Wednesday, January 9, 2013

COMC haul #28: taking the Eight-Train

(Note:  all COMC haul posts can be accessed here)

As promised, I'm back today with more football pickups.  One of the players who featured prominently in my pickups (as usual) was former star RB Anthony Thomas.

The A-Train was extremely productive, ranking at or near the top in many school rushing stats.  He was then chosen in the second round of the 2001 draft by Chicago (right after teammate David Terrell) and was productive enough to be named the offensive Rookie of the Year.  Unfortunately that proved to be the high point of his career, and he would bounce around a couple other teams before being out of the league for good in 2007.  He landed on his feet, however (as Michigan Men are wont to do) and is now West Virginia Wesleyan's special teams coach.  Thomas may not have had the NFL career he envisioned, but he'll go down as one of Michigan's greatest backs ever, and he played a role in the 1997 championship team, which I'm sure he'll remember fondly.

Therefore, I present to you eight new pickups of one of Michigan's all-time greats (Jeff, I'm pretty sure you're gonna like a lot of these, buddy):
Anthony Thomas 2001 Hot Prospects Draft Day Postmarks auto (#0279/1875)
I've always thought of these as a really, really cool idea that was executed very well.  The stamp is an actual New York postmark from the date of that year's draft.  I love the originality, the serial number up-front, the college shot, and most of all, Thomas' gorgeous signature.  I knew I had to have this one after I picked up his teammate, David Terrell.
Anthony Thomas 2001 Leaf Rookies and Stars Rookie Autographs
Nothing to see here, just another beautiful signature.  I never get tired of seeing an autograph that's so legible and shows that the player didn't carelessly fly through signing, sticking people like us with lousy autos that are limited to the guy's initials, if that.  This is also an example of a sticker design that I like for some reason.  While the sticker itself can sort of detract from the look of the card, this one doesn't steal attention away from the signature, and instead it's a nice style that I've seen in other Panini products.  Oh yeah, I also have the Terrell version of this as well.
Anthony Thomas 2001 Press Pass SE Autographs Bronze auto
Here's a solid offering from Press Pass, which generally comes up with good-to-above-average designs for its signature cards.  Then again, I obviously love my college uni cards anyway, so I suppose I'm not terribly picky or anything.
Anthony Thomas 2001 Private Stock Game Worn Gear jersey
Maybe because I was so used to that year's baseball Game Gear set it's somewhat surprising to see a card like this featuring a college photo, but I think it works very well.  By the way, this isn't the best card from this set that I got from COMC, but you'll have to wait and see what I got that was better.
Anthony Thomas 2001 SPx Winning Materials jersey-ball (#059/100)
I've been cutting way down on relic cards recently, not so much because of the way their authenticity has come into question so much as the fact that I just prefer autographs (but no worries, I'm still happy to trade for them!).  However, the Winning Materials cards are usually fairly cool, and for as cheap as this one came, I liked it quite a bit.  And you'll be shocked to learn that I have the Terrell version of this as well.  Seeing a trend at all?  Well good for you, but you're too late since that's it for now.
Anthony Thomas 2001 Stadium Club Lone Star Signatures
In my hockey pickups post the other day you might recall that I showed off a Brendan Morrison Lone Star auto and explained that I really liked the design of that set found in baseball and hockey.  Well football's not exempt from that list, especially thanks to the excellent action shot of A-Train with his excellent signature running up the card next to him vertically.  It actually doesn't bother me that the autograph is oriented that way because I like that he had more than enough room to pen his John (I mean "Herbie") Hancock.  This is easily one of the nicest looking Thomas cards I own!
Anthony Thomas 2001 Topps Debut auto RC (#302/499)
And this guy is just a small notch below the Stadium Club card, but it's very close.  The full-bleed design makes good use of another excellent action shot from a Wolverines game, and again, there's a ton of room for Thomas to fit a nice large version of his signature.  This is definitely worthy of a place in my PC.
Anthony Thomas 2002 Hot Prospects Hot Materials jersey
Well, you can't always go out with a bang, but this is still a decent pickup anyway.  I only had to pay about $1.50 for it, and it least it has a nice photo and pleasing horizontal design.

So these eight A-Trains give him a new hit count of 28, including 15 relics, 12 autographs and a patch.  That means he'll soon join my growing 30-hit club, and I'll do my best to make sure the cards that put him over that mark are extra special.

Back to baseball tomorrow as I've still got a number of cards to finish up there, but again, I'll keep mixing football in as well to keep things varied.  GO BLUE!

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