2014 eBay purchases: DeJake vu

It's Christmas Eve Eve and I've got a real quick post for you, but I also want to let people know to check out my trade package over on TMV as I show off, among other things, a cool pair of Wolverines sent to me by Scott over at Sports Cards Ate My Brain.

So why the strange reference to an eerie feeling you've already experienced something?  Have a look at my latest eBay pickup:

Jake Fox 2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars auto

Well, if it looks familiar to anyone, it is--I grabbed it on COMC and showed it off in October, explaining how I totally maimed the card in the process when it got caught in my scanner lid unbeknownst to me.  I promised to track down a more pristine copy, and to my surprise another one actually appeared on eBay.  These are literally--or

LIT-tra-ly

if you'd like, the only two copies I've ever seen for sale, and I was lucky enough to land both.  I had to spend closer to $9 to get this one, which is more than I paid for the original, and frankly that's probably more than most sane folks would spend on Jake Fox cards, but I felt compelled to make an honest spreadsheet out of my checklist, so here we are.  I still need just two of his 19 cards to close out his collection, which has been fun to chase.

Once again, unless anything else unexpected shows up, look for COMC-related posts soon.  As always, thanks for reading!

2014 COMC purchases: baseball fall classics

On a day where Michigan Football is celebrating the program's best news, probably, since Jabrill Peppers signed his Letter of Intent, with a buyout of athletic dipshit Dave Brandon (hey, maybe we won't suck anymore AND the students/fans won't be pissed!), I'm showing off more pickups from COMC that center on...baseball.  Well that's just what I felt like doing today, so that's what I'm gonna do.  Plus, as the title hints at, it's time to celebrate the 2014 season with the conclusion of the World Series, even if many of us are sad to be seeing it end.

Anyway, here's eight new baseball PC cards!:

Steve Boros 1984 Topps Tiffany

Up first thanks to the magic of sorting alphabetically by last name is the card I'm actually the most excited about today.  This '84 Tiffany of Boros completes yet another player collection for me!  That's 16 up and 16 down for the former Tiger/Cub/Red player and A's/Padres manager.  It's kind of funny to me that the final two cards of his I needed were 80s Tiffany parallels, not any of his vintage stuff that spanned '58-'65.  Check out that album for the full run or have another gander at the checklist here.  Up next, I suppose, will be a less-than-half-assed attempted at his three 1/1s or his Topps buybacks.  By the way, he's my seventh completed PC.

Jake Fox 2010 Upper Deck Gold (#02/99)

In many ways this 2010 UD Jake Fox parallel is the next most exciting addition for me because I have so few cards of his to chase at this point.  After I added a bit more credit trying to score some trade pieces, I had enough left to take a stab at this card whose price had previously kept me away.  I was able to make a solid offer and get it accepted, which I'm thrilled about because as with most of Fox's non-base cards, I don't think I'd ever seen more than maybe one other available anywhere!  Now that I'm at 17/19 of his run I don't expect to find the other two (#d /25 and /15) anytime soon, but maybe someday I'll get to 100$! 

Charlie Gehringer 2004 Sweet Spot Classic Patch 300 manupatch (#216/300)

And Charlie is on the board!  This is the first hit of the Mechanical Man to appear in my Michigan Baseball PC.  Sure it's just a manupatch, but it's still a fun start--Sweet Spot resulted in some very cool patches featuring logos and other designs.  Best of all, I didn't have to throw down very much credit to nab one of the nicer cards in my Gehringer collection.  And of course it's always fun to add to the Tiger/Wolverine collection.  I do hope to add a "real" hit before the end of the year, though, ideally something along the lines of a cut signature.

Charlie Gehringer 2012 Panini Cooperstown Blue Crystal (#292/499)

Speaking of Gehringer, here's another great card I picked up.  I already had his base and Red Crystal versions from 2012 Cooperstown, but now I have what's obviously my favorite of the bunch:  blue!  The parallels look nice enough that I might try to track down the rainbow over time if it doesn't prove too costly.  Meanwhile, Gehringer bumps past the 20-card mark to a new total of 21.

