3/23/19 show report: a few blue

While my take-home from March show #2 (in Troy) was a bit light, as described on TMV this evening, it skewed more towards quality when it came to the Michigan stuff I scored, mostly thanks to the "reasonable seller" I mentioned over there.  And, hey, it takes less effort to post about five cards than fifty!

It may be MLB's opening day, but don't tell that to coach Jim Harbaugh on this 2000 Topps Season Opener base, one of this two appearances in that set.  2000 was his second straight season with the Chargers and would be his final NFL campaign.  This card was easily worth the $0.05 asking price!

The other four are all hockey hits that set me back just a buck apiece.  I've seen this seller's stacks of $1 cards before and had a little luck, but it's been a while since I had this much success.  First up is a 2006-07 Black Diamond Gemography auto of former icer Danny Richmond, a guy I got to see play over the years I had season tickets.  It's my third hit of his (jersey/auto/RC and a plate).  Next is just my second hit of Blake Sloan (auto), a pretty good patch for just a buck, and a numbered one too, out of 2000-01 Titanium.  And lastly I dug up a fun pair of jerseys of blog favorite goalie Marty Turco, who continues to dominate my hockey PCs in hits (38) and total cards (115).  They come from 2005-06 SP Game Used and 2011-12 Upper Deck, with the latter depicting his brief stay with the Blackhawks.

Hopefully I'll be back with more Michigan stuff from my usual haunt in Taylor in a couple weeks!

12/1/18 card show report: happy Turco day

As I mentioned on TMV this evening (where you're probably coming from), I met my goal at this past Saturday's show of landing a bunch of pickups I can include in Christmas packages I'll be sending within a few weeks, while my PCs got the short end of the stick.  That's totally fine by me since I don't tend to view shows as a top source for landing new stuff for me as much as I hit them for trade bait.

With that in mind I have just one card this evening, but I wasn't going to avoid the effort of showing it off, especially since it represents one of my favorite Michigan Hockey alumni of all time:

That would be goalie Marty Turco on card #113 in his collection, a 2002-03 Pacific Calder Chasing Glory insert.  As you can see up front this card is highlighting Turco's shot at the 2002-03 Vezina Trophy, the one given to the best goalie in the league.  In his third season he put up career bests in save % and goals against, finishing second to another Marty, New Jersey's Brodeur.

Turco then finished in the top five in voting for that award the following two seasons, including 2005-06 when he won a career-high 41 games at his peak.  Statistically it was downhill from there, but the two-time NCAA champ still enjoyed a nice pro career, and this card is a great reminder of how good he was over his first few seasons.

Next up (eventually) I should be showing off lots and lots of loot from Sportlots and COMC, so look forward to a bunch more PC showoffs!

2018 Sportlots purchases: hosers, not posers

The NHL season may still be weeks away but as far as I'm concerned it's never a bad time to pick up PC cards from that sport.  Via Sportlots I hit three of my favorite collections and have a nice bunch of stuff to show off, but since I figure this won't be the most popular post in the series it's gonna be more "show" than "tell".

So let's chill with some icers:

Young WolverWing star and potential future captain Dylan Larkin, who just re-upped with Detroit for five seasons, is my smallest hockey PC for now since a lot of his stuff isn't affordable, but I did land this group of six Upper Deck-branded issues, two from 2016-17 and the rest from 2017-18.  My favorite from the bunch is card #2, a 2016-17 Upper Deck ice base, which you can easily tell from the scan is translucent.  These give me a new Larkin count of 19.

Next, I got five scans' worth of blog favorite C Brendan Morrison.  My main focus here was brands I knew I liked from Pacific, Topps, and Upper Deck.  This bunch from 1998-99 to 2000-01 includes some lookers, especially Black Diamond, Topps Gold Label, and SPx.

More of the same kind of fun here, ranging from 2002-03 to 2006-07.  The Stadium Club cards (including a Silver Decoy parallel) are cool as they include a cameo from fellow Wolverine Mike Comrie.  I'd love to find more cards with multiple Michigan Hockey alumni on them.  Pacific makes a few nice appearances, especially the always fun Invincible, and Ultra also makes the first of a bunch of appearances.

Here we finish up the verticals with a span of 2005-06 to 2010-11 that's 100% Ultra and UD.  Maybe they're nothing exciting but each has a solid basic design from a brand I respect.

