COMC haul #43: Rich Hill says "no mas," and a recap

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

This is what you've probably all been waiting for (both of you, that is):  the last post in the series detailing my haul from COMC thanks to purchases made between June and November of 2012.  I'd intended to finish this up before the calendar rolled around to March, but an extended power outage and other interruptions had other ideas.

So to celebrate the culmination of this project, I give you nothing but Rich Hill hits!  And as I get to do sometimes, this one GOES TO 11!

Rich Hill 2006 Topps Co-Signers dual auto (with Hendrickson)

Hendrickson was a 10th-round pick by Milwaukee back in 1999, and though his lifetime MLB record is 1-10 with a ridiculous ERA, at one point in his career his Minor League numbers made him look like a good prospect.  That never translated to the bigs, unfortunately, so Rich, who's at least had a respectable career, is paired up with this scrub, but that's always the risk you take with a multi-player auto.  I'll give Ben credit, though--he has a pretty good signature!  As usual with a card like this, I tend to ignore the parts I don't like and focus on the fact that it's a new Hill I needed, and an autograph at that.

Rich Hill 2007 Ultimate Collection America's Pastime Signatures auto

'MURICA!  F%$K YEAH!  Could UD have picked a better background for this card, especially taking into account the Cubs' team colors?  A nice horizontal design and a sticker that gets blended nicely into the design make this one a winner.  Like AMERICA!

Rich Hill 2008 SP Legendary Cuts Future Legends Signatures auto (#98/99)

Ehhhhh, yeah...I dunno that anything about Rich screamed "future legend" at any point in his young career, but I still wouldn't call him the worst player in an otherwise reasonable checklist (Chris Duncan comes to mind).  Set name aside, this is a solid looking design that features a nice thin-Sharpied on-card signature and front-facing serial-numbering, and for some reason I'm liking that background color too.  Good stuff.

Rich Hill 2008 Topps Highlights auto

I think I bought this one so early in the process that I feel like I've had it for a lot longer.  My only complaint is the sticker taking up a lot of real estate, but other than that, I pretty much like what Topps did here.  One positive of the large sticker is that there's plenty of room for Hill to fit a large signature, and this one looks better than quite a few of his others.  I'm not sure if it's because he had more space, took more time to do it, or what, but that's really well done right there.

Rich Hill 2008 Upper Deck Premier Signature Premier Gold Jersey Number auto (#30/53)

If this design looks familiar, that's because I picked up his slightly rarer version a week ago.  Though this one's a bit more common, it's actually cooler as it's numbered to his jersey number of 53.  Which is good for me since it would be a lot tougher to find if he was wearing something like 2!  What I said before applies to this one, and overall, it's a nice looking addition to the PC.

Rich Hill 2008 Upper Deck X Memorabilia jersey

I honestly didn't mean to split these up into autographs and relics, that's just how it worked out chronologically!  This is probably the most boring card of the day, but for as cheaply as I picked it up I'm fine with it--cards that had a simple stripe were going at too much of a relative premium to make it worth it.  I'm not a big fan of the Upper Deck X set, but this one looks fine.  Hey, it's another Hill hit, right?

Rich Hill 2009 Upper Deck Ballpark Collection Eight Swatch Memorabilia eight-way jersey (#158/300)

Rich Hill 2009 Upper Deck Ballpark Collection Quad Swatch Memorabilia quad jersey (with Lincecum, Zambrano, Zito) (#252/400)

Rich Hill 2009 Upper Deck Ballpark Collection Quad Swatch Memorabilia quad jersey (with Rivera, Bedard, Holliday) (#317/400)

These cards were a fun trio to add.  I already had one other version of Rich's from the set thanks to a trade with Greg (PTSiA), and despite the fact that the player combos are somewhat strange, it's a lot of fun picking up hits of other guys I normally wouldn't get.  Also, I'm a bit bothered by the fact that a ton of these guys are pictured with one team but listed with another (Hill on the Orioles, Holliday on the A's, Bedard on the Mariners, etc.).  You know I'd ream Topps for that, to be fair I'll call UD out on this stupid decision as well.  But besides that stupidity, these are fun to own, especially the double-sided cards featuring six or eight players.  I now have four of the five versions on which Rich appears, and just need the all-Cubs version with Kerry Wood, Aramis Ramirez and Derrek Lee!

Rich Hill 2009 Upper Deck Spectrum Spectrum Swatches Blue jersey

Whereas I'm not a big fan of Upper Deck X, I like what Spectrum did with these cards for some reason.  I already own the autograph/jersey version and I expect I'll have the patch soon enough, meaning I'll just need to pick up the slightly rarer jersey.  On this version, though, I like all the blue the card has going on, including the jersey's pinstripe.

Rich Hill 2009 Upper Deck X Memorabilia jersey

This X card at least looks a bit nicer than the other one, and I don't mind that UD opted against the annoying "X" swatch window this time.  A nice pinstriped relic paired with a great photo makes this one a positive in my book.

And now for a few quick numbers:

• Rich's IHAS count jumps to 174, plus eight 1/1s
• That number officially puts me more than halfway to his non-1/1 collection
• Rich has now blown everyone out of the water with a crazy 76 hits

And because of the magnitude of this project, I want to give a quick overview of what went into it and how it impacted my collection:

• The three packages comprised cards purchased between June and November of 2012
• In total, I purchased 396 cards (plus another 10 for trade bait)
• The total cost of the (non-trade bait) cards was $940.63
• I picked up cards for all four major Michigan sports PCs, plus some Detroit Tigers and set wantlist cards
• Impacts on some of my player collections (number of new cards added):
• Mike Hart and Chad Henne:  6
• Jake Long:  7
• Jason Christian:  12
• Bill Freehan:  22
• Rich Hill:  75
• Zach Putnam:  13
• J.J. Putz:  13
• Clayton Richard:  49

So as you can see, all those purchases made a HUGE impact on my collections, especially when it came to the ones you see here.  I'm thrilled to have made some dents in my baseball player collections, reinforced my mammoth football PC, and picked up a few cards that were just about important enough to consider white whales.  And you can take it to the bank that I'll continue to throw money at COMC until it ceases to be a valuable source of Michigan cards for me!

Stay tuned because not too far into the future, I'll be starting a new COMC pickup series showing off cards purchased THIS year!  I promise it'll be much smaller and I'll try to get through it a bit quicker!  I also have at least one nice eBay package due to arrive soon featuring more baseball pickups, so watch for that.

I hope those of you that followed it enjoyed seeing me show off all of the pickups from this almost 400-card haul!