Barry Larkin 1997 Studio Hard Hats (#3817/5000)

Right after Gehringer we have another HOFer, and a much more recent one in Larkin.  This acetate insert is one great example of how much we're missing the gold old days of Donruss and some of the inserts they came up with.  Hard Hats has kind of been brought back in a couple sports, but they're nothing like the original, which hailed from one of Donruss' finest products:  Studio.  Numbered to "just" 5000 copies, this is easily one of my favorite inserts of Larkin in his collection.

Barry Larkin 2010 Topps Commemorative Patch manupatch

I have one more Larkin to show off, and like his HOF peer Gehringer, it's a manurelic, my third such card of the SS legend (2011 Reds logo, 2012 World Series pin), two of which honor Cincy's most recent championship back when I was just seven.  Not bad for just a few bucks.  As always I bow down to the amazing collection of Chris at Nachos Grande (he posted a new one today!), but for my part I'm happy with the 224 Larkins I now own.

J.J. Putz 2014 Topps Red Hot Foil

Putz, who hasn't been the D-Backs' full-time closer since 2012, got into 18 games this year and wasn't terrible effective before being released back in June.  That didn't stop Topps from including him in Series II this year, though, so I'm glad to get to chase more of his cards while I wait to see if he makes it back to a Major League club next year.  Oddly enough this is my first 2014 Topps issue of Putz, and I grabbed it because the price was right.  I may go after the base and cheaper parallels elsewhere, maybe with Justcommons, but I'm happy to take my time tracking down the other 17 cards in the flagship/Mini rainbow.  This is my 180th card out of J.J.'s current total of 326, so as usual I still have a long way to go! 

Bobby Scales 2009 Topps Chrome Blue Refractor (#040/199)

Last but not least on this evening of shiny pickups is a beautiful Blue Refractor (a.k.a. Best Refractor) of former Cub Bobby Scales.  Like Fox (also a former Cub!), he doesn't have a ton of cards for me to chase so it's not terribly often that I find a new one.  In this case, the card above had been available on COMC for a very long time, but always at a price that made no sense.  Then patience proved to be a virtue when a different seller was asking for less than $1 for his copy.  Take THAT, other guy.  Also, hooray again for Blue Refractors.  This is my 21st of his 31 cards, with more work to be done on this set's rainbow, among others.

All in all, not a bad day for the baseball PCs, not to mention Michigan's athletic department!  Stay tuned for a final post covering the football stuff, maybe this weekend.

2014 COMC purchases: ...and the rest

(If you get the connection between the title and this .gif, a million made-up points to you!)

Here's the rest of my recent COMC pickups, but worry not as I'll have more heading my way before much longer!

Jake Fox 2009 Upper Deck Signature Stars auto

I waited a long, long time for this Fox auto to become available anywhere I looked, and then suddenly someone on COMC had it for a great price!  I was thrilled to add it, but I'm not quite so excited now, because, unbeknownst to me it got caught in the hinge of the lid of my scanner as I was scanning other cards.  Now the only copy I've ever seen of this autograph has a huge crease!  Oh well, life goes on--I can still knock the card off my wantlist and maybe someday I'll find another one.  I'm nearly done with the former Cub's collection at 16/19 cards!

Chris Getz 2014 Topps Toys R Us Purple Border

I'm sure I'll be working on the 2014 flagship rainbows of a couple of my guys for a bit, but fortunately I was able to score this Purple Getz on the cheap to get him one card closer to that goal; right now I have his base plus five parallels.  At 71/106 cards I'm essential 2/3 done with Chris' collection to-date, which isn't bad at all.  

