2014 COMC purchases: George Sisler will see you in St. Louis

I'm back with more COMC pickups (just a few posts left!), and today is all about "Gorgeous" George Sisler:

George Sisler 2006 SP Legendary Cuts Baseball Chronology Gold (#074/550)

Lots of other records always got more press, including Lou Gehrig's 2130 consecutive games, Maris' 61 homers in a season, and Ruth's 714 career HR.  Still, it took longer for a different mark to get broken than each of those:  It wasn't until Ichiro totaled 262 hits in 2004 that Sisler's single-season record of 257 was broken--a full 84 years later.  Good on UD to highlight this feat (the original one, that is) with a cool numbered card.

George Sisler 2006 Ultimate Collection (#152/799)

It's well-known that card companies love to re-use photos as much as possible when producing their cards, and here's a good example, as I have issues from 2007 UD and 2010 Topps, among others, featuring the same image.  It's certainly a nice one to use, and I very much like Ultimate Collection's premium design (and serial-numbering).

George Sisler 2008 Topps Triple Threads base (#0716/1350) and Sepia (#122/525)

One of today's themes is "Triple Threads pairs," and I think you'll see why in a minute.  By the way, I've always appreciated that it's very easy to distinguish Triple Threads' various parallels.

George Sisler 2009 Topps Wal-Mart Chrome Cereal Refractor Platinum

What would George think of this very flashy Refractor?  Probably too over-the-top for him, but I thought it looked cool enough to pick up, plus, hey--Refractor!

George Sisler 2009 Topps Triple Threads base (#0765/1350) and Gold (#83/99)

"Whaddya MEAN smile--I ain't smilin', that's for broads, see?"  In this case I'm glad the cards are numbered on the front because I would have guessed the one on the right was Sepia compared to the previous year's set.

George Sisler 2009 Topps Turkey Red

Turkey Red!  (Almost) Always a favorite of mine.  I really like the fielding pose used here--which may look familiar since it's the same image from the Refractor above.  Since Sisler was known more for his hitting, he doesn't get too many shots in the field, and I confirmed that by counting just six in his collection so far.

George Sisler 2010 Topps Triple Threads base (#0184/1350) and Sepia (#119/525)

And now in 2010 we're back to the Base-Sepia combo.  Of the group today, I think 2010's design is my second favorite, with my #1 choice upcoming.  Also, "Only dames don't choke up on the bat, ya palooka."

George Sisler 2010 Topps Turkey Red

This Turkey Red card, which looks as nice as the '09 version in its own way, shares the image from the Ultimate Collection card seen above.  It's artsy enough to blow up, frame, and stick up on the wall of your favorite museum!

George Sisler 2011 Topps Triple Threads base (#0274/1500) and Emerald (#228/249)

As a curveball, for 2011 I threw in an Emerald parallel instead of Gold or Sepia.  Not on purpose, really--that's just what had the best price.  Out of the four versions today, the 2011 has my favorite design that includes a nice color scheme and quality photos.  That might influence me to put more effort into this rainbow at some point.

George Sisler 2013 Panini Cooperstown Green Crystal

Speaking of colorful cards and verdant colors, we close things out today with this Green Crystal parallel from 2013 Cooperstown.  I previously owned just the base version, so maybe this is the start of another rainbow as well.  By the way, this is one of the few cards I'm showing off today that doesn't re-use a photo from another Sisler in my PC!

An especially productive addition of 14 new Sislers puts the HOFer's PC up to a stout 48 cards, meaning it's almost time for another milestone here at chez TMM!

Now stay tuned for one more baseball PC post, plus some football cards of the hit variety (George's favorite!).

2014 COMC pickups #2: Tigers that earned their stripes long before I was born

Today I'm back with baseball again, specifically a couple Tiger greats that played way before my time--Bill Freehan and Charlie Gehringer:

Bill Freehan 1970 O-Pee-Chee (#465)

When I completed Freehan's run of cards from his playing days, I neglected to include the O-Pee-Chee cards, like this All-Star from 1970.  Since I included that set for the rest of my PCs, I went back and added it to his list as well.

Bill Freehan 1972 O-Pee-Chee

I don't expect these to come terrible cheap, at least not all of them, but I can't complain about the prices I paid for the ones you see today, including Bill's '72 card.  Others, though, especially the higher numbers from certain years, will set me back a bit whenever I end up locating them.

