2022 eBay purchases: remembering the -embers

While I'm trying to keep up some relatively positive posting momentum, here's a look at my personal eBay wins from the months of November and December:

When talking about sets that are important in the hobby's history, 1996 Leaf Signature's one-auto-per-pack product ranks way up there. Thanks to eBay I scored my 10th from that iconic set, and second of PC guy Dean Palmer. In this case it's the Silver version (which you can kind of tell by the stamp), and those were generally limited to 1000 copies (Bronze were 3500, Golds were 500). I already own the Bronze and just need the Gold to round out Dean-o's run of mainstream certified autos. The clean look and relatively low print run meant I didn't think twice about paying not quite $3.25 for this.

Would it be an eBay roundup without something purchased from my favorite seller, markaguirre22? Back around Thanksgiving I won the pair of Zach Putnam Topps Mini parallels you see above. Again, I don't put much thought or money into the on-demand stuff, but the Blue /10 was just $2 and the Orange /25 half that, so I was cool plunking down $3 plus tax (and free shipping) to add those.

And once again he was super nice to throw in some extras of guys he knows I collect! The Hill minis are from 2008 Ginter and are the A&G Back and Black Border versions. Meanwhile, Larkin's cards hail from 2001 Pacific Private Stock and 2011 Topps mini inserts. I already owned all four but will be happy to use these as trade bait.

Switching over to football briefly, here's a not-quite-maize plate repping my team that will be continuing its playoff quest this Saturday. Standout CB Marlin Jackson appeared on a number of cards in Topps' 2005 Draft Picks & Prospects product back when Topps was able to produce those (and actually did a nice job!). What you see here isn't a base card plate, but one used for printing his Senior Standouts Relics jersey insert. A slight twist is that this is one of those products where you could find both the front and back plates, and in this case we have the latter. Here's the back of that jersey card (which I own) for comparison:

I believe this is just my second back printing plate card to go along with a Topps Mayo of Adrian Arrington. As you can see, the color yellow didn't factor much into the rear of this card, but it's a different story on the front with Jackson seen in Michigan's iconic uniform.

For under $8.50 delivered I scored my first Jackson 1/1 and his 23rd hit overall. The seller took a page out of markaguirre22's book and threw in some cool UM-specific extras:

That's three RCs of former TE/WR Devin Funchess plus a Topps Magic Mini of WR great Braylon Edwards. Once again I have all of these but the gesture was very nice, plus I happen to know someone who could use the Braylon!

Back to baseball. We're coming up on almost seven years since Doug sent me what was my first card of UM pitcher Karl Kauffmann, a player who wasn't even on my radar at the time. Kauffmann had only recently signed with the Wolverines, and even if he'd been with the team for a year or two, it was rare for players who hadn't been drafted yet to appear on cards. But thanks to Leaf's Perfect Game product, I had the start of my PC of the future Rockies prospect.

Flash forward to a couple weeks ago and I snagged my second plate from this same set on eBay. Like the one above, the one Doug sent me (a yellow version) isn't a 1/1, but one of two made instead. I'm not sure how that works with these All-American Classic plates--fronts and backs? Maybe something having to do with these saying "Base - Common"? Still, while not true 1/1s, they're fun cards to find and can still join my plate/1-1 collection. And would you believe that I paid just a bit over $2 to get this in my mailbox? Not bad, eh?

To close things out this evening I have a pair of Bowman Draft plates of pitcher Clayton Richard from two different years and separate auctions. Up top is the Magenta plate from the base 2005 product, which featured Richard's first MLB cards. He definitely looks extra creepy and possessed with his eyeballs looking like they're 100% white in the scan!

The other is from the 2009 product, though I'll mention that Clayton did appear in the 2008 version as well. The 2009 base card included stats from his 2008 MLB debut campaign with the White Sox, though he'd only be with them for part of the season when that card was produced, getting sent to San Diego in July of '09 in the deal that brought Jake Peavy to the South Side.

Thanks to these purchases--$6.64 for the '05 card and $7.63 for the other--I now count 12 different 1/1s in his PC, second only to Rich Hill's ~26 (still TBD) and one better than J.J. Putz's 11. Those are also my earliest plates of his as the oldest I previously owned were three of his four from 2011 Topps flagship.