Scott Kamieniecki 1993 Yankees Stadium Club

I didn't initially have this Kamieniecki on my checklist as it didn't show up when I searched for his cards on Beckett, but once I saw it I considered it a perfectly reasonable card to include in his collection.  It's definitely very different from his "regular" Stadium Club issue from the same year thanks to using its own design and another photo, but it still looks great.  Then again, it's Stadium Club, so who's surprised?  I'm getting down to the tough finds for Scott as I now own 82 of his 90 cards.

Michael O'Neill 2013 Panini Prizm Perennial Draft Picks Prospect Signatures Prizms auto

Yankees OF farmhand O'Neill sure does have a nice signature, doesn't he?  I've definitely come to expect good things from his autograph as this is now my fifth of a guy I hope turns into a big star, even if it makes him tougher to collect.  That's already happening anyway thanks to the release of 2014 Bowman Chrome, which includes a crazy 30 new cards of Michael, many of them autographed and/or numbered under 50 copies.  This is now my 11th card of his current total of 70, and I hope both of those numbers increase!

J.J. Putz 2005 Donruss Champions Impressions auto

J.J. Putz 2005 Playoff Prestige Signature Xtra Bases Purple auto (#08/50)

It's no secret I have a long way to go when it comes to my Putz collection--his total run is just a bit lower than Rich Hill's and I'm at around 55% right now.  But every little bit counts, and it's even better when I'm able to add two of his autos at once for relatively cheap.  Both hail from 2005 Donruss/Panini products, and while I have a good number of J.J.'s Champions cards, I'm not even close on his bevy of issues from Prestige (though both my cards from the latter are signed).  I'll just continue to chip away slowly at his cards while I can, and for now I own 179/326.

Clayton Richard 2011 Topps Heritage SP

Last up today is pitcher Clayton Richard.  While I'm past the 70% mark for his run, I'm still sometimes able to find new stuff of his on COMC.  Case in point is this 2011 Heritage SP.  I'm not really sure why they short-printed Richard that year, though his 14-9 2010 campaign was essentially his career year.  This card from the set honoring the '62 design looks good and I'm happy to make it card #107/150 in his collection.

I'll probably have more COMC stuff to show off in a few weeks but for now I'll get back to trade posts plus a few things from eBay and Sportlots.

2013 SportLots pickups #2: Fox, Freehan, Getz, and Cazzie!

As I may have mentioned a few times over on TMV during my most recent string of You Complete Me posts, while I was picking up set wants from SportLots again I made sure to include some more Michigan PC stuff as well.  I've actually made one more group of SportLots pickups since then, so everything will be mixed up into one group of posts here, although the numbering of those posts will have nothing to do with how many total purchases I made.  Confused?  Whatever, let's see some sweet cards!

Cazzie Russell 1975-76 Topps

Before I get to the baseball pickups, I wanted to show off the results of my last (only?) hurrah with the old SportLots bonus system.  You used to get points based on how much you spent on the site, then could choose from an array of inserts, hits, and other stuff.  Because I didn't ever really have enough points, plus never saw anything worthwhile, I never bothered with this stuff.  But recently SportLots announced they were doing away with that promotion and replacing it with a "Seller's Loot" system where you're rewarded by the sellers themselves.

So not only was I motivated to spend those points before they were gone, but I finally found some stuff I liked!  For one set of points, I got in on a pack break of '82 Donruss, meaning I'd get a predetermined number card from a Youtube pack bust.  That ended up being crap, but it was fun anyway.  More importantly, I was able to pick up this sweet vintage Cazzie Russell card!  Although it depicts him on the Lakers, the colors almost make you think this is a Michigan card, which is fantastic.  I don't see myself collecting much vintage basketball stuff, but this was still a nice pickup, and better yet, a FREE one!

Ok, on to the baseball stuff with 11 new baseball PC scores:

Jake Fox 2009 Topps Heritage

Jake Fox 2009 Topps Update Target

Jake Fox 2009 Topps Update Wal Mart Black Border

Well, the other usual sources--eBay and COMC--had pretty much dried up, but fortunately I was able to pick up this trio on the cheap, thought at this point I just would have settled for availability.  See, I'm now at 15 out of Fox's 19 non-1/1s, and I'm pretty much done with the relatively easy-to-find and reasonably-priced stuff.

