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!

2021 trade package #26: Night Owl

Blogging legend Night Owl and I are very different in terms of what we collect, but one great part of the hobby is that that doesn't remotely matter when it comes to trading. To thank me for sending him his first second autograph of Paul Lo Duca, a cheapo I found at a recent show, Greg got a PWE over to me earlier this week. I didn't expect anything which made it that much nicer, and that meant I had no idea what I'd be pulling out of the envelope, which is even more fun. I'd say he did an outstanding job picking out these cards for me:

Since I had room I thought I'd include the tiny note he sent (always a plus, and something I like to do as well!) and fancy business card. I know I've said this before but I tend to keep pretty much anything like the latter because it's kind of fun to collect in its own right, plus people obviously put effort into it, so you won't see me throwing that stuff away!

Anyway, on to what we have here. Let's start with the quartet of vertical Tigers. Cards seem to be less and less for kids these days but you'll still see mascots pop up like Detroit's Paws on a 2020 insert. I didn't realize that season marked his 25th as the team's mascot, a pretty cool fact! Then Panini gives us a double dose of Tigers legends (and batting title winners) in Kaline--2018 Donruss last name only variation--and Kuenn--'21 Diamond Kings. I like that the latter has him listed with Detroit where he enjoyed the best seasons of his 15-year career, from 1952-59. He'll actually be popping up again in a future post, by the way. Joining him in that set is future rotation stalwart Casey Mize on an artistic RC. 2021 saw him enjoy a pretty solid first full campaign and I'm looking forward to seeing how he does when the team's actually got more talent around him.

The other four cards are also very exciting for me because they're kind of a double-dip: favorite players and wantlist help! I don't know if Greg hit up my wants on TCDB but I needed the entire quartet, starting with card #5 out of '95 Fleer's Cal Ripken Jr. insert also known as "Enduring." I now need just cards 1 and 3 to knock off the 15-card set, so if this was a blind guess by Greg then it was a hell of a shot!

Similarly, while I'm not going after the entire enormous 2007 Topps Generation Now chase set, I've slowly pieced together the ones representing current blog namesake Justin Verlander's 17 wins in 2006 (done) and also those of former title guy Curtis Granderson. Grandy put up 31 doubles in his first full season, then went 20/20/20/20 (2B/3B/HR/SB) the following season. The three cards Greg sent me got me up to 24/31 with not a double in sight, so once again if he managed to do that on a pure guess, that's amazing, and if instead he sought out my wants on TCDB, he's a very smart person.

Greg, thanks again for a fun PWE that hit my favorite baseball team, two of my best PCs, and two set wantlists all in just eight cards! I'll see if I can't hit you back before the end of the year in the event that I can find anything up your alley.

I'll be back soonish with another PWE trade post, one that's double the fun, plus a much larger package too!

TCDB trade: randylaw, part 3: everything else!

It's been a tough season for...well, all sports really, but in particular it's been a tough season for Michigan Football fans. Fortunately, card collecting doesn't have a season--it's all year, baby!--and it often helps lift my spirits.

So with that, welcome to the third and final post covering my large TCDB deal with randylaw!

Today's recap features a fun mix of stuff: classic Tigers, vintage, my core four PC guys, and Michigan sports:

I told you this would be a fun one, and we're just getting started! I called this section the "classic" Tigers for obvious reasons. Guys like Cobb, Cochrane, Fidrych, Greenberg (the hard-to-read insert), Horton, and Prince Hal are well known to folks beyond Tigers fans, and it was nice adding to my collections of each guy. I was particularly excited for the 1974 and '77 Hortons since I'm slowly trying to build up his run of stuff made during his career. I now have 10 of those from the 60s and 70s (plus an SSPC issue as well) so that's going nicely. Conlon (Hughie Jennings!) and Topps' earlier 90s Archives offerings also chip in here.

Here's one reason I was particularly excited for this trade: Randy had some solid vintage Tigers to choose from, and choose 'em I did! The six you see grouped together are my first examples from 1957 Topps, and they give me a nice start towards the 26-card team set. Hoeft is a guy I'm vaguely familiar with and of course Kuenn is the player most well known to me. These have been well loved, especially the Finigan, but of course that adds character and I wouldn't have it any other way! They're joined by a '61 Topps league leaders card that includes pitcher Frank Lary, and a '75 team checklist. Whomever owned the latter noted in red pen that they had all the team's cards except SS Tom Veryzer.

Naturally I took advantage and grabbed everything I needed of my "core four" guys: Griffey, Gwynn, Maddux, and Ripken. And naturally most of that was junk wax-era stuff, but that's ok, because they were all new for those collections! On the oddball front I had fun adding a couple Griffey UD Looney Toons holograms and another Holsum disc, this time of Gwynn. Those two players also appear on the most recent cards in these scans. By the way, the other player on Gwynn's Pinnacle Idols subset, for those like me who didn't recognize him, is Willie Davis of the Dodgers.