So once again without spending a crazy amount I added some very nice stuff to a few of my PCs thanks to eBay. I look forward to showing off more additions in the form of the rest of my TCDB deals from this year before the end of the week!

2021 eBay purchase: Razor sharp dressed Putnam

Though it rarely gets me these days, sometimes FOMO is real. I have no problem with the fact that I'll never get to 100% on most of my player collections, so I'll often pass on a rare item when the price is out of my comfort zone. But once in a blue moon I'll see something I just have to have, and fear of missing out kicks in.

Thankfully, with my overall spending down the past few years, I can easily justify splurging here and there. That's exactly what I did when a very interesting item came up on one of my saved eBay searches:

This card is at the intersection of multiple things I like to collect: former UM pitcher Zach Putnam, plates/1-of-1s, and 2008 Razor Letterman. It's a black printing plate from that fantastically fun product, and you really don't see super rare items from it come up for sale very often for whatever reason.

I think by now my reasons for collecting Michigan sports alumni and 1/1s are clear, but since it's been quite a while, here's a recap of my experience with 2008 Razor Letterman. I broke two cases (10 boxes each, five packs per box, one autoed letterman patch per pack) over a pair of group breaks back when you could find them in the neighborhood of $30-$40 per box, an amazing value given some of the names you could pull. Out of 100 cards I never managed to pull a single Putnam, but I bought and traded my way to a pretty nice collection:

The unnumbered nameplate

The /25 nameplate

The "N" and "T" /5

The "M" and "N" 1/1s

And today's Black printing plate to go along with the Yellow plate I already owned

When you see all of those together like that maybe you can understand why I didn't make too much of a fuss over spending a bit more than $20 (around $15 plus tax & shipping) when my butter zone for 1/1s of players that aren't my absolute top priority PCs is more like $8-$15. Passing on something like this would have been totally different than letting someone else overpay for, say, a plate from 2017 Topps. Like Bon Jovi said, I'm halfway there when it comes to this plate set, plus I now have four of the ten 1/1s of Putnam from the product, so I'm almost halfway to that crazy goal.

Who knows if I'll ever find the other two plates, much less any of the other 1/1 letters, but if I do, you can bet your bottom dollar that I'll be trying harder than usual to come out a winner as a bidder or buyer. There's only so much missing out you can live with, you know?

As you can see here, today's card continues to pad my dominant TCDB lead among Putnam collectors, with buddy of the blog Jeff pretty close to at least tying for second. You can see the complete list of those cards here, 35 of which are hits, broken down into

• 16 autographs
• 15 autographed manupatches
• 4 1/1s (two plates and 2 more auto manupatches)

You may be surprised to find out that he's my #2 in the Michigan Baseball hits collection (only about 100 away from Rich Hill!), with Bill Freehan next at 25, J.J. Putz at 22, and Barry Larkin with 21; nobody else has hit the 20-card mark yet.

I actually have another (non-FOMO) plate from eBay on the way, one I spent a bit less on (but would have been ok with losing), and I'll show that off when it arrives. But given the momentum of posting I've built up over the past few days I didn't think it was worth waiting until then. Now I just need to see what I want to scan and post next from my piles of Sportlots cards! I can't promise I'll blog for a fourth straight day but I'll try not to keep those of you interested waiting too long. I wouldn't want you to miss out!

2019 Sportlots purchases: twelve for Tuesday

As I keep rolling along on these Sportlots posts I'm back today with one of the bigger ones you'll see in this latest series, covering all of the Michigan Baseball guys whose cards I nabbed this time.  Scanning/editing/captioning/cataloging/uploading everything took me a while, which is why I haven't posted in a couple days, and I'm really starting to lean closer to transitioning to use TCDB both for cataloging/checklisting and scans.  I've been meaning to overhaul my collection links here anyway, so maybe I'll put in some effort before the end of the year to make things easier on myself.

In the meantime, here's a fun deluge of new cards!

