2024 eBay purchase: how Rudock!

(Quick note: I thought I was wrapping up February when I went to post this and then realized I actually purchased the card in late January. Oh well, whatever--I tend to do something like quarterly eBay pickup posts and this is the only item I've bought on that site for myself through May, so we'll press on!)

Above note aside, let's finish up February's (or January's, or whatever!) pickups by looking at my first eBay buy of 2024:

Here we have a magenta plate of former Iowa/Michigan QB Jake Rudock. The plate was used to produce his 2016 Playoff RC though it was actually inserted into Panini's Plates & Patches product that year, as is Panini's wont.

Since I can't remember when I discussed Rudock last, I'll give a quick recap of his college and pro careers. A fairly standard pocket-passer-type QB, the Florida native headed to Iowa and was pretty much their starter in 2013 and 2014, with the team going 8-5 and 7-6 over those two seasons. He transferred to Big Ten foe Michigan for the 2015 season as it was apparent that new big thing C.J. Beathard would be taking over under center in coach Kirk Ferentz's stone age offense. The switch (or other combined factors) led to the Hawkeyes going 12-0 in the regular season, though they lost by 3 to Big Ten champion MSU, then got their faces kicked in by Stanford in the Rose Bowl. The following season Iowa stumbled to an 8-5 record once again.

Meanwhile, Rudock would become the answer to a trivia question: Jim Harbaugh's first QB as coach of his alma mater after the embarrassing end to Brady Hoke's tenure (which was the result of Rich Rodriguez's embarrassing tenure). He brought some respectability to the position (though that's no ding against the valiant efforts made by the colossally mismanaged Devin Gardner) and after stumbling in a tough road test against what would be a ranked Utah team, he led the Wolverines to 9 regular season wins with a close loss to temporarily good MSU and a typical blowout loss for the time against the Buckeyes. Highlights included a November bombing of Indiana in a 2OT game plus a 41-7 curb-stomping of the Gators in the Citrus Bowl. That was Michigan's first bowl win since the 2012 Sugar Bowl and would be Harbaugh's only postseason victory until his squad defeated Alabama and Washington to win the whole thing earlier this year.

Based on his steady improvement, Rudock earned a look with the Lions as a 6th round pick after that season, which is not bad at all since he didn't appear to have much of an NFL future before heading to Ann Arbor. That's not to say that his NFL career amounted to much--just spot duty in three 2017 contests in which he completed 3 of 5 passes for 24 yards and an interception. The Lions eventually let him go in early 2019, then he signed on with the Dolphins, though he never went active with them.

You won't hear Jake complaining about those results, though, because he gave the league his best shot and is now in med school back in Ann Arbor. How cool is that?

Rudock remains one of a growing number of transfers (both in and out) that I collect, with that number sure to shoot up big-time thanks to the burgeoning landscape of the transfer portal and NIL money. I'll always fondly remember his single season with the Maize & Blue when he and Harbaugh arrived to try to right the ship, the first step on a long journey that culminated in a championship that brought elation and relief to Michigan fans worldwide. This plate is now my best card in his small collection, joined by a higher-end autograph to make a solid pair. At about $12 delivered (including tax), I was happy to add it. As luck would have it, I'm even tied with Jeff as his top collector on TCDb at 11 cards!

And with that I should now be caught up through February (aside from TCDb trades which will get recapped in a larger catch-up post) so I should be moving on to March next time.

TCDB trade roundup: c2cigars, deadhead11, and Mjprigge

I had a pretty busy couple weeks in terms of card stuff that feels like it included everything but blogging. Lots of logging/scanning, going to a show, and proposing, sending and receiving some TCDB trades.

Speaking of the latter, I've been fortunate enough to have three envelopes show up recently thanks to that site (with at least one more on the way!), so I thought it would be fun to do a second (I believe?) TCDB trade roundup. Here's a quick look at what I received:

First up was either a PIF (pay it forward) or RAK (random act of kindness) from C2Cigars, a.k.a. Chuck. If his name sounds familiar to you, that's because I was able to meet up with him and Paul at a show in Paul's neck of the woods late in 2019. Continuing the spirit of a thread that's now more than four years old and 2500+ posts strong, Chuck sent me the following nine cards out of the blue:

The first two are 2021 Donruss base issues of Tigers teammates Miggy and the Candyman. I think the design could have used less white and more color, but it's cool having a couple more 2021 Tigers in my collection since I don't buy packs or anything. Candelario's lacked the power he showed off last year, but it's fun to see Cabrera chasing a couple milestones as his career winds down.

