10/7/17 card show report: wide world of Wolverines

If you read my TMV post (which is likely how you got here), you know the show I went to a couple weeks ago and the subsequent report post were pretty much paint-by-numbers, but I can't complain since the cards were new to me and fun to dig out as usual.

Here's the Wolverines content:

Let's start with the football base stuff.  Last year's Donruss offerings of Funchess and David Harris bookend a nice 2009 Upper Deck Leon Hall, and I also added Harris' Donruss base from this year's design, which I also like.

One of the biggest surprises of the day was card #5, a 1988 Swell Greats issue of Bill Hewitt, a player I believe is totally new to this here blog.  A native of the state (Bay City), he attended Michigan in the late 20s/early 30s as an "end" (I believe a pre-forward pass TE) and FB, then went on to an NFL Hall of Fame career with the Bears, Eagles, and the amazingly named Phil-Pitt Steagles, the combined team that was formed due to a player shortage resulting from WWII.  He doesn't appear to have appeared on much cardboard, so this was one of those really fun dime box finds!

I also wasn't expecting to turn up a numbered first-year for my Rookie Blue collection, but suddenly I saw a 2003 Absolute Memorabilia RC (#0616/1100) of former TE Bennie Joppru.  It's my 20th of his surprising total of 32 rookies, and one of the nicest ones at that.

Finally, I grabbed another one of those crazy and fun Pacific offerings of the 90s, a 1996 Crown Royale base of coach Jim Harbaugh.  When Pacific wasn't trying to melt your eyeballs with shininess they tried to grab your attention in other ways, like this all-die-cut set, and I salute them for it!

I also came up with a surprising number of Michigan Football inserts, though if it took me this long to find them I can't imagine the dealer would feel like putting in the effort to dig them up and price them at a small premium.

The top row is all Refractors all the time:  Biakabutuka's hails from 1999 Finest, Breaston's is a parallel of his 2007 Finest RC, and I also found what seems to be a rarity:  a Braylon of that parallel that I hadn't tracked down yet (2006 Bowman Chrome).

The next three are all numbered, with a couple $0.50 cards from the same set bookending one numbered way higher than both combined.  QBs Elvis Grbac and Brian Griese are both representing with identical numbering (#221/299) from Pacific's 2001 Vanguard Blue parallel, plus I turned up a Silver parallel of Griese's 1998 Topps Stars RC (#2430/3999).

The bottom includes parallels of a couple positions that face each other on every play, a CB and WR.  While I already had Leon Hall's 2007 Topps Chrome Refractor parallel of his RC, until this show I hadn't tracked down his XFractor.  Done and done!  Jumping back more than a decade I then grabbed Amani Toomer's super shiny Ground Zero parallel from 1996 Summit.

That wasn't all, though, since I made it an even ten with these two horizontal offerings.  The first is a 2001 Team Nucleus insert that plays on its product's name:  Pacific Prism Atomic.  All three players on that card ended up having at least solid careers, though HOF RB Davis's career would be over the year after this insert came out.

Speaking of 2001 Atomic, I also came up with this awesome die-cut/numbered insert of WR Tai Streets, a Gold parallel numbered 005/116.  The color really goes well with the 49ers uniforms.  Remember when they didn't suck because they weren't owned by a know-nothing spoiled brat?

Lastly, I turned up two very cool hockey parallels.  The first is one of my favorite hockey alumni in Morrison on one of my favorite parallels and products:  1999-00 Paramount Holo-Gold (#050/199).  I surprised myself when it came up in a big pile of numbered hockey cards I was grabbing for someone else (who could that possibly be?  I'm going insane trying to remember.).  The other is one of the better goalies the school produced, Steve Shields, on one of the greatest of all parallels, an Artist's Proof, which happens to be of his 1997-98 Pinnacle RC, so big bonus there!

That's it for this month's show, but I've still got waaaaaaay too much to scan and post to show off for you, so stay tuned for whenever I get around to that.