2018 trade package #5: I Feel Like a Collector Again

Kin of I Feel Like a Collector Again had me feeling like a pretty happy collector again by tossing a couple Michigan Football inserts into the latest PWE he sent my way.  The last time I posted something from him over here he had been nice enough to gift me a Jehu Chesson autograph he won in a giveaway, one that remains my lone Chesson hit for now.  This time he sent me a pair of new additions that both feature college photos, meaning they're automatically great:

First is this 2008 Playoff Prestige Xtra Points (#276/300) parallel of blog favorite RB Mike Hart, from a brand that's often among my top five each year since they usually feature college unis (plus a nice design otherwise).  This one joins Mike's rookie that I picked up from the product along with a Light Blue parallel (#d /999) and Purple version of the above card (/50).  I'm always excited to add new Mike Hart stuff and this one was particularly appealing to me.

Along for the ride and featuring another great college photo is this 2004 Ultra Gold Medallion insert of QB Drew Henson.  Similar to how the Refractor finish can improve the way a base card looks the gold here (along with the rounded corner) enhances a great action shot of Henson on the move.  You might notice the 'LUCKY 13" stamp, and that's there because Henson was deemed one of 13 (out of 32 total) rookies worthy of the honor, joining former teammate Chris Perry, among others.  While the base versions are limited to 500 copies these parallels aren't, which is fine by me since I'm sure it made it much easier for Kin to find one to send to me!

Kin, thanks again for going above and beyond by including these fun inserts in that PWE.  I'm looking forward to hitting you back with stuff I know you like, and I promise that include some Mountaineers!

2017 COMC purchases: Rookie Blue beats Purdue

Sticking with the 2017 script, Michigan found itself in a dogfight at the half, then took over in the final two quarters to win by a decent margin last Saturday.  Let's celebrate with the first of a few COMC pickup posts, this one covering some more additions to my football RC collection, a.k.a. Rookie Blue:

What does Alan Branch do, kids?

ALAN BRANCH KILLS QBs!  The fearsome DL makes another impactful appearance here with this solid first-year from 2007 Donruss Classics (#1225/1499), giving me 20 of his 26.

One of the 2008 draftees I'm not as interested in due to his short career (all of six games in 2010), here's LB Shawn Crable on rookie #18/19 from 2008 Leaf Rookies and Stars Longevity (#228/999), a base set that shouldn't be confused with the Longevity parallel from the regular Rookies and Stars product.  (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Old Braylon is our first of four Michigan uni cards, and this one hails from 2005 Upper Deck Rookie Debut.  It's my 15th of his 23 rookies from that year and just the third in which he's sporting the maize and blue.

Another college card in the pile was this 1998 Playoff Prestige Hobby base of '97 National Champ RB Chris Floyd.  This shiny rookie is my sixth out of nine of the third leading rusher of that squad.

Funch is #2 on this year's Panthers in targets, receptions, and yards, but remains scoreless on a team that's caught just two TDs in three games.  In a relatively rare occurrence, I like the Panini card (Rookies and Stars) less than the Topps offering (Heritage) in a pair that gives me 18 of his 24 RCs from 2015.

Defense, the key to Michigan's 2017 success to-date, gets another shout out thanks to LB Ian Gold on this shiny 2000 Leaf Certified rookie (#1896/2000) that certainly befits his name.  Make it six of nine of the former Bronco who shares a rookie year with Tom Brady's super expensive offerings.

It's a shiny numbered rookie party, and QB-turned-3B-turned-QB Drew Henson came in his Sunday best on this 2004 Leaf Certified Materials RC (#0109/1000).  Certified had a tendency to offer some fun designs like the one on this, my 15th of 37 (jeez, 37?!) Henson first-years.

We'll take a quick break from numbered cards, and as it happens, those that are vertically-oriented, with this 2004 Upper Deck offering of stud RB Chris Perry that shows you exactly how cell phone videos should be filmed.  The Rookie Premiere-themed card is my 19th of Perry's 30 from his rookie year.

The fact that Denard is out of the league at the moment makes even a rarer RC like this one from 2013 Topps Supreme (#130/170), the lowest numbered one I own so far, reasonably cheap.  I do have a Spectra version (/99) still to chase of our second of three QBs in today's post, of whom I now own 23/27 rookies.

And here's our final QB:  Iowa castoff-turned Michigan QB-turned Lions draftee Jake Rudock from the excellent 2016 Donruss Optic product, which combines the pleasing Donruss design with a Chrome look.  It's #3 in my chase of his eight RCs.

I don't know that I'd call myself a fan of every Score football design, but I do like this one as it combines a nice design (even if it's green!) with a college photo.  Former Niners/Lions WR Tai Streets has nine 1999 rookies, and this Score example gives me eight.

Anthony Thomas is the beneficiary of our final college uni card of the post, the retail version of 2001 Pacific Invincible; his hobby version includes a jersey swatch and is therefore exempt from this project.  The very Pacific shiny base card with a translucent inset cel is my 19th of Thomas's crazy 50 rookies.

The oldest card you'll see in today's post, from 21 years ago(!) is this 1996 SP offering of Super Bowl-winning Giants WR Amani Toomer.  The card features one of my favorite SP designs, and it leaves me just one shy of his 22 RC run.

College and pro defensive star LaMarr Woodley was the biggest winner this time as the only player for whom I landed three cards (all numbered!), all from 2007:  Donruss Threads Retail Rookies (#605/999), Leaf Rookies and Stars (#850/999), and Topps TX Exclusive (#0849/1049).  Nothing here appeals to me as much as anything from any of the other players today, but knocking off three numbered RCs and giving me 16 of Woodley's 26 was a nice little accomplishment.