Besides those I was treated to a seven-spot of '21 Heritage Tigers. Topps is running back the '72 design this year, and it features a solid design, though I still prefer action shots to this posed stuff. But it does hit some classic notes nicely, so there's that. Miggy and Candelario are also featured here, along with pitchers Tyler Alexander, Gregory Soto, and Spencer Turnbull. Also in the picture is slugger C.J. Cron, who I was disappointed to see gone after his powerful start to the 2020 season was interrupted by injury. And then there's my favorite of the bunch: a throwback to the multiplayer RCs of yesteryear. This one includes a trio of pitching prospects: the recently DFAed Beau Burrows, who lost his lunch on the mound and then his spot on the team; Kyle Funkhouser, who's been quite good out of the 'pen; and Rony Garcia, whom Detroit snagged from the Yankees in the 2019 Rule 5 draft.

I also want to give extra credit to Chuck as Alexander's card is a short print, one of three Tigers in the high numbers (including Joe Jimenez and JaCoby Jones).

And why not include the backs for completeness?

It was very cool of him to send these my way and fortunately for me I'd already gathered a few items for him before supplementing them with a few more at last week's show (recap coming soon-ish). I may also follow his lead and pick a random TCDBer to send a PIF to so the fun continues.

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Next up is a deal I completed with John from Minnesota who goes by deadhead11 (with an assist from Paul!). A fan of Saints and Shaq, among others, John DMed me asking about a couple New Orleans hits I scored on the cheap from my monthly show, wondering if we could work out a deal around them. Hey, I'm happy to take a look, at least.

We batted the proposal back and forth a few times, and thanks to a few cards Paul was generous enough to PWE to him on my behalf, we agreed on a deal that brought me some cool Michigan Football stuff, including a pair of new autographs:

The first nine include vets like WR Derrick Alexander ('99 Finest), OT John "Jumbo" Elliott ('94 Stadium Club), insane Viking C Steve Everitt ('95 Pacific), and QB Elvis Grbac ('99 Pacific). Rookie year cards comprise transfer TE Devin Asiasi (2020 Playoff RC), beastly DL/LB Brandon Graham (2010 Playoff Contenders Rookie of the Year Contenders insert), transfer QB Ryan Mallett (2011 Finest RC), LB Jonas Mouton (2011 Rookies & Stars Longevity Silver parallel /249), and transfer QB Jack Rudock (2016 Panini Prizm RC). I loved getting some of the lesser seen vets like the two OL, and the rookies were helpful with my project where I'm chasing those, including guys who transferred out (Asiasi and Mallett), and new additions like Rudock. I appear to be just one first-year shy for the two quarterbacks here, while I own just a pair of Asiasis.

Before we get to the autographs there's one more base to admire, with former #1 Alexander getting the die-cut/horizontal treatment courtesy of 2001 Pacific Crown Royale. How could I not try to swing that as part of the deal?

But my real prizes were a pair of Thomas Rawls autographs (speaking of transfers!). John had one listed and came up with another one, which was a nice bonus for me. The Wolverines/CMU Chippewas RB can be seen here on a pair of signatures from 2016 Panini products: Infinity's Infinite Ink (/188) and Prestige. Both are great in their own right with the card on the left being thick, shiny, and numbered, and the other showing off that full bleed Prestige look that I tend to appreciate.

These are my first two solo autographs of Rawls to go along with a relic, auto/relic, and plate.

I was very happy with my experience dealing with John and would highly recommend him thanks to his patience and willingness to work out a fair deal.