Bill Freehan 1973 O-Pee-Chee

This play at the plate card is definitely a fan favorite, and the photo ranks near the top for me as well.  Obviously the centering is...well, "centering" probably doesn't apply to this card, but as usual I'm not THAT picky about condition.  All that matters is that the fantastic photo is there in all its glory.

Bill Freehan 1975 O-Pee-Chee

I've got the '75 Topps and Mini versions of this, so why not the OPC as well?  You can see that Freehan is listed as a "C-1B," which makes sense since 1974 was the only year in his career in which he appeared in more games at first than behind the plate (65 to 63).

Bill Freehan 1976 O-Pee-Chee

This '76 card is Freehan's final OPC issue, though he did appear in the '77 Topps set.  In all, Bill appeared on 10 cards from that brand, and I'm halfway to owning all of them.

Bill Freehan 2013 Panini Golden Age Mini American Caramel Red Back

My last Freehan pickup this time is from a much, much newer set.  Bill has eight cards in the product, including five minis, and I own six and four, respectively, lacking just the Nadja Caramels Back from the latter group.

This sextet of Freehans gives him a new PC total of 73/132, and you can check out each and every one of those right here.

Charlie Gehringer 2003 SP Legendary Cuts Historical Impressions (#110/350)

Today's other Tiger is the Mechanical Man, Charlie Gehringer.  My favorite addition for the day is this super thick SP Legendary Cuts insert, which has a manufactured, um, thing, in the middle.  It's kind of hard to describe just based on the scan, but it kind of has the feel of a refrigerator magnet, as weird as that sounds.  The signature is raised, and that photo is actual inset deeply in the circular frame.  There's a couple other versions of this card that are rarer, and I may try to land them eventually.

Charlie Gehringer 2007 SP Legendary Cuts

Keeping with the Legendary Cuts theme, here's another one from a set that came out four years later.  It retains UD's tradition of a classy looking design and classic photo.  This is actually my fourth different card from the product's base set, along with 2002, 2003, and 2006.

Charlie Gehringer 2012 Panini Cooperstown Crystal Collection Red (#236/399)

Finally, I found a nice deal on this red parallel from 2012 Cooperstown.  As of now it's my only parallel of this card, but as nice as these are I have a feeling I'll be adding more before long (especially the blue one!).

These three cards bump up my Gehringer PC to a lucky 13.

Stay tuned for more soon!

2014 JustCommons purchase #4: Getz, Richard, and Sisler

I'm back with three more players today.  They don't really have any shared theme, that's just how the numbers worked out.

First up is a pair of trios of 2014 issues:

Chris Getz 2014 Topps

Chris Getz 2014 Topps Gold (#1566/2014)

Chris Getz 2014 Topps Red Hot Foil

JustCommons is sometimes my source for the latest stuff of my PC guys because they break pretty good amounts of products and sell singles at far more reasonable prices than eBay and the like, plus the shipping price is great.  That's exactly what happened here as I landed base, Gold, and Red Hot Foil versions of Chris Getz and Clayton Richard.

Getz is the beneficiary of an awesome double play photo, making it one of the best in his collection, not to mention a bit of an improvement over last year's "ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED" sliding play.  Also, that looks like currently injured Tigers OF Andy Dirks trying to break up the twin killing.

My first 2014s of Getz give his collection a new total of 66/101, putting me just a hair under 2/3 of his run.

Clayton Richard 2014 Topps

Clayton Richard 2014 Topps Gold (#1521/2014)

Clayton Richard 2014 Topps Red Hot Foil

Richard's photo is a good example of Topps' addiction to close-up photos, which hopefully abates next year.  Also, he happens to be wearing the Padres' ugly-ass camo uniforms.  Otherwise, the action shot is actually pretty nice.

As for the parallels, I've always liked Topps' Gold cards and their ever-increasing serial numbering.  What's different this year is the Red Hot Foil parallels, a bit of an improvement over last year's Emerald versions in my opinion since I'm not overly fond of green.  Now all I need to do is track down the other nine versions for each player, including the rare-but-incredible Clear Stock cards.

Some of you might recall from Friday's post that I hit the 100-card mark in Richard's PC counting 1/1s.  As an update, this trio puts his non-1/1 total at 99 (out of 145), and #100 should be coming shortly.

