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!

7/2/22 show report: freedom isn't free but dime boxes practically are

(I don't want to forget to mention that I didn't skip June's show, I just ended up with practically nothing to show off since almost all of it was trade bait destined for packages, many of which were shipped out, so it wasn't worth doing a recap.)

Like I said in last night's post I had a great time as usual at the monthly card show yesterday. For whatever reason the crowd was relatively small at the time I got there so I had a lot more breathing room and felt better about taking my time. First I worked on the $1 and $2 boxes and then I still had enough energy (and wasn't totally stiff from standing for an hour-plus) so I wandered over to the dime boxes. This time all of the boxes that weren't $1s and up were 10/$1 (he usually has quarter and $0.50 boxes) so I tried to take advantage of that while I could.

In the end I came home with 80 dime cards, 23 from the dollar box, and 20 more that were $2 apiece. Yes, that totals $71 and not that's not what I paid because this guy is awesome and told me my total was $60. Hell yeah! That's why I'm a repeat customer and pretty much make the monthly trip just to head to his table.

As usual, first you'll get a look at the general trade bait I scored that's up for grabs:

Everything here was a dime except for the Erickson ('91 Topps Desert Shield) and Anderson dual relic. Young is /475, Anderson is /200, Carlson is /125, Fasano is /897, Helu is /897, Jones is /249, and Ollison is /299. I'll grab numbered cards from dime boxes all day every day!

And the rest of the trade bait. Treadwell (/599) and the Jets insert (/800) were dime cards. No, Jeff, you don't need either Darboh (according to TCDB), though you're welcome to them if you like having dupes.

If you see anything you want please claim it in the comments!

Ok, now for the stuff I kept for myself:

Part 1: baseball. The first six came out of the dime boxes. The top three are 2020 Topps and Update Turkey Red inserts, and I thought it was cool getting two of Junior on the teams he's most known for. Meanwhile the GQ cards are 2013s. I grabbed a few more since I couldn't remember if I had them or not, and those ended up being dupes, but they'll happily find good homes soon enough. JV is a 2020 Topps Holiday card, and I can never have enough of his cards. And lastly, the Pudge jersey /250 from 2002 UD 40-Man was just $2 so it seemed well worth picking up. I now appear to have 10 hits of his, one of which is an autograph, with the other nine being relics like this one.

Part 2: basketball and football. Everything here except for the final two cards also came from the dime boxes. THJ's and Duncan Robinson's cards were the right color for me to pick up for sure. Transfer TE Asiasi's first Select card at the top was a RC need (my third of 13 if I'm tracking correctly) while I also added Prizm parallels of him and stud C Cesar Ruiz, all from the 2020 product. 2021 draftees Chris Evans and Kwity Paye are next and appear on the retail versions of their Panini Absolute cards from last year. You can tell the versions apart easily because despite both of them having that foil design, the hobby cards are serial numbered and these aren't.

And lastly I came up with two new football hits, both of which I believe were out of the $2 boxes. First is a large 2017 Spectra jersey swatch of the previously seen Darboh, numbered /199. It's my 42nd hit of the former WR, and like Jeff I have a crazy number of his better cards, probably because we keep helping each other out with dupes (mostly Jeff!). Joining him was transfer RB Justin Fargas (whose USC Trojans are joining the Big Ten!) on a 2003 Bowman Signs of the Future auto. Although I could have sworn I already had something of him I was wrong so this is my first hit of Huggy Bear Jr. That makes him the 232nd member of my football hits collection, which is nearing the 1600-card milestone, by the way.

As usual you can expect to see some of what I picked up in some blogger trade recaps once I get them mailed out, and the rest is available here or on TCDB. Until next show, have a great July and stay cool!