Everything else features a subject for my Michigan sports collections. Abbott joins Griffey from the previously mentioned hologram set. Appleton, born Pete Jablonowski, was a former Wolverines pitcher who spent 14 seasons in the bigs, appears here on a Conlon card, which is good since I probably can't easily afford his 1930s Goudey and Play Ball cards! The well known (especially around here) Gehringer joins Appleton with a Conlon issue. Though I scanned them backwards, I was glad to add a pair of Ted Simmons cards as I continue to grow his PC: '74 Topps and '89 Score. Knuble was a Wolverwing and Roberts also is a former Wolverines icer. Davis (and her partner Charlie White) and Shibutani (with her brother Alex) were Olympian Wolverines who medaled in ice dancing, including a gold for Davis in 2014.

And then there's the football, which proved to be nice to scan in its own group. The first four are 2017 Elite Draft Picks rookies (meaning college uni shots!) of Jake Butt, Amara Darboh, Jourdan Lewis, and Jabrill Peppers. WR Jehu Chesson was the other UM RC in the set and I already had that, so I'll just need to add the Tom Brady base at some point. There's plenty of stars like AC, Harbaugh, Thomas, and Toomer, and I even snuck in vintage cards of S Thom Darden and Curtis Greer (both '81 Topps). Swell cards of Bill Hewitt and Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch round out a fun group.

I hope at least a few of you found this three-part series interesting, and regardless, that you got a good idea of the potential there is in terms of TCDB trading. As I've said multiple times, Randy was awesome, and given his huge wantlist, I could definitely see trading with him again in the near future!

With these covered I would expect my next posts to be a trade package (a PWE) and small eBay purchase, so watch for those soon-ish.

2019 Sportlots purchases: Old Tigers' Day

It's a sunny, not-quite-so chilly Sunday afternoon here in Ann Arbor, plus my Wolverines had another nice game yesterday, so I'm feeling pretty good.  Why not keep up the good vibes with some cards?

The penultimate post in this series is kind of a grab bag of older Tigers that didn't warrant their own posts or necessarily fit in with previous themes:

We'll start with "Gator", a.k.a. William James "Gates" Brown, an absolute beast of a PH who spent all of his 13 MLB seasons with Detroit.  That indeed included '68 so he appears in the 1988 Domino's Tigers team set celebrating the champs from that year.  I grabbed this copy because the one I already had from what used to be a complete set was in rough shape.  I still need to track down a few more of these, including Mickey Lolich's card, which I believe I used for an IP auto.

Next is slugging 1B "Stormin'" Norman Cash, a Tigers mainstay after coming to Detroit from the White Sox via the Indians in an absolute steal of a deal.  His 15 years in Motown included five All-Star nods, a ridiculous '61 season in which he won the AL batting crown and socked a career-high 41 dingers (377 career) with 132 RBIs, and a very nice 52.0 bWAR.  Oh yeah, and he was another key player in the '68 squad.

My Cash collection is smaller than I'd like at just 18 cards, only four of which were made during his playing days, but that's what Sportlots is for!  I did add a vintage piece in the '73 Topps card you see above, then added modern issues from 2001 Topps American Pie (which, again, came up a lot in this series), 2005 Upper Deck Classics, and 2013 Panini Golden Age.  Don't be surprised if I add more vintage items to this bunch in the near future.

The next two guys are even more well known.  My collection of Cobb is fairly healthy thanks especially to generous traders, but I was excited to add a pair of beautiful Fleer Greats of the Game cards from 2001 and 2002.  As for Ernie, the voice of the Tigers, he doesn't have a lot of cardboard to chase, but I still came up with a younger Harwell on his 1989 Pacific Legends issue, plus the gorgeous 2003 Topps Gallery HOF.  The latter set really is a work of art, and kudos to Topps for including him here.

And here we have a couple more Tigers greats.  Heilmann starred for Detroit in the early part of the 20th century, spending 15 of his 17 MLB seasons with the Tigers.  He was an outstanding hitter for average, winning four batting titles and hitting .403 in 1923, and had a bit of power to spare, too.  Can anyone here guess when MLB implemented new baseballs?

Heilmann's .342 career average and 72.2 bWAR were eventually enough to get him in the Hall in 1952 after 13 years on the ballot, and almost 50 years later he appeared on the 2001 Greats of the Game base you see above.  It's one of only four of his cards I own, but as he can be found in many other products I like, that number may increase before much longer.

