2026 eBay purchases: rare cards and a coin

Well at least I didn't let the entire remainder of April pass before I posted again! It's been a lazy month for me hobby-wise and as usual I wasn't dying to put the effort into posting, but now I have some motivation to catch up thanks to a couple trade packages that arrived this month.

It was an interesting one for Michigan fans: the highs of the basketball Wolverines winning just their second national title followed by the even more favored hockey team falling once again in the semis of the Frozen Four to the hated Denver Pioneers, who've lapped Michigan in hockey titles, much to my chagrin.

But I can hardly complain about the results, along with football spring practice in the books that has me looking forward to the fall (but not until I've enjoyed some warm weather for more than a few days at a time, please!).

So apropos of almost nothing, here's a look at my four eBay pickups from the first third of 2026:

My first eBay purchase of any type this year, way back in February, was my second 1/1 of beastly Super Bowl-winning LB LaMarr Woodley. For a hair under $9 I'm now the proud owner of this 2007 SAGE HIT black plate of the 46th overall pick way back in '07. It's from the era when a brand like SAGE was allowed to use full team logos, names, and uniforms, and that makes the Michigan uni aspect a bonus.

Here's the base card for comparison:

Not bad at all. Like I said, that's 1/1 #2 to go along with a plate from 2009 Topps, and it marks hit #12 of the big hitter who piled up 58.0 total sacks, 319 tackles, and nine forced fumbles.

A few weeks later in March I scored one of my biggest cards so far of the young year. For whatever reason, my collection of WR Amara Darboh boasts some of the best looking items in my Michigan Football collection, and the rich got richer here. I was willing to go all the way up to almost $20 for this National Treasures plate/prime jersey/auto combo. Why? Once again, there's the Wolverine-ness of the thing: a Michigan uni shot, the logo on the back, and most of all, the fantastically large maize/blue/white jersey swatch. It's a thing of beauty!

Darboh's 51st hit marks his first 1/1 in the collection (surprisingly enough, given the overall quality of his PC), and one I was thrilled to add for sure.

Just a few days later I was finally able to rectify a small issue from a purchase from the February show. As I noted here, I grabbed what I thought were three 7-11 Slurpee Coin sets, but one of them--the 1986 Central Region version--was missing probably the biggest coin: Carlton/Ryan/Seaver. A bit over $6 shipped was enough to snag me two copies of this coin along with a couple dupes of another. And that's one more set knocked off the wantlist!

I was glad to catch the note at the bottom that states, "Nolan holds the all-time mark for K's, followed by Steve and Tom." That was indeed the case at the time, but the list looks a bit different some 40 years later. Ryan still stands along with a crazy 5714 over a crazier 27 seasons, but Randy Johnson (4875) and Roger Clemens (4672) topped Carlton's 4136, and Bert Blyleven (3701) snuck above Seaver's 3640. Those are your top 6, with Justin Verlander hoping to return to health to pitch enough to take over 7th place, currently held by Don Sutton. Only 20 K's separate the two!

And finally we have my most recent pickup. For a penny under $12 I scored my latest Manningham of (too) many just last week. This here is a black plate from Upper Deck's 2009 Heroes product, specifically for the Blue Retail Jerseys insert. Do I happen to own that card like I do with the base of the Woodley above? Could I claim I have "too many" Manninghams otherwise?

While I don't like the 2009 set as much as the 2008 version, which included RCs of Manningham and a bunch of his other teammates that are favorites of mine, it's still a cool looking set, and, I mean, since when am I not gonna chase a rare Mario I need?

Since I threw out numbers for the others I'll note that this is my second 1/1 of Manningham (the other is a National Treasures auto/plate that I showed off on TMM almost EIGHT years ago) and hit #103 of the namesake of my former sister blog.

As always, money well spent, I'd say!

And now I'll try to get back to work on a couple other posts before getting back to trade package action. In the meantime, bring on the warmer weather and more baseball!

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!

2019 Sportlots purchases: Rookie Blue on a Bye

The boys in Maize & Blue may be on a bye week but that doesn't mean I can't have my own Michigan Football Saturday.  Today I'm covering 62 new cards for my Rookie Blue project where I'm chasing every RC of each guy to suit up for Michigan (excluding autograph and relic cards).  Since this is a chase I started when I was still posting on Too Many Manninghams, the checklist I'm working from is currently here while the album containing what I've picked up so far can be found here.

And now on to the new stuff for today.  In the past I've generally shied away from buying these RCs on Sportlots because most of my spending leans toward the $0.18 site minimum price.  This time, though, I finally bit on some that were in the $0.45-$0.75 range, especially from one seller who had a bunch I needed, many of them numbered.  My overall spending has been down this year and this purchase was very productive so it was pretty easy for me to justify it, especially after surveying the damage to that checklist I mentioned above.

