2017 COMC purchases: basketball and hockey

Welcome to the first of what will likely be five posts in which I finally conclude a look at my 2017 purchases by covering everything I nabbed from COMC late last year.

Today's post covers both basketball and hockey since I didn't pick up much of either (as usual):

Darius Morris 2012-13 Immaculate Collection Printing Plates Yellow (1/1)

Nik Stauskas 2014-15 Spectra Global Icons Printing Plates Yellow (1/1)

Like I said, I really don't chase basketball very much, but how could I pass up this pair of plates for around $11 combined?  The top one is my second 1/1 of Morris, the former Laker who's now playing in China, and it represents my 12th hit of him overall, good enough to break the tie with fellow former Laker (among other teams) Cazzie Russell.

If two plates out of 12 hits seems pretty good, prepare to be impressed by Nik "Sauce Castillo" Stauskas.  The Canadian star (whose plate is definitely far yellower than Morris' above) appears on a 1/1 on four of his six hits in my basketball collection.  That's crazy!  What's just as cool is that I now have double-digit 1/1s in all four sports of my Michigan PCs, and a pretty sweet 97 overall--and this is only my first COMC post in this bunch so who knows what might happen to that number soon!

Shawn Hunwick 2012-13 Panini Prime Dual Jerseys dual jersey (with Dalton Prout) (#011/200)

Shawn Hunwick 2012-13 Panini Prime Prime Time Rookies Jersey Autographs jersey auto (#20/50)

These next two are the first additions to my Shawn Hunwick PC since last October--as I find myself saying too often, his cards can be hard to find at reasonable prices for whatever reason.  Both are from 2012-13 Panini Prime--part of the excellent Rookie Anthology Product--and that's no surprise since Hunwick appears on 15 cards under that title (not including 1/1s).  This pair doubles my count to four of those, and some toughies await including three numbered to five copies and one limited to just three.  I'll take 'em as I find 'em.

I didn't know a thing about Prout so I looked him up and found out that he lasted with Columbus far longer than Shawn did, though he's most recently been associated with New Jersey.  The card he shares with the former Michigan goalie is the only such issue I have in Hunwick's collection so far.

Meanwhile the auto/jersey is far more interesting by virtue of including a signature along with a huge jersey swatch.  Just another example of Panini doing it the right way, I guess!

I now lay claim to 27 of Hunwick's 71 non-1/1s, 30 overall, and 15 hits.

We'll end the day with one more goalie on a flat-out cool card, one you'd be forgiven for mistaking for a Pacific product.  This Marty Turco Hot Gloves insert actually hails from an Upper Deck/McDonald's partnership from 2006-07.  It's die-cut in the shape of a goalie's catcher, and the main characteristic differentiating it from a Pacific-produced card is that it doesn't feature manufactured "netting", or die-cutting in that area at all.  But that doesn't take away from its very cool design, one that's definitely worthy of my favorite goalie's PC.

Come back soon for more COMC goodies as we go on a four post football run!

Too Many Plates! Part 2: basketball

Between May and June I won eBay auctions for a total of 17 different printing plates at a cost of a bit more than $100 (not bad!).  14 of those came from one awesome seller (markaguirre22), whom I can't recommend highly enough due to his great prices, excellent communication, and super fast free shipping.  A fellow Michigan collector, he was unloading some of his better stuff, and I was able to take advantage of quite a few great deals.  Better yet, over the course of my purchases he threw in three extra plates for free, giving me a nice round 20 to show off.  Several separate purchases rounded out the run on rarity.

All of the players are Michigan alumni that I collect, so you'll see most of them in three separate posts on here, one per sport, including this evening's post covering the basketball pickups (in addition to the baseball guys over on TMV tonight).  That's right, I said basketball!

Darius Morris 2012-13 Panini National Treasures Printing Plates Black (1/1)

Today's pair came from the same aforementioned seller, just a few weeks apart.  Number one is erstwhile Laker (among four other NBA teams) Darius Morris on a five-ish-year-old plate from Panini's high-end National Treasures product.  Although it's my 11th hit of Morris (tying him with Cazzie Russell for the basketball PC lead), I don't actually have a copy of the auto it goes with, but that may just turn up someday.  Considering I like to keep my plate purchases under $10 in general (and probably less for my least favorite of the four sports), a bit under $4 was a fair ransom for this one, I think.

Nik Stauskas 2014-15 Panini Spectra Global Icons Printing Plates Black (1/1)

You know how I can tell I don't pay much attention to my basketball collection?  This is my third hit of Stauskas, a.k.a. "Sauce Castillo", and all three are plates!

Here he is on his other solo venture plus a trio (ignore player #4), both of which also come from a 2014-15 Panini product: Immaculate.

I couldn't tell you exactly why I got into a mini bidding war for this 1/1 of the former first-rounder of the Kings, now with Philly--he's not exactly a star or from a sport I love--but I still threw down a bit over $7 anyway.  I mean, it fit into my plate price preference (say that three times fast) and I was happy to continue giving business to a quality eBayer, so there's that.

