2020 eBay purchase: Many "M" Minis

Today's post is a quick recap of yet another purchase from my favorite eBay seller, markaguirre22. Among his auctions he tends to list stuff that must have been part of a pretty nice Michigan PC, and those usually start at $1. Also he offers free shipping on everything, which is super rare these days.

This time I kept an eye on four numbered cards that I secured for $1 each plus tax, though my total was less than $4 thanks to eBay bucks. Once again I was quite happy with my haul, which he even shipped in a bubble mailer despite shipping being gratis:

The first four cards you see here are the ones I bought, plus, as has happened before, the seller threw in a nice extra he knew I'd like. The third mini you see of tackling machine David Harris was a bit smaller than the rest so I set it aside, and it happens to be the oldest as it's from 2010 Topps Magic. That product included three small parallels: Mini, Mini Black, and the numbered Mini Pigskin 50, which is what you see above.

The rest of the cards hail from Topps' 2013 Mini product where all of the cards, including base, were printed with smaller dimensions. Harris joins blog favorite PC guy Chad Henne and former blog namesake Mario Manningham (the throw-in card!) out of the Gold parallel, where the cards were numbered /58.

Speaking of Henne and Super Mario, yesterday was the 15th anniversary of one of the best moments in the history of the Big House:

4th down ✅

:01 ✅

Trailing by 4 ✅#OTD 1⃣5⃣ years ago, Chad Henne found Mario Manningham as time expired to lift @UMichFootball past PSU. pic.twitter.com/a9YqPPROT6

— Michigan On BTN (@MichiganOnBTN) October 15, 2020

That clip still gets me every time I watch it. Anyway, all those at $1 apiece (plus the free Manningham) were already a nice deal, but then we get to the card I was surprised didn't get a second bid: Harris's Black parallel. While cards numbered /58 don't feel extremely rare these days, ones that had only five copies made certainly do! As the legendary clip says,

via GIPHY

That was easily less than $4 well spent. I now count 92 cards of Harris, 308 of Henne, and 221 of Manningham in their respective PCs.

And of course he's the backs for the sake of completeness.

This was another purchase post but coming up next I should have a brand new trade package to show off.

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!

11/1/19 card show report: keepin' it real (cheap)

I once again took a Friday off yesterday with the express purpose of getting over to the monthly show in Taylor as I would be home today on a Michigan Football Saturday.  Speaking of the Wolverines, they looked just fine while thumping Maryland 38-7, and now they get to head into a bye before welcoming the Michigan State Penitentiary Spartans.  I don't know what I'll do during the bye but I'll figure it out.

As for the show, it was one of those where I didn't spend a whole lot or come home with much as the kind of stuff I generally like was few and far between.  But that's fine since I like hanging out there and digging through bunches of boxes for hidden gems.

The $15 I spent can be broken down as follows:  40 dime cards at 20/$1; 30 quarter cards at five/$1; eight $0.50 cards; and three $1 cards.  Most of those will be heading for trade packages, but I have a small group of fun stuff to show off:

We'll start as usual with the baseball side.  I was pretty happy with this trio of Tony Gwynns, all of which were $0.50 or under, I think.  #1 is a '95 Zenith All Star Salute insert, which lists him as "All-Star Hit Man" on the bottom of the difficult-to-read scan.  An apt title, Panini!  Upping the ante and bringing out my beloved "90s inserts rule" tag is 1996 Upper Deck Hot Commodities.  While the '97 version looked kind of cool, the orange foil die-cut original from a year earlier can't be beat!  Last up is the second year of Topps Chrome, 1997, which parallels one of my all-time favorite Topps designs, though I appear to be in the minority on that.

Next up is a duo of Barry Larkins:  his '92 Bowman foil base card, on which he's defying gravity while turning a twin killing against the Cubs, and a 2011 Gypsy Queen Framed Paper parallel (#234/999).  I have no idea why this version was called "paper" so I'll just chalk it up to Topps' goofiness.

Greg Maddux keeps the insert-heavy theme going with 2001 Ultra Decade of Dominance and a 2013 Hometown Heroes States parallel.  Greg's dominant decade included four straight Cy Young awards and a World Series ring in '95.  He was actually born in Texas but the Hometown Heroes product doesn't interpret the term literally.

