8/3/19 card show report: August Rush

I enjoyed yet another fine Saturday at the monthly card show in Taylor a couple weeks ago, putting about an hour and a half (probably my average) into my favorite seller's boxes.  A nice mix from the usual denominations ($0.10 on up to $2) saw me spend a paltry but effective $25 on PC and trade bait stuff.  I think the biggest beneficiary of the latter this time was Matt of Parts of My Past, for whom I found a bunch of help for one of his set quests in the dime and quarter boxes.  A few others can look forward to some fun cardboard in the future too!

And now on to my haul:

Mr. Tiger leads things off with one of his two base offerings from UD's terrific 2004 Timeless Teams.  As you can see, this one highlights the '68 World Series winners, while the other covers the excellent '72 team that fell to the eventual champion A's in the ALCS.  Maybe I should just get the whole set eventually since I like it so much!

Everything else on the baseball side fell into the Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken grouping, which was just fine by me.  Most of what you see are cards from one of my favorite iterations of Topps Gallery--the 2000 version--while Junior and Mad Dog also got separate base cameos--'97 Score and 2000 Invincible.  Scanning these reminded me to add any base Topps Gallery stuff of all four mentioned players that I was missing to my TCDB wantlist, though I'm happy to report I don't have much left.

Cal was the big winner this time with 12-14 new cards.  We'll get to that disparity in a minute, but first we'll look at the vertical cards.  I think pretty much all of these came from the dime boxes so I wasn't terribly picky, just looking for new stuff.  It was fun to come up with the '85 Fleer pair, which includes a nice father/son card.  Most of the rest is a mixture of subsets and semi-oddball stuff, like Topps Kids, a Fleer Atlantic convention issue, and UD's Fun Pack.  There was no way I was leaving without that '98 Flair Showcase (Row 2) card, though.  Man, did those kick all kinds of ass.

As usual a lot of what I picked up mentioned the streak in some way, like the OPC version of Cal's '92 Topps base starring an iconic photo with Gehrig's Yankee Stadium monument, or a beautifully simple '96 base with the legend enjoying his curtain call.  Then there's one more pair of vertical issues that couldn't be anything other than examples of the plethora of unlicensed stuff from the era.  I couldn't find either in Beckett's OPG or on TCDB, and didn't turn up much in Google searches either, so I'm showing them off here but not officially counting them towards Ripken's collection until I can correctly ID them.

In case you're curious, here's the backs of both:

The day was less productive in terms of my Michigan collections, though sometimes that relative scarcity makes finding anything even more enjoyable.  I actually caught myself quietly saying "Woooow" as I pulled these inserts out of the dime/quarter/$0.50 boxes.

The first two represent PC QB Brian Griese, who's nearing the 200-card mark.  I was definitely not expecting to find something like the first card you see, a 1999 SkyBox Molten Metal Gridiron Gods Silver die-cut metallic card, which is a rarer version of an already cool insert.  Metal cards like these were a fun part of what was unquestionably the best era for collecting in my opinion.  That's joined by a Green parallel of his 2000 Score Complete Players offering.  Not the right color for a Michigan guy, but not bad.

Blog favorite PC guy (and also QB) Chad Henne gets us back on-brand with a Blue Refractor parallel of his 2008 Finest Moments card (#239/299) which, as a reminder, celebrates his performance in the 2008 Capital One Bowl victory over Florida.  I now have four versions of this card (Refractor, Autograph, yellow plate) and almost 300 cards of Chad.

Last up today is the pickup that might have surprised me the most:  an uncirculated 2008 Topps Chrome Gold Refractor (#197/199) of some guy named Manningham.  I believe as little as $0.50 was enough to make this mine, but I definitely would have paid more if necessary because I enjoy the occasional sealed card, plus Gold Refractors just look awesome.  So, yeah, I was just a bit excited.

With college football returning to Ann Arbor and the rest of the country I'll have to see how September's show fits in with my schedule, but one way or another I hope to be showing off pickups from there next month.  Until then I have at least one trade package ready to go, plus a nice mix of other stuff, including some very rare eBay pickups.

2019 trade package #11: Parts of My Past

Some of you might recall that Matt of Parts of My Past sent me a pair of PWEs filled with some Ken Griffey Jr. cardboard in April while ridding himself of some doubles of a guy we both PC.  I showed those off a few weeks ago in a post chock full of 90s Griffey goodness.

