2025 eBay purchases: go big and GO BLUE!

It's September and Michigan Football will be playing its second game of the season tonight, so let's finish up my pickups from the first half of 2025 with a look at what I bought for myself on eBay.

Purchase #1 was a little more than six months ago when I threw in a low bid on a plate that I was a bit surprised to win, but happy to get:

Braylon Edwards inches closer to the century mark with his 96th hit and fourth 1/1, a 2006 Bowman Chrome cyan plate. Since cyan is the closest you'll get to blue out of the four colors used in printing this is the best possible one for a Michigan collector like me! It joins similar cards from 2009 Topps Mayo (Magenta) and 2011 Topps Inception (Magenta and Yellow) and set me back a bit under $7--a very reasonable price for a plate.

Next, back in March you might recall in a Chronicles of Fuji trade post that I lauded Fuji for his generosity in sending me a $50 eBay gift card in January. I finally used it during my birthday month of May, snagging a huge addition for my football PC:

National champion RB Blake Corum supplanted his former position coach Mike Hart in the program's record books, and at this point I think he's taken over as my favorite to play the position as a Wolverine, so it was about time I found a high-end card of his to start his collection of hits. I don't remember the exact total, but I happily covered a bit more than the $40 cost of this amazing booklet with that gift card, plus I added a bit more to it (more on that in a minute).

 

Sure, I could have gone for some lower-end signature card, maybe the usual low-effort Leaf stuff, or SAGE, or even a pro uni card from one of the plethora of other Panini Brands. But when I saw this one, I knew it was National Treasures all the way. Though they're few and far between in my collection, I think booklets are awesome when done right, and this one counts. The left half comes with a larger Michigan blue jersey swatch with a "WOLVERINES" cutout above it, plus one of those cool acetate signature windows. The right side adds another jumbo swatch from what I would assume is a Wolverines jersey (even if it's "event-worn" or other).

As you can see on the outside of the booklet, it's also numbered to 49 up front, next to a nice, large version of the iconic block "M" logo. Nice!

 

I don't know what the future holds for his NFL career but I'll always appreciate Blake for what he did both on and off the field to represent his school, not the least of which was a storybook season that ended in a national title.

The next card is one of the ones that came along for the ride with the above Corum, along with a couple traders for friends, via the magic of combined shipping and a discount code for paying via eBay's app. In all, I scored four cards from this seller and after using Fuji's gift card, I spent $1.90 of my own money. You could say part of that cost amounted to this:

For basically $1 or so--seriously, the minimum bid--I was able to tack on my third autograph of Jack Blomgren, a former Wolverine and Rockies IF/OF prospect who's now working in Houston's system. While my other two signature cards of him hail from Panini Elite Extra Edition and are therefore use college uni photos (which I of course love), this one is my first of him in an MLB jersey (albeit an airbrushed one, I would assume). It's from 2020 Bowman Draft Chrome and is the Green version numbered /99. Not bad for a buck!

A couple weeks later in May, on my birthday, in fact, I won tonight's last card for just under $10 shipped:

This post's other 1/1 is also a cyan plate, though this time we stick to the diamond (and Bowman) and former pitcher Clayton Richard. My 14th (!) 1/1 of the lefty is the 11th plate I've picked up of him but somehow the first from the 2008 Bowman/Chrome line of sets. While he still can't hold a candle to Rich Hill's 36 cards of the rarest numbering, he's still second in the collection and one of just three with double-digits in that category (J.J. Putz is the other).

As I often say, $10 for a plate of a Michigan player I enjoy collecting is right in my wheelhouse, and given the way prices have gone up a bit over the past few years, I'd probable even go above my usual comfort zone of $15 max if something interests me enough. Fortunately I landed this one right in that affordable range to add to one of my player collections with some nicer rare pieces.

That's it for my personal eBay shopping so far this year, even up to the present, but then again my spending this year has seen a downward trend as I get pickier about what I'm willing to spend on and store. I wouldn't be surprised if found a couple more cool eBay items to recap by December, though.