Last up today is 15-year vet Harvey Kuenn, an OF/IF who spent eight very good seasons in Detroit, where he accumulated eight of his 10 All-Star appearances, was the '53 AL Rookie of the Year, led the league in hits four times, and won the '59 AL batting crown.  He was flipped to the Indians before the 1960 season for Rocky Colavito, who gave the Tigers four nice seasons himself.

Up top he stars on a couple late '80s oddballs in '88 Pacific Legends and '89 Swell Greats.  The next two are reprint-style offerings from 1991 and 1994 Topps Archives.  The '91 set reprints 1953 Topps, though Kuenn's card falls in the "cards that never were" group mentioned by BaseballcardPedia--he didn't appear until '54, which is accurately represented by the 1994 card.

Finally, the last three comprise a trio of fun 2000s Upper Deck products focusing on past greats.  In order they are:  2002 SP Legendary Cuts, 2005 Upper Deck Classics, and 2007 SP Legendary Cuts.  Combined with what I already had, I now own 15 Kuenn cards, and hopefully I'll track down more of him as well.

With these done I'm down to one more post, a big one starring a single player, and I'm really looking forward to getting that one done since I know a bunch of you will enjoy it.  It'll take me a bit to put together so look for it in a few days as I work to try to get it done before my attention turns to COMC shopping this holiday weekend!

2013 card show #2: 6-15, part 2: baseball vintage and RCs

As I said on Saturday, my first stop at this show, as usual, was at the table of my favorite vintage guy and his boxes and boxes of 90% off "well-loved" cards.  A while later I walked away $30 poorer but 10 classic cards richer, and you'll get to see eight of those here today:

Bert Blyleven 1971 Topps RC

Dave Concepcion 1971 Topps RC

Steve Garvey 1971 Topps RC

While I do appreciate some of the nicer vintage cards out there, at least right now my focus is generally on star RCs, so I was happy to grab this significant trio from '71.  As you can see, they're in, shall we say, various states of disrepair?  No worries, condition doesn't exactly enter the equation for these anyway.  Blyleven is the only HOFer you'll see today, but the rest of these players aren't slouches.  Concepcion played his 19-year career with the Reds and won titles in two of four World Series.  Garvey (a rare Spartan appearance on this here blog) was an MVP and 10-time All Star for the Dodgers and Padres who won a ring with L.A. in '81.  Not a bad group!

Elston Howard 1956 Topps

Howard is the only player from this group that isn't a RC, which is partially my fault.  This seller stuffs his 90% off box full of vintage cards in card-savers that list the Beckett "value" and his price.  Some also include notes such as "SP" or "HI" while others say "RC."  Since I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to vintage I didn't realize Howard's actual RC hails from Bowman the year before.  Despite that, this is a great 50s card (with a play at the plate!) of a former Yankees star, a nine-time All Star who was the 1963 A.L. MVP and won four World Series rings along with six other pennants.  I'll happily place it in my vintage baseball collection!

Harvey Kuenn 1954 Bowman RC

Harvey Kuenn 1954 Topps RC

Now HERE's a Detroit Tiger for this Tigers-centric blog!  I was excited to find the Topps first, then surprised to see the Bowman a bit later during my trip through the boxes, so I decided to grab both.  Between the two I'd take the Topps any day as it comes from yet another classic design, and includes a great roaring Tigers logo.  Kuenn spent eight seasons in Motown and was the '53 A.L. Rookie of the Year, not to mention a nine-time consecutive All-Star, but he was then famously traded to the Indians for Rocky Colavito.  Harvey finished up with a solid 15-year career, and what's interesting is that his Baseball-Reference top player comparison is former teammate George Kell!

Tony LaRussa 1964 Topps RC

Yeah, this is definitely the card in the worst condition today, but I still thought it would be fun to pick up the RC of one of the game's best managers of the last 50 years. LaRussa finished his managerial career with three World Series titles in six tries, and though he's sometimes been one of the more controversial personalities in the sport, he never lacked for preparation or hard work.

Vada Pinson 1958 Topps RC

I have to admit that I knew very little about Pinson when I grabbed this, but the combination of it being a RC of a player I knew of on a great design (love that logo!), I knew I should grab it.  As it turns out, Pinson did pretty well in his 18-year career, averaging 17 HR, 77 RBI, and a .286 AVG per 162 games.  His top two player similarity scores are Steve Finley and Johnny Damon, so while he's not really a HOFer, he's still in pretty decent company.  I'm glad to have grabbed this rookie of his and learned a bit more about him, plus I'm pretty happy with its condition.

As usual I was happy with my purchase and feel I easily got my money's worth.  While I don't attend shows very often anymore, I do appreciate the opportunity to add to my baseball RC PC a few times a year, especially when it's fun vintage stuff like this.

Keep an eye out on TMM in the next couple days to see a couple more vintage pickups and the rest of my show haul!