Why am I reminding you of that?  So you don't think you're experiencing a bad case of déjà vu as I show off two more PWEs worth of Juniors from Matt today.

That's right, the Great PWE-Sender (with apologies to Freddie) is at it again!  Here's what was in store for me this time:

There was a perfect nine-spot of vertically-oriented cards--the magic number for scanners.  And this bunch has lots of designs I really enjoy.  1995 was a good year for Score--the '95-'98 run in general was solid--and I still enjoy that Hitters Inc. subset.  

1999's Bowman's Best and Skybox Molten metal had shiny examples of different parts of that trademark swing.  Two instances of Topps Gallery in its heyday can be seen here:  1999 and 2002.  We need more of this and less of Fire, Five Star, and your other dumb products, Topps!

Fleer brings a couple 2001 issues with its one-and-done Game Time base set plus a Grass Roots insert from 2001 Tradition.  The manufacturer would use that title again the following year, then once more in '06.

And bookending the second Gallery offering is a pair of UD base looks.  On the left is 2002 flagship, in this case the first of a 10-card Griffey subset, the back of which notes that Griffey became the youngest player to reach 450 homers in '01 (31 years and 261 days), 15 days better than the #2 guy.  Can anyone guess who that was?  It goes on to mention that he was also the youngest to get to 300 and 400 dingers.  Man, what could have been if he stayed healthy!  That's joined by a 2008 Sweet Spot base, one of a small number of issues showing him with the White Sox during his 41-game stint that year.

And now we move on to a trio of horizontal inserts.  I can still remember watching Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann on SportsCenter, with the pair serving as an inspiration for the always excellent Sports Night, I believe.  I also recall busting a nice version of UD's Collector's Choice in 1997 and chasing the Big Show inserts seen above!

The other two are both inserts from Fleer's 2006 Ultra product, and that's not the only thing they share:  as with Grass Roots above, these titles were used by Fleer multiple times.  Diamond Producers existed from 1996-99, again in 2004, and finally in these cards' product.  Meanwhile, RBI Kings dated back to 1994, and the '06 version was its ninth and final appearance.  2005 was Junior's second of two quality seasons with the Reds (the other being his debut in 2000) so his appearance makes sense here.

Matt, thanks again for the great bunch of Griffeys!  We'll just have to see what I can hit you back with after going to tomorrow's show.  That may actually apply to a few more of you, who should also head back here soon as I continue a nice run of trade posts.

2018 Sportlots purchases: a mountain of Maddux

It's about time I put this series to bed so I can get to the three(!) trade packages that are waiting for well-deserved screen time.  Please enjoy today's post:  the big finish starring Mr. Greg Maddux!

The "S"s have it here, with Stadium Club, Studio, SP, Sportflics, and, uh, SPinnacle!, especially Topps' best brand.  The top row includes a card from each year of 1991-93, the second is entirely '93, and '94 claims the bottom row.  You can see that my concerted effort to fill in some holes in PCs from my favorite products really paid off.

More '94s--the first five cards here--plus some from 1995.  The top three are repeat brands but card #1 in the second row is an insert about which I was ignorant: a Topps Traded finest chase card.  Pretty cool!  '95 chips in, among other things, a Leaf Great Gloves insert and Sportflix with an "X"!

UD's flagship '95 product finishes off that year and is in the midst of my favorite run of the product, from 1994-98.  '96's editions of Bowman's Best, Stadium Club, Studio, and UD are again top tier.  And you probably recognize the Classic Confrontations insert from previous posts in this series.  Maddux is the only pitcher in that group so you get to see how he fared against some of the more notable hitters around then.  Check out the back for yourself but briefly, he had the most success against Andres Galarraga and David Justice, and hated facing Tony Gwynn and Barry Bonds.

Now we start getting into the "more variety era" where brands experimented with lots of different ideas, often to the benefit of collectors (hint HINT, MLBPA).  Multiple examples of Donruss Preferred and Fleer's collaboration with SI--especially those cover cards!--along with perennial great E-X go well with stalwarts like Stadium Club and Finest, even if the latter is one of the worst designs in the product's run, in my opinion.