But way before then, y'all can look forward to a bunch of July-related posts very soon. Stay tuned and GO BLUE! 

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.

2024 eBay purchase: how Rudock!

(Quick note: I thought I was wrapping up February when I went to post this and then realized I actually purchased the card in late January. Oh well, whatever--I tend to do something like quarterly eBay pickup posts and this is the only item I've bought on that site for myself through May, so we'll press on!)

Above note aside, let's finish up February's (or January's, or whatever!) pickups by looking at my first eBay buy of 2024:

Here we have a magenta plate of former Iowa/Michigan QB Jake Rudock. The plate was used to produce his 2016 Playoff RC though it was actually inserted into Panini's Plates & Patches product that year, as is Panini's wont.

Since I can't remember when I discussed Rudock last, I'll give a quick recap of his college and pro careers. A fairly standard pocket-passer-type QB, the Florida native headed to Iowa and was pretty much their starter in 2013 and 2014, with the team going 8-5 and 7-6 over those two seasons. He transferred to Big Ten foe Michigan for the 2015 season as it was apparent that new big thing C.J. Beathard would be taking over under center in coach Kirk Ferentz's stone age offense. The switch (or other combined factors) led to the Hawkeyes going 12-0 in the regular season, though they lost by 3 to Big Ten champion MSU, then got their faces kicked in by Stanford in the Rose Bowl. The following season Iowa stumbled to an 8-5 record once again.

Meanwhile, Rudock would become the answer to a trivia question: Jim Harbaugh's first QB as coach of his alma mater after the embarrassing end to Brady Hoke's tenure (which was the result of Rich Rodriguez's embarrassing tenure). He brought some respectability to the position (though that's no ding against the valiant efforts made by the colossally mismanaged Devin Gardner) and after stumbling in a tough road test against what would be a ranked Utah team, he led the Wolverines to 9 regular season wins with a close loss to temporarily good MSU and a typical blowout loss for the time against the Buckeyes. Highlights included a November bombing of Indiana in a 2OT game plus a 41-7 curb-stomping of the Gators in the Citrus Bowl. That was Michigan's first bowl win since the 2012 Sugar Bowl and would be Harbaugh's only postseason victory until his squad defeated Alabama and Washington to win the whole thing earlier this year.

Based on his steady improvement, Rudock earned a look with the Lions as a 6th round pick after that season, which is not bad at all since he didn't appear to have much of an NFL future before heading to Ann Arbor. That's not to say that his NFL career amounted to much--just spot duty in three 2017 contests in which he completed 3 of 5 passes for 24 yards and an interception. The Lions eventually let him go in early 2019, then he signed on with the Dolphins, though he never went active with them.

You won't hear Jake complaining about those results, though, because he gave the league his best shot and is now in med school back in Ann Arbor. How cool is that?

Rudock remains one of a growing number of transfers (both in and out) that I collect, with that number sure to shoot up big-time thanks to the burgeoning landscape of the transfer portal and NIL money. I'll always fondly remember his single season with the Maize & Blue when he and Harbaugh arrived to try to right the ship, the first step on a long journey that culminated in a championship that brought elation and relief to Michigan fans worldwide. This plate is now my best card in his small collection, joined by a higher-end autograph to make a solid pair. At about $12 delivered (including tax), I was happy to add it. As luck would have it, I'm even tied with Jeff as his top collector on TCDb at 11 cards!

And with that I should now be caught up through February (aside from TCDb trades which will get recapped in a larger catch-up post) so I should be moving on to March next time.

2023 eBay purchases: rockin' around the Christmas Tariks

With 2023 blogger trades all wrapped up I'm moving on to my eBay purchases from the last four months of the year.