Last up is an interesting pair.  One is a Pudge insert from 1997 UD called Rock Solid Foundation that I remember quite well.  The rainbow foil design looks great and between that and the fact that Rodriguez is a HOFer and former Tiger, I happily grabbed this card.  And then we have the one $1 card I kept for myself--an IP auto of former Michigan P and PC guy Heath Murray on his '97 Topps issue.  What was I gonna do, spend just $14 and leave this one at the show?  No way!

The football side of things was also largely a celebration of all things inserts.  Harbaugh is the only exception--as shiny as that pair is, they're actually a different version of '96 Summit called Premium Stock, which is a bit thicker than the regular set and featuring foilboard fronts.  Funchess's appropriately colored parallel is a 2018 Donruss Blue Press Proof.  While I tend to prefer that insert to be numbered, I think this one was only a dime or quarter, and the color's certainly a plus.  Navarre, a guy I don't add too often since he's either hard to find or prices are too high, can be seen on a Rookie Gold version of UD's goofy 2004 Diamond Prosigs set (#004/249).  Denard is much more common around here, and there he is on a 2013 Prestige Prestigious Picks Gold insert, which is apparently named for the foil color of the insert title since the background is silver.

Switching over to the horizontals we have two more numbered cards.  One of those is tackling machine David Harris, who shares a 2007 Playoff Contenders Draft Class insert (#0144/1000) with fellow '07 pick Darrelle Revis.  That's quite a productive pair!  By the way, here's a reminder that outstanding Wolverines LaMarr Woodley and Harris went back-to-back in the second round three picks after the Lions opted for MSU QB Drew Stanton.  This is why you suck, Lions.  Speaking of QB busts, million dollar arm/ten cent head signal-caller Ryan Mallett popped up on a 2011 Absolute Memorabilia War Room insert, and I'll be fine continuing to add stuff of the transfer as long as he's pictured in a pro uni--e.g., nothing with Arkansas.  He's joined by a fellow transfer, RB Jon Ritchie, who's today's last card:  a 2001 Ultra Gold Medallion (#131/250).  I was surprised because I didn't recall that parallel being numbered.

That's it for this month's usual show, though there's a small chance I may hit up one more before my attention turns to COMC around Black Friday/Cyber Monday.  Until then it'll be back to the well with Sportlots until I get all of those posted.

2019 COMC purchases: preposterous PC pickups

I'm back this evening to end this latest COMC series, which is good since it won't be long until Black Friday/Cyber Monday time when I'll be loading up once again.

Today's the big finish for this haul, with cards scanned in groups because I originally planned to split them up into smaller posts before realizing that would just drag things out unnecessarily.  On a day that mark's the birth of one of college's top 10 players of all time, Charles Woodson (who's not included in this post) let's have a look at the remaining Michigan Football hits:

Scans 1 and 2 include WRs and RBs, with this one covering the verticals.  Outspoken wideout and guy who can't keep his foot out of his mouth Braylon Edwards gets three new jersey relics added to his total (now 85, good for third place), including a multi-color swatch from 2010 Epix.  

You'll see A-Train again in a minute (with his partner in crime), but for now have a look at a simple jersey card from 2002 Pacific.  

And another wideout also gets one of multiple appearances in Marquise Walker, who shares a 2002 Playoff Honors card with Bucs RB Travis Stephens, a guy that outshone Walker by catching his only pass in one NFL game.

And now for the horizontals.  Sure-handed receiver Jason Avant leads things off with a simple jersey from 2006 that I would have sworn I had if I hadn't checked.  Nope, it's new to me and it's hit #60 in his collection, one of a few fun milestones today.  Also, you can ignore the Chris Perry jersey, which looks great and would be nicer if I didn't already own it.  Oh well, trade bait!

Next is 2001 Bears duo David Terrell plus Thomas again, each on 2001 Playoff Honors jersey RCs numbered /725.  A-Train goes for a third score, as he often did, with a 2002 Gridiron Kings Gridiron Cut Collection ball relic (#317/550) on one of that brand's many cool designs.  Terrell now sits at 44 hits and 148 overall cards while Thomas pulls away a bit at 53 and 150.  Milestone #2!

Last up in this bunch is jersey this time of Walker, hailing from 2002 Leaf Rookies & Stars.  Again, we've got a simple design but a nice, bold jersey swatch, and you know I pick these up super cheap; I pretty much aim for $1.50 and under when it comes to "game-used" stuff.  The guy who wore #4 gets his 24th hit out of 63 overall cards.