Here 1998 finishes on a strong note with a typically outstanding Stadium Club design, the always exciting Topps Gold, and Fleer's beautiful Ultra Artistic Talents insert that I've mentioned in this space previously as a great value.  The next row is a 1999 trio of mid-end Topps products in Bowman Chrome and Best--again, my least favorite design--plus an improvement from finest.  The bottom continues my big run on Sports Illustrated cards in this series, including a Headliners insert which notes on the back that between 1995 and '97, Mad Dog had fewer walks allowed compared to the number of starts he made.  That's crazy!

One of my all-time favorites, Upper Deck's Century Legends, leads off this scan with double the fun in the form of one card each with both of his main teams.  Year 2000 highlights include Bowman's Best--a huge improvement over the previous year's version--Fleer Showcase, and yet another Stadium Club look that gets high marks from me.

Everything here (plus the Absolute Memorabilia card above) comes from 2001, and it was a very good year for Maddux cardboard.  There's plenty more designs to enjoy, especially Bowman's Best (another favorite), Donruss Classics, Fleer Focus and Showcase, and Topps Gallery (bring it back!  The right way!).  Mixed in is another insert I was happy to grab on the cheap:  Stadium Club Capture the Action.  It's kind of like an alternate design of the base set and I like it a lot.

Donruss out of nowhere!  A five-card run of that manufacturer here includes the always-great Diamond Kings and Classics, plus the Archives-like Originals.  I think I'm short one of Maddux's entries in this set but did nab the ones utilizing designs from 1982, '84, and '88.  A Fleer pair of Flair and Showcase plus Finest and another amazing Gallery look make this a contender for best scan of the post.

Here's a hodgepodge of 2002-03 stuff.  Favorites include UD's 40-Man and World Series Heroes, Fleer Showcase once again, and the unfortunately one-and-done Playoff Portraits.  Though the latter is kind of superfluous due to Diamond Kings it feels like it has its own thing going and I wish it would have lasted longer.

2003 concludes here with Prestige and Studio designs I can appreciate, plus Ultra and Upper Deck base looks that are similar enough that I keep confusing them!  Donruss and Fleer are a great way to kick off 2004 thanks to Diamond Kings (not as good as the '03 version) and another Braves/Cubs twofer out of Classics, along with Flair and a really cool Showcase design.  You couldn't ask for a better card if you were a Braves fan.

And he's back with the Cubs!  Just a couple in the last scan reflected his return in 2004, but almost everything here gets it right.  Studio's 2004 iteration opens things with a kickass design featuring Maddux looming over the Windy City, and another excellent version from 2005 sits a couple cards below.  Diamond Kings returns with the reverse twofer, and Mad Dog looks great on a Donruss Greats card as well, though it's clear Fleer was the top dog when it came to a set with that name.  Heritage makes one of several appearances here as well.

Now we get into the weirdness of the one-plus seasons Maddux pitched with San Diego at the tail end of his career.  That's captured on five of these seven offerings, most of which came out from 2007-09, the best of which are 2008's Topps Heritage and UD Masterpieces.  An '09 Upper Deck base gets Greg once more with the Dodgers in his second LA stint, after which he retired.  Then we jump all the way ahead to 2016 and a nice throwback to Stadium Club, which throws it back to Maddux's heyday with the Braves.

When it comes to sports cards, goalies and pitchers are often the biggest beneficiaries of horizontal cards, so I'm happy to have a bunch to show off tonight.  There's plenty of variety, starting with Denny's Holograms from 1995 and '96, produced by UD and Pinnacle.  As always:  garbage food, great cards.  I snuck in another pair of inserts:  a '95 Leaf Checklists issue and '96 Fleer Smooth Leather.  Dude did pile up those Gold Gloves after all.  '96 base cards from Pinnacle Aficionado and Stadium Club sew up this group.

And we end this post (and the series) with a few more cards I really liked.  '97 Upper Deck remains my favorite set that I don't own, and I should rectify that at some point.  The '99 Topps Gallery base has one of my favorite photos in the entire series (not to mention one of the best designs):  a sliding Maddux with Pirates infielder Kevin Polcovich succumbing to gravity on an almost-Tatooine card.  And I grabbed that last insert, from 2003 Fleer Tradition Milestones, because I think his run of 15-win seasons is one of the cooler accomplishments of the game's recent history.