Of these, the Heritage card is definitely my favorite, and not just because the other two are superfluous, annoying parallels.  Heritage is just about always a great-looking set, and Fox did well to be part of the '09 version.  But even better news came for him a week ago which he announced on his Facebook page:  he's been signed by Arizona and reported to their AAA club in Reno.  Although it might be a long shot at this point, I still hold out hope that he can make it back to the Majors, and maybe even appear in a few new sets!  Good luck to Jake in AAA.

Bill Freehan 2001 Topps American Pie

Bill Freehan 2005 SP Legendary Cuts Legendary Lineage Material jersey

Bill Freehan 2013 Panini Golden Age

Bill Freehan 2013 Panini Golden Age Mini American Caramel Blue Back

Bill Freehan 2013 Panini Golden Age Mini Carolina Brights Green Back

Wow!  What can I say, five new Freehans means bigtime progress for me.  The jersey is my easy favorite not because it's a relic, but because I'd been trying to pick it up for a LONG time.  A guy on COMC has one, but doesn't ever respond to offers, and another eBayer is selling one but I didn't care for the price.  So knock the one off the list.  The American Pie, meanwhile, is a big plus because it fills a hole in that part of Bill's PC and puts me complete through 2002.  Finally, the trio from Golden Age gives me my first Freehans of 2013; naturally the set has five different minis to get, so welcome back "Arrgh, minis" tag.  These five cards give me 64 of Freehan's 125-card PC, officially putting me over 50%.  Hooray, it's milestone time!  Meanwhile, the jersey gives me seven Freehan relics and is my 22nd hit of the catcher overall.

Chris Getz 2008 Bowman Draft Prospects

Chris Getz 2009 Topps Update Target

Chris Getz 2010 Topps 206 Mini American Caramel

Finally in today's trio of gets is a trio of Getz!  The first is an '08 Bowman Draft base card I can't believe I didn't have.  I now have all three versions of his Draft run from that year (still working on the Chromes), including the Blue and Gold parallels.  The superfluous-with-a-cool-back Update Target card is my fourth out of the five from that set--I just need the Black parallel numbered to 58.  Finally, the American Caramel Mini (Arrgh minis again!) puts me at seven of the eight cards from that run, meaning the Mini Cycle (/99) will put that set to bed for me whenever I can find it.  Getz finishes the day with 51 of his 80 (by my count) PC cards, with many of the tougher-to-find issues still looming.

I don't necessarily intend to go alphabetically by player for every post, but I'm thinking of trying to keep them to about this many cards, meaning you should expect multiple featuring one player:  Rick Leach!  I also have another pretty exciting eBay mailday coming very soon, and yet another COMC package should be here by the end of the month, so watch for all of that.

2013 COMC pickups #17: the last one...for now!

Here it is, the final post covering my COMC pickups between January and June!  In those six months I picked up something like 184 cards for my PCs between three different packages, and you got to see almost every one of those over here.  I may have been pushing it since my goal was to get everything posted by the end of this month, but to paraphrase Gandalf, "A blogger is never late, nor is he early, he posts precisely when he means to."

Five players, eight cards, here we go!

Jake Fox 2003 Upper Deck Prospect Premieres Game Jersey jersey

Jake Fox 2009 eTopps (#070/699)

Fox may not have appeared on a ton of cards to-date, but the ones on which he has are pretty tough to find!  Thanks to the jersey, I now have all three of Jake's '03 Prospect Premieres cards, including base and autograph.  I lucked out and found a pretty good swatch with a blue pinstripe while I was at it.  That closes the book on his 2003 cards.

I was also pretty happy to dig up the eTopps card since I haven't seen any others for sale since I've been collecting Fox.  Of course, the goofiness of the way the set works means probably not a ton of these are sitting in collectors' hands right now.  I like the occasional encased card and this one features a cool batting action photo, so overall I like it.