Now we'll shift gears a bit with a scan that covers defense and QBs.  I rarely get enough of the D side of the ball to justify its own post anyway so I have to group them in somewhere!  As far as those go, we'll start with Leon Hall on an acetate auto out of 2007 Upper Deck Trilogy (#40/99).  This is one of those cards that's difficult to scan so if I didn't point out that it's clear you wouldn't know.  An autographed parallel of his RC from the product, it gets me to 39 Halls.

Joining him on defense is tackling machine David Harris.  We just saw the star LB in the inserts post, and how he's back with relics designed in both orientations.  Up top is a shiny 2012 Limited Threads jersey (#92/99) while a 2010 Topps Peak Performance Relic sits in the bottom-right corner.  Autographs are always better but I take what I can get with defensive players, and I'm happy to move up to a solid 31 hits (84 cards overall) of the former Jet/Patriot.

Though he played RB late in his college career and during his short NFL tenure, I still count Denard Robinson as a QB, so here he is.  Above you can see a pair of 2013 Absolute Rookie Premiere relics I scored featuring Shoelace, with one being the Oversize Jersey Number variant (#57/99) and the other spelling out "NFL" (#68/99). I now count 44 hits in my Denard collection, and a milestone-worthy 101 overall cards thanks to this pair!

Moving on to a guy who enjoyed a longer NFL tenure, you can see three horizontal Brian Griese relics along the right side of the scan.  All of them hail from Fleer brands:  2001 E-X and Ultra and 2002 Ultra.  Griese's relics that I find tend toward basic designs since he wasn't a big factor when those cards got a bit more interesting.  He's still a pretty big deal in my collection, though, at 23 hits and an almost-milestone 198 overall items.

The last two scans fall into the category of "the great 2008s," my favorite Michigan draft class, rivaled only by the guys chosen a year earlier.  I couldn't tell you which scan I prefer because both are amazing, and anyway, I don't have to!

Starting us off is a new 2008 SP Threads manu-letter auto of WR Adrian Arrington.  I haven't been able to complete his base set, last name nameplate yet as I'm short three of the nine cards, but I now have my second letter from the College Autographs version, which--get this--spells out the college's name.  I can add this "N" to an "I" I'd previously scored, putting me a quarter of the way toward that one.  It'll also reside in double-A's PC, which stands at 55 hits (#7 overall) out of 89 cards.

And then there's blog favorite QB Chad Henne with three new signature items.  First is a 2008 SP Rookie Edition auto that honors the '93 SP design.  I'll need to chase down the other three at some point.  Next is a signed version, featuring a cut out window for the main event, of his 2008 Stadium Club rookie.  I now own one of these for all five Wolverines in the set:  Henne, Arrington, Jake Long, Mike Hart, and Mario Manningham.  Maybe I'll show off all of them together at some point.  For now, though, the showstopper is a 2008 Upper Deck Premier quad patch/auto (#15/30) of the journeyman QB.  My purchase history says I plunked down a measly $4.21 for this beauty, and I'm glad I did!

Henne continues to the the charge with a crazy 128 hits (still the only guy above 100 for now) and an almost-milestone-ish 296 overall pieces.

Speaking of crazy, today's big winner has me celebrating too many Manninghams!  That's eight, count 'em, eight new hits of the super WR.  We'll take a run through them in a few groups.

The first two pairs all include some sort of jersey relic:  2008 Bowman Sterling Refractor, Leaf Certified Materials ("prime"), Donruss Threads, and one of those nifty LCM Souvenir Stamps stamp/jersey relic.  Pretty cool!

Next is a 2009 SP Signature triple auto card starring the man himself, former teammate Adrian Arrington, and...Lavelle Hawkins.  I guess the latter was also a 2008 draftee with the letters "A", "I", and "N" in his last name?  Anyway, I love cards with multiple Wolverines, and this one fits the bill.

Last up is a trio of 2008 SPx multi-jersey cards, adding to my huge collection from that product.  A quick check tells me I have 41, covering the vast array of variants like these three:  "Star and Position Dual 25," "Unique Shape Triple 15," and "Jersey Number Dual 25."  That's right, UD came up with a design and didn't know what the hell to call it either!

This was an insanely fun way to close out another fantastic haul for my collection, and it makes Manningham just the second player to hit the 90-card mark at 93 hits (216 cards overall).