In a completely unintended twist of fate, this 100-plus bunch of Maddux cards bumps his PC to 567 items, or the exact same number in Tony Gwynn's.  Not bad at all.

This was a great run that once again proved the value of Sportlots and gave me plenty of post fodder, enough that I procrastinated heavily while finishing up showing off cards on both blogs.  But now it's done and I'll be moving on to some fun new trade posts soon!

2018 Sportlots purchases: Tons of Tony

It's time for the penultimate post in this Sportlots series and today I'm #gwynning.  It's all Mr. Padre today for you Tony Gwynn fans, so enjoy some cardboard (and other material) spanning 1986-2017!

This is a scan only a certain tertiary adjunct of unimatrix 01 could appreciate /VOYAGER'd.  Yep, seven of nine cards you see here are Sportflics, with #s 1, 2, 6, and 9 representing solo shots hailing from 1986, '87, '88, and '94, respectively.  #2 and 3 are from '87 and include Dave Parker and Kevin Bass (best NL RF) and Wade Boggs/George Brett/Hubie Brooks/Tim Raines/Ryne Sandberg ("The Players Poll").  The Padres card is also from '87, in this case a Team Preview set, and that one co-stars 11 other players, three in each corner.  '93 cards from SP and Studio round out this group.  By the way, the back of the SP card helpfully states, "Gwynn confused onlookers by donning Padres pitcher Scott Sanders' jersey for a spring training game."

Another Studio base is the second and final '94 representative, then 1995 kicks off with a Leaf Limited trio that includes the Bat Patrol insert plus a Gold parallel, which actually uses a different photo.  After a Score parallel (one of a couple you'll see today) is an Upper Deck trio comprising SP and both of Tony's SP Championship bases.  For as many of my PC guys that are in the latter I'm probably a decent way towards completing it!  One of Gwynn's Stadium Club subset issues ends this scan.

A base card from the solid '95 UD design is the end of that year's stuff, then 1996 starts out with the excellent fourth-year version of Finest, another Score parallel, and one of my favorite Studio designs of all time.  You really couldn't go wrong from '96 on, in my opinion.  After that is a nice Topps trio of the Classic Confrontations insert, Gallery, and Laser.  The Laser experiment didn't work, but kudos to Topps for trying something different--and at least Gallery didn't get tossed into the cardboard scrap heap!  And in case you're curious, the insert covers Gwynn's stats against "aces" like John Smoltz (.468 AVG, 2 each of 2B/3B/HR, 9 RBI) and John Smiley (.200 AVG).  Then we get a look at the first two of a trio of base cards from one of my favorite UD flagship sets I don't own (with '97 being the other).  The "Young at Heart" subset is especially fun.

Tony's regular base appearance--and a supremely cool one at that--is the last of the '96 items, and then we get a brief look at 1997.  I remember first seeing Bowman Chrome's debut at a mall show and still like the design today.  That year's Studio look is another winner as is the second year of Topps Gallery.  And there's an example of the greatness of '97 UD and its cool commemorative stamps, plus the fun die-cut Star Attractions insert.

Moving on to '98, Bowman Chrome still featured a pretty nice look, plus I grabbed the base product's International parallel with it.  And one of that year's highlights was the mind-bending E-X2001 design, half of which was a weird foil pattern with the rest being acetate, all on a super thick card!

This is a fun scan that begins and ends with the same brand.  The '98 version of Fleer's Flair Showcase (Row 3) leads off, and that's followed by a couple more cards from that manufacturer's partnership with Sports Illustrated.  '98 closes with a stunning SP Authentic base plus excellent cards from Topps Gallery and Gold Label (Class 1).  A little 1999 run includes Bowman's Best plus returning brands Finest and Showcase.  As usual with some of these Finest cards I'm often torn between peeling them and leaving them, with the best option probably getting a second copy to peel!

There's plenty more of my favorite brands to see here including more of Sports Illustrated, Topps Gallery, and Topps Gold Label.  Each of those had a design I liked at least to some degree every time they were produced.  They're joined by two final 1999 UD offerings:  another top set for me in Century Legends plus Ultimate Victory.

