2021 eBay purchases: Rich and Charlie's awesome Christmas

Yep, still lots to post, but today I'm going with the fewest cards instead of posting nothing! The two you see below should be my final eBay pickups of the year.

I had a good last couple months on the site, largely picking up some better stuff for Doug's Christmas package, and I also scored two pretty big cards for myself in November. Here they are:

Behind door #1 is Rich Hill's 2008 Bowman Chrome Yellow Plate. I'd go so far as to refer to it as "maize" in recognition of his Wolverines career, though of course the border's more of a highlighter  hue than the classic UM color. My latest Hill 1/1 (I believe I'm at around 30 when including my unidentified 2008 Triple Threads White Whales) set me back around $15 in early November thanks to a late bidding war, but I refused to be denied considering my spending was so responsible this year. It'll make a nice addition to the '08 Bowman/Chrome rainbow I've already put together:

I already had one plate to include in the bunch, the Bowman Cyan (not exactly a Michigan blue either!) you see at the very end, and now I can add a Chrome plate to that as well. As usual the Chrome plate's image is reversed due to that set's printing process so you get a rare look at old Dick Mountain as a righty!

I'm closing in on 150 hits of the southpaw who's making yet another return to Boston, and I hope to maintain my self-assigned rep as Hill's #1 collector with more scores like this in 2022!

As usual if I'm starting off with a plate or other 1/1 I have something even bigger to show off and that's true here! I occasionally search eBay for Charlie Gehringer autographs to add to my collection after having had lots of success doing so in the past, and often I try to find those made by Upper Deck brands because they feature nice designs. Cut autographs necessarily have less room for design elements like photos, but I still opt for those when I can.

In this case I happily made an exception, and even went away from the UD brands to go with a Topps Co-Signers card from way back in 2006. The fact that it paired up the Mechanical Man with my first autograph of fellow Tigers star Harvey Kuenn was enough argument for me! The roughly $50 total cost, very reasonable in my opinion, was also a factor.

Though their careers didn't overlap--Charlie was in Detroit between 1924-42 while Harvey spent his first eight MLB seasons in Motown from 1952-59) they're both well-known Tigers from before the 60s. Kuenn was the '53 AL ROY and went to All-Star Games in eight straight seasons (two each in '59 and '60, the latter in his first season with the Giants) and played his best ball here, though the team failed to make it to the postseason during his Tigers tenure.

Other than lacking images of both players this is an excellent cut design. Both players' cut pieces--a Kuenn check and the usual Gehringer HOF plaque postcard--fit well in the windows set up for them and the signatures aren't cut off like you often see these days. The biggest flaw here, and no surprise from Topps, is that Harvey's last name is spelled "Kuehn" on both the front and back for some reason. QA's never been Topps' strong suit, though, so I'll give them points for getting this mostly right.

And anyway I'm thrilled to add not just my first signature of Kuenn, but also my 10th of one of Michigan's (state and school!) and Detroit's all-time greats, Charlie Gehringer. I think it's worth another look at all of them here:

That may be it for my eBay spending in 2021 but I still have lots to show you: three blogger trades, one TCDB deal, the results of the show earlier this month, and then possibly a show this weekend as well! Until then, stay warm and dry and enjoy the holiday season!

3/7/20 show report: pre-corona bonanza

I'm gonna try to keep cranking out posts to catch up on the piles of cards sitting on my desk.  But first, today I'm giving a shout out to Jay who blogs over at Card Hemorrhage.  Jay's back in the hobby and PCing some Giants of the San Fran variety, and since he was nice enough to contact me (among others, I'm sure!) and mention that he's following, I thought giving him some free pub would be fair.  Welcome, Card Hemorrhage!