We'll start back in early September when I happily spent a bit more than $12.50 delivered for my second plate of Denard Robinson. This particular Shoelace 1/1 is his magenta plate used to make his 2013 Absolute RC, specifically the "base" version and not the variation where he's carrying the ball in his other hand. You all know I love me some Denard, and I hope he's one of the holdovers on new Michigan coach Sherrone Moore's staff.

A bit less than two weeks later I was quite happy to win this Trey Burke plate for a little under $10 shipped. The 2016-17 Contenders Draft magenta plate you see above is my third 1/1 of the former college star, but it's my first of him pictured as a Wolverine instead of with the Jazz so it's my new favorite. This one puts Burke one away from joining the double-digit hit club in basketball as the fifth member, though a couple others are also getting close.

At the end of the month I was thinking about how well Tigers P Tarik Skubal had pitched after returning for the season's second half. He started off a bit slowly but ripped off four straight wins in the final month to end the year at 7-3 with a solid 2.80 ERA. I decided I wanted a nice card of his and landed on this 2021 Absolute Rookie Leather Signatures Tan auto for about $13. Maybe I'll get something with actual team logos on it in the future, but I'm a sucker for fun gimmicks like this and was more interested in jumping on something before he possibly develops into a higher-end starter. And even if he doesn't, I've got a pretty cool card of one of the team's solid core of starters.

Next, early in October I found a bunch of stuff for myself and others all from one seller and took advantage of low auction prices and combined shipping. The three cards you see above are the ones I grabbed for myself. First up is a Pudge jersey that I thought was worth a flier at $1.50. He'd joined the Yankees in '08 so UD listed him with them, but he's pictured as a Tiger and I'm betting the swatch is from a Detroit jersey, not that it matters too much to me since I collect his non-Tigers cards too. That appears to be relic #10 and hit #11 of the HOF catcher.

To that I added a pair of Leaf-branded cards of former UM WR Tarik Black, our second Tarik of the evening! Black was a top-200, 4* recruit coming in to Ann Arbor in 2017 but he'd compile just 50 catches for two scores in 18 games over three seasons before transferring to Texas, where he put up similar numbers in the shortened 2020 COVID season. I was very happy to add a couple Wolverines uniform autographs of him to my collection (as subject #240) even though they're from the wish.com iteration of Leaf, which is part of the "way too many parallels with ridiculous names" problem. That said, I have enjoyed the State Pride design over the years.

I included the backs to show that the top card is numbered just 4/4 while the other is #19/20. As best as I could tell, these are from 2021 Leaf Metal Draft Flashback Base Autographs Mojo (even though the provided checklist SNs don't match) and 2021 Leaf Metal Draft Flashback State Pride Autographs Wave Blue. For just $4 and $3, respectively, I was satisfied with what I got.

The next time I spent money on eBay on something for myself it was the first day of December and I was able to score this 2012 Bowman yellow plate of Michigan WR Steve Breaston for a cool $8 even. That year's design has always been an outlier when it comes to Bowman but not in a bad way in my opinion. Then again, it's fairly familiar to me as I already had purchased the magenta plate of the same card! Breaston is therefore one of a number of PCs for which I have multiple 1/1s.

That distinction is true of former Reds prospect Ryan LaMarre as well. The 16th hit in his collection is also the 5th 1/1, which is quite a ratio if you ask me. And this design is also well known to me because the black plate you see above from 2010 Bowman Draft is the third one I now claim ownership of from the set! I've checked off the black, magenta, and yellow versions and just need the cyan, making this one of five plate sets where I have three of the four (others are Chad Henne 2014 Prestige; Clayton Richard 2011 Topps; J.J. Putz 2012 Topps Mini; and Rich Hill 2006 Topps). That was worth a bit under $12.50 shipped as far as I was concerned!