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And finally, hot out of the mailbox today, is the result of a deal with TCDBer/Tweep Matt of Wisconsin, whom many of you know as Mjprigge on the former and @mjpmke on the latter. The author/librarian/Brewers fan tweeted that he was hoping to try to put together the fun debut of Upper Deck's SPx from 1996. I almost immediately asked him to send me a wantlist since I had a few I was happy to give up. We ended up matching up for five that he needed, plus a college football autograph I'd grabbed at a past show. In return, I was happy to get the following in an easily worked out PWE trade:

I think I was the most excited about card #1 here since it's the oldest: a '69 Topps Deckle Edge of former Tigers great Willie Horton. Bulking up his collection is something I've been trying to focus on recently so scoring something like that in a deal is great.

The next four cards represent three of his teammates that combined to help the Tigers win the '68 Series. Mickey Stanley is seen here on his '73 Topps base, on which someone noted in pen that the Gold Glove CF that year also played some SS, which is a bit of an understatement. Detroit manager Mayo Smith made the ballsy call to move Stanley to the all important infield spot for the World Series, replacing all glove/no-bat SS Ray Oyler while fitting OFs Horton, Al Kaline, and Jim Northrup, into the lineup as well. Man did that pay off!

The aforementioned Northrop comes up next on his '74 Topps base, and he took advantage of his '68 Series at-bats with a pair of homers and 8 RBI in the win.

Then awesome story and PH great Gates Brown joins Stanley's second appearance out of 1976 SSPC, with that product continuing to be the gift that keeps on giving. Brown chipped in 6 HR during the title-winning season, with a few coming in clutch situations off the bench.

Gates won a second ring as a coach with the Tigers in '84, a team that included former White Sox OF Chet Lemon, who came to Detroit in a swap that sent Steve Kemp to the Windy City in 1981, the year the card you see above was made by Topps . I'd say that deal worked out just fine for the good guys as Lemon put up eight solid-to-excellent campaigns in nine seasons in Motown, including a career-high 6.2 bWAR (matching the previous year) during that magical '84 season.

Last up in this scan is another ring winner, just one that didn't accomplish the feat with Detroit. I can't go that many posts on TMV without at least one Verlander, and here you can see the 2017 champ on a 2020 Topps League Leaders subset issue, which mentions his 21 wins to top the AL in 2019; teammate Gerrit Cole came in second with 20. Alas for the cheatin' Astros, they couldn't repeat the magic of 2017 for some reason, and fell to the Nats.

We're not quite done here, yet, though, because there's one more item remaining. Toymaker LJN co-produced these oversized oddballs, like Larkin's here, with Topps in 1989, and while the front looks normal enough, the back is definitely enough to throw most people for a loop. You could "play" audio clips on the top half of the back with a special record player that was sold separately (wasn't everything, back then?) making them a fun novelty, though obviously they never caught on.

Big thanks to Matt, who's a fun Twitter follow and excellent TCDBer, for another easy deal, our second (with the other happening about a year ago). I love helping people tackle sets when I can, and getting some very cool cards from a rock solid trade partner is just gravy.

At some point in the near future I'll have another recap of a deal made on the site with a familiar (at least to me) trader, but first I'll be showing off a couple other trade packages plus going over the results of my latest monthly show.

2019 COMC purchases: non-PC football and hockey hits

A quite satisfying Michigan thumping of Rutgers (52-0) has me in the mood to post some cards from my most recent COMC shipment comprising purchases from earlier this year.  It looks like this will be a four-part series, and today's kickoff will cover hits I scored of guys who don't have their own PC albums and play(ed) football or hockey:

Two players dominate today's post, and that's cool since I often pair them up mentally the way I do with David Terrell and Anthony Thomas.  The first is WR Jehu Chesson (click his name to go to my TCDB gallery for him, plus the other players in today's post).  Considering his playing time in the NFL has been minimal it's been easy finding nice stuff of his at low prices, such as the four autographs you see above.  Jehu's got an interesting signature, with his name somewhat reasonable to make out, and he includes the "II" in his name, which is pretty cool.

In terms of what you see above, Leaf Metal Draft includes a Michigan uniform-ish picture (hey, what are you gonna do?) and Panini's Unparalleled is a super shiny design, plus it's #39/49.  The middle two are from Panini's Preferred (using the Crown Royale design) and Prizm.