So here's the main event:  62 new RCs of 35 former Wolverines!:

2008 draftee and PC guy Arrington's numbered '08 Stadium Club RC is my 17th of his 19.  Former OL Baas only has five to chase but they've been tough sledding, and the UD pair above gives me three.  Touchdown Tim gets his 30th of 32 thanks to '96 Score Board Lasers, a card I hadn't caught for my checklist until recently.  Michigan-to-W. Illinois LB transfer Bowens had just one card for me to chase:  that 2005 Topps Total.  Alan Branch (who kills QBs) gets numbered '07 Gridiron Gear Retail (ugh) and Select first-years to put me one short of his 26 RCs.  Finally, you can see two Butts (hehe) out of three in this post, in this case '17 Playoff and Rookies & Stars.

Campbell's '99 Fleer Focus was a huge add for me here because that numbered RC was impossible for me to find for under $1 until recently on Sportlots, and now I've tracked down all three of his cards.  Former Cowboy Charlton, who's doing pretty well when he, you know, actually gets playing time, gets within one card of halfway to his 20 after the '17 Select you see.  You'll also see Chesson again below, and for now Rookies & Stars and Prizm from 2017 are above, followed by fellow '17 guy Darboh's own R&S.  Darden's '74 Topps fixes an earlier misstep when I thought his '75 was the RC for some reason, and I'm glad to have that fixed, not to mention a new vintage add!  And then we have three out of a five-card run of transfer RB Fargas:  2003 Bowman Chrome plus Fleer Authentix and Focus (the latter of which are numbered).  Some of you might recall that that "Rookie Authentix" piece in the middle can be removed, another goofy Fleer innovation of the time.

This scan begins with the other two Fargas RCs, Mystique and UD's Honor Roll, which are also numbered, and I'm now half way to his 22.  Gold is a guy from 2000 so his stuff can get a bit of a Brady bump, but the Playoff Momentum above, my 7th of his 9, wasn't bad.  Fellow '07 draftees and PC guys Hall and Harris appear on numbered cards from Select and SP Authentic, and while I need three more of Hall's 23, the Harris is the 24th and final RC of the former tackling machine, sewing up another player.  Here-and-gone dual-sport guy Henson gets a nice trio highlighted by '04 Fleer Greats along with Playoff Honors and the college-themed Prestige for 18 of his 37.  And lesser known 2017 DB Delano Hill marks the first of three appearances of Panini Phoenix with one of his two rookie issues.

PC guy Marlin Jackson's 25th of 30 first-years is from '05 Ultimate Collection like Baas's above, and we'll see that product (different year) in a couple more scans.  '97 Ultra (and its great design!) was the last of three I needed for transfer TE Damon Jones.  Speaking of that position, I landed a couple more for Bennie Joppru:  the gorgeous '04 Donruss Classics plus Fleer's Avant, both numbered, which get me to 25/32.  I'm short just one of WR Marcus Knight's 15 rookies thanks to this 2000 trio of Fleer Showcase and Leaf Certified (both numbered) plus Playoff's Absolute (surprisingly not numbered!).  And I was thrilled to knock off a beautiful pair of numbered college uni RCs starring '04 DB Jeremy LeSueur--Classics and Elite, which leave me three short of his nine.

CB Jourdan Lewis is 2017 Panini Phoenix guy #2, which is also RC #2 in his collection.  Former #1 overall pick Long joins Arrington from '08 Stadium Club for his 19th of 22 rookies.  Transfer QB Mallett gets a big boost with six cards, all from 2011 Topps brands, to get him up to 8/10.  And we get the first of a pair starring another QB, John Navarre.  This one's from 2004 Fleer Platinum, and I was surprised that it was a numbered card given the brand's history.

Navarre's other issue is from the previously mentioned Ultimate Collection, and his pair puts him at 13/25, as his stuff continues to be a thorn in my side.  Do-everything dude Jabrill Peppers is '17 Phoenix player #3, and the 8th of his 21 RCs is from a product that's grown on me a bit.  Next you can see two of the three Jon Ritchies I found, representing another backfield guy that transferred from Michigan and ended up with the Raiders.  These are from '98 Bowman Chrome and Skybox Premium.  Aaron Shea is yet another 2000 draftee and here you see him on a shiny and numbered Pacific Prism Prospects card (his 11th of 15) which is a good reminder that the Brady from this set and others will be super expensive.  I happily checked off another player by adding RC #9 of 1999 WR Tai Streets from Leaf Certified.  Toomer joined Biakabutuka above from the '96 Score Board Lasers set and I now need just two of his 23.  And finally this scan includes a numbered pair of LB standout LaMarr Woodley--2007 Donruss Classics and Leaf Certified Materials--that go nicely with a third card below.