That's it for football RCs but I have a few more football-related posts, plus a hockey one for some variety.

2016 COMC purchases: Drew-y, cheap ones, and Howe

Hello!  Hello!  Helloooooo!  And hooray for lawyer jokes.  If you came over here from my TMV post this evening showing off a nice George Sisler relic, I'm happy to be able to share a few more Michigan Baseball PC additions with you in the form of these five players:

Jake Cronenworth 2015 Bowman Chrome Draft Black Asia Refractor

Jake Cronenworth 2015 Bowman Draft Red-Black Asia

Some of you may recall Cronenworth as one of my newer PCs this year; whether or not you do, here's the post where I introduced him to my PC with five cards from the 2015 Bowman/Chrome rainbow.  Those 19 cards comprise his entire checklist so far, but since he was only drafted last year and finished this season in high-A ball, struggling a bit at that, that's no surprise, and you won't hear the word "only" out of me in this sentence otherwise when it comes to his run of cards.

I don't know that I'm extremely thrilled to have to chase even more rainbow cards in the form of these various "Asia" parallels, but they're not numbered so it's not like they're extremely limited, didn't cost much, and add a bit more color to the bunch, so I'll allow it.  They give me seven of those 19, and I'll keep adding to that number when I find reasonable prices.

Drew Henson 2002 Fleer Authentix Second Row (#117/250)

Henson's a guy that's not extremely high on my baseball PC radar since he's split between two sports and doesn't have a ton of reasonably affordable cards on COMC for me to chase.  Because his baseball run is large enough and filled with some higher-end stuff he's not one of my "supercollections" and not a high priority.  All that said, I do like scoring his stuff when I can, like this numbered parallel from the out-of-the-box Authentix product Fleer put out in 2002.  

I have the base card to compare it to, and the main differences are the "SECOND ROW" label between Henson's name and the "F U T U R E  S T A R" label, plus the numbering out of 250 on the back--in this case real gold foil stamping, none of that digitally printed crap.

Steve Howe 1995 Stadium Club Members Only Parallel

And now we yo-yo back to another supercollection player, Steve Howe.  You haven't seen much of him around here lately because I'm just five cards short of his 81 issues, with one of those actually en route to my mailbox as we speak.

This Members Only parallel from '95 Stadium Club finishes up Howe's run from that product, which includes:

Base and Super Team World Series

Virtual Reality and Virtual Reality Members Only

All that's left for me to find now are his '93 UD Gold Hologram, '94 Stadium Club Team First Day Issue, and '96 Leaf Signature Silver and Gold autos.  Not bad!

Mike Matheny 2006 Topps Gold (#252) (#1660/2006)

Aaaannnd back to a non-supercollection with Matheny, manager of the playoff-less Cardinals of 2016, a development that disappointed me a bit.  This particular card avoided my collection for a long time because it took forever for someone to offer to sell one for under something like $2 for whatever reason.  I'll happily add it to my others of him from the Topps/Chrome rainbow of that year while I continue to lack the Gold version of his regular, non-highlights card.

Ross Powell 1994 Pinnacle Museum Collection

Now that we've reached this post's finish line I'm proud to announce yet another new supercollection of a brand new player:  former pitcher Ross Powell.  Speaking of "yet another", Powell joins a large number of Michigan alumni to be drafted by the Reds after his college career (1987-89).  In his time in Ann Arbor he stamped his name several times in the record book, mainly for his final season in which he was named the team's most valuable pitcher and player after going 10-0.

The Reds took him in the third round that year, ahead of Phil Nevin (who didn't sign), future manager Eric Wedge, and Denny Neagle.  Oh, and one pick after Toronto selected some guy named Olerud.

Powell spent his three-year career, 48 games worth, with the Reds, Astros, and Pirates, and went 0-5 from 1993-95.  It's no surprise his mug didn't appear on very many pieces of cardboard, but he find his way into three 1994 products:  Pinnacle, Score, and Topps Traded.  The first two included some parallels, two of my favorites, in fact:  Panini's Museum Collection and Artist's Proofs.  The former is the card you see up above, and for whatever reason it was Powell's most affordable card on the site.  I expect to track most of the rest down via Sportlots, but the Artist's Proof card has been extremely elusive so far as I have yet to see one up for sale anywhere.

Anyway, it's always a cause for celebration when I do some digging and come up with a new Michigan Baseball player I wasn't collecting, so welcome to the collection, Ross!

Stay tuned for one final COMC roundup covering some great football hits somewhat soon, along with the fruits of some recent eBay searching!

2016 COMC/Sportlots purchases: another Rookie Blue blowout

Since I'm still plugging along trying to get all my pickups from the last few months (and in some cases last year!) posted, and because I'd like to try to pick up the pace just a skosh, today's post is pretty much gonna be a dump of all the Michigan Football rookies I picked up from COMC and Blowout somewhat recently.  In a previous post about a month ago I showed off the cards I grabbed that were either the first I'd found or last I needed for various players; today's additions don't complete anybody's rookie run, but they still help with the project so I appreciate them all the same.

These are presented without captions or comments for expediency, so let's look at some cards!

By my count that's 98 total cards of 32 players, and 18 of those featured Michigan unis.  A bunch of them were numbered, so I don't feel too bad about not captioning anything!

After adding this fat stack my new project total sits at 942 rookies out of 1352 (with more to come from this year's rookie class, I would think).  If you take a gander at that checklist you'll notice I have another nice little bunch coming in soon (from COMC), so I'll likely be pushing up against that millennium mark pretty soon!