2024 eBay purchases: Six more from 24

I'm still slowly plugging away at the piles of 2024 stuff left to cover and after this post should have something like two to go (I think).

This one shouldn't take me too long to recap as it features just six cards, though they're all eBay purchases from last June through December and are pretty decently significant. I'll try not to get too wordy!

Win #1 was the most costly and I nabbed it back in early June:

My second certified auto of Sweet Lou hails from 2019 Donruss Optic and is the Red parallel that's limited to a scant seven copies! This one uses an action photo of Whitaker about to make some good contact, and while it lacks any MLB logos I do like the shot. It's also a fun throwback to the 1985 design used the year after Detroit last won it all, so that's a nice bonus.

Lou doesn't appear in a ton of autograph sets and of course this particular card is fairly rare, so I didn't mind spending a bit under $60 to get it. My favorite in my collection is still his 2001 Topps Archives rookie reprint auto, but I'm thrilled to add a second like this one to it. I also picked up a JSA-certified 1983 Fleer auto (apparently from 2011 Leaf Ink) a while ago to give me sort of a third signature.

This one is definitely sweet!

A few weeks later I scored another pricey high-end signature card, and if I recall correctly, Greg was the one that let me know it was available, so if that was the case, thank you to him for the assist.

Bill Freehan's autographs have naturally gone up in price a bit due to his passing a few years ago, although I would say not egregiously so. In any case, I wasn't shocked that this dual signature card of him and fellow Wolverine/Tiger Rick Leach wasn't super cheap since I'm assuming TK Legacy, one of my favorite products as the manufacturer focuses on individual colleges, was likely distributed regionally. I don't recall if I saw this one up for sale before, or at least at a price I could handle, but at this point in my life, a bit under $50 was money I was willing to spend.

Naturally I love it because Freehan's one of my Michigan favorites--he went on to play for the Tigers and is a franchise great there too--and Leach is also a pretty significant Wolverine. But the focus on the college careers of both players is especially cool, as is their link which the back goes into. What it also doesn't mention is that both also played football for the Wolverines. Leach's gridiron career is more notable than Freehan's since he was a touted QB, but Bill was a notable two-sport athlete as well.

Not only is this my 14th signature of Freehan, but as a bonus it's also my first certified signature of Leach, who joins the baseball hits collection as member #40!

Roughly a month later I threw in a low max bid on a basketball card and was surprised to win it:

You all know I love my cheap plates so I was glad to win this one of former Wolverine Nik Stauskas for a mere $6.50 ($4.25 bid plus $2.25 in tax and shipping). "Sauce Castillo"'s RCs were released in 2014-15 so this cyan plate was used to create his rookie in that year's National Treasures product. I believe these plates were actually inserted into a subsequent product like a later National Treasures offering, but we still have them listed under 2014-15 NT on TCDb so I'll leave it categorized as such for now.

Believe it or not this is my SIXTH plate of Stauskas, which isn't something that happened intentionally, and it's hilarious to me that half of my hits of his are of the 1/1 variety while I only just recently picked up an autograph.

At the end of August I continued the printing plate theme with a return to baseball:

As usual here's my disclaimer that the subject of this card is pitcher Matt Miller who was drafted by the Brewers, not the Rockies/Indians P from Mississippi or the Texas Tech lefty who appeared in a few games in the early 2000s for the Tigers. The one I collect was born in South Carolina, went to high school in Indiana, and of course played for Michigan.

It looks like this Miller was only in organized ball between 2010, his draft season, and 2014, all while in the Brewers org. He pitched parts of the 2011 and 2012 seasons with the pictured Wisconsin Timber Rattlers (who doesn't love minor league team nicknames?) and appeared on 31 total cards catalogued on TCDb, with a mix of minor league issues joining regular issues from 2010 Elite Extra and 2011 Topps Heritage Minors and Pro Debut. Oddly enough I now own the yellow plates from both of the latter, and my only needs include his for minor league issues plus the remaining seven 1/1s from the Topps products. As rare as it is to find cards of his I need, $10.60 wasn't an unreasonable price for this.

Once again just a couple weeks later I added one more plate to my collection courtesy of eBay:

I think I may have mentioned my proclivity for collecting Rich Hill around here before! Now I can make the crazy claim that I own more 1/1s of Dick Mountain than I do combined hits of any one other player in my baseball collection (Zach Putnam has 35 to his name)!

This is my first of his from the 2020 flagship set to go along with the same year's Chrome Update and an On-Demand Mini Silver 1/1 parallel. The lefty dwarfs all others in that collection with 152 hits, literally representing more than 1/3 of the 447-card total. It's a mountain of Hills! (That definitely sounds better in my head than a mountain of Dicks.) Sometimes it's not easy staying at the top and I definitely had to fight off a few other bids to land this one for a bit more than $16.