11/6/21 card show report: a couple very good signs

Two constants of my last few show recaps were my disappointment in a lack of dime boxes to pick through and the fact that I didn't come home with as much fun stuff as I was able to earlier in the year. I'm happy to say both of those situations changed this past Saturday when I headed east to Taylor for a couple hours. That's right: I said Saturday, the same day as a Michigan Football game. But I was able to get over there because Michigan didn't face off with Indiana until 7:30. So I was able to enjoy the show and kill time before the game. Efficiency at its finest!

Anyway, I was exciting to find that the dime boxes were back! I want to say I went through something like six to eight of those super long three row boxes, and after plenty of time spent ignoring recent baseball and basketball garbage, I came up with 80 cards.

Next up I waded through the dollar boxes for the types of hits I love for myself and trade packages, and I grabbed 17 of them, figuring I'd be paying $25 and then getting out of there with a few interesting pieces but nothing great.

Then I took a look at the dude's showcases, which very occasionally have something I'm interested in. For instance, in the past I snagged what I think was a nice deal on a Dylan Larkin manuletter auto. I quickly found two big singles I hoped I could take home with me, and luck continued to be on my side as that's exactly what I did!

More on those at the end, but first up we've got the few trade bait cards I didn't pick up for anyone in particular:

These were all a buck along with others I picked up for some trade packages, and many had languished in the guy's $2 box for months. I thought I'd diversify a little with a basketball pair, plus Quentin's a numbered auto and face mask cards are cool (and that Burleson is numbered 213/350) on the back.

And now for my own pickups, mostly of the dime variety:

On a day where a lot of the talk is centered on MLB's award finalists, let's look at some dime box baseball! Avila was a fun Tigers catcher and a 2019 Chrome Refractor was an easy buy for a dime, even if he's pictured with Arizona. Cobb pops up in pretty much any modern set that includes retired players and legends, and 2018 Diamond Kings was no exception. Griffey continues his march toward 1000 cards with base from 2006 Upper Deck Artifacts and 2013 Panini USA Champions. Mr. Padre also gets a pair, from 1992 Score Procter & Gamble all the way up to 2021 Ginter. That brand popped up a couple more times for HOF shortstops in the form of Larkin and Ripken from the previous two years. And I'll happily pay ten cents for a new Sparky card such as his 1981 Topps team checklist.

An unlicensed trio closes out the baseball portion. Cal's second appearance is courtesy of the weird fun/plain combo done by '21 Donruss. I still like to collect the occasional Scherzer card, and a Detroit appearance such as 2014 Donruss Elite is a bonus. And I even added to my Verlander collection, of which I have too many, with his 2020 Donruss Optic base.

The basketball portion is comparatively tiny but it's still a good sign that I found any for myself at all. The THJ and Duncan Robinson you see above are Blue parallels from 20-21 Panini Select and they look quite nice in hand, better than they scan, and much lighter too.

On the football side we start with two dimes. Transfer TE and New England draftee Asiasi is a 2020 Panini Phoenix parallel and I believe I correctly IDed it as "Fire Burst" but could easily be proven wrong. And I even added a new RC to my collection of Butts--Jake Butts, that is. His 2017 Select first-year is #11 of 14 I'm chasing.

And then the last two cards you see of New Orleans C Cesar Ruiz were from the dollar box. Should I have paid a buck each for 2020 Donruss Optic Purple Shock and Green Velocity parallels of his rookie? Maybe not, but they're Michigan uni cards and I wasn't originally spending much anyway, plus they doubled the size of his PC.

So now chronologically we're at the point where I was looking intently at the baseball showcase when something caught my eye. Could it be?...

Yes indeed, a Jake Cronenworth autograph! It may be from Gypsy Queen instead of a brand I actually like, but it's a nice first signature (or hit of any kind) of one of my favorite young players and the best Michigan Baseball alum to come along recently. The should-have-been 2020 NL Rookie of the Year enjoyed a nice encore in his first full season, making the All-Star team thanks to 21 HR and ultimately a 4.8 bWAR for a talented young Padres team that underachieved in the end. He was a key part of the Slam Diego thing and also hit for the cycle back in July. I look forward to adding more of his hits to a PC I was working on before he was cool.