As always I had a blast hunting down and scoring new pieces for my collection and I'm looking forward to doing it again in just a few weeks.  But before then I have lots more to cover, so be on the lookout for more posts here soon!

2019 COMC purchases: falling for football inserts

Well, I wanted a win and a win is what I got!  The offense stalled--for both teams, really--but Michigan's defense came up huge time after time in a vintage performance.  The team's detractors, many of whom think of themselves as fans somehow, will have to move the goalposts elsewhere, which I don't think they'll have a problem doing.  As for me, I'll enjoy another big win and celebrate with some cards.

Today's gonna be another short one before a big finish.  I picked up a small number of football inserts, and I think a decent number of you will enjoy these as much as I do since some were made during the height of cardboard creativity.

That's not me booing over here, I'm yelling "Duuuuuuuuuuuufex!"  Pinnacle's signature insert effect is on full display when it comes to this '95 Zenith Rookie Roll Call of former #1 WR Derrick Alexander.  It sure is nice to look at, and don't think I didn't catch that little "NO MORE THAN 1,200 SETS PRODUCED" notice on the bottom.  That's 42 cards of Alexander, almost as many as his 48 receptions that indeed led rookie wideouts in '94, as the back mentions.

Sticking with Pinnacle, we'll jump forward one year to the '96 version's Die Cut Jerseys insert.  This one, starring PC guy Tim Biakabutuka, isn't Dufexed, but the jersey-shaped die-cutting is very cool and instantly caught my eye while I was browsing his cards on COMC.  Bonus points for the back serving as a reminder for the way he demolished Ohio State's defense in 1995!

Now let's go with a more recent player, one that keeps up the theme of offense and brings a Michigan uni photo to the table as well.  What you see here is Devin Funchess' 2015 Prestige Extra Points Gold parallel (#16/50) of his RC from that product.  This was yet another design that I enjoyed from Prestige, with the front offering a nice bonus of showing Funch's draft position and the back providing some stats in a non-traditional format.  Add in some gold and serial-numbering and I'm on board!

By most measures, Jeff Garcia had a better career than former Michigan QB Elvis Grbac, but that doesn't quite Settle the Score, like this insert of the same name from 2001 Select (#437/550).  Elvis did leave the building in 1994 with a Super Bowl ring after getting a bit of playing time during his rookie season with the Niners, who'd go on to win it all.  Sure, it amounted to all of 50 pass attempts, including an incompletion plus a fumble (which he didn't lose) on a rush in the big game in garbage time, but that's more than Garcia can say!

Speaking of former QBs, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh has been a lightning rod for criticism for many reasons, often due to his X's and O's.  I hope he and OC Josh Gattis figure things out because despite the way he's come up short in his four-plus seasons, I still root for him and want to see him succeed, if only to shut up the media and fans that build him up so they can call him overrated.  He definitely needs to improve, but fans should be getting behind him and the team.  Consider this shiny 1999 Playoff Momentum SSD X's insert (#182/300) a show of support from TMV.

Everybody else in today's post played offense but given the Iowa game's result, the defense has more than earned the honor of closing things out, just as they did against the Hawkeyes.  Tackling machine David Harris was one of my favorite Michigan defenders, and he carried over that performance to the NFL, making the program proud once again.  He must have been a great pro because it's relatively rare to see defenders on cardboard, such as this 2017 Donruss Jersey Number parallel (#28/52).  I count myself as a fan of parallels like this and the Stat Line cards which are numbered to something specific instead of a generic 100, 1000, etc.  Speaking of that other insert, Harris does indeed have a season Stat Line parallel in the 2017 product which offers his sunset cards.

With one more post in this series I'll try to get the last one--which, again, is a doozy--up soon so I can move on to a trade package, eBay loot, and another big-ass Sportlots haul.  Until then, GO BLUE!

9/6/19 card show report: hooky haul

I've got a ton of cards in-hand and on the way so I've got lots to cover, but what you're getting today is a same-day recap from this weekend's card show at the usual spot in Taylor.  Because tomorrow's Michigan game kicks off at noon (a.k.a. best kickoff time) I doubted I'd be able to get over there with enough time to look around, so I took the day off today instead!

I ended up spending around an hour sifting through my dude's $1/six-for-$5 and $2/three-for-$5 boxes and that ended up being the limit of my patience for the afternoon, so no dime box stuff today, but maybe next time.  In the end I took home 18 of the former and 15 of the latter, totaling 33 cards for a nice even $40.

