A Jake Long Blowout

More Blowout stuff?  More Blowout stuff, courtesy of one of my all-time favorite sellers who was shedding a bit more of his PC (which is heavy on Jake Long), to my enormous benefit:

Charles Woodson 2010 SPx Winning Materials patch (#065/125):

Only my third Woodson, but it's a doozy:  a gorgeous Michigan jersey patch, which I have to assume came from a number or the nameplate or something.  Very cool!

 Jake Long 2008 Bowman Sterling jersey auto:

One of my favorite Long posed photos, I already have a jersey and auto versions, so now I also have the version where they smashed the two together.  

Jake Long 2008 Topps Rookie Progression Rookie Autographs Blue auto (#018/299):

These are a bit simple in most ways but I still like the looks of them, especially this Blue version.  I also have the same card in Red.   

Jake Long 2008 Upper Deck Draft Edition auto RC: 

I've actually got a bunch of UM players from this set, though I'll have to see if I have them all; it's definitely an outstanding set, so well done, Upper Deck!  Incidentally, this makes 49 different Jake Longs for me, meaning he's overtaken Rich Hill for the all-sport PC lead, plus he's about to become my first 50-card club member.  Hooray for more milestones! 

Mike Hart 2008 SAGE Aspire Century Club auto (#44/100):

We close out today's haul with our fourth different Michigan uni card out of five, which we here at TMM like to call "A pretty damned good day."  If you were to look up "Mike Hart" in the encyclopedia, this is very likely the exact photo you'd see of him.  Make it 36 of the former Heart of the Wolverines. 

Until next time, good night and GO BLUE!

I’m still here

Hi all!  Jeff here.  You might have forgotten who I am since I haven’t posted here in quite awhile.  If you follow me at My Sports Obsession then you know why.  I have gotten a few Michigan cards in trade so I figured I’d get a post up just to say hello again.  This is kind of a slow period for me in Michigan athletics.  I follow the football team (obviously) and the basketball team closely.  But once both of those are over, there isn’t much to follow.  I tried to follow the baseball team, but I just don’t get a chance to watch many games.  There has been a few on the Big Ten Network and I’ve watched those but I don’t like following a sport that I don’t get to watch often.  It’s hard to get into the players by just watching the box scores and following the team on Twitter.  So I’m guessing I won’t be posting here a lot until the fall.  But for now, I have gotten these in trades.

I got this in a trade from Jeremy over at “No One’s Going to Read This Blog”.  He sent me all kinds of stuff for my other collection and you’ll be able to see those coming in the next week or so on my blog.
But I like this card.  One of my favorite, probably the favorite QB that I got to watch in Ann Arbor and have followed through the pros.  Put it this way, I am an Indianapolis Colts fan, but I still root for Tom Brady who is on one of the Colts' major rivals, the Patriots.  I even root for him to have a good game against my Colts, as long as he doesn’t get the win.
I heard when he was at Michigan and they named Drew Henson the starter, that he went to Lloyd Carr and told them they were making a mistake.  And then worked his way as a starter and blossomed from then on.  2 bowl wins, 20-5 record, all Big Ten player, etc.
Then got to the pros and had to start all over, drafted at pick #199.  I won’t get into all that, you all know who he is now.  But he beats the odds and wins.  Like him or not, he wins games.

The next card you’ve seen here before, only in Dennis’ collection.  Well, he got 2 of them and sent one over to me.  You might have heard of him.  Being as this blog is named after him.

A 2008 Press Pass Authentics Saturday Signature red Auto of super Mario Manningham.

Another guy I’ve gotten to watch from college to pro.  I’ve been a Michigan fan for as long as I can remember but I’ve only starting watching football heavily in the last 10 years or so.  I was really into the basketball team before then.  To be honest, I didn’t watch much pro football back then either.  I didn’t really have anything against football, it just wasn’t my favorite.  Now it’s #2, behind baseball.
Mario made some huge catches for the Wolverines in his day.  Including a huge catch against Penn State to hand them their only loss in 2005.  He had some injury issues later in his Michigan career that seemed to slow him down just a bit.  But he made it to the pros and has built himself a pretty good career including a huge catch along the sidelines leading up to a Super Bowl win.
I don’t know the rarity of the red auto, but I would assume since it has red in the title, that there are others, probably black.  Either way, it’s my 2nd auto of Super Mario.  And I’m super appreciative of Dennis because he keeps sending me cards and I haven’t been able to hold up my end of the trades yet.  Not only did he send this awesome card but he sent me another awesome card, probably the top card on my want list (if I actually had one posted).  But you’ll have to go here to see it.
Thanks again Dennis, you are a gentleman and a scholar.  But most importantly, you’re a Wolverine in every sense of the word.  (I’m kissing ass until I get some cards back to you)