When I asked the guy how much he wanted for it, he responded "...for you...$20." I'd taken a quick look at eBay and they seemed to be going for more like $30. While that cost still felt like an overpay to me, my desire to own a Cronenworth auto plus wanting to keep the guy in business won out and I added it to my purchase. Then another card caught my eye:

I've made no secret that Cal's one of my favorite all-time players, both in terms of the game and player collections. His 1032 cards dwarf all comers if you needed any proof. I also love me some 90s but if you didn't know that you haven't read anything on this here blog, so welcome.

Anyway, Fleer's collaboration with Sports Illustrated produced some outstanding products in the late 90s, and one of the results was an insert set that reprinted some of the formerly respected publication's most iconic covers, including signed versions. Cal graced the cover on July 29, 1991, when he was more than halfway to his goal of besting Lou Gehrig's iron man streak while, as the front says, "...enjoying the best season if his illustrious career." Ball don't lie, and neither do the numbers: the AL MVP (for the second time) went off for a career bests of 11.5 bWAR, 34 bombs, 114 RBI, .940 OPS, 368 total bases, and, oh yeah, six steals!

So yeah, it's a beautiful card of a great SI cover, plus it includes an autograph of one of the greatest players I've been privileged to watch. And his signature is obviously one of the best out there as well. Oh, and it's numbered (by hand)? Yeah, gotta have it. How much? "Hmmm...for you...$40." Yep, sold! What's funny is these two late additions ran my total up to $84 and I literally had four each of $20s and $1 bills in my wallet. "Ah, you're fine," he said, clearly realizing I'll be back next month as a regular customer, which is worth more than making me put back one of the cheapo dollar hits.

So a warm welcome to my third card with a Ripken signature and first that doesn't include a relic or manufactured piece. It was great to pair with an up-and-coming infielder's first 'graph in my collection and an outstanding way to end the show on a high note before I returned home to watch Michigan handle Indiana.

While I'm looking forward to next month and the final show of the year (which may involve me getting a highly sought-after in-person signature), I've still got plenty to show off over here, including my latest eBay score plus more of the Facebook lot. Until then, may all of your shows be as fruitful as this one was for me!

6/4/21 card show report: That's Bait

As much fun as I had at last month's show where I made good use of my favorite seller's $1 box, my enjoyment and loot were both doubled yesterday. How do you top a take-home like that? Cut prices in half! All of his cards that were previously a buck were now $0.50, and friends, I went nuts. The box you see above is the haul I brought home: 124 $0.50 cards and 130 dimes ($75, for those of you that are as math-challenged as I am). A few of the dimes went towards my collections, I found a ton of great stuff for upcoming trade packages, and I landed a ridiculous amount of general trade bait figuring I'd either find takers here or throw them on TCDB. At those prices I was much less likely to toss something back in the boxes, though I did tend to ignore the minors/low-end college hits. I grabbed so many cards thinking "This is only $0.50?!"

So have a quick look at my personal dime pickups and then settle in for a trade baitapalooza!

Just a reminder: almost everything here cost me a dime. Gwynn's first card is from the pre-Chronicles/Optic combo product 1998 Donruss Collections and is a chromed-out version of his Leaf base from that year. Flagship Donruss, Elite, and Preferred could also be found in those packs. Speaking of Donruss, I also found Mr. Padre's base from last year's product, at least the one that uses his more common name instead of an "Anthony" variation.

My lone personal pickup from the $0.50 was the '96 Studio Bronze Press Proof of Cal, and I was pretty excited to nab that parallel, one of "just" 2000 copies made! The foil's a bit messed up on the back but that doesn't bother me as I'm a huge fan of that year's design, and the product in general. To that I added a 2019 A&G Ginter Greats insert and 2020 Donruss base (I already had the variation of this one) for a dime each.