#1 today--and in pretty much any post where he features--is Jim Abbott.  I'm pretty happy with the mix I found here, opening with a Starting Lineup card, mixing in some inserts, and going a bit oddball with a Topps/Coke Commanders of the Hill card from '93 plus '94 Fleer Extra bases.  The bottom-left card represents the last of Jim's '94 Score issues I needed--the Gold Rush parallel of his highlights subset appearance in the base set, the one that honors his amazing no-hitter.

Also among pitchers getting in on the action today is #1 PC dude Rich Hill.  For fun I added his base card from the goofy 2017 Honus Bonus product, then knocked seven cards off his checklist.  The one outlier is a Upper Deck Rookie Foil Silver (#250/399) parallel while the rest hail from Topps products made in 2017-19.  In that pile you'll find two each of Limited Edition versions, All-Star Game-stamped cards, and ("On-Demand") Minis I needed.  I'm slowly marching toward hitting 300 of his checklist cards I'm chasing and am at around 63% of his total at the moment.  Here's hoping the free agent lefty finds a nice home with a legit contender (e.g. one that won't waste his talent) over the off-season!

For a relatively underappreciated HOFer, Barry Larkin's prices often tend toward those belonging to bigger stars, so I'm always glad when I can add quality stuff like this on the cheap.  Up top I have a couple early/mid-90s inserts along with a great double-dip from UD's 1995 Special Edition product.  You know I love me some Fleer/Sports Illustrated mashups like the one you see here from '97.  The trio of '98 Topps Stars cards--base, Bronze, and Silver--were cheaper than I expected considering they're all numbered.  So were the two '99 Flair Showcase cards that end this scan, and what a beautiful product that was!  The hobby is worse off without manufacturers like Fleer.

Here's a couple more Larkins that get their own scan.  I may be in the minority but I absolutely love 2001 Topps Fusion as it combines three of the best iterations Bowman's Best, Gallery (seen here), and Stadium Club, in those products' entire runs.  And I couldn't resist another UM uniform card, in this case the second of a pair of his variations from 2017 Contenders Draft.  I've now completed his runs of base cards in both products seen here.

Almost everyone else here is a supercollection of mine, including new Royals manager Mike Matheny.  TCDB helped me realize that the first card seen here, a checklist from '94 Ultra (which also includes Mike's RC) existed since Beckett ignores the player depicted.  Score another one for that excellent site!  The other four needs were from 2002 Topps Chrome and UD Victory, '04 Topps Total Silver, and '05 Bowman Heritage Mahogany.  A nice five-card day gives me exactly 100 of the 218 cards of him I'm currently chasing, with more possible now that he's managing again!

When it came to one William Harold Morris it was a tale of low end and high, with pretty much nothing in-between.  I knocked off his '93 Pacific Spanish base along with both Topps Inaugural factory set cards honoring the Marlins and Rockies that year, and Stadium Club Members Only parallels from '95 and '96.  After those I upped the ante with '97 Flair Showcase (Row 2) and asking price with a '97 Bowman Chrome International Refractor and 1999 Pacific Prism Holographic Purple (#215/320).  That effort paid off as I hit the 75% mark of his checklist on the nose with 270/360!

Here's one of three new PC guys you'll meet today.  Ray Ricken is another one of those guys whose name was unfamiliar to me, but thankfully he came up as I searched through TCDB for Wolverines I was missing.  The Yanks took him in the 5th round in '94, and he bounced between minor league levels with them as well as the Padres before ending his career in indy ball in 2002.  The pitcher appears on cards from '94 Stadium Club Draft Picks, '96 and '97 Bowman, and '96 Topps--the one base I already had.  The above haul got me to six of his 11 issues, plus I added a couple minors cards from Best and Fleer/Excel.  Three autographs from '97 Bowman will make him a bit difficult to chase, but I'm sure I'll get there eventually.

Hey, it's Spuds!  Here you can see I tracked down seven needs from Sabo's checklist plus a fun oddball--one of his 1990 Starting Lineup cards variations.  I also knocked off an early need in his '88 Topps Traded Tiffany, grabbed yet another appearance from '94 Fleer Extra Bases (I think this is the last one), and came up with a 2014 Topps Update World Series Heroes insert.  Hey, the dude went off in the '90 World Series!  To those I got a nice little 1993 run:  Pacific Spanish and Pinnacle (not sure how I didn't have that already) plus, like Morris above, the Topps Inaugural Marlins/Rockies cards.  And I almost matched the feat I did for Hal, getting Sabo to about 74%.  That's lots of Reds cardboard!