Then the entirety of my 2000 haul was mostly a Topps affair with a Pacific base interrupting a run of Finest, Gallery, and HD.  The Gallery card is the fifth of Gwynn's five-card run from '96-2000, and I'm fortunate to own his 2003 card as well.  HD was also a very, very nice looking product though definitely not worth the high wax price.

Bowman Chrome and Donruss Classics make a nice pair of cards to open up a multi-scan run on 2001 that then goes into a Fleerstravaganza of brands from that year:  E-X, Focus, Genuine, Premium, and Showcase, with Focus and Showcase owning the best designs in my opinion.  Mid-end products Leaf Limited and SP Authentic are a nice way to close out the scan but we're not quite done with 2001 yet...

...because first we need to cover cards from another of Studio's best designs plus a very nice look for Ultra.  It's possible '96 is my favorite overall Studio base design but this one is very high on the list as well.

At this point we start getting into cards produced after Gwynn retired so there's a bit more jumping around.  2002 is represented by an Ultra design I don't care for quite as much paired with a great photo, plus a base from one of UD's cooler one-and-dones, World Series Heroes.  After that we get lots of appearances in sets that tend to focus on retired legends:  '03 Sweet Spot Classics, '04 Greats of the Game and SP Legendary Cuts, and '05 Leaf Century and UD Past Time Pennants.  I've always been partial to the Sweet Spot and Legendary Cuts brands but for my money nothing tops the base offerings from Greats of the Game.  As you can see Fleer was on top of their game with this framed design and vintage photo!

One last card, UD's Sweet Spot Classic, fits in well with the stuff above, then we jump into the current decade with four Panini items and one from Topps.  2015 Archives is the example of the latter while the former is responsible for 2012 Cooperstown, 2015 Diamond Kings, 2017 Diamond Kings' DK Originals insert, and Donruss flagship from the same year.  The recent iterations of DK prove that the brand doesn't have to be low-end just because they lack the MLB license, and I continually appreciate that they offer some solid alternatives to Topps' mailed-in efforts of late.

Here's one more scan that starts and ends with the same brand, this time in horizontal form!  The first column is all Stadium Club with cards from '92 Dome, '96, and 2015.  The other two hail from 1995 Leaf's Checklists insert and Sports Illustrated's World Series Fever set from 1998.

And still we're not quite done yet because there's one oddball item left to look at:

As in the Griffey post last week I have another Collect-a-Books to show off!  This is the 1990 version, and of course it's worth seeing all it has to offer:

As you can see this purchase treated Gwynn's collection very nicely, adding more than 80 new items to give him a milestone-breaking total of 567, good enough for fourth place behind Ripken, Griffey, and Larkin...at least for now!  One player remains in this series and it's the one who got the most cards added to his collection.  The big finish will be posted soon, and have you figured out who it is?  Stay tuned!

2018 Sportlots purchases: Junior's Jargon

I may have asked this before, but did anyone else look forward to starting off their post-cartoon Saturday afternoons in the 90s with Fox's In the Zone--featuring the Junior's Jargon segment which had the title music above--along with the pregame show and Saturday game of the week?

On this late summer Saturday afternoon let's look at a big pile of Ken Griffey Jr. cardboard from Sportlots:

This first scan includes a nice bunch of early 90s Stadium Club with a pair of '92s, a '93 "Murphy" boxed set base, and a couple more from '94.  Lots of great looks at Kenny's sweet swing plus a home run derby victory there.  Besides those, down the middle is a fun '94 trio of Pinnacle and both of his Sportflics appearances that year.  Hooray, Sportflics!  Last up is a '95 Leaf Great Gloves insert, a reminder of his 10 straight Gold Glove Awards.

In the next scan we get another example of UD's 1995 SP Championship for this series, then a couple more Stadium Club issues from the same year.  1996 brings one of Bowman's Best's cooler designs, a typically strong Studio look, and a Topps Classic Confrontations insert, which shows how he'd performed against a mix of "aces" such as Mike Mussina (zero hits in 14 ABs) and Roger Clemens (17/36 with two homers).  The bottom row comprises 1997 cards from Donruss Signature, Studio once again, and the first of a bunch of excellent Topps Gallery appearances.

