamond shaped slide/cel insert on the right.  The '98 iteration is beautiful in its own right, and they're so different that I'm happy to appreciate both.  Oddly enough, Cal's my only example from '97 while his '98 card is the only one I lack of the Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken group.

The other two get me a bit closer to the fun 2000 Fleer Gamers Cal to Greatness set.  #s 6 and 9 here give me the full run of 1-10 while I'll now have to track down the rarest ones, #s 11-15.  Those were a tough 1:144 while the first five were 1:9 and the others 1:25.  This might take a bit of time and money.

I don't harp too much on HOFer "Gorgeous" George Sisler having played at Michigan, do I?  Nah, I'm sure I don't.  In case you forgot, here's a great photo of him courtesy of Panini's 2015 National Treasures Collegiate Multi-sport product.  It's a numbered base card (#74/99) and I initially balked at the price of more than a buck for such a card, but I eventually relented, especially as I'm trying to get him past the 100-card mark.  Hopefully the next time I add some they'll be this nice!

I'm happy to end today's post with a pretty nifty card of recent HOFer Alan Trammell.  Back in the early 2000s the Playoff brand was responsible for a product called Absolute Memorabilia, and boy did they make some great looking cards.  One of their most notable issues was the Tools of the Trade insert, one that came in autograph, memorabilia, and combo versions.  And when I say "combo" I mean you could get six-plus game-used pieces and maybe even a signature!  No matter what you got, the design looked great, like this here 2004 card of Tram (#088/250).  This bat/jersey duo appears to give me a nice split of five each of autos and relics of the Tigers legend.

Hopefully I'll get the next post in this series up a bit sooner.  For now I'm planning a combo basketball/football post, then more football for the big finish.  That way I can finally get around to covering a huge trade package, a show or two (the next one's this weekend!), and one eBay card, and get to where I'm somewhat caught up.