My final personal eBay purchase wouldn't be until early December, and the subject of the card (at least one of them) remained the same:

The "Chirography" name had been around for almost a decade as part of Upper Deck's SP Authentic product when this dual signature starring Hill and fellow lefty pitching prospect Sean Marshall was made in 2006. I believe I own nearly 100 cards that include Rich's autograph so you could say I've studied his handwriting quite a bit in my hobby career.

Out of that grouping, I have a few signature cards he shares with others but this is my first that includes his former teammate Marshall, who was drafted a year later than Hill in 2003. He lasted nine years in the Majors, pitching six in Chicago and three more with the Reds, mostly as a bullpen guy from mid-career on. Marshall's now 42 and has been out of the game since 2014 while Hill has a chance at 45 (in March) to pitch in his 21st season. Crazy! I hope he gets a shot at more than the four games he pitched for Boston last season and gets to go out on his terms when he's ready.

Once again, hooray for more cards that I can put away! I think my last two '24 posts should be a few more Facebook Marketplace buys and then my late-year COMC haul. Then I'll be glad to get reporting on 2025 trades, shows and more.

2020 eBay purchases: plates a-plenty and more!

I need to post some cards so I can put them away, so here's what I purchased for myself on eBay over the first third of the year!

Card #1 is a 2007 Fleer magenta plate of blog favorite pitcher Rich Hill. I snagged this way back in January as my only non-show pickup for the month. I'm always up for a new 1/1 for my favorite PC, and a bit under $8 shipped was enough to get my first of this plate set, though it's my seventh 1/1 from that year. I still have some investigating to do regarding my 2008 Triple Threads 1/1s of Rich before I can get an accurate total, but for now he still rules the roost with 137 hits, 24 of the ultimate rarity.

I grabbed three more plates in February--two for myself--and one more the following month, giving me a fun run of five straight 1/1 purchases on eBay. The first was this J.J. Putz yellow version from Topps' flagship set, also out of 2007. Setting me back a little less than the Hill, this is my second oldest Putz plate, with one from 2006 Upper Deck taking the crown. That one is the only non-Topps card, oddly enough. While Hill has a commanding first place lead in 1/1s, Putz enjoys a smaller gap as his 11 in my collection have Clayton Richard's nine close behind.

The other card I grabbed for myself in February was a surprising win for me: I plunked down just $7.26 for my first plate of former Wolverine defensive beast Rashan Gary. This black plate was used to make his 2019 Donruss RC, but Panini's not the type to make things easy and actually inserted it as a hit in their Plates & Patches product last year. Both Panini and Upper Deck are known for doing this in some of their high-end products, which gives them a nice boost, though at the cost of the original sets that lose those potential pulls. Anyway, I was excited to get such a nice piece to add to the two autographs I own in his small collection, and I look forward to seeing what he could do in his sophomore NFL campaign (if there is one).

The last plate today stars former UM pitcher Matt Miller, one of many former baseball players of that name. This one was in the Brewers system for a while, plus he only appears on cards from 2010 Donruss Elite Extra and 2011 Topps Heritage Minors and Pro Debut, so he's easy enough for my to identify. I'm not even sure the last time I posted cards of him here (or on TMV) since I completed his 17-card run quite a while ago. Happily I now have my first plate to go with those, and the 1/1 Donruss EEE autograph I bought a while back, so I can lay claim to 20% of his 1/1s! By the way, at a bit over $5 delivered this one kept up my trend of declining final prices of cards I'd been buying on eBay, which was temporarily interrupted by a trade bait 1/1 I grabbed earlier this month.

Fortunately this non-1/1 got me back on track. My most recent purchase, made about two weeks ago, is a new Ryan LaMarre auto from 2012's unlicensed Onyx Platinum Prospects product. An Autographs Inscribed version hand-numbered on the back /5, this cost me a paltry $2.73 as I won it from my favorite eBayer, markaguirre22, from whom I've bought a bunch of very cool Michigan-related items. It also doesn't hurt that he offers free shipping! The design is about on par for the type of product, but I do love the gold ink, and the "Go Reds!" inscription is great. I'm glad to make it my 12th LaMarre hit, 10 of which include his signature.

In total I've spent under $50 on eBay over the first four months of this year and have scored six plates, one other trade bait item, and the LaMarre you just saw, meaning I'm still getting some good value despite my buying being way down.

Speaking of throwing money at cards, I think my next couple posts should cover some very cool Facebook Marketplace purchases, and I should be following those up with a huge TCDB trade. Should any trade packages show up in the interim, though, I'll happily give them priority. I hope everyone continues to stay safe and healthy while they continue collecting as much as possible during these crazy times!