Last up today is one of the older players among my baseball PCs:

George Sisler 2009 Topps 206 (#300a)

George Sisler 2010 Topps Heritage

George Sisler 2011 Topps Gypsy Queen (#40)

George Sisler 2011 Topps Lineage

George Sisler 2013 Panini Cooperstown

As you can see, I grabbed a five-spot of George Sisler base cards.  His stuff tends to be pretty similar since he mostly appears in vintage/throwback-themed sets, but some of them still turn out pretty nice, like the 2010 Heritage card that notes his former single-season hit record.  A few other notes:  I have the Piedmont Mini version of the '09 206 card; the '11 GQ card is George's first in the set, and I have the other depicting him with the Boston Braves;  from '11 Lineage I already owned the Refractor and Platinum Refractor versions; the 2013 Cooperstown base is my first from that set.

Thanks to this and other pickups, Sisler's collection is starting to grow nicely.  As of today I can claim 28 different cards of the all-time great.

Tune in this week for what should be the final four posts in this series!

COMC/JustCommons/Sportlots 2013 roundup part 5: hall bound

(Note:  view all posts in this series with this link)

I've been sitting on a bunch of purchases from late 2013 that needed to be recorded, scanned, and posted, and I'm finally getting around to those.  In many cases I may just mash up purchases by player instead of online store to make things easier.  We'll see just how many posts I get out of this series, which I'm going to abbreviate COMC-JC-SL 2013.

Just as I did almost exactly two months ago (in their MMMM post), I'm pairing up today's subjects once more:  Hall-of-Famers Charlie Gehringer and George Sisler.  It just makes a lot of sense to me to group these two vintage legends together while giving more recent honoree Barry Larkin his own posts.  That's not meant as a slight toward either old-time great, though, even if their combined collections pale in comparison to Barry's!

Between COMC and Justcommons I had some nice luck adding some quality stuff to each guy's PC, especially in Sisler's case, as you'll see shortly.

Charlie Gehringer 2003 SP Legendary Cuts

Charlie Gehringer 2004 Greats of the Game

Charlie Gehringer 2005 UD Baseball Classics

Charlie Gehringer 2012 Panini Cooperstown

Charlie Gehringer 2012 Panini Golden Age

Charlie Gehringer 2013 Panini Cooperstown

These six cards actually tripled my Gehringer PC to a total of nine.  I'm a much bigger fan of the first three since they're licensed sets, meaning Charlie is clearly depicted with the Tigers.  The latter three, though, do feature some cool photos, my favorite being the 2012 Cooperstown.  All six of these came from Justcommons, and I didn't find any inserts that made sense for the price, but I'm hoping to add some soon.

George Sisler 1999 Upper Deck Century Legends

George Sisler 2003 Flair Greats

George Sisler 2005 SP Legendary Cuts

George Sisler 2005 Sweet Spot Classic

George Sisler 2004 Topps Tribute HOF

George Sisler 2009 Topps Tribute

George Sisler 2011 Topps Lineage Diamond Anniversary Refractor

George Sisler 2011 Topps Lineage Diamond Anniversary Platinum Refractor

George Sisler 2011 Topps Tribute

George Sisler 2012 Panini Cooperstown Crystal Collection Blue (#052/499)

George Sisler 2012 Panini Cooperstown Crystal Collection Red (#387/399)

Yep, I clearly had a lot more luck with Sisler this time, nabbing seven cards from COMC and another four from Justcommons.  This was a nice mix of base (including some higher-end!) and inserts.  The '99 Century Legends and '04 Topps Tribute are my co-favorites from the base thanks to their excellent designs, with the 2011 Tribute a close third.  And while the Lineage parallels aren't bad, the 2012 Cooperstown Blue and Red (with the Blue getting the nod, obviously) are gorgeous and make me want to see about maybe trying for the rainbow.  The "Cracked Ice" look combined with the excellent color choices make for sweet cards that really take the sting out of the lack of team names and logos.  And so ol' George crosses a minor milestone to hit a new total of 23 cards in his PC!

Despite a great opportunity to post some football stuff in honor of yesterday's Super Bowl, I didn't, mostly out of laziness, but I'm planning on posting some of those this week along with more of my baseball pickups, so watch for those soon!