The first of two horizontal scans begins with 1998-99 and ends with 2002-03.  The former is repped by a pair of Pacific brands plus SPx Finite, the 100% numbered set.  Pacific, UD, and a Topps Heritage offering with the "TV" design close out the group.

We'll end this group on a 100% UD run from 2002-03 to 2006-07.  That first Upper Deck card could just as easily be a Stadium Club design.  UD's Vintage and SPx bookend a couple more flagship sets for the brand.  In all I jumped Morrison's PC to 82 cards.

And last up is my other original hockey favorite, goalie Marty Turco.  While largely sticking with the same brands as those seen in Morrison's scans, I scared up another five images of new additions.  These open up with a new RC from 2000-01 Topps Stars and then zip all the way through 2004-05.  There's also some nice example of Pacific, Topps, and UD brands in there, including Stadium Club and Invincible!

Here's an all Ultra/UD scan for Turco ranging from 2005-06 to 2009-10.  My favorite is the Flair Showcase card from '06-'07, keeping the Fleer name that was then owned by Upper Deck.  By the way, with the Ultras grouped together like this it's fun to see how consistent they were with the scripting of the last names.

Here the last few verticals were mixed in with the first of the horizontals, the latter of which tend to do goalies more justice with some great photos.  The former include a 2009-10 UD product and two more from 2010-11, plus Certified from the same year.

And then the x-axis cards begin their show with a trio of Pacifics from 2001-02 and '02-'03, including a very cool die-cut Atomic base, then Topps Chrome and the TV set Heritage design from that latter year.  I totally need to get the Refractor version of that Chrome card.

Here a quartet of Upper Deck cards (three flagship and one Vintage) made from 2002-04 bookend a couple great crease photos from 2003-04 Be-a-Player Memorabilia and In the Game Action.  And a lot of great game action is exactly what we get, though what exactly is going on in that first image from UD?

From this point on it's all Upper Deck and cards made between 2005-06 and 2007-08.  The first one you see is from a product called Power Play while the third and fifth are from the ever shiny SPx.  Meanwhile, three flagship cards run along the right column, and they hail from consecutive years, which is pretty cool.

Even more so than for Morrison this purchase was productive when it came to my Turco collection which finally broke through the century mark milestone to a lofty total of 112.  Too many Turcos?  Nope!

Stay tuned for three more football posts done up by position groups, hopefully before the season starts!

2018 COMC purchases: lucky 7 hockey

Welcome to the first post covering a COMC package I mostly put together during its Spring Cleaning promotion.  I'm still waiting on a second small package most of which comprises cards I neglected to get into the first so opening with these hockey pickups made plenty of sense to me.

Up first is goalie PC guy Shawn Hunwick, my only supercollection from the sport (for now, at least).  I was excited to score three newbies in the form of this fun little trifecta.  #1 is an insert, a Mirror Hot Box parallel (#33/99) from 2012-13 Certified.  This shiny version is my second parallel to go along with the base RC and a cyan plate.  After that is a subset that I'm sure is familiar to my hockey-collecting readers:  Upper Deck's Young Guns.  I believe these are typically short-printed and the better names definitely carry a premium.  It's the second-to-last "base" rookie I needed.

And last is hit #16 of the guy who wore his Michigan gear in Columbus:  a 2012-13 Panini Prime Holosilver quad jersey auto (#15/50).  Shawn has a crazy 15 cards--all hits--in this product and I have five including this beauty that comes with some pretty nice jersey pieces as a bonus to the signature.

This continued my slow march to complete Hunwick's collection with a new count of 30 of his 71 cards and 33 total.

Brendan Morrison and Marty Turco are two players I'll probably always group together in my mind because of the NCAA title they won together in Ann Arbor, so here's the pair in insert form.  In each case I only found one new card for now, but at least they're good ones!  Morrison appears on a 2002-03 Topps Chrome Refractor while Turco gets a parallel of his own, a 2010-11 Certified Mirror Red (#170/250).  The scan came out a bit blurry due to the card bowing a bit so you'll have to take my word for it that it's a good looker.  By the way, it's milestone time as Morrison's card makes 50 in his collection!