I bunched these four guys together because they formed a perfect nine card scan, and the first two players are today's other n00bs, players that also came up in my TCDB search.  Russ Brock was a pitcher drafted by Oakland in the second round in '91 while Flannelly, a 3B, was yet another Wolverine picked by the Yankees, in the third round the same year.  Neither made it to the pros but both were included in the '92 Stadium Club Dome set, which featured some of the same goofy photography of prospects found in that year's Bowman product.  Those are their only mainstream issues but each has some minors cards I might chase, like Brock's '93-'94 Fleer Excel card above.

For the sake of brevity I can also lump Putnam and Richard together.  As with Rich Hill, I found some recent Topps flagship versions of them I needed.  Zach's cards are the 2017 All-Star Game and Limited factory set versions while Clayton's hail from 2018 (All-Star Game and Gold /2018) and 2019 (base and All-Star Game).

We'll end this post with a HOFer in George Sisler, who's nearing the century mark.  I landed a second card of him but found out it was a dupe after it arrived, so for Gorgeous George it'll just be this 2011 GQ Framed Green parallel of his first of two cards in the base set.  In case you're curious, I have both of those base cards--the other depicts him with the Braves--plus three versions of card #2 including, nicely enough, the same green parallel.  Hopefully soon I can go on a nice little Sisler spree and cross the 100-card mark.

Next time I post you can probably look forward to something shorter with fewer items to gawk at.

2018 COMC purchases: ten out of ten

I've been on another self-imposed blogging hiatus, once again spending most of my card time on TCDB as I try to upload my collection, list trade bait, and contribute to the database by uploading scans, correcting checklists, and handle some inaccuracy reports.  It really is addictive!

But today I'm finally making it a point to set aside a bit of time to post the last of my 2018 baseball acquisitions.  These 10 new entries came from COMC, mostly around the Black Friday/Cyber Monday weekend, if I recall correctly.  I have a lot more to post on TMM eventually--Michigan Football loot, natch--but at least today I can finally put these away.  Enjoy!

Former A's prospect Jason Christian starts things off with a beautiful Red Refractor parallel of his 2010 Bowman Chrome Prospects base.  This one set me back $10, is numbered 2/5, and is tied with one of the two cards I'm missing in Christian's PC for fewest copies (2009 Donruss EEE Signature Status Gold).  The other is the final card in this rainbow, a Gold Refractor /50.  Both can be had if I'm willing to pay!

#2 is another Bowman Chrome Refractor, this time of Tampa IF prospect Jake Cronenworth, who continues to fight an uphill battle for a spot in the bigs.  Not even $0.50 was enough to score me this Black Wave Asia parallel, my 11th of Jake, all of which are from his 2015 Bowman Draft/Chrome rainbow.  That leaves eight to go.

The final player in this row is one of two new PCs I'm introducing today.  Fritz Fisher is a former Wolverine lefty who signed with the Tigers and appeared in just one Major League game, somehow striking out Harmon Killebrew in his 1/3+ inning of relief.  Gladding was the much more successful pitcher on this multiplayer RC from 1964 Topps.  Fritz's other card came out in the same set two years later, another duet, this time with the more well known John Hiller.

Here's a fun mix of new(ish) and old!  I think I've professed my love for Pacific's Paramount Fielder's Choice cards before, and here's another chance to sing their praises.  The one you see above stars none other than Mr. Padre Tony Gwynn, one of my favorite PCs.  There's a good number of 90s-adjacent inserts I'm chasing of Gwynn and his big four PC cohorts--Griffey, Maddux, and Ripken--and the super cool Fielder's Choice cards are part of that.

Dick LeMay is today's other new PC guy, also of the vintage variety.  The former Michigan pitcher signed with San Fran in 1958 and appeared in 45 games with the Giants and Cubs between 1961 and '63, the sum of his career.  Above you're seeing his '62 Topps RC, leaving me short just his base from the follow-up Topps set.  Yep, another two-card PC!

