2018 COMC purchases: Cal's my pal

The little pile of Cal Ripken Jr. cards I picked up from COMC caught my eye today so that's where I'm going next.  You can also catch some new football content on TMM should that interest you.  Otherwise, here's some fun inserts of the Iron Man for your Sunday enjoyment:

This one is from the 1992 Donruss debut of Diamond Kings as their own insert set, and as usual the manufacturer and artist Dick Perez nailed it.  These served as a good indication that the Diamond Kings name was in good hands, and cardboard history shows that they improved from there.  Definitely a gem from the waning days of junk wax and boring designs.

And now we're looking at card #7 from Fleer's 1995 Flair insert set focused on Cal.  "Enduring" is of course a good word to describe Ripken throughout his trademark streak.  The back of this one talks about how he won the 1991 All-Star Game MVP before being named the most valuable player in his league later that season.  With this in my collection I just need four more cards to complete the set--one of three Ripken-specific inserts I'm working on that you'll see in this post!

Given Cal's stardom you'll be hard pressed to find many "cheap" quality inserts of the HOF shortstop, but that doesn't mean they don't exist.  The 1996 Ultra Rawhide card above is a case in point with its cool textured surface and great shot of the two-time Gold Glover in the field.

Throughout these posts you'll get a chance to see where I "splurged" a bit this time, spending more like $3-$10 on single cards when I usually don't.  One player in particular benefited from that more than the others, but Ripken did get in on the fun with this awesome die-cut/acetate 1997 Studio Hard Hats (#3043/5000) offering.  Hello, "90s inserts rule" tag!  I've had Barry Larkin's card from the set for a while and have Griffey's card on my wantlist because these just look too cool to ignore.  You won't find anything like this in the era of the Toppsopoly but my fellow 90s collectors and I can enjoy endless creativity like this!

All Cal All the Time set #2 for today is 2000 Fleer Gamers' Cal to Greatness.  This is one I've been trying to tackle for a while because, while the first five cards are relatively cheap and easy to find--I've had them all for a while--the next five were 1:25 pulls and the last five were 1:144, making them much harder to track down, at least at prices I could stomach.  The one you see above is #10 in the series, leaving me short #s 6 and 9 plus the entire run of 11-15.  I'll get there at some point!

Last up is the final all Ripken set, not to mention the largest.  Fleer's 2007 Ultra Iron Man insert weighs in at a whopping 50 cards so this foursome goes a long way towards making a dent in my wantlist.  That's still fairly large because I only recently started working on it after finding a couple in the cheap boxes at shows.  But I've got six now with more on the way, and I look forward to filling the gaps on this outstanding black/orange/foil tribute to Cal that features excellent photography.

This nice little nine-spot of Cals bumps his PC-leading collection up to 795 cards with another milestone--100x his jersey number--in sight thanks to some Sportlots reinforcements.  While I wait on those you'll get a look at a few more COMC PC cards soon!

2017 COMC purchases: getting into spring form

With all my other 2017 stuff finally posted I'll be bringing you a few posts covering my last round of COMC purchases from late last year, which will amount to something like two here and five over on TMM.  Speaking of the sister blog, you can head over there this evening for more COMC loot!

Meanwhile, over here it's all about my baseball PCs with cards starring eight different players:

As our first player was wont to do beginning with each opening day, we'll come out of the gate hot with this five-spot of Griffeys from the very cool 1996 Collector's Choice Griffey a Cut Above insert.  If the set sounds a bit familiar that's because I picked up the first five at a show I posted about last September, meaning between that show and COMC I picked up the whole set on the cheap.  Look for a complete set post covering that eventually, after I finally get caught up with everything else!

Those weren't the only Griffeys that traveled from Washington state to Ann Arbor, though, as I came up with three more I really liked.  First up is a 2001 Diamond Kings insert from the triumphant return of Donruss baseball after a two-year hiatus.  As always I loved the artwork and design, not to mention the serial numbering (1009/2500 in this case).

Card #2 is one I picked up previously to help bulk up Junior Junkie's Griffey Giving Box after raiding it for quite a bit of stuff.  I liked the look of this 2002 Upper Deck Superstar Summit I (there's a second version) so much that I grabbed one for myself.  The design has aged reasonably well even if the group of players hasn't!

