Lots of stuff going on this weekend! First up today, I headed down to the Michigan football garage sale with Dustin (who brought a couple cards you'll see below). Intending to buy some football stuff, I actually only ended up with a 2007 Rose Bowl program for $5 (yeah, I know we lost, but it has a ton of great former Wolverines in it) in that sport. However, I was luckier in terms of baseball stuff, as you'll see below.
We also met up with Jeff of My Sports Obsession, who drove up with his family for this event and the fan day event as well (which you'll also get to see below--starting to see a trend?) and he brought some stuff so we could do a little in-person trading.
About the only unrelated part of the weekend--but not really because trading was involved--was a great trade package I got from Ted of Crinkly Wrappers (see: below). Let's knock these out one at a time:
Garage sale and fan day:
I'll start with the more disappointing part of the afternoon: fan day. This was supposed to be a free autograph session where you could meet the various position groups and get free signatures (and maybe pictures), one per person. Despite that limitation, and despite getting there almost two hours before the start of the event (AND despite Jeff and his family giving me cuts), I came away with nothing due to organizational incompetence. From the sounds of things, this is the first year in a while things were this bad, and they seem to owe mostly to Denard Robinson's presence, plus construction-type stuff. Still, it was pretty sad, and by the time I tried hitting up other lines or even just getting down onto the field, it was too late. I at least took it like a man, though--you should have seen grown men bitching and using every excuse in the book while bemoaning missing out on FREE autographs. I'm not happy with how things went, but you won't see me crying about it--there's always next year.
The upside (besides hanging out with Jeff's hilarious family for a few hours, including his daughter who wanted a sharpie to scribble out the Notre Dame players on her magazine) is that I got a few fun photos:
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| Here's the Denard line, which gives you an idea of why we never made it--people were about 8-10 across on the stairs and I think he was allowing photos, plus he left about 15 minutes early. |
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| Here's the back of one of the scoreboards, both of which are getting upgraded |
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| This is what the line looked like outside the gates (and stretching around into the parking lot) about an hour before the session started. |
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| A view of a new scoreboard from the bleachers |
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| And the other one, across the stadium |
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| Fans enjoying themselves on the field. Coach Hoke was signing in the lower right corner there, but there was no way in hell I'd be able to get him today |
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| Another view of the field |
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| ...and one more, just because |
So, yeah, disappointing, but at least earlier in the morning I had better luck at the garage sale. I was planning on nabbing a practice/game-worn jersey, football or something else, but most of the good stuff was gone by the time we got there. Not so in terms of the baseball stuff, though! Dustin grabbed a jersey for himself, and I couldn't help but grab three different versions because they looked great (and at $20 were cheaper than store-bought stuff!). Here they are before I wash them and try to get them in slightly better shape before I wear them
...and Dustin brought some cards:
Dustin and I see each other on campus often enough to trade quite a bit, so we're always flipping stuff back and forth. Today he brought me a couple sweet additions to my PCs:
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| A very Sparkly J.J. Putz |
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| Sweet! A new Ripken, and it's a mini with a great shot of him in action at SS |
How could I say no to two awesome cards like that?
...then Jeff brought stuff today too:
I managed to track down Jeff at the garage sale and we arranged a bit of a swap. Here's a look at some of the stuff I got from him:
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| A brand new Super Mario, this one hailing from 2008 Absolute Memorabilia. This was the highlight of the deal for me, but I got other nice stuff as well. |
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| Autographs of a couple erstwhile Tigers. I may include these in my Tigers PC or I may flip them to another Detroit collector, we'll see |
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| A few new Wolverines, a new Griffey, A 2011 Topps Gwynn reprint, a new Hill, a full-size Ripken to go along with the Mini Dustin gave me, and a couple George Sislers, including another Mini |
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| This Gwynn is from an oddball set called Topps Heads UP! baseball stars. It has a suction cup in the back so you can stick it wherever. I may put it on my screen door on Halloween to scare the kiddies. This is worth it for the 'stache/mullet-ish thing alone! |
I'm sure Jeff and I will be trading again in the future, but as always it was great to meet a fellow blogger and trader in person, especially one who's such a big Michigan fan. Bo bless you for spreading the Maize and Blue word in enemy land to the heathens of Notre Dame, good sir.
...and finally, cards from someone I didn't meet this weekend:
Ted and I had a trade on the backburner for a while, which worked out well for me because I had time to sort through everything and pull all my Blue Jays I no longer wanted. I sent those his way, and this weekend I also got my stuff from him: We'll start here with a bunch of great looking Verlanders and Grandersons. I think the Turkey Red Granderson is my favorite of the group, it's just an outstanding looking card.
Next up were some Wolverines and set wantlist cards. I highlighted these two because Richard is also a former Wolverine, and the Blue Jays are obviously Ted's team. In all, he helped me with seven different sets.
Finally, more Tigers: vintage Tigers, old Tigers on vintage-looking cards, current Tigers on vintage-looking cards, perfect Tigers, die-cut Tigers, gold Titers, former Tigers, rookie Tigers and brand-new Topps set Tigers.
Big thanks to Ted and I look forward to trading with him again.
I believe between this post and my card show recap yesterday I was able to cover everything that happened during this action-packed weekend. Look for more Blowout buy content this week!