After sorting out stuff intended for specific trade packages I came up with two extra trade bait cards:

The Dustin Keller auto/manupatch/RC is from '08 Leaf R&S Longevity, and I didn't mind including it in my $2 box pile because of this:

eBay 1/1!  I figure between the card looking pretty cool, the numbering, and the player or team, I'll find somebody that wants it.

The other card up for grabs is a 2000 Pacific jersey of former Chargers RB Natrone Means.  I was thinking one or more of you who follow me might collect Chargers, and otherwise it's a reasonable trade card to have for just a buck.

My personal haul was just as minuscule, which is totally fine given the avalanche of cards descending upon me lately.

Up first is a new autograph of Michigan basketballer GRIII from Panini's 2014-15 Paramount product.  The set's called Penmanship Rookie Autographs and the card's numbered on the back (#25/99).  Robinson has a pretty cool signature if you don't mind initials, which I think works just fine here and lives up to the name of the set.  I now own five hits of the former Wolverine/Piston who's now playing for the Warriors.

And then I was even more excited to come up with this David Harris autograph (which also came from the $2 box, I believe).  You just don't get many defensive guys on hits, so you have to grab them when you can!  This Harris, my 29th of the tackling machine of a LB, hails from 2011 Topps Rising Rookies, a product that had multiple versions of an insert called "Playmaker" that could include relics, autos, and both (such as the one I already own, which is five copiers easier to find for some reason).  It's numbered (#04/20) up front so its relative scarcity is immediately on display.  I now have 81 different cards of the former Wolverine great, and I hope his alma mater comes away with a victory tomorrow afternoon against Army and its goofy offense.

With these covered, you can look forward to cards from three(!) trade packages, COMC, eBay, and Sportlots over the next few weeks as I try to catch up with a cavalcade of cardboard.

4/6/19 show report: dime deluge

Now that I've caught up on my 2018 COMC pickups over on TMM, I'm ready to get back to things here.

First, a quick note, speaking of Too Many Manninghams.  I've gotten to the point where I don't feel like working on two blogs since I don't give either enough attention, plus I don't feel like I need the content the two include separated anymore.  This is my original blog and the one that gets the most views, so going forward I'll be posting everything--Michigan stuff included--here.  That way all my posts get the most eyeballs possible, and some of you that are newer readers that didn't venture over to TMM will get a better idea of what I collect!  I reserve the right to change my mind, but for now that's where I'm heading.  I may put in some work over the next week or two getting stuff from over there linked here.

Anyway, on with some cards!

Today I'm recapping April's card show trip to Taylor.  It's been long enough that I don't remember exactly how everything was distributed, but I do recall having a blast because my favorite seller was blowing out all of his lower-end stuff, some of which would have normally been in $0.25 and $0.50 boxes, for $0.10 each.

That led to me grabbing a huge number of things I would have normally ignored, for both myself and trade bait (some of which already went out in packages).  I also made good use of the guy's $1 and $2 boxes, as you'll see below, especially when it came to the Michigan stuff.  In all, I spent $45 very productively.

Read on to see how I did:

We'll begin with the open trade bait portion.  As I think I mentioned before I've started to grab cheap and interesting stuff here and there with the intention of putting it up for trade on TCDB, but I like showing it off here first because trading through my blog is fun.  A previous show post led to one such envelope, which I'll be posting soon-ish.

Anyway, these hits were either $1 or $2 each:  Borbon is a 2007 Elite Collegiate Patches manupatch auto (#171/250) and Gabbert is from 2012 Playoff National Treasures (#03/49), featuring two prime Jags jersey swatches and a bit of pigskin.  Please claim these in the comments!

Moving on to the baseball portion, here's a couple dime adds of former blog namesake guy Curtis Granderson.  While I prefer Tigers stuff it's nice to find anything new of him, even in the uniform of the hated Yankees.

I went a little Griffey crazy this time, and why not for $0.10 apiece?  The '07 Topps Hit Parade insert is cool, but the 2008 Opening Day insert two spots over is even more interesting.  It's called "Flapper Cards" and folds out in a bunch of directions.  The newer Topps insert designs are boring as usual but I do like the photos of young Kenny Jr.