Last up is a fun pair of hits.  Lately I've been trying to make more of an effort to get more new guys into my Michigan Hockey hits collection, especially seeking out autographs of players I hadn't found yet.  That list was already fairly small but was lessened even more thanks to these two--or at least would have been if Doug hadn't beat me to it with a nice signature (and relic) of the first player, Tyler Motte, because he's awesome.  Since I had no idea that was coming I found that 2016-17 O-Pee-Chee Signatures card you see above thanks to a pleasing design and reasonable price.

Joining him is Jeff Norton, another guy you see quite frequently on this here blog thanks to Doug turning up his cards in repacks, making him mostly responsible for yet another of my collections!  The defenseman appears here from the 1994-95 version of the Be A Player Autographs set, a product known for its deep roster of inexpensive signatures of lesser known guys.  This card makes Norton the 54th player in my hockey collection.

I'll (try to) be back soon with lots more from COMC, especially when I have everything in-hand, at which point you'll see lots of great cards on both blogs!

2018 trade package #9: Sports Cards From the Dollar Store

This time of year is my favorite for many reasons:  my birthday's in May, the weather heats up, and baseball gets a monopoly for a bit, to name a few.  It's also one of those times I can expect a super generous package from Doug of Sports Cards From the Dollar Store after his yearly visit to Toronto's Sports Card Expo.  He previously sent me some cards in May before that event, then managed to stuff another mailer with some very nice goodies not long after.

Here's the damage--prepare to be impressed!

Of course I'm excited that my least favorite sport is over with for a few more months, but that doesn't mean I wasn't happy to get some new additions for my basketball collection.  On the left is a Trey Burke from a 2013 set produced, I believe, for that year's National Convention.  The first half of the multi-sport offering is filled with vets while the second includes that year's rookies, numbered to 499 like the one you see above.

Joining him is THJ's base from 2013-14 SP Authentic.  Of course I love the college shot used on one of UD's typically solid designs.

Along for the ride came this sweet pair of Cazzie Russell autographs from a couple Panini brands.  2012-13's Past and Present Elusive Ink is seen on the left while the right one is from 2014-15 Totally Certified Competitor Autographs and is numbered 46/99.  Those of you who are signature purists will likely prefer the difficult-to-scan foil card on your right with its on-card auto while the P&P card carries a sticker.  As for me I think they're both extremely cool (despite obviously using the same photo!) since they star one of the most important cagers to come out of Ann Arbor.  I also enjoy that Cazzie is once again in the lead in my basketball PC with 13 hits, eclipsing former #1 Darius Morris by one.

Football makes a cameo appearance thanks to Doug breaking one of my favorite yearly products from that sport, 2018 Score.  The low price, clean design, and college photos make the Wolverine cards a must-have for me even if I no longer tend to build the set myself.

In addition to vets Devin Funchess (who set career highs in pretty much every stat last season) and second-year guy Jabrill Peppers, he managed to hit one of my player collections in Tom Brady and help my football RC project with my first of big man Mo Hurst's first-years.  The first-round talent DT fell all the way down to the fifth thanks to fear of a heart condition that seemed to have been assuaged by multiple doctors.  Oh well, Oakland's gain, I guess!

When it came to the sport on the ice it was another "Hockey Mikes" kind of day, even if this first scan doesn't give you that impression.  It does lead off with sniper Cammalleri on a beautiful OPC Platinum Rainbow parallel at least.  Plenty of other friendly faces follow, plus Doug threw in a new-to-me base of young star Zach Werenski, which is exciting since he's not exactly cheap to collect right now!

The rest of the base/inserts hit three of my hockey player collections, two of which I recently scanned.  Up first is Wolverwing Dylan Larkin on a super shiny Upper Deck/Tim Horton's joint venture from 2016-17.  It looks as great as their Timbits are tasty!  Next is former Hobey-winner and national champ Brendan Morrison taking us all the way back to 2001-02 Upper Deck MVP and my freshman year in Ann Arbor.  Finally there's a nice pair of superstar college goalie Marty Turco on cards from 2009-10 UD/McDonald's and 2010-11 Between The Pipes (with the Blackhawks!).  We'll see him again before this post is done....

And now it's time for a plethora of hockey hits!:

Hockey Mike hit numbers one and two are this pair of Cammalleris, jerseys from 2007-08 Fleer Hot Prospects Hot Materials and 2016-17 Upper Deck Game Jerseys.  It's amazing to me how long he's been playing, as the stretch between when these were produced proves.  I now have 15 different hits of the winger who was most recently with the Oilers.

I didn't post these in this order on purpose--