Finally, with Christmas just five days away and having barely crossed the $1800 mark in spending for the year, I decided to treat myself to an upgrade. My copy of Kirk Gibson's 2001 Topps Archives rookie reprint auto was one of my favorite cards in my entire collection, but it was somewhat faded when I bought it, and leaving it and some others out where too much sunlight got to them didn't do it any favors:

That's a recent pic I took of what's essentially an auto-less Gibby and a very faded 1999 SP Signature auto of Griffey (that I pulled myself and regret ruining this much all the time!). So I was very much on the hunt for a much better copy despite the cost of Kirk's signature going up quite a bit.

And you know what? For the nice, bold blue signature you see above on my new copy, I didn't think twice about plunking down $53. It's great having such a nice version of that piece in his collection and I'd do it again if I had to. But I probably won't because I'm not letting that sucker get any regular sunlight!

And those nine cards are how I finished up 2023 when it comes to personal eBay pickups. I still have lots more to show off from the end of last year but I'm at least making some headway, and I'll be back soon with more!

2023 eBay purchases: three Tigers and a Wolverine

I haven't felt like blogging much lately but I still have a lot to show off, so I decided I'd compromise and kind of half-ass it. Here's a quartet of cards I bought in May, July, and August:

First up is my second autograph of rising Tigers star Riley Greene. I previously received a nice minors auto of Greene from everyone's favorite Dollar Store customer, but I decided I wanted one of him in a Tigers uni, ideally before he really blew up. Mission completed with this 2020 Bowman's Best auto that mimics the design of the Franchise Favorites insert 20 years prior. The signature is on-card, the card itself is numbered /200, and it's got that trademark Refractor shine, so I was really happy with this purchase, which set me back a reasonable $35 delivered way back in May. Riley's since gone on a tear but may be out for the remainder of the year after hurting his elbow on an amazing diving catch.

Next, I got a bit antsy about picking up a nice Detroit uni signature of a potential future star, Colt Keith. Keith was Detroit's final pick (round 5) of the drastically reduced 2020 draft that featured Spencer Torkelson joining the team at #1 overall. A HS 3B, he's since torn it up in the minors, and it would be fantastic to see him join the small group of homegrown bats the team has recently developed and hasn't yet traded for peanuts (cough cough Isaac Paredes cough).

I'm not generally the prospecting type but considering some of the hype he's been getting this season, I decided not to wait until a potential 2024 promotion to land his signature. That came in the form of the '21 Topps Pro Debut auto you see above. Back in July that cost me a bit more than $31 shipped and the seller was nice enough to include a Bowman Draft base with it.

Here are the backs for those interested.

A few days later a bunch of auctions being run by one seller (who offered a nice combined shipping rate) were ending, and I snagged an excellent group of cards targeted for trades, one of which hasn't been sent off just yet (soon!). My lone keeper was this 2011 GQ Mini Framed Cyan plate of one of my favorite former Tigers, Austin Jackson. As always, GQ is not a product I remotely care about but framed cards generally get my approval, and that this is a plate (my first of the OF) is a big plus. I believe each auction I won finished at the starting bid of $4.50 or $5, and the total shipping was about the same, so in the end I really only paid around $6 for this, a definite steal!

My most recent win came in mid-August when I spied this 2016 Bowman Chrome Draft yellow plate of former UM pitcher Brett Adcock for about $8.50. A three-year Wolverine, he was taken by Houston in the 4th round in 2016, though it appears he was away from affiliated ball in 2020, spent 2021-22 in indy ball, and hasn't pitched this year.

Still, he's been part of my collection for a while, and Jeff's as well, which I'm aware of because I first found out about Brett's cards via an MSO post. Also, Jeff covered his recent birthday, August 28th. This is my 12th card of his and first "hit" of any kind. Aside from five minors issues in 2016-19, he's got 26 2016 Bowman/Chrome Draft cards to chase, and those that I'm lacking are numbered /150, /25 (x2), /5 (x2), and /1 (x9). That means I'm about one card away from having a hard time getting anything new of his.

Now that I can put these away I think I'll get back to some trade recaps before reporting on this past Friday's show.

2023 eBay purchases: Pirate King!