With this pair Jake now has two hits and an IHAS count of 12 out of 19 cards in his PC.  

Ryan LaMarre 2010 Bowman Chrome Draft Prospects Blue Refractor (#123/199)

Since Michigan just had a couple guys drafted, now seems like a good time to check in on LaMarre, the Reds' second-round pick in 2010.  The 24-year-old is in his second season with the AA Pensacola Blue Wahoos, (don't you love Minor League team names?) who are managed by former Major Leaguer Delino DeShields.  Ryan's bat isn't his greatest asset, but he's got speed to burn, and maybe that'll be enough for a call-up one day.

This Refractor is one of seven versions of LaMarre's 10 2010 Bowman Draft/Chrome residing in my PC.  The other three will be a bit tricky, but hopefully I'll soon be able to add them to what currently stands at 19/33 PC cards.

Barry Larkin 2008 Donruss Threads College Greats

Barry Larkin 2011 Topps Commemorative Patch manupatch

Here's a nice pair of cards from my favorite recent HOFer!  The Threads insert appears to be my only scanned card on which Barry appears in a Michigan uniform, so that's a fun first for his PC.  I'm pretty sure Jeff picked it up a while ago and that's why I finally got around to grabbing one.  Michigan Baseball definitely had some nice times with Larkin around.

The manupatch, meanwhile, I picked up quite a while ago--way back at the end of January, to be exact.  It's not my only Larkin manurelic as I'd previously purchased this Topps World Series pin a while back, but it's still my first manupatch, and a cool one at that.  It's also my 12th hit of Barry, whose collection I'm still trying to scan slowly.  Here's hoping for more of my favorite Red of all time!

George Sisler 2009 Topps Legends of the Game Nickname 'R' Letter Patch manupatch (#13/50)

I don't get a whole lot of Sisler stuff for my collection, mainly since he's such a vintage HOFer, which means that almost everything of his is very expensive.  That's not true when it comes to manurelics, though!  I'd had a few of these Topps letter patches on my watchlist and finally pulled the trigger on one when I felt the price was right.  I'm not so excited about these that I'll try to spell out all of "Gorgeous George," but it was still fun picking up one to go with the manu-hat patch and bat barrel I own.  Maybe at some point I'll scan the few other cards I have of him, though, since some of you were nice enough to send them my way.

Jim Abbott 2005 Topps Retired Signature auto

Jim Abbott 2009 Donruss Elite Extra Edition Collegiate Patches Autographs auto manupatch (#049/125)

Alphabetically these should have been first; awesome-betically they're last so I can end this thing with a bang!  As I began looking harder and harder for some nice Abbott stuff to add to my PC, I came across both of these around the same time.  Of course the EEE patch is the one I definitely couldn't live without since it shows him in a Michigan uniform (though the picture leaves a little to be desired).  I definitely appreciate it when a major brand looks back at a player's college career, especially when it's my favorite one.  I now have a new favorite Abbott PC card!

At the same time, I'm quite happy with the Retired Signature auto.  I've long admired that set, and I feel like at this point my focus for Abbott autos will fall on those as well as Archives, because they tend to be cards I really like.  The version I bought isn't in its original state since it's not encased, but that doesn't really matter to me since it's not like I'll be selling it; in fact, it makes it a bit easier to appreciate how nice the Chromed-out auto looks!  My third and fourth Abbott autos will certainly hold a cherished place in my collection.

Well there you have it, the last of my COMC pickups for the year, but I really do have to emphasize the "for now" part since I'll likely pick up another package as soon as next month--I've got my eye on a few cards and need some more for trades.  Until then, please enjoy my upcoming posts covering eBay and Blowout pickups, plus trade packages and other stuff!