Card #3 in this bunch had me plenty excited, even if I have a lot like it.  I've managed to complete Zach Putnam's 2008 Razor Letterman base and #d /20 nameplates (check 'em out here) so all I can chase now are the rarer /5s and 1/1s.  This "N" is just the second letter of the six letters (I have the same number of 1/1s!) in the /5 group (I also own a "T") and is #1/5.  After a roughly two-month break from buying on the site starting last June, I may it my first purchase of this shipment on August 1 for $12, and if I can get the other four letters for about that I'll be thrilled.

The last "regular" cards of this post start with a 2017 Topps Update Gold parallel (#0245/2017) of new Blue Jays hurler Clayton Richard.  It's just the third I've got of his rainbow (including the Mini versions) to go along with a base and Rainbow Foil.  The 2017-19 spots on my PC checklists need lots of work!

And then there's a bit of player wantlist help in the form of card #8 out of Flair's 1995 Ripken insert.  I need cards 1, 3, and 5 and then will be able to show off another completed insert set devoted to the Iron Man!

The oddest item of the ten is my second 2009 Topps Heritage Ad Panel box-topper featuring ex-closer J.J. Putz.  It's hard to find a good checklist of these, but I believe I've figured out that Putz appears on three in total:  this one, the one I have that includes Braden Looper and Freese again, and a last one I'm still working on finding with Uribe and Alfonso or Rafael Soriano.  $2.40 wasn't an unreasonable price to pay for one of these in my opinion.

And at last we come to the final card and one of my favorite pickups of this latest shipment.  Thanks to many vintage stars appearing in modern releases it's easier than ever to find them on affordable plates and 1/1s, and that's exactly what I did here with Michigan and MLB legend George Sisler.  Surprisingly it took all of $8 to land one of the better cards in my collection of Gorgeous Georges, a Cyan plate from 2014 Panini Hall of Fame.  While I have a couple cards of him from the other subsets or inserts I didn't have this one.  Hey, a plate's as good a place to start as any!  (By the way, this is 1/1 #115 in my collection!)

Stay tuned for lots of great football stuff from COMC on TMM eventually while I figure out what I'll be posting here next.  With any luck it may be a second card show report for the month!

2018 Sportlots purchases: A-toZ PCs

Before I cover the last two single-player posts I'm going to use this one to show off the rest of the PC guys for whom I mostly just picked up a handful of cards (or even just one!).  They didn't fit the Tigers/Reds theme from a couple posts ago but they do share one thing in common:  all are former Wolverines, which isn't a surprise since the vast majority of my PCs are Michigan guys.

So here's a bunch of different players, some of whom I hope you recognize:

Jim Abbott is surely one of the most well known guys in this post and it didn't take much luck to turn up eight new cards of the one-handed wonder.  There's a nice mix of oddball--'90 Topps Magazine and '96 Angels Mother's--base, including a cool pairing with Nolan Ryan from '92 Pinnacle, and parallels, especially '96 Pinnacle Starburst.  I now count 259 cards in his collection.

Previously I didn't have enough cards of former Yankees OF prospect Casey Close to warrant an album, but thanks to these four I went ahead and made one, adding to a couple Michigan-specific items I already had.  Close is now known as a superagent who represented Derek Jeter, among many others, but in the 80s he was toiling in the minors for New York and Seattle after a terrific college career.  These four minors products, two each from '88 and '90, capture him with the Columbus Clippers (Yankees, AAA) and Calgary Cannons (Mariners, AAA).

If you've read at least a few posts on this here blog you know my favorite supercollection is that of current Dodgers lefty Rich Hill.  While putting together this massive Sportlots card I was fortunate to find a couple new cards for my assault on his checklist, this pair of Topps All-Star Game Silver cards from the special stamped sets the manufacturer made for the occasion.  In knocking off a couple more cards for those rainbows I also got closer to the 300 mark and am just five short!

I'm still lacking one freaking card ('94 Stadium Club Team First Day Issue) for my collection of late pitcher Steve Howe, but I did find this interesting pair to bolster it.  He's the third of four players I grabbed from the 1990 Dodgers Target set, and the second of another quartet, this time from Line Drive's 1991 AAA product.  You already saw Ross Powell's card a couple posts ago and you'll see the other two shortly.