Last up is an extremely cool translucent-style insert called Swing For the Fences from Panini's wonderful revitalization of the Pinnacle brand in 2013.  It calls to mind some of my favorite inserts from the Pinnacle name in the 90s and I knew I had to have it.

In getting the images ready for this post I realized that of the eight players featured today, five appear on just one card, and each of those happen to be PC guys I collect because they played their college ball at Michigan.  Just a weird coincidence.

Anyway, the first of those players is Drew Henson in his first appearance on this here blog since he got roasted by Roy-Z of Plain Gray Swatch in a trade post from Scribbled Ink that included a bat relic of the dual-sport bust.  Here he is on an insert from 2002 Donruss Rookies called Phenoms (#0840/1000) that exemplifies what I loved about inserts from back then--colorful, holographic foil, and serial numbering--and I suppose what others hate.  For me this design is a hit, something Henson could have used more of during his pro baseball career!

Our next guy is blog favorite Rich Hill on just my third card of his from 2017.  The other two also hail from Topps base sets--flagship and Archives--and this one is from the burlap-ified Heritage product.  It happens to be an SP, and that's also the case for his 2018 card that I'm now chasing.  I've largely been treading water or falling behind a bit as Hill has appeared on more and more cardboard and I continue to be glad of that as he more than deserves any hobby love he gets!

Griffey, Maddux, and Ripken are all represented today (you'll see the last two in a minute) but Tony Gwynn is not.  Filling his role as an NL 19+ year veteran of one team HOFer PC guy is Barry Larkin.  Here he is on an insert from 2015 Finest called Generations.  The design didn't really grab me as much as the low price, but I do approve of Barry appearing in products more than a decade after retiring.

And here's one of those guys I just mentioned, Greg Maddux, on two great cards, one of which led me to use one of my favorite tags, "90s inserts rule" (along with a few others, such as those Griffeys above).  The 90s example is one of my favorites, Pinnacle's Starburst parallel.  They changed the name once or twice but no matter the title, these Dufex beauties are still fun to track down.  I now have half of Mad Dog's from the '96 set (I'm short his solo checklist and the six-player version as well).  "Hardball Heroes" is a group to which Maddux certainly belongs.

The other is a slightly newer insert I wasn't aware of until recently despite my enjoyment of Donruss' Diamond Kings product:  a set called DK Evolution that was produced in 2003.  If you can't quite tell from the scan, it's a hologram-like card done in the style of something like Sportflix  When you rotate the card along the horizontal access the image switches from the photo to the artistic version (which I believe is the same one used on the base card) and back again.  It's a very cool looking set and I'm working on tracking down my other PC guys from it!

Here's a weird one for you:  this 2006 Topps Chrome Black Refractor of PC guy Mike Matheny is my third different parallel of his from the six-card rainbow, and I still don't have the base version!  I'm not really sure how I managed to do that.  Besides that the Blue (unnumbered) and Red (/90) versions await.  That's a far cry from the rainbow-chasing experience these days!

I thought I'd already landed this 1995 Score Platinum Team Sets issue of former Reds 1B Hal Morris during my huge Sportlots purchase last year but somehow that wasn't the case.  Luckily COMC stepped up to the plate and filled that hole in my collection.  Maybe I should have just found a full team set considering the number of guys in it that fit my collections.

Last up is a group of four cards from the 1995 Flair Ripken insert set starring, oddly enough, Cal Ripken Jr.  I've pieced together part of the set from various sources and was happy to find good prices on this quartet from COMC.  It's a beautiful looking insert starring one of my favorite players and I'm looking forward to nabbing all 15 (the 10 inserted in that year's Series II product as well as five wrapper redemptions).  As it stands I have numbers 6 and 9 plus the five wrapper cards, #11-15.  Look for a highlight post when I do finish it off!

That's it for today but I do have one more COMC pickup for you over here that you'll see soon, plus a few more over on TMM.  Then I can finally start showing off my 2018 scores.