This pair plus the two you saw on TMV this evening give me a new printing plate/1-of-1 total of 71 with lots more to come!  Make sure to stay tuned for the forthcoming football and hockey plate posts if you like that sort of thing.

2015 trade package #19: Darius Morris wallpaper? SCFtDS O Can and Does

With this post I'll finally be caught up on trade packages, at least for now!  I'm always happy to write them up as they come in, though, especially to show off all the great stuff people send my way.

Today's haul comes from frequent flyer Doug of Spords Cards From the Dollar Store.  I'm not just throwing that term out there either--this is the 29th(!) time I'll have shown off the contents of an envelope from the blogosphere's Looniest collector.

Here's what he sent me this time:

Never say Doug isn't a man of his word--he promised me enough Darius Morris autographs to wallpaper a room, and these eight give me a great start!  Morris appears with the team that drafted him, the Lakers, on all eight cards, each of which hails from a 2012-13 Panini brand.  Four of them are considered RCs and three are numbered.  My favorite is the Timeless Treasures "Glass Rookie" card, which makes great use of a clear window to highlight the signature.  That's followed by the Select card which didn't scan as well as I'd have liked, but has a cool chrome feel to it.  There's no loses in this group at all, though!

I led off with these to show how amazingly generous Doug was with this trade and also to highlight a couple fun milestones.  First of all, Darius hits the 10-card mark on the nose to become just the second basketball player to achieve that feat (tying him with co-leader Cazzie Russell).  These eight also finally pushed my basketball collection count over 50 to 54.  Not bad!

Tyrone Wheatley 1995 Sportflix RC

The football portion was smaller but very productive.  Here's just the second Tyrone Wheatley RC that can be found in my Michigan Football rookies collection, though I'm working on rectifying that.  It comes from the always fun Sportflix product, specifically the 1995 version (which includes former teammate Todd Collins) and knocks a card off my COMC watch list.

Mike Hart 2008 Press Pass SE Class of 2008 Autographs auto (#075/199)

The other football offering is this numbered autograph of blog favorite RB Mike Hart from a 2008 Press Pass product.  Of course I love it because it's a Michigan uni card, includes a jersey number inscription, and the photo(s) depict a very determined Hart using his uncanny vision to great effect.  I now own 58 different Hart hits (one behind Braylon Edwards for third place) in my football hits collection, and the vast majority of those include Hart's signature.

Meanwhile the hockey portion was uncharacteristically small, but still great.  First up is a "Gold Parkie" parallel of David Roberts, a prolific forward for Michigan from 1989-90 to 1992-93.  The winger scored 90 goals and 247 points in his four years in Ann Arbor, then went on to appear in 125 games for the Blues, Oilers, and Canucks over parts of five seasons.  And speaking of Roberts...

David Roberts 1995 Signature Rookies Auto-Phonex Phone Cards auto (#1814/3000)

...here's my first hit of his!  It's a bit of an oddball, and I bet this'll be strange to anyone born in the 90s as it's a signed phone card.  You see, kids, in the days before cell phones were common, some of us bought these pre-paid phone cards so we could place calls without having to carry around change for pay phones.  These cards from Signature Rookies are great because you could have gotten some use out of them for their main intended purpose, then kept them in your collection thanks to the autographs!  This is a very cool find by Doug and makes Roberts the 37th member of my hockey PC.

Well, that was one of my more exciting recent trade packages!  Thanks once again, Doug, and maybe I'll have more stuff to send your way after this weekend!

2015 trade package #16: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store and the tale of Clear Carl and Mini Max

It's been too long since I showed off some loot from a Sports Cards From the Dollar Store trade package, but that's 100% on me since Doug sent this envelope my way a few weeks ago and I've been lazy about posting for the last couple months.  I suppose putting something up every 10 days or so will create that kind of backlog!

Anyway, here's the goods from the land of the loonie and twonie:

Darius Morris 2012-13 Panini Rookie Signatures auto

Nice autograph or foreshadowing of a future package?  According to Doug, his most recent COMC package means that "If you've ever considered wallpapering a room with Darius Morris autos, you might have the chance."

In the meantime I'll be happy with this very nice looking stickergraph from 2012-13 Panini.  It's a simple card that does nice things with the Lakers' colors, and Morris chips in with a solid signature.  This is just the second Morris I have to show off in my basketball PC.

Denard Robinson 2013 Topps Chrome 1986

Just one football card in this package as well, but it's a Shoelace!  This 1986 Topps-style insert is my third of Denard from the product as I already have the '59 and '65 versions.  Maybe I'll track down the '69 card to complete the quartet.  This is another fine addition to my football inserts collection.

And once again the hockey portion dwarfs the rest, which is totally cool by me considering everything Doug digs up.  Cammalleri and Cogliano should be pretty well known around here, and their cards hail from 2014-15 Upper Deck, which is a very nice looking set indeed.  Ebbett, who's also been seen around these parts before, appears in the form of a 2009-10 Panini sticker.  