And for today's content we'll go way back to earlier this month when things were much, much different.  I headed east to Taylor on the first Saturday of March looking forward to another afternoon of poring over boxes, and that's exactly what I got.  My usual guy got $50 of my money, broken down into $40 of dimes, quarters, $0.50, $1, and $2 cards, plus one "bigger" card.  I also returned to the vintage guy whose tables are behind that one and took advantage of his $1 and 8/$20 deals to the tune of $25.  As usual I was happy with the results:

I believe I found the Kinsler Triple Threads base in a dime box and I was happy to add it to a collection I still enjoy even though Ian has since left the team and retired.  Griffey makes just one appearance today in 90s insert format.  Meanwhile Mr. Padre gets three, including the multi-product 2K insert offering, a Plum Border Diamond Kings card, and yet another Topps reprint.  Two new Larkins made it into my box, one being a Museum Collection base that's growing on me a bit in the face of the all-over-the-place Inception.  And the one vintage item I kept for myself is a new Willie Horton base from '66 Topps.  I've come to appreciate Horton more as I've gotten older so I'm unofficially working on tracking down at least all of his playing days cards, such like this subset issue that notes he was second in the AL in RBI in '65; He held the same position in HR as well that year.

I had another good day of digging out some Maddux cards, that's for sure!  The first is a '93 Stadium Club Master Photo Winner redemption card, which is a cool piece to have even before considering I previously picked up an actual Master Photo to go with it.  '96 Topps Chrome's Masters of the Game insert takes me back to that brand's debut and a nice insert design.  Speaking of that quality, recent Gallery and Museum (again) looks, plus a Panini Leather & Lumber insert, also look great.  Cal tags along as the second '95 Ultra All-Star, plus I added a relatively plain Optic insert.

JV gets his own scan with four Topps branded products.  2010's National Chicle is a solid art set compared to some recent efforts, plus it's always nice to add stuff of his from earlier in his career.  Museum Collection--one more time--and last year's Archives are also eye-pleasing, while Bowman Platinum has the shiny part down but doesn't do much for me otherwise.  Still, I wasn't gonna turn it down for a dime!

That "big" card I mentioned earlier is this 2015 Leaf cut auto of one of my favorites to don the block "M" and olde English "D", Charlie Gehringer.  I know people's opinions of the brand and this kind of autograph aren't generally high, and in some respects I agree with them.  But maybe their thoughts will change a bit when they find out I was able to tack this on to my purchase for a measly $10.  I'll take a HOF cut sig for that price any day, and that's exactly what I did, making this Mechanical Man auto #9 for me!

Naturally I worked on taking home a bit of football content as well.  Former #1 recruit Rashan Gary gets another RC added to his collection in the form of his 2019 Panini Illusions card, one I think looks pretty good--at least as much as one can when it doesn't offer a college photo!  The next four are recent inserts I was glad to see.  Two of those star stud Eagles DE Brandon Graham, and they're the Jumbo versions of the Artist's Proof and Gold Zone parallels, set apart by their numbering.  RB Karan Higdon's card is a Mirror Silver parallel of his 2019 Certified RC, based on the numbering /299, 100 copies rarer than the first-year version.  And sticking with RC parallels, CB David Long's 2019 Panini Phoenix card you see above is a Purple version /149.  To that I added a signature from Panini Unparalleled's Rookie Autographs Cosmos set for my second such card of the former Wolverine.

Although shows appear to be out of the question for quite some time now, I'm glad this post allowed me to enjoy the one I attended earlier this month.  And looking on the bright side, I can use the money I would have spent in the next few months on future shows or other sources!

But first there's still plenty to catch up on, and I'll do my best to be diligent about posting so I can keep getting stuff put away.  Thanks for reading and please keep social distancing!

I do take requests

...especially when it means less work for me!  I didn't feel like doing the work of putting up a post today, but then Kin of I Feel Like a Collector Again left a comment on my post from yesterday that he wanted to see all eight of my Charlie Gehringer cut autos at once.  Well, Mr. K., that sounds like an easy enough request to fulfill!

For your enjoyment (and anybody else who happens to be reading this), here they are in their scanned and enlarged glory:

2005 SP Legendary Cuts Autograph Cuts (#76/97)

2006 Exquisite Collection Cuts (#06/65)

2006 SP Legendary Cuts A Place in History Cuts (#23/57)

2006 SP Legendary Cuts Legendary Signature Cuts (#67/76)

2006 SP Legendary Cuts When It Was A Game Cuts (#18/64)

2007 SP Legendary Cuts Enshrinement Cuts (#03/65)

2007 SP Legendary Cuts Inside the Numbers Cuts (#52/60)

2011 Donruss Limited Cuts 2 (#25/49)

Thanks for reading and for your comment, Kin!  Readers, please show him some love by heading over to I Feel Like a Collector Again now (or maybe again, if you just came from there.  Even if you already did, go there again.  Now.)