Friday is Bray-Day

Another tiny Blowout purchase arrived in my mailbox today.  Football PC hit #511 is this

Braylon Edwards 2011 Topps End Zone Icons manupatch

These cards are definitely as cool in-person as they are in scans.  This is definitely a love-it-or-hate-it kind of manupatch, but in many ways, especially taking into consideration the fact that it's produced by Topps, it's pulled off quite well.  Topps definitely did a solid job of making the manupatch look like a small version of an end zone, with the team logo really standing out nicely on the grass green background since it's sort of stitched with some shiny material that almost makes it look hologram-like.  What REALLY makes this card, though, is a fantastic photo, especially for a set with such a theme:  not only is this a super fun shot of Braylon and TE Dustin Keller celebrating what I'd have to assume was an Edwards TD (you think he gets that excited when other people score?), the photo perfectly includes a ref making the ubiquitous TD signal in the background--how cool is that?

If you cheated and checked out the tags for this post first for some reason, you'll notice that another milestone came up.  I wasn't referring to the aforementioned 511 football PC cards since that would be pretty odd.  Nope, this just happens to be Braylon card #40 for me!  That means this card placed him along in second behind Jake Long's 46 as the sole members of my 40 football hit club, which will likely be joined very soon by Henne and Mike Hart (35).

Now that this card arrived, I have one more Blowout package coming, which you'll hopefully see soon.  Once June rolls around I'll begin what'll likely be a week or two worth of posts featuring the really nice stuff from my in-person purchase.  Until then, dance celebrate your TDs like nobody's watching!

The Tenth Cents

I may tend to focus most of my effort and dollars towards autographs, relics and some of the higher-end stuff that comprises my PC, but I also know a good deal when I see it.  I see a lot of you other bloggers expound upon the virtues of the dime box time and again, so, taking your lead, I took advantage of a virtual version thanks to a recent Blowout sale thread.  A guy was selling some Refractors and numbered inserts and RCs for a dime apiece (plus $2 shipping), and for a measly $3, I picked up 10 cards, nine of which you'll see here (the other is destined for a Friend of the Blog in a future trade package).  They were as follows:

• Braylon Edwards 2008 Topps Finest Player Collection Refractor:  a gorgeous blue card--in Refractor form!
• Braylon Edwards Silver Holofoil (#030/100):  I'm not sure if there are even 99 other people that care for Bray-Bray at this point, but I'll take whatever I can get!
• Prescott Burgess 2007 Topps Chrome XFractor RC:  there are times when I don't care for XFractors; this is not one of them.
• David Baas 2005 Sweet Spot RC (#686/899):  Baas never got much card love, but he'll gladly offer to let you talk to the hand (which now includes a Super Bowl Ring) if you choose to make fun of him for it.
• Leon Hall 2007 Bowman Chrome Refractor RC:  This is a beautiful set to have been made into Refractor form, and I hope Leon earns it by recovering from injury and returning to form as one of the league's top DBs. 

• Braylon Edwards 2006 Elite Passing the Torch (#0494/1000):  A sweet numbered Panini insert (there's a surprise!) that has a fine history.  Oddly enough, he was paired with another former Browns WR, Paul Warfield--a Buckeye!
• Brian Griese/David Terrell 2001 Topps Chrome Combos Refractor:  This is sadly a duo that never panned out in the NFL, plus they didn't ever get to play together in college, but it's still a nice combo for an insert, and it's nice to see players paired on a card based on their alma mater.  Also, it's a Refractor, duh!
• Braylon Edwards 2008 Gridiron Gear Playbook (#229/500):  Kind of a throwaway insert, even if it IS numbered, but it's still a fairly cool theme, even if the design didn't end up pulling it off without looking kind of bland and cheap.  Yep, that's four Braylons, almost half of my haul here!