Hughes, however, is a total n00b to the blog and my collection.  The back of this 1982-83 OPC base card mentions that he played hockey at Michigan, which makes it much easier to realize he should be a part of my collection.  The winger played three seasons in Ann Arbor, 1973-76, during Michigan's WCHA days, and put up some pretty good numbers.  That got him drafted in '75's third round by Montreal, with a pair of teammates picked in later rounds.  In parts of 11 seasons he played for six total teams and was on three Cup-winners.  Quite a career, so I'm happy to add him to the collection and look for more of his stuff!

Carl Hagelin 2014-15 Upper Deck Ice Glacial Graphs auto

Moving on to the other hit in this package, is this not one of the nicer autograph designs you've ever seen?  UD's produced some variations on the Glacial Graphs set over the years and they're hands down some of the best looking autographs you'll find.  The area that looks white-ish in the middle third of the card is mostly clear, with the exception of the player photo (including dasher, which shows up better in the scan) and a background like snow under the autograph.  This is so see-through that you can make out quite a bit of the writing on the back.  Carl's signature is icing (pun intended, eh?) on this cake, and this is easily my new favorite of four Hagelin hits in my hockey PC.

That's it for the card content of the package, but Doug surprised me with a very, very cool oddball item--check this out:

From a company called Oyo Sports comes this awesome mini figure of Max Pacioretty!  This scan probably isn't too far off from actual size, and the see-through window gives a bit of a glimpse at what's inside, which I'll get to in a second.

Here's the back of the package, which gives you an idea of all the little accessories that come with each mini figure.

Here's what you see once you remove the shrink wrap and slide the cover off.  The figure sits in a plastic tray with compartments holding the accessories.  Yes I opened it--this was too cool to let languish in its packaging somewhere in a closet!

Again, somewhat close to life-size, here's mini Max with his helmet and skates attached and stick/puck in his hands, all connected to the provided stand.  100% awesome and a great find, Doug!

Thanks again for another fun package, my friend!  I look forward to seeing what you think of the latest stuff I sent your way as I work on the next one.  Until then, keep spending those bucks at the Dollar Store!

2013 trade package #22: PC cards from the Dollar Store

Well, it's certainly nice to be writing a blog post after a Michigan football WIN, which I haven't been able to do recently!

There's plenty to celebrate in this post anyway, thanks to TMM trading legend Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store.  Once again I find myself in a hurry to get a trade post up before receiving ANOTHER package from the Canadian Loony!  Here's what the Dollar Store Sensei sent me this time:

From Michigan football, a guy I think you've heard of named Brady, along with a rare CFL appearance for the blog in the form of Shonte Peoples, a former Wolverines LB who was part of that league from 1994-2003.  Hooray new player for the PC!

Fact:  if you don't include hockey cards in a trade package leaving Canada, they politely arrest you, then take you to the nearest dollar store for a repack (but they don't withhold poutine or curling because cruel and unusual punishment is frowned upon up there).  My favorite here is the super-shiny Prizm rookie of Texas' own Chris Brown, who was drafted by the Wolverine-o-phile Coyotes.  Also, it's weird seeing goalie Marty Turco out of his pads and mask!

Chris Getz 2013 Topps Update

Chris Sabo 1992 Leaf Gold Previews

Next up we have a couple baseball additions for PCs.  I was fortunate that Doug pulled dupes of Getz from his box of 2013 Topps Update.  I'd say that photo is just begging for a caption.  That's Getz IHAS card #52/89 (plus a plate), with more on the way!

Along with that, Doug was able to dig up a sweet '92 Leaf insert of a fellow Michigan IF Chris, this time Mr. Sabo of the Reds.  By my count that's 30 for my growing "Spuds" PC, and that's awesome!

He also included the obligatory hits he always seems to come up with:

Darius Morris 2012-13 Totally Certified Rookie Roll Call auto

Whoa, it's rare (for this blog) basketball hit!  And better yet, it's a very nice one in the form of a slick auto of former UM star Darius Morris.  Morris is the 9th different player in my basketball collection and this is my 21st hit from that sport overall.  A Lakers draftee, he's now with Philly, so we'll see if he can parlay college success into something of an NBA career.

Aaron Palushaj 2011-12 Panini Prime quad jersey auto RC (#167/199)

Remember how I said the Coyotes were Michigan-friendly?  So are the Canadiens, and everything about this card screams Montreal colors, so it's fantastically well-done.  A Livonia, Michigan native (like me!), Palushaj was drafted by the Blues and spent time with the Habs before getting a cup of coffee in Colorado last season.  He's had some success in the AHL so I hope he lands on an NHL squad soon.  By the way, Aaron is my 30th unique hockey PC subject and 104th hit overall!

Thanks again, Doug--I pretty much don't have anything new to say at this point, so I'll go with thanks for being an awesome trader, enjoy your latest package from me, and I look forward to the next one, which will probably be here by the time I finish writing this sentence.  Readers, get your dollar's worth of daily blogging over at SCFtDS today!