2021 eBay purchases: still king of Dick Mountain

Card collecting for me is a fun hobby so I don't aspire to much there aside from completing some sets and chasing player collections. That said, I do put some extra effort into being the top of the heap when it comes to collecting Dick Mountain, a.k.a. Rich Hill. I have close to a 300-card lead on the second best member on TCDB, and nobody else has stepped up to claim the title, though as I've asked before, why would anyone else take it that seriously?

Anyway, I made four eBay purchases myself in the months of July and August with each of the results heading to my Hill collection, and now I'm showing them off in what I consider least to most impressive:

All four of these came from the same seller while I only purchased two of them. Some of you probably know what that means: they were sold by markaguirre22, a.k.a. Gary. Not only has he been selling Rich Hills (and some other recent Wolverines too) at great prices with free shipping, but he's also thrown in some bonuses a few times now, making him my favorite seller by far.

So what we have here is a quartet of Hills from 2017 and 2018 Heritage. The pair of 2018 cards represent my earliest purchase in this group, made the day before Independence Day. I dropped a hair under $1.50 for the one on the right, a 100th Anniversary parallel that features a cool gold foil stamp. Those were apparently limited to 25 copies, not that Topps could be arsed to number them. I decided the price was fair for a card that limited, and then Gary threw in the base version on the left, which I also needed, and which happens to be short-printed, so I certainly appreciated the generosity.

And then just a couple Saturdays ago I snagged the card you see in the upper-right for a bit under $2, a steal of a deal considering just five of them apparently exist. That's because it's the 2017 Heritage Reverse Stock version, with a glossy-ish back and matte-like front. And then I was pleasantly surprised to find the Bright Yellow Back version on the left in the same PWE, since I hadn't bid on that one, which is a tad easier to find at 25 copies. Again, no serial numbering here.

Here's a look at the backs to give you a bit better idea of what's going on, though the Reverse Stock card is much easier to discern in-hand. I doubt I'd notice the different shade of yellow on the back of the left card, especially if I was sorting through a box or case break, but I'm not Topps' target audience, so I'll just be glad the seller knew what he had and labelled them clearly for me.

Next up is yet another Hill entry from Upper Deck's 2007 Sweet Spot product. I know these are fairly polarizing in the hobby due to some of the autographs having a tendency to fade over time, especially the ones on the manu-baseballs. I've generally had good luck with mine, though, and this Bat Barrel/Red Ink version looks great to me! It's limited to just five copies, and I somehow managed to win it with a $3.61 bid plus tax and shipping, which made it $8.23, which is still ridiculous. Rich has 24 cards in the product, seven of which are 1/1s, and I have 12 of the remaining 17 now, with two of them being limited to just five copies. The remainders are numbered to 5, 5, 10, 15, and 15. I'll keep plugging away because I look forward to the day when I can show off the full run!

And to finish up, you had to know I tracked down another 1/1--my 25th of Hill--to top what you just saw. This Pure White autograph hails from, get this, UD Black. Rich could be found elsewhere in the product as part of the Illustrious Dual Autographs with fellow prospect Sean Gallagher on cards numbered /25 (which I own), /15, and /1. Besides those, it's this Pure White 1/1 and four plate versions. I haven't done a count lately but Hill--as with most players, I'd assume--has much fewer 1/1 autographs than other types of that card like plates and parallels. Of the 25 cards I own of the ultimate rarity starring Hill (that I have catalogued; still working on those 2008 Triple Threads...), only four (including this one) are autographed, and one of those is a plate. So yeah, this was definitely a big want for me, and that explains why I won the bidding war at a bit over $20 delivered for this beauty.

Though my overall spending is way down from recent years--I just passed the $800 mark thanks to Friday's show--I'm still throwing money around when it makes sense to bolster my favorite collections. And that's why I can continue to stake my claim as the king of Dick Mountain!

Stay tuned as I'll likely get that show report up in the next few days since I once again don't have much to show off.

Until then, if you have any, show me your Dicks! uh...Rich Hills that you have for trade.

2013 COMC pickup: a Black Jack for the 21st

I totally planned out putting up this post today on purpose, for reals.  Of course, I could have posted other stuff in the meantime, but who wants to do that?

I'm way behind in posting two packages worth of COMC pickups on the sister blog, but over here I have just one to show off, and it's a doozy:

Jack Morris 2007 Sweet Spot Classic Signatures Red Stitch Black Ink auto (#069/175)

For about $6 during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales on the site, I scored this awesome Sweet Spot Jack Morris auto!  I believe I've yet to meet someone who didn't like this series, one of UD's cooler innovations.  I'm not sure what the story is with this one since it's supposed to be black ink, but the gold looks great, and Morris simply has one of the best signatures in the game.  Of course, I already knew that since I have another Black Jack auto in my Tigers PC.  By the way--the shot of old Tiger Stadium is also a nice touch (for some reason I just assume Topps would use Comerica instead).

This is also somewhat of a timely post since, as I've said in the past multiple times, I believe without a doubt that Morris belongs in the Hall of Fame.  It's not worth re-hashing those arguments again, but I sure hope Jack finally hears his name called after years of slowly-increasing support, and gives the '84 world champs their first member of the Hall!

My Barry favorite Larkin card!

(note:  another double post with TMM since this one's big enough to include on both blogs!)

I have one more outstanding trade post to get to, but I'm wussing out and going with the quickie post today, especially since it's a card about which I'm very excited.

Today's post is even more relevant after Chris from Nachos Grande's insanely cool news, which you can read about in his post.  It started a few days ago when I was trolling eBay for my usual players and came across a very interesting card with a BIN/BO listing.  I lowballed and was automatically rejected, then added $5 and suffered the same fate.  Down to my last strike I made my BEST best offer, adding $5 more and knocked it out of the park like a HR from a certain recent HOFer:

Embiggened, because I SAY SO

Here you see MY best Barry Larkin collection piece--a 2005 Sweet Spot Signatures Red Stitch Black Ink auto (#162/175).  OMG, that's an eBay 1/1 #d to the number of games in an MLB season!

Yessir, this here's my first auto of the best Michigan baseball alum of my (sorta) generation!  I have no idea if I overpaid except for the fact that I know I'm so thrilled to have this autograph, there really isn't any such thing.  It's such a great card--the Sweet Spot design makes it 1000x better, and you guys know I loves me some Sweet Spot autos, like this other pretty good SS--that about the only thing keeping it from being an ideal card for me is that he's not pictured as a Wolverine, but then again, I won't even complain about that because Barry is so synonymous with the Reds, I don't think he should be depicted as anything but.

This ridiculous Larkin immediately shoots to the top 5 of my Michigan baseball PC, and honestly, it's definitely up there in my baseball autograph collection too.  And that makes it worth every penny I spent picking it up on eBay.  Any thoughts, Reds and Wolverines fans?