2016 COMC purchases: Tony-one Gwynns

Continuing on with COMC pickups, I had the most success scoring cards of one of my favorite PC guys:  Tony Gwynn.  Over the last few months of 2016 I managed to nab 20 new Gwynns from my favorite card-procurement option, and that put me past the 250-card mark to 254, a nice little mini-milestone on this fine Sunday.  To make my punny title work I'm actually showing off 21 cards, including one you've already seen, as I completed a small set, which I'll get to in a minute.  So I hope you enjoy looking through these as I group them into fun categories FOR THE GWYNN!

2015 Donruss Tony Gwynn Tribute:

This is the complete set I just mentioned.  I had grabbed card #4 at a show back in July and easily found the other four on the cheap around Black Friday.  As you'll see this set didn't get too creative with the foily fronts as much of the design is the same on each card.  However, the smaller color photos are pretty cool, the backs are solidly done, and I like the career highlights Panini chose.  What do you think?:

Gwynn Topps didn't suck:

I still owe y'all a post on how my relationship with Topps has changed throughout my collecting, but for now I'll just say that these two cards were made when my opinion of their cards couldn't be more positive.

On the left is a semi-transparent insert from 2000 Stadium Club Chrome (a product that should have lasted much longer!) called Eyes of the Game.  These looked fantastic, and better yet, they did come in Refractor form as well.  Just a fun, well executed insert.

Speaking of Refractor-like cards, I nabbed Tony's card from 2002 Archives Reserve, another Topps product that was unfortunately short-lived.  This is a Chromed-out Refractor reprint of Gwynn's base card from '97 Topps, yet another of my favorite sets from that manufacturer.  It's a classic photo of the master in action, and I've always liked how the bat supersedes the border and keeps on going.

90s Gwynn-serts rule!:

Like many of you who grew up collecting in that decade, I absolutely love collecting inserts from the 90s, and when I add new ones I always make sure to celebrate by deploying my favorite tag, "90s inserts rule".

First up is a '95 Donruss Dominators card featuring a tough-looking Gwynn, normal-looking Kirby Puckett, and Paul O'Neill with his trademark Resting Bitch Face.  These shiny multiplayer cards are very cool and I'm happy to add them to my PCs whenever I can.

Going back a year to 1994 we stick with Donruss and the first of three Diamond Kings cards today.  Dick Perez's baseball art looks great as usual.

I scored a pair of inserts from one of my all-time favorite products, '95 Pinnacle.  The first is one of Tony's Museum Collection parallels in the set, and I love this Dufex version of the multi-exposure photo.  The other is another of those inserts I wouldn't have dreamed of pulling back in '95:  Red Hot.  The flame motif is very cool and I love the shot of Tony in his follow-through.

Representing 1996, one of two cards was a Dugout Collection parallel, one of two Gwynn cards in that set.  As I mentioned yesterday when discussing a card of Jim Abbott from the same set, I think this was a pretty good parallel of an already solid base set.  Joining that is a flashier insert from '96 Sporflix (another favorite!) that I never could have pulled when it came out:  ProMotion.  This fun insert took an already well-done hologram concept and made it even cooler.

Finally, I treated myself to one of my most-wanted inserts that I waited this long to get because...reasons.  1998 Pinnacle Inside included a fantastic die-cut insert called Behind the Numbers (though I think Pinnacle missed out by not going with Inside the Numbers...) that was a relatively tough pull because not many folks likely bought lots of those cans at once.  Fortunately I didn't have to pay very much for this amazing card cut in the shape of Gwynn's #19.

By the way, you'll see a few of these inserts again in an upcoming post or two!

Serial-numbered Gwynn-sanity:

Hey, you got inserts in my serial-numbers!  No, you got serial-numbers in my inserts!  Here's my Gwynn version of one of my favorite card types in an obvious homage to Robert's coolest project.

In this case we start with 1997 and another one of my favorite products and inserts (seeing a theme here?).  I really enjoyed collecting '97 Donruss, its update set, and the inserts found in both, including the two-player Franchise Features cards.  These were done up in a marquee-style motif with a current star--"Now Playing"--and prospect--"Coming Attractions"--and simply looked great.  Abreu didn't exactly live up to this pairing but went on to post an almost 60 bWAR over a nice career.