2017 eBay purchases: high-end eBay time (or, Bringing the HEET)

Now that I'm finally getting caught up on some of my 2017 trade packages, I feel like it's about time that I showed off my eBay purchases for the first two months of this year.

I've spent about $115 over seven total purchases, with the spoils of two of those available over on TMM this evening.

As for what you'll see right here, well, I just hope you're a fan of high-end stuff!  In order of "better" to "best", here's five great cards I bought in January and February:

Rich Hill 2016 Topps Mini Blue (#07/10)

One of my two February purchases, this rare mini of Hill set me back about $7.50, which I believe was not much more than the opening bid plush shipping.  You really can't know what to expect with the prices on these low-numbered parallels, especially when sellers go the BIN route with higher starting prices.  In my case I lucked out and landed my seventh card for Hill's 2016 rainbow, giving me 258 of the 374 cards I have on his checklist, not to mention 275 total.  300 here I come!

Jason Christian 2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects Printing Plate Magenta (1/1)

You had to know that when I started with a card limited to 10 copies as my "worst" pickup, things were about to get interesting.  I see I haven't used a tag for Christian's name over here, so I'll just briefly mention that he's another Michigan Baseball PC guy so you're not wondering why I collect cards of a player that's been out of pro baseball since 2013.

This plate, with its reversed image as it was used to make a Chrome card, was my very first purchase of 2017 back on January 2, and I was glad to land it for under $9 shipped.  It's actually my fourth 1/1 (out of 11 I know of) of Christian, and I also have the Black plate and SuperFractor from this set, so I really am a supercollector of his!

J.J. Putz 2009 Topps Printing Plate Yellow (1/1)

And another plate!  I put Putz here since I'm sure many more of you are aware of his career.  The former Michigan pitcher had a few nice seasons as the closer for Seattle and Arizona, though he's seen here as a member of the Mets, the club he pitched for in 2009 after being traded the previous offseason.  He was in New York for just one season but apparently that was long enough for the Mets to be his team on his Series II card, and therefore this yellow plate, which cost me a bit under $10.  It's my seventh such 1/1 of the Trenton, Michigan native and 19th total hit, putting me near a fun little milestone.

Since some of you may not read my TMM post, I'll just mention that with the two plates above and another over there, my Printing Plates and 1/1s collection now stands at a crazy 67 cards!

So those three are pretty nice, but what could be better than a card #d /10 and two 1/1s?  How about not one, but TWO new HOF cuts?:

Charlie Gehringer 2006 SP Legendary Cuts A Place in History Cuts auto (#23/57)

Charlie Gehringer 2007 SP Legendary Cuts Enshrinement Cuts auto (#03/65)

The last couple months I've been tracking down cut signatures of the Mechanical Man with mechanical efficiency, and these two Gehringers are the fruits of my labor.  Would you believe I now have eight different cuts of the HOF 2B for the Tigers?  I know I hardly can.

Up top is my third cut from Upper Deck's 2006 SP Legendary Cuts product (the other two hail from the Legendary Signatures Cuts and When It Was a Game Cuts sets), and this design is immediately one of my favorites because of the fun top half.  As you can see, both cuts come from index cards, so it's important for the top half design to add to the signature and enhance the card, and I feel UD did a bang-up job here with the certificate motif, old-school typewriter font, and inset photo.  For my money, a cut signature's not at its best without a player photo of some sort.

Meanwhile, the other card from the same product is my second from the 2007 set (with the other being an Inside the Numbers Cuts version).  This one looks amazing as well but it's not as easy to tell in a scan because of how reflective the foil is.  This one uses the same photo as the other 2007 card I have but this time places it inside a crest-like shape with a solid dark blue background.  That top half is embellished with some gold foil banners and other decorations, and I like how all of that encroaches on the cut's half a bit to make them feel more connected.

I'd also like to reiterate that Gehringer had a beautiful signature that was mechanically (see what I did there?) consistent, making it even more worth putting the time and money into collecting them.  In terms of the latter consideration, I continue to be surprised at the reasonable prices since I paid about $24 and $39 respectively.