I've mentioned him enough here for all of you to know that I love collecting HOF former Wolverine George Sisler, and I snagged the 1999 UD Century Legends card you see above out of the dime box because I wasn't sure if I had it. As it turns out I didn't because it's actually an NNO (no number on the back) version with a Washington logo on something that looks like a circular sticker where the number would be:

Finally, on the basketball front I couldn't ignore a new Jamal Crawford insert for a dime. It's from 2012-13 Panini Prestige's Bonus Shots Gold parallel set and is numbered /249, which coincidentally seems like the number of years he played in the league!

I had even better luck when it came to football dimes, especially on the rookie card front. Card #1 is my first of TE Devin Asiasi, who played one season in Ann Arbor and then transferred back home to UCLA. He joins C Cesar Ruiz (RC #2) and LB Josh Uche (also #2, plus a Michigan uni!) out of 2020 Donruss. I was also very happy to find my third first-year of CB Jourdan Lewis, this one out of 2017 Playoff.

On the insert side of things, I believe the two Thomas Rawls parallels were pretty close together, if not back-to-back. The first is a 2016 Panini Sacrifice Die-Cut and is numbered /199 up front (and, yes, die-cut) while the other is an unnumbered Blue Press Proof from the following year's Donruss. Speaking of transfers, he also departed the Wolverines for his senior season, going up to Central Michigan before appearing in parts of four NFL campaigns.

One of my favorite recent guys, Denard Robinson, overlapped with Rawls' college career for a pair of seasons, and there was no way I was going to ignore his 2016 Prestige Xtra Points Green parallel you see above, because chances are good that if I didn't need it, Jeff would.

And then we have two more items of star WRs bookending Uche's RC. First up is a sweet Amani Toomer that isn't an insert but might as well be with its stylin' foil at the bottom. That's his 1996 Press Pass Paydirt base. On the other side is even more gold, specifically a Gold Medallion parallel of former #1 Derrick Alexander's '95 Ultra 2nd Year Standouts. I already had the regular version of that so I'm glad to have finished off the pair.

That was a pretty nice take-home for me, but obviously I'm even more excited about the cards I've already sorted into piles for future trade packages, plus this bonanza that I'm geeked to offer today.

Briefly, if you see anything that interests you, please leave a comment here, shoot me an email, or hit me up on Twitter, then I'll see about working something out with you. I'm being up front in stating that these cost me $0.50, so it's not like I'm gonna ask an arm and a leg. If you're already a common trade partner of mine, I may already have a stack going for you and will be happy to add to it. If we haven't dealt before I'll probably want to come up with a deal with you first.

Also, if anyone needs details on one or more of these (e.g. name, team, serial numbering, etc.), please let me know!

Baseball and football dimes. I leaned towards numbered stuff and parallels since those tend to be good items to have for TCDB deals. I don't know why most of the baseball ones were Twins, but maybe a Minnesota collector will want them!

Vertical baseball autos, auto/relics, and relics. (The Inscribed Overbay is actually a $1 card from last time, but I figured I might as well include it here.) A bunch of these (and the rest that you'll see) are also numbered.

Horizontal baseball autos, auto/relic, and relics. Beltre and Johnson hits for $0.50? Sign me up!

I even grabbed a few basketball autos (and one relic) to diversify my portfolio, as it were!

It wasn't on purpose, but football definitely overtook baseball in volume. Here's all the vertical autos and relics. Again, lots of numbered stuff.

And lastly, here's the horizontal football autos and relics.

I'm hoping at least a few of these result in deals here but if not I'll eventually get them added to TCDB and see what I can get done over there.

Once again I had a blast at a show, my second in as many months since it became possible to get back to them, and I'm already excited about the next one!

I believe my next post will cover the Facebook purchase I've teased a few times now, so stay tuned for that. While you're waiting, let's get trading!