This mostly horizontal scan starts with a trio from the love-it-or-hate-it 2017 Panini Unparalleled set, including the previously seen Butt (7/14) and Chesson (8/13) plus the lone RC of DT Ryan Glasgow, part of the amazing walk-on family at the school.  The well-traveled Dhani Jones has two RCs and you can see one above, which he shares with a couple other Giants in 2003 Topps Total.  Another Giant follows as transfer CB Will Peterson (#2 of 4) appears on his numbered 2001 Titanium Post Season that uses a kick-ass die-cut design.  Ritchie's third card is also a die-cut from '98 Crown Royale, and gets me to 7 of his 12.  WR David Terrell looks a bit lonely without fellow Bears draftee Anthony Thomas on a 2001 Fleer Legacy RC that puts him at 27/53 rookies and 149 cards overall, one short of his RB counterpart.  And lastly, we have one more vertical card that didn't fit in a group of nine:  Woodley's numbered 2007 Topps Performance base, which puts him at 20/26.

This post plus some fun results on the field today definitely made this a fun college football Saturday for me.  And for those of you who prefer the diamond, I'm now done posting football pickups and should have something like five baseball posts to close out this series.  Thanks for reading and GO BLUE!

Remember Avantmas? Today's Terrelloween!

A couple quick things before the bulk of this post:

BA Benny group break reminder:
There's still a few slots left in BA Benny's awesome pack-a-palooza group break, so head over there and get in the game!

Catching up on mail:
This one actually came in last Saturday, but that was a group break day, so I haven't had a chance to post it until today:

This is a LaMarr Woodley 2007 Topps Performance jersey/auto/RC that I nabbed in a Blowout deal where I sold a couple Pedro Alvarez Razor Letterman from the last break, and I got this guy as a throw-in.  The trader, pskell02, was great and I highly recommend working with him, especially if you have Pittsburgh Razor letters he needs.  He was even nice enough to get this shipped back from CheckOutMyCards for me.

As promised, Terrelloween!:
I mentioned a few posts ago that after a relative calm in the storm that was my Blowout forum purchases, I made another one that might make y'all laugh.  Well here it is:  a guy had just an absolute ton of football listed, and I scanned it diligently for Wolverines.  A bunch of David Terrells popped up under each price range, though in total, one of each came out to be $100+.  I inquired about a price on those, and without having to lowball him, he responded excitedly (who wouldn't be if someone was offering money for your David Terrells?) with a GREAT price, and even threw in a bunch of Terrell RCs.  That haul is here (not including three doubles I accidentally got in the deal, not realizing I already had them):

Rookies group #1:  Pros & Prospects /1000; Crown Royale /1250; Bowman; Ultra /2499; Fleer EX /1000;  Score Select /275

Rookies group #2:  Fleer Hot Prospects Draft Day Postmarks /1825; Leaf Rookies & Stars; Elite /500; Fleer Showcase AvantCard /500; SP Game Used /500

2001 Bowman Chrome auto RC

2001 Fleer Focus Certified Cuts auto

2001 Fleer Genuine Future Swatch jersey (0281/1000)

2001 Fleer Hot Prospects Draft Day Postmarks auto (0259/1825)

2001 Fleer Hot Prospects Rookie Premiere Postmarks jersey (1465/1825)

2001 Fleer Rookie Retro Threads jersey

2001 Leaf Certified Materials Freshman Fabric ball-jersey (113/400)

2001 Leaf Certified Materials Freshman Fabric Mirror Red auto jersey (032/150)

2001 Leaf Rookies & Stars auto RC

2001 Leaf Rookies & Stars Freshman Orientation jersey

2001 Ovation auto RC (101/250)

2001 Playoff Contenders Rookie Ticket auto

2001 Playoff Preferred Rookie Materials ball (197/600)

2001 Topps Rookie Premiere auto

2001 UD Graded Making the Grade Rookie Signature auto (401/500)

2001 Upper Deck Ovation Game Gear autograph

2002 Absolute Memorabilia Leather & Laces ball-shoelace (08/25)

2002 Donruss Classics Significant Signatures auto (091/100)

2002 Leaf Certified Materials Mirror Signatures auto (41/50)

David Terrell-Anthony Thomas 2001 Upper Deck Top Tier 2001 Rookie Duos dual ball

Not a bad haul at all, and all that (including the aforementioned three I already had) for under $60 delivered, if you can believe it.  So another well-deserved shout-out to a good Blowout seller, brianshaft.

My favorite of the bunch is the Topps RP autograph.  I think I like it because it has some sort of glossy quality to it that the base cards don't.  I don't know enough about photography or card stock to explain it, but if you see one in person you'll know what I mean.

Here's a good opportunity for a snapshot of my current Terrell collection:

• 25 total hits
• 7 single relics (jersey, ball, etc.)
• 5 dual relics (any combination, including multi-player)
• 12 autographs
• 1 autograph + relic

Additionally, this puts me at 187 Michigan football hits (205 in all sports), so 200 is just right around the corner!  Terrell becomes the new leader of the collection, taking over for Jake Long (though I have more of him coming in very soon).  I also made a great purchase on CheckOutMyCards (hooray for the offer feature!) but might not get those shipped for a while until I feel like paying the shipping fee or try to sell some stuff first.

Until I post more, a reminder that the collection is here (or you can go through the link on the bar to your right).