It'll certainly be a challenge to top this bunch of cards in the coming months but I'll happily try to bring you more high-end pickups!

2016 eBay purchases: New Year's Eve with Chas and Steve

This post marks my final 2016 purchases (except for my Black Friday COMC haul), so between that and covering the final trade post from last year, I'm pretty much caught up on 2016.  Not bad!

Chas and Steve are a couple guys I believe many of you know, and while I didn't spend my New Year's Eve with them, these eBay cards made it to my mailbox before the evening of the 31st, so my rhyming title works.

First up is my second autograph of former Dodgers/Yankees RP Steve Howe.  This is his Silver auto from the excellent 1996 Leaf Signature auto-per-pack product, and it matches up with the Bronze version I nabbed back in October.  That one cost me just $3, and I was reasonably happy to pay $7 for this rarer version that leaves me just a Gold shy of the trio, and two cards from sewing up Howe's run of 81 cards (with a '94 Stadium Club Team First Day Issue being the other I'm in search of).  For all his faults, Steve had a pretty nice signature, and it looks great on this iconic design.

Of course, I was a bit more excited to add this guy to my PC.  Gehringer is an extra fun player for me to collect since he played baseball both at Michigan and for the Tigers.  Plus, he was, you know, a really, really, really good player.  So I've really enjoyed adding some cut autos to my minuscule Gehringer PC, and now a crazy six of the 30 cards I've accumulated of the Mechanical Man are that exact kind of card!

The sixth is this gorgeous When It Was a Game Cuts card from 2006 SP Legendary Cuts, an UD product that's been a huge factor in bringing affordable HOF cuts to collectors; As a matter of fact, this one set me back just a bit more than $40 delivered, and I'll take that deal anytime.  Upper Deck's typically strong design comes into play here, combining another beautiful Gehringer signature, apparently from an index card, with a classy look that includes a player photo--always a plus when it comes to these cards, in my opinion.  This is my fourth from that brand, and fifth from UD out of the six overall.

Thanks to Chas and Steve for a rockin' New Year's Eve!

2016 eBay purchase: Charlie ain't home

It's been a slow couple months for me purchase-wise for a number of reasons--COMC isn't featuring any big sales, eBay has been a bit quiet in terms of my PCs, and I missed a few shows for other obligations.  Then I tried to go to the usual show on Sunday and it was so dead there that I don't think I'll be going for quite a while, but hope to find another to take its place.

However, I did make a pair of eBay buys, one each in August and September, that made for some nice high-end additions to a couple player collections.  Both are Michigan guys, but one of them fits well right here, and you'll get to see him in just a minute.  The other is Rich Hill, whom I'm excited to watch in the playoffs for the first time, even if it's with the Dodgers.  Go check him out over on TMM this evening if that interests you at all.

And now, on to today's card!

Charlie Gehringer 2006 Exquisite Collection Cuts auto (#06/65)

I said high-end, didn't I?  This sweet Charlie Gehringer cut auto is my fifth such card of the Mechanical Man, and fourth from an Upper Deck brand.  While the '05 Legendary Cuts card remains my favorite, I'm very happy with this entry from the following year's Exquisite Collection product.  As I've said before, I prefer these cuts to have an image of the player if possible, and that's something UD has been able to do on all four of those.

The cut obviously comes from a Hall of Fame postcard, and I'm sure I have Charlie's around somewhere as I purchased the set around 15 years ago (which means I have some catching up to do!), so maybe I'll post that sometime.  In this case the cut portion wasn't large enough to take up the half of the card used to hold it, but overall I still give the design a thumbs up.  Interestingly enough I have one other cut auto with a postcard signature like this one, and that's the Panini Limited Cuts version in the group.

Now that I'm up to five cut signatures of Gehringer here's a look at the quintet:

And now, the beautiful and extremely talented ZZ Ward, the inspiration of this post's title, will send us off with a song:

2016 eBay purchase: Michigan's Mechanical Man

Since I haven't posted much this week (or recently, in general!) let's pretend it's still Hall of Fame weekend because I have a pair of HOF cards to show off to y'all today.

My relative drop in number of purchases and overall spending has allowed me to up the ante on some of the purchases I do make, and therefore I've given myself a bit more leeway when looking at singles on eBay.  This month that led me to a fun pair of high-end additions of a couple of my favorite players.