Numbers-wise, Chesson's hit count nearly doubles from three to seven after these additions, and I'd surely be happy to land more when I can.

Chesson always brings to mind position pal Amara Darboh, and vice versa, so naturally I have a bunch of his cards to show off today as well.  As a matter of fact, this scan of four vertical designs is just the tip of the iceberg!

The relic in this group is a nice Mirror Orange jersey card from 2017 Certified and is numbered 122/399.  To its right is a jersey/auto/RC (#095/299) from 2017 Limited, and that interesting swatch has the slightest hint of green stitching, so it looks like it probably came from the jersey numbers on his chest.  Then there's autographs from Origins' Rookie Signatures and Playoff's Rookie Autographs (#107/199), also 2017 Panini products.  Like Chesson he has a pretty decent signature.

Yep, five more cards of the nomadic WR, all horizontal this time.  Relics from Panini Contenders Rookie Ticket Swatches, Origins Rookie Jumbo Jerseys (#026/199), and Vertex Startup Jerseys (#89/99) comprise a nice jersey trio, with the latter two being my favorites, especially the Vertex card and its enormous swatch.

Those are joined by the base (#04/99) and Orange (#15/25) versions of Amara's 2017 Panini XR Luminous Endorsements autos.  The super cool design here is kind of a thinner shadowbox idea, with the image framed by the border underneath a clear acetate cover that the player signs.  That makes it great to look at, plus it gives players a very large surface to cover with their signatures.  Too cool!

Darboh has been one of my more productive recent collections and this big haul jumps him all the way up to 29 hits (and 39 cards total), a number I'll look to increase soon.

This last football scan includes three miscellaneous players.  Funchess is well known around these parts, and here the former TE/WR stars on a 2015 Panini Contenders Rookie Ticket Swatches jersey.  As usual I find the Contenders design simple and appealing.  That's hit #11 and card #54 of the injured Colt.

Next is one of two new players debuting in the Michigan Football hits collection today.  Mike McCray was a two-year starter at LB in Ann Arbor who put up fairly similar numbers in 2016 and '17, though that's where his career ultimately ended as he retired last year.  That makes me grateful for a product like Contenders--in this case 2018 Draft Picks--that allows me to chase an autograph of a guy that wouldn't otherwise have one, even if that autograph is a bit on the "???" side.

Last up is QB Jake Rudock, the Iowa transfer that came to Ann Arbor in 2015 and led Jim Harbaugh's first team to a 10-3 record, including a thumping of Florida in the Citrus Bowl.  Harbaugh was able to elevate his play enough to get Rudock drafted by the Lions in the sixth round the following year, which I guess isn't exactly an ideal fate.  Fortunately he's escaped that vortex of suck, only to be encompassed by a worse one down in Miami!  Anyway, my first hit of his is this beautiful (if poorly scanned) 2016 Panini Black Gold Golden Prospects Signatures White Gold auto (#92/99).  Like the Darbohs above this one has a bit of a shadowbox effect, though the image of the player you see is on the top layer, and the autograph was on a sticker placed on the other acetate piece.

I'm happy to welcome McCray and Rudock as the 220th and 221st players in the football collection, and even happier that they contributed to today's big milestone:  1400 football hits and counting!  1402 to be exact, with more to be posted soon.  Right now I doubt I'll hit 1500 before the end of the year, but you never know.

With hockey season (both college and pro) starting up soon, today seemed as good of a day as any to post my lone pickup in that sport:

I love it when I can get 1/1s for cheap prices, and this plate of Steve Shields from 2017-18 Leaf Masked Men certainly qualifies:  I grabbed it for just $4.85 way back in April.  As you can see, it's the cyan plate from the goalie-centric product's Jumbo Goalie Patch insert, and I'd sure love to add one of those actual cards to my Shields collection as well!  For now this plate goes with the seven autographs I have of the former Michigan netminder, and it becomes 1/1 #122.  I don't have any more such cards from COMC to show off, but an upcoming eBay post may just blow your mind.

Here's hoping I'm in the mood for posting next weekend after another one, this time against Iowa.  In the meantime stay tuned for a few more COMC posts, plus another Sportlots run.