Here's the rest of the vertical Juniors.  While the pair on the bottom is more standard Topps blandness, the Tribute to the Kid set has grabbed my interest and I'm trying to put it together on the cheap.  The trio you see here gives me six of 30, so I'm on my way.

Here's where things get much more interesting as we venture back into the 90s.  Card #1 is a '93 Stadium Club insert shared with what-if guy Darryl Strawberry:

Denny's holograms are always great, including the '95 version seen above, produced by UD.  Meanwhile, the Pinnacle insert below was a mystery to me until I flipped it over and discovered that it was an exchange card for a pin from the 1995 product:

Sweet!  A couple UD inserts of Ken as a Red give way to more recent Topps appearances.  That's an awesome haul of 22 new cards of one of my favorite PCs, all for the low, low price of a dime per.

Gwynns were harder to find for whatever reason, but I did come home with this pair.  The super cool 2001 UD insert on the left was a bit of an omen for the day since he seemed to be hiding, but there's always next time!

Greg Maddux was kind of in the same boat, but they can't all be like Griffey was that day.  The Finest card is from a 2017 insert called "'94-'95 Recreates", which initially confused me because I thought "That doesn't look like either of those designs!"  Instead these are done up using the '94-'95 Finest basketball look, a pretty reasonable way to change things up.

Cal, like his fellow Junior today, wasn't in such short supply, for which I was grateful.  I got to go all the way back to 2000 and Aurora's Pennant Fever insert, one that I thought was a great value for just a dime.  The 2018 Gold Label Class 2 card looks terrific as well.  And I even went old school with a 1988 Topps Sticker, shared with former Expos P Neal Heaton:

This nine-spot gets me pretty close to 900 Ripkens, a milestone I'll soon be celebrating!

And now we move on to the Wolverines portion, which is a bit smaller in number but in general higher in quality:

The football dime portion comprises this trio.  Rookie year inserts of Amara Darboh and Taylor Lewan go with my seventh (of 21) RC of new Giant Jabrill Peppers.

The $1 and $2 boxes treated me quite well in terms of some new football hits.  The Darboh autograph is my 14th hit of his while PC guy and tackling machine David Harris got his 28th (and just third relic).  The other three were all new to the hits collection.  

Ryan is one of a number of recent walk-on Glasgow brothers to don the Maize and Blue.  The DT was selected in 2017's 4th round by the Bengals, and he's seen here in his Michigan garb on a 2017 Elite Draft picks auto.

Mallett is well-known in college and pro circles, a QB with a million dollar arm and $0.10 brain (appropriate for today!).  He appeared in 11 2007 games for Michigan, often in place of an injured Chad Henne, then transferred to Arkansas when HC Lloyd Carr retired and turned things over to Rich Rodriguez.  Mallett put up some nice numbers in two seasons with the Razorbacks, then was drafted by the Pats in the third round in 2011.  He bounced around for a few pro seasons and has been out of the league since 2017.  I'm currently collecting his non-Arkansas RCs and thought it would be fun to add one or more hits, like this National Treasures dual jersey (same set as the Gabbert above) #d 19/99.

Like Mallett, Ritchie played a bit for the Wolverines and then transferred.  In his case he got some playing time at RB in '93 and '94, then headed west to an equally excellent school, Stanford.  Jon was taken by Oakland in the third round in '98 and carved out a respectable seven-year career with the Raiders and Eagles.  I'm looking for his non-college uni RCs as well and was happy to pick up a surprise hit of him as well, a 2000 Fleer Tradition Autographics auto.  Man was that a great looking set, and filled with Wolverines too!

The three new guys give me a total of 218 different subjects in that football collection.

Last up is $0.50 worth of hockey that was absolutely worth it.  In general I may have ignored some of these before, but now that I'm logging a lot of my stuff into TCDB and actually keeping track of what I have, I'm glad to pick them up as well.  The pair of Pacioretty inserts are nice, plus I came up with two recent Wolverines in Motte and Werenski.  But most productive was my latest Marty Turco addition, a 2007-08 Upper Deck insert called Hometown Heroes.  I was actually just down in (or at least near) Dallas a couple weeks ago so this is fairly relevant, plus it just flat out looks great:

That's it for this show, but I still have May's appearance to get to (which included a double blogger meet-up!) and something like seven trades to cover.  Maybe you can look forward to slightly more frequent posting as I'll be able to focus on just one blog!