2021 trade package #15: Matt's Wonderful Blog Of Hobbies

In my last post I teased a trade package from a "reliable trade partner" and now you know exactly who I meant: Matt of Matt's Wonderful Blog of Hobbies! If the blog name sounds a bit unfamiliar to you that's because it had mostly been named "Sport Card Collectors" for a while. (Also, you probably know Matt's other project, Cards Over Coffee, especially if you follow him on Twitter.) I know a bit about changing up a title for various reasons, and in Matt's case I think it was part of a fairly comprehensive refresh of that blog, which is pretty cool.

Anyway, he'd recently lamented not having sent me anything yet this year in a comment on one of my posts, though I don't think he should feel particularly bad about that after the bonanza he sent me around Christmas! But either way, he managed to put together a brand new PWE for me that arrived just the other day, another Tigers/Wolverines special that hits the spot on this lovely mid-May evening:

Let's start with the Tigers, comprising three parallels and an insert. First up is Castellanos, who had a bit of at professional baseball-ruiner Rob Manfred's expense recently. It took me a bit to confirm it to be the Black Foil version of his 2019 Stadium Club issue, with the main difference between it and the base being, not surprisingly, the small amount of foil up front done in black. It's a typically nice Stadium Club look, though I'm not a huge fan of the font used for the player name. Compare that to the brand's Chrome version from last year and you'll see team/name design elements I like a bit more. Also, that happens to be an X-Fractor of C Jake Rogers, one of, I dunno, 10? backstops currently with the team. He called a nice game in a strong start by top prospect Casey Mize last night, and that connection may allow him to stick around even if his bat fails to develop.

Speaking of pitchers, moving down to the second row we go all the way back to 2014 with a Topps Chrome Gold Refractor of Anibal Sanchez (#36/50). After parts of seven seasons with the Marlins (including tossing a rookie-year no-hitter in '06) he came to Detroit and put up a pair of good-to-great seasons in 2013-14 before steadily declining. Here you can see him in gold, the color of the ring he earned with the Nats in the 2019 World Series. His former teammate from 2012-17 when they both left the club, Verlander, also knows something about no-hitters and World Series rings. But that was all in the future when his 2005 Topps Chrome auto was packed out. That 2021 Topps Through the Years insert, which is a card of a card, is not signed by JV, but I'm fortunate to have grabbed the pictured item for something like $20 years before its price exploded, and it's served as the background image for this here blog for a while, though you can't really see it since I widened most of the blog elements at some point. Trust me, it's back there! Here, it'll be easier to see this way:

Aaaahhhh, nothing like a real image instead of a mock-up to get the full effect.

Anyway, now we'll switch mascots over to the Wolverines for a pair of football cards. #1 is a Glossy parallel of former LB/DL Tim Jamison (UM 2005-08) out of 2009 SAGE HIT. I know the scan doesn't show it but this thing is super glossy, which is nice since sometimes that type of parallel can be questionable. Anyway, Jamison managed to appear in 56 career games for the Texans, which is not bad for an undrafted guy. A player with a bit better draft stock is OL Cesar Ruiz, a former top C recruit who put in three very good years for Michigan, pretty much living up to the hype. The Saints nabbed him 24th overall last year they seem to see him as a guard, which I'm sure he has the talent to play. Matt sent me my first card of his, a 2020 Donruss Optic RC that features the man in his college uni, which kicks all kinds of ass. According to my checklist I have another five first-years of his to track down, which isn't surprising since I haven't made much headway with the 2020 draft class yet. I hope to build on this initial card soon!

Just six cards to scan, plus a few of them needed images on TCDB, so here's the backs.

Matt, thanks for getting a new PWE out to me, not to mention one as exciting as this one! I have a few things set aside for you from the show I got to a few weeks ago and will be waiting until I get to one or both of the ones coming up over the next few weeks before sending them out to you, but I think you'll appreciate this fan of "go blue" sending you some "big blue".