2013 eBay purchase #5: hunting the elusive Black Fox

Just a quickie today as I have a single card to show off.  My most recent eBay purchase went a lot smoother than #4, which showed up way later than it should have.  This time I got the exact opposite experience:  super fast shipping that resulted the card showing up EARLIER than expected.  What a concept!  Here's what I picked up this time:

Jake Fox 2009 Topps Update Black (#34/58)

Jake really doesn't have very many MLB cards (18 non-1/1s by my count) so it's pretty exciting when I can actually pick up one I need.  Ordinarily COMC has been my go-to source lately, and they did have one copy up for grabs--the only one I had ever seen available until this one showed up on the Bay--but the price just wasn't right.  Now I'm a proud owner of this black beauty, my 10th in Fox's PC.  Hooray!  RELEASE THE KRAKEN MILESTONES TAG.

This one is fun because I now have all of the significant versions of Jake's 2009 Topps Update issue:  base, Gold, Black, and Silk.  I'm still missing the extremely obnoxious Target and Wal Mart exclusives, but I was actually able to find those on Sportlots and may grab them before long.  I'm not particularly missing them at the moment, though, especially since this is easily one of the best Fox cards I own--but then again, I only own 10 of them!

As I mentioned over on TMV, I might be a bit busy this week putting together a new COMC package (which includes some trade bait for some of you!) but I'll try to work in a COMC haul post or two when I can so at least BOTH of my blogs don't go dark for an extended period of time.

COMC haul #2: crazy like a Fox!

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

As I was sitting here waiting for Game 1 to start, I realized I had some time to throw up another COMC haul post.  I'm not feeling particularly creative after writing a long-winded post over on TMV, but I do have some cards I'm happy to show off:

Jake Fox 2007 Bowman Sterling RC

Jake Fox 2007 Bowman Sterling Refractor (#159/199)

Jake Fox 2009 Topps Update Gold Border (#1868/2009)

Jake Fox 2010 Upper Deck Season Biography

Jake Fox 2010 Upper Deck

These are all five brand new Jake Fox cards I picked up for his PC (checklist here).  I think my favorite of the bunch is the Refractor, because who doesn't like Refractors?  Also, I love the goofy face he's making while looking over and off into the distance.

If you look at the list (as of this writing) you'll see I'm up to eight out of Fox's 18 non-1/1 cards, which is pretty cool because I learned in school that that would be almost half or something.

Stay tuned because I'll likely be posting again tomorrow, and I may be going back to the eBay purchases well to mix things up a bit.

You can keep your Listia, I have my lists

(I'm not down on Listia at all--I'm just always behind the times on stuff like that, and I'm sure if/when I get into it, I'll be just as excited as you guys!)

Thanks to some more free time and various purchases over the last couple weeks, I've beefed up my Player Collections page by adding a few new players.  In addition to charter members Bill Freehan, Rich Hill and Zach Putnam,  you'll now find

 Chris Getz

Clayton Richard

 J.J. Putz

 Jake Fox

 Matt Miller

Ryan LaMarre

Just to be clear, I AM "supercollecting"--or at least my version of that--all of these players, so I'm happy to get whatever I can from anybody that can offer stuff.  If that sounds like a lot of projects, well, I am ADD like that sometimes, but it's not like I'm looking to go out and get 100% of these guys' cards by the end of the year or anything.  What's nice is this gives me a clear goal to work at, plus it puts the focus back on baseball collecting for me since I had swayed much more towards football recently.  My interest has since flipped back to these collections, which will be a lot of fun, even as I get major cards from both sports via eBay and COMC over the next few weeks.

In addition to these PCs, I plan to do a more casual list (and corresponding web album) for Barry Larkin, with the difference being that I'll only be listing what I have, not looking for stuff in checklist form, because supercollecting HIM would put me in over my head.  Getting the project going gets me more motivated to get things scanned and posted, though, so in many ways the combination of Google Drive and Picasa have been a boon to my collecting and blogging experiences.

As always, please feel free to shoot me a note if you have anything I can use (even doubles, since I'm happy to pad these collections, especially when my only copy exists in set form) because I'm very easy to work with and highly motivated to get some of these cards, which means big time loot for you!