The first two cards here finish off '97 with an Ultra Checklist insert and Upper Deck Defensive Gems subset from the excellent base set that year.  Then '98 opens with the base version of Donruss Elite (as opposed to the iconic insert), then a pair of base cards from one of my favorite 90s brands, Fleer's Sports Illustrated (and its variants such as Then and Now).  Another fantastic Stadium Club issue joins the beautiful Topps Gold Label (Class 1) and card #1 from Ultra to finish up 1998.  That Ultra example is one of the best in the product's whole run, if you ask me, and Gold Label's debut couldn't have gone any better either.  Another Fleer SI card from 1999 gives us a very popular 90s duo with Junior joined by guy-who-hit-dingers Mark McGwire.

Now we're into the last of the Mariners cards for a bit with a few more '99s:  an SP Authentic insert called Home Run Chronicles, a high-flyin' Topps Gallery base (with a cameo by utility guy Charles Gipson), and a cross-manufacturer insert called Home Run Heroes, in this case from Upper Deck.  Then there's a quick look at early Reds cards from 2000 out of Fleer's E-X and Topps Gallery once gain.  A great shot of a backwards-hatted, laughing Kid on that Gallery card, no?  2001 opens with Donruss' classy, uh, Classics, and then there's a little run of Fleer in the form of E-X, Focus, and Genuine.  I'm not sure why I like that Focus design as much as I do, but anyway that's a cool snapshot of what I have to assume is the ivy at Wrigley.

Here's what I'm calling the "artistic" scan.  The top trio closes out 2001 with Fleer Premium, Topps Gallery, and Ultra.  That year is when Gallery went to a painting look instead of simple photos, and I'd describe what's going on in the Ultra photo as interpretive dance.  2002 then begins and opens with masterpieces from Diamond Kings and Topps Gallery (it really was a great brand back then!), with Donruss' Classics and an Originals base plus Flair in-between.  Flair's excellent design kind of fits the artsy theme as well!  This scan then finishes up with Griffey's Reds base from Donruss Team Heroes, and I need to see if I need the Mariners version as well.

2003 goes out quickly with Flair, Playoff's amazing one-and-done Portraits, and a Topps-branded Bazooka comic.  Even more art!  Portraits may have been a bit redundant with Diamond Kings around but looked fantastic in its own right.  The rest of the scan jumps a bit into the future with UD base from 2006-08 (including a cameo by some guy in a Giants hat, right, arpsmith?) plus Elite Extra, Leaf Certified, and Topps Gallery cards from 2004, '05, and '08, respectively.

The last of the vertical cards makes a stop in 1999 for the always excellent SP Legendary Cuts, SPx and a short-term stop with the White Sox (barf), and a pair of UD base cards, one of which captures Junior's return to Seattle.  Also having him rep Seattle are a 2016 Diamond Kings base and Topps Berger's Best insert.  Serious question:  if I hadn't told you which Topps reprint insert that was, would you have been able to guess?

The group of horizontal Griffeys was small this time, but fortunately I ended up with a few nice photos.  #1 is a second example from Fleer's Sports Illustrated Then and Now product from '98.  Second is an insert I've found for a few of my PC guys, Pacific's 1999 Invincible Sandlot Heroes.  2002's Ultra base features arguably the best image of the bunch.  2003 UD's design is nothing to write home about but I value the product enough to have included as many examples as I could find for some of my bigger PC guys.  And finally, 2017 Stadium Club brings us in its time machine back to very early in a future HOFer's career with a great shot of the Kid batting.

And yet we're not quite done.  First I have one of those fold-out posters that Fleer liked to insert back in the day, this one from 1998 SI Then and Now's Great Shots.  Griffey was one of those guys who actually showed joy in playing the game sometimes, but he could also be as focused as he needed to be.

And finally, once again I tracked down a Collect-a-Books oddball issue of one of my favorites, in this case from 1991.  These are fun to own and surprisingly cheap, though I don't suppose they're exceedingly rare.  As always I'm scanning every page for your reading enjoyment:

This gaggle of Griffeys was a blast to put together and show off, plus it was very productive toward his collection which now stands at 742 items and growing!

I now have three posts left in the series on this here blog (and four to get to on TMM), including two more solo projects and an ensemble cast as well.