Happy spring, y'all! I've got a couple really nice trade packages to share but haven't logged and scanned them yet, and I didn't want that to hold up getting at least something posted. So tonight you're getting my three personal eBay purchases from the first couple months of 2023.

Tonight's post, as is sometimes the case, is all about (new Pirates pitcher) Rich Hill.

It's going to take a bit for me to get used to seeing Dick Mountain in a Pirates uniform, but I'm just happy to see him back for his 19th(!) MLB season. In that time his Baseball Reference transaction section has gotten so long you'd have to print it on a CVS receipt. Since being drafted and signed by the Cubs in 2002 he's pitched for them (2005-08), the Orioles (2009), Red Sox (2010-12), Indians (2013), Angels and Yankees (2014), Red Sox #2 (2015), A's (2016), Dodgers (2016-19), Twins (2020), Rays and Mets (2021), and Red Sox #3 (2022). And that doesn't include his stint with the indy ball Long Island Ducks in 2015 that led to his return to Boston!

Pittsburgh will be the 12th team Hill's pitched for (he never reached the Majors with the Cardinals and Nats), tying him for third all time with Mike Morgan and Matt Stairs. Former Tiger Edwin Jackson holds the record with 14 teams, and another former Tiger (the odds were good, obviously) Octavio Dotel took the bump with 13.

Anyway, that's a long preamble to introduce this evening's cards. Here's the three big items I bought of Hill in January and February:

I've mentioned that I don't touch Topps "on-demand" stuff too often but my favorite seller on the site, markaguirre22, had this 2020 Topps Mini Silver 1/1 up for grabs in late January and I scored it for the minimum $10 bid plus tax (and free shipping). It's a Twins card and he doesn't have a ton of those so that's cool.

I know I've also mentioned the numerous occasions when this seller generously threw in extras and he did that this time as well. Both of these 2013 A&G Minis were new to me which was a very nice bonus, and I make sure to thank him in my feedback every time he sends me something like this.

Less than a week later I got in a bit of a bidding war for this 2006 Flair Showcase plate used to make Rich's card in the Showcase Signatures set. The Cubs-appropriate Cyan card set me back a bit under $18, but I didn't mind too much because I don't have to go that high very often, and anything up to around $20 is reasonable enough for me. It's my first of the four from that plate set so that's one reason I fought a bit harder to win it. Here's the card that resulted from this plate and its brethren:

Pretty cool, no? Flair Showcase had a wide variety of looks during its existence and I like the design of this insert set for sure.

Finally, a bit more than a month ago I won the most recently produced 1/1 I've added to Hill's PC, a 2022 Topps Chrome yellow plate. My winning bid was only $9 but tax and shipping pushed that cost up close to $15, which is just kind of the reality of buying on the site these days. Anyway, it represents Rich's third stint in Boston, and who's to say he won't return later this year in a deadline deal or as a free agent in the offseason in search of his 20th year at the game's highest level? By the way, with yellow not being a staple of the Red Sox's team colors, I 100% need to get a plate in that color of him with the Pirates!

These additions continue Hill's dominance of my baseball PC with 149 hits, of which 35 are 1/1s. My TCDb-leading 349 items, 35 of which are of the rarest variety, allow me to confidently continue calling myself the king of Dick Mountain!

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!

2022 eBay purchases: Go Blue! (and magenta and black)

It's been a while since I've had some eBay pickups to show off--it looks like the last purchase I made for myself there was in July--but I picked up a fun pair earlier this month, and as they're both former Michigan guys, why not show them off tonight to celebrate the Wolverines' win over the gutless Spartans last night?