Not bad for $1.  I hope to have more opportunities to pick up fun cards this cheaply again as the dime boxes around here at shows have long since ceased to be of any use.  I ask you all, where else can you have this much fun for $0.10?  (Please refrain from replying with references to anyone's mother, girlfriend, etc.  Unless it's hilarious, in which case, go for it.)

eBay leaves me feeling nutty

This week was an excellent week for eBay pickups for me.  I've definitely been trying to keep my spending for the month down since I already plunked down a nice chunk of change at a card show, though even after that and several eBay and Blowout pickups (more to come) I'm still under my monthly average, which is nice.

I found it pretty easy to justify these four pickups, though, since they're all essentially on my wantlist and not just stray cards that I didn't have the willpower to ignore:

Cazzie Russell 2011-12 SP Authentic By the Letter C patch auto (#23/50):

As with most of the others, I got a pretty nice price on this one.  I now have six of the eight letters that spell "MICHIGAN" and only need "A" and "N", which a good eBay lead on the latter.  If you see an "A" anywhere, please let me know and I'll make sure to reward you with some sort of finder's fee; I did see one on eBay earlier this week combined with an "H" (which I already have) but it was coming out of Hong Kong and I didn't feel like waiting that long.  That's ok--I'm patient, and I'll have this fun project completed soon enough!

And here we have three more letters from Zach Putnam's 2008 Razor Letterman nameplates.  The unnumbered "N" gives me four of the six of that nameplate (I need the "P" and "T", so again, finder's fees!) while the /20 "U" and "T" leave me just the "M" short of a full nameplate.  If one of you helps me find that I'll really make it worth your while!

I decided to have fun and scan all three of those together, but I left out the Cazzie in this case for obvious reasons--I do try to be safe for work/kids most of the time!  On a just-as-fun-but-not-as-R-rated note, I finally got over the hump and passed the century mark in my baseball PC!  Hooray for more milestones already this year.

Stay tuned for more recent pickups pretty soon, and hopefully the completion of one or more of these nameplates!

Card show report: 5/5/12: Michigan stuff edition

Yesterday's TMV post covered most of my day's activity at a show during which I landed a couple autographs from former Michigan QB Rick Leach.  I did want to make sure to highlight the small handful of Michigan pickups I nabbed, though.  Each and every one of these seven cards represents a new member to their sport's PC, which I was thrilled about, not to mention the relatively low price I paid for each:

2004 TK Legacy Michigan autos:

Ali Haji-Sheikh:  K, 1979-1983 

Curt Mallory:  DB, 1989 

Greg McMurtry:  WR, 1986-1989 

John Kolesar:  WR, 1985-1988

Mike Lantry:  K, 1972-1974

Ron Johnson:  HB, 1966-1968

These ran me $3 each, which I consider a steal when they tend to go for at least twice that, even for more obscure players, online.  I now have 75 different Wolverines players and coaches in my football PC, and I hope to continue growing that number, most likely through the TK set.

And then I also picked up this beauty:

Andy Hilbert 2005-06 In the Game Nameplates Silver patch (1 of 20)

Yeah, it's from a Providence Bruins jersey instead of a Boston patch, but it's still a very cool card, plus a new player for my hockey PC!  Hilbert was a pretty good forward for the Maize and Blue who hasn't done much in the NHL, but as always, I'm more than happy to have something of him in the PC.

That's it for the show stuff, but I have a few different eBay things coming in the next week or so, then plenty of other stuff to scan up/show off.  As Rick Leach wrote in my book yesterday, GO BLUE!

Mmmmmmm...62.5%

I said in one of my recent posts that, after my crazy spending binge the first three months this year, I'd had taken a more rational approach in April, and at that point I had only spent $10 on a pair of cards from Blowout.  I did make one more purchase on the very last day of April, but it only cost me another $10.49 via eBay and I had a very good reason to buy it:

Cazzie Russell 2011-12 SP Authentic By the Letter M patch auto (#14/25)

I now have five out of the eight patches that spell out "Michigan" and I only need a "C", "A" and "N" to own the nameplate.  This one is easily my favorite because I'd be just as happy to have it alone--it may not look much like Michigan's "M" logo but it would suffice.  As with all the others of this collection it looks very cool and features an outstanding autograph.  Here's to continuing my progress towards getting something done!