A pair of '98 Donruss/Leaf products is next.  First is the outstanding version of the Diamond Kings insert produced that year, one of my favorites of the run.  I also own Barry Larkin's and Ken Griffey Jr.'s versions from that set.  This one is numbered 08241/10000.  That's joined by Leaf's excellent Heading For the Hall (#0632/3500) insert.  Something tells me Donruss didn't have to go out on much of a limb to include Gwynn in this classy looking chase card.

Sticking with the same year I turned up a pair of numbered Leaf Rookies and Stars inserts from that product's maiden voyage.  Come to think of it, most if not all of the inserts may have been numbered in the set that was popular for a while thanks to a high-end RC of former Big Thing J.D. Drew.  On the left is an insert called MVPs (#3225/5000), a set where Leaf picked their top league players at each position (Barry Bonds and Andruw Jones were the LF and CF in this case).  Meanwhile, the Standing Ovations card (#2944/5000) highlights a big achievement, and in this case it was Tony matching hitting legend Honus Wagner by winning his eighth NL batting crown.  I'll stand and clap for that!

Finally I have a pair of post-millennium pickups.  From yet another favorite product, 2001 Donruss, comes a Diamond Kings reprint (#0212/1985) of his Diamond Kings card found in 1985 Donruss, as the numbering suggests.  I completed the Rookie Reprints available in this product and may decide to chase these as well in the future.  Oddly enough, I don't actually have the original version of this card yet!  Sticking with Donruss brands, our last card is from an insert called Hitters Inc. (#1718/2000) out of 2005 Leather and Lumber.  This is another one of those reflective, foiled-up cards that's unfortunately difficult to scan, but it looks fantastic, and if anybody belongs in a set with that name it's Mr. Padre.

I hope you had as much fun looking at these as I did picking them up for my collection, especially the nostalgia-inducing 90s stuff.  What did you love/hate out of these?

I'll close with the song that inspired today's punny title, one of those Green Day songs that doesn't actually sound exactly like the rest of Green Day's songs:

COMC haul #10: the best 90s Lark since Saved by the Bell's Voorhies!

(Note:  all COMC haul posts can be accessed here)

Today's haul cards tie in nicely with my other post over at TMM, and in both cases I think Chris of Nachos Grande will be especially interested.

In addition to Detroit Tiger Bill Freehan, I've decided to feature my Barry Larkin pickups over here since I have a relative dearth of haul cards to post on this blog otherwise, and I think especially Larkin will garner plenty of interest over here.  Today I'm showing of just a small part of my Larkin haul (the best is yet to come!), but I think you guys will like it all the same, because I'm talking about 1990s INSERTS!

Barry Larkin 1996 Bowman's Best Refractor

Barry Larkin 1998 Donruss Diamond Kings (#09671/10000)

That's right--I didn't just throw a ton of money at a bunch of big hits (not JUST, but I did do that)--I also picked up a pair of what I thought were really cool inserts.

For my money, 1996 Bowman's Best was one of Topps' cooler designs in the series, but regardless, the Refractors really make the design's color scheme pop, and that's always a plus.  And, I mean, who doesn't like Refractors?  If you answered "me!" then I'll stay off your lawn and let you get back to watching Matlock with an onion on your belt (which was the style at the time).

The Diamond Kings insert is just as fun.  These certainly grew in quality from the original series in the 80s to some pretty nice inserts in the 90s and beyond.  This is an outstanding painting of Larkin in a cool, pensive pose and is well-executed.  The Diamond Kings series is one of the things Donruss did well to differentiate it from the other brands, and some of Topps' more artistic offerings have the DKs to thank for their success.  And let's not forget how rare these cards are--ONLY 10000!  If I see another one before I turn 60 I'll be shocked.  By the way, if you also dislike Diamond Kings, I'll be careful to stay off your lawn as I carefully place a flaming bag of dog poo on your doorstep.

I promise to come back to the even better Larkin stuff within a couple posts, but for now, please enjoy the majesty of some amazing inserts from TWO DECADES AGO (God, I'm getting old).