One of those guys is former Brewers pitcher Mike Ignasiak.  I completed his 15-card collection a while ago but I'm always on the lookout for new stuff like this Minor League trio with cards from 1990-92.  The brands represented are Grand Slam, Line Drive, and Skybox, and the teams are the El Paso Diablos (AA) and Denver Zephyrs (AAA).

The other is pitcher Scott Kamieniecki, a pitcher mostly know for his stints with the Yankees and Orioles.  To his nearly-completed run I also added a trio of Minor League issues with the '91 Line Drive card book-ended by '90 Best and 1991-92 ProCards Tomorrow's Heroes (and its little foil diamonds).  Albany was the Yanks' AA squad while Columbus was their top affiliate until 2007.

Former Brewers/Giants/Cardinals catcher (and manager for the latter) Mike Matheny is one of the more well-known guys among my PCs, and I managed to track down new checklist needs from three of his four clubs (the Blue Jays aren't represented since no cards of him with the team appear to exist).  Those are, in order, a '98 Pacific Online Red parallel and base cards from 2005 Donruss Team Heroes and 2016 Topps Heritage.  I'm getting reasonably close to 100 unique cards for his collection not to mention 50% of what I've checklisted so it's nice to have productive days like this.

Former QB/current pitcher Clayton Richard is a few years into his return to San Diego, and while he hasn't been terribly effective he's at least been able to eat some innings for them.  As you can see here I finally nabbed his 2017 Topps Update base and got the Rainbow Foil parallel to go with it as my first examples of his issues from that product.  I still have lots of his stuff to track down, especially cards released over the last couple years, but I'm at just about 60%, and hopefully future posts will see more bunches of his cards.

The last of the multi-card players for today is former pitcher (and Michigan Baseball manager) Geoff Zahn.  As with Ignasiak I completed his run a while ago but was glad to find other stuff to add, like this oddball pairing.  On the left is the third and final Kellogg's issue I added through this series, in this case from 1979.  It's not exactly mint--the scan doesn't show how much the card's cracked--but it's not like I especially care as I'm just happy to have another fun lenticular food issue.  And as promised I can show off the last of the '90 Target Dodgers.  Zahn was with L.A. for the first two-plus seasons of his career so he too was part of that very cool perforated set.

And now we'll take a quick look at the guys for whom I picked up just one new item:

• Brett Adcock, a 2016 4th round selection of the Astros out of Michigan, is my latest brand new player collection.  The lefty isn't high on the team's list of prospects for now but you never know!  The first card for his debut is his 2016 Bowman Draft base and I currently have 16 of his cards to track down.
• Like Howe above I need just one card to complete Jake Fox's PC, though the quad auto I'm hunting will be much, much harder to find.  In the meantime I added my first non-checklist card thanks to this shiny 2006 TriStar Prospects Plus base from his time as a slugging Cubs catching prospect.
• Former White Sox IF and current front office guy for the same franchise Chris Getz has a larger checklist for me to chase, but I likewise added a Minor League issue, this one from the 2008 Just Autographs product from which I already own an autograph.
• That's right, it's a run on Minor League cards!  Injured pitcher Zach Putnam completes the trio with another TRISTAR-branded offering, 2009's Projections.  Zach was a member of the Indians organization at the time and this card includes a shot of him with his pro debut club, the Mahoning Valley Scrappers, a low-A affiliate in the NY-Penn league.  The Niles, Ohio-based team is still affiliated with Cleveland today.
• Vintage legend George Sisler is the lone HOF PC guy in this post (though Nolan Ryan does make that cameo!) and while I usually can find more new items of his at a time I was happy to add this SSPC HOF card from the product's 1980-87 run.  There's no date on the back so I'm not exactly sure when it was made, but I do like that it shows him as a member of the 10-person 1939 Hall of Fame class that was the fourth ever inducted and also included Lou Gehrig (thanks to a special election due to his health).  It represents my 83rd card of the one-time single-season hit king.
• Last up is a final SSPC offering, once again from 1975, of former Cardinals (among other teams) IF Ted Sizemore.  I'm adding it to his completed collection along with another non-checklist card as a fun vintage oddball item. 

Two more large single-player posts await, so stay tuned!