Item #1 is a new 1/1 for one of my smallest player collections for now:

You've seen Braves draftee Jesse Franklin's name pop up a bit here (and on Jeff's blog too!) and now he's back with what will likely be the centerpiece of his PC for quite a while. For around $15 shipped I snagged this signed magenta plate of his 2020 Donruss Elite base. I've long been a fan of Elite Extra Edition and naturally love that this is a full college uni card with the old block "M" clear as day. It's extra cool that these plates are signed, and Franklin has an outstanding signature to boot. Oh yeah, and now I finally own a printing plate with a fully colorized metallic back, something I've been wanting for quite a while. What a great item to add as just my third hit of Franklin's (the other two are also signed) out of 10 cards!

My other score, purchased a bit more recently, is from a seller who should be well known around here since he's my favorite: markaguirre22. He's currently my only saved seller and I tend to check his listings for Michigan stuff weekly to try to snag some great deals, plus take advantage of his free shipping. I don't always end up with the winning bid as I do have my limits, but sometimes I come out on top.

This time I was able to land Clayton Richard's 2014 Topps Mini Black parallel, the card you see on the left. It set me back $4.50 which I thought was fairly reasonable for a card numbered 5/5. Yep, if you thought the flagship product's Black cards were tough, you have no idea what you're getting into with the Minis! I now have all of Richard's non-1/1 versions from the product except for the Pink /25.

Along for the ride as a freebie (another reason to go bid on this seller's auctions!) is Clayton's 2017 Topps Mini base version. This isn't one I was hot after myself because 2017 was the first year Topps made these "on-demand" which I'm not a huge fan of. That means I'll happily take them in trades (or as freebies, of course) but I'm unlikely to want to pay anything for them.

This pair of cards of the former UM QB-turned-pitcher got his collection over a semi-milestone to 151 cards. TCDB tells me he's the #26 overall player in my group of PC guys I'm actively chasing (e.g. ignoring guys like Clemens, Bonds, Jeter, et al who are part of my complete sets). And as you might guess, I'm his top collector on the site by a mile:

Since I had very little to scan, here's the backs of the two cards you just saw:

That's it for tonight but I should be back relatively soon with the last TCDB swap I haven't posted plus a PIF I recently received from another very cool member there. Until then, GO BLUE!

2022 eBay purchase: I've got Wood

I'm back this evening with a lazy Sunday post as I enjoy the last day of my vacation before heading back to work tomorrow. As such I decided to make it a quick one, and my latest eBay pickup seemed like a reasonable choice to show off.

As is often the case when I buy something for myself on eBay, tonight's card was sold by my favorite member on the site at the moment, markaguirre22. Gary continues to list former Michigan athletes mixed in with newer stuff, and once in a while I see if I can snag anything I like at a reasonable price to go with his free shipping.

I was happy to win this one on the cheap about a week ago:

Former UM dual-sport athlete Clayton Richard, who switched to baseball after it was clear he wouldn't unseat Chad Henne as Michigan's QB, is pictured here on his 2013 GQ Wood Mini. In terms of that type of insert/parallel, the Wood cards are probably the most highly regarded after the 1/1 versions since they're also extremely rare, limited to just five copies. I'm fortunate to be the owner of #1/5 here, which is fun, though I'm generally not the type to put a lot into specific serial numbers.

Though I don't generally rate sets like GQs' designs highly, the Wood cards do have a pretty cool look to them. I think my scanner did a reasonable job of picking up the coloring used on the front, so you should have a good idea of what you're getting if you ever have interest in scoring one yourself.

Besides the low numbering the best part about this purchase for me was the price. Gary tends to start his auctions at around $1 (unless it's higher-end stuff) and while I wasn't the first to bid, my late maximum bid of something like $5 was more than enough--I paid just $1.55 plus a bit more for tax purposes. For a card #d /5? Yes, please!

TCDB tells me I now have 149 of his 436 listed cards, so I'm about to hit a fun little milestone with his collection the next time I add something.

After getting this great pickup filed away I'll be working on covering the next most recent trade envelope I received with a few more on the way via TCDB and other sources, so I still have plenty of incoming cards to show off soon!

Until then, have any of you scored any really great deals for your collections lately? Feel free to share in the comments!