Since I've posted even less on TMM than here recently I decided to show off one card on each blog.  As it turns out, both guys are Michigan Baseball-related while also fitting in well over here, so in a way I could have just flipped a coin to divvy them up.  But once you see the other card you'll understand why it's featured on TMM tonight.

Ok, on to this post's card:

Charlie Gehringer 2011 Donruss Limited Cuts 2 cut auto (#25/49)

Hey hey, it's former Tiger Charlie "the Mechanical Man" Gehringer!  And he's back in cut auto form!  Believe it or not, this is now my fourth auto (all cut-style, natch) of the HOF 2B after adding one last February and two more this past January.  Considering how crazy prices of cut signatures, especially deceased stars, can go, I'm proud to have this many of one of Detroit's all-time greats.

This one from Panini's 2011 Donruss Limited Cuts product differs from the other three--all of which are from UD's SP Legendary Cuts product--by lacking a photo of the player, which is usually a nice feature to have.  Since Panini couldn't use MLB logos, though, I suppose it's not a huge loss.  That's a minor part of the card compared to the excellent signature here, cut from a signed Hall of Fame postcard.  The hand-numbered cut is encased in a one-touch holder sealed with a Panini sticker, which is kind of a nice touch.

As you might imagine, cards from this Panini product aren't as highly sought after as others that are higher-end, licensed, and/or more scarce.  That allowed me to grab this copy as a relative bargain of a BIN for a bit more than $22, a price that easily fit my budget, especially for such a significant signature.

I'll continue trying to add more of Gehringer's autograph to my collection, whether it's a super-rare cut or something more affordable like this one, and I look forward to showing off more.

Please don't forget to head over to TMM this evening to check out my other significant HOF auto acquisition as it's a player I know at least a few of you collect!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015 eBay purchase: JV and Charlie

After slogging through a very quiet January in terms of spending I upped my game quite a bit this month with purchases from COMC, eBay, JustCommons, and Sportlots (plus a show), so as it turned out it was very useful having that extra money in the budget.  I was goofing around on eBay one day about a week ago and found a BIN that I knew I was gonna grab.  Before long I was checking out the seller's other stuff for combined shipping (the best invention since blue painter's tape!) and caught another nice card available via BIN.

Ok, that's enough introduction, let's get to the cards:

Justin Verlander 2007 SPx Young Stars Signatures auto

Believe it or not, I'm leading off with this as it's the lesser card of the two!  For about $25--which seems to be roughly the going rate based on a very small sample size--I picked up what becomes my third Justin Verlander autograph ('05 Topps Chrome and '07 UD Black),  It may be a stickergraph but that's actually not terribly noticeable here on a lovely horizontal design with a great pitching action photo.  

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic thinking he could return to something close to his Cy Young form of a few years ago, but I still feel like this is a good time to pick up something like this just in case.  Even if he returns with a subpar year, surprises like another no-hitter or stellar playoff performance could change card values again quickly!  Hell, even if it goes down I'm thrilled to have another signature from my favorite all-time Tigers pitcher.

So really, what could be better than a shiny new autograph of the player after which this blog was named (eventually)?  Try this on for size:

Charlie Gehringer 2007 SP Legendary Cuts Inside the Numbers Cuts auto (#52/60)

Now this, this is the card I grabbed initially; I'd been searching high and low for a Gehringer cut auto that met two requirements:  reasonable price and good-looking.  To this point I had yet to find something that satisfied both, not that HOF cut autos and low prices tend to go hand-in-hand.  I'm more than just satisfied with this one, though, because the cut signature looks great and I'm happy with the design, one that actually includes an image of the player (such a novel concept these days).  I do have one other cut auto in the form of this George Kell, but this one immediately becomes my favorite because of the design plus the fact that old Charlie is a PC double-dipper:  a Michigan Baseball alum who played for the Tigers!

Needless to say I've since cut down on my spending for the rest of the month, but it's pretty obvious that what money I did spend was put to very good use, with another nice autograph of one of my favorite modern players to go along with a sterling cut auto of a HOFer that hits multiple collections.

And now you should stay tuned for a bevy (yes, a bevy) of trade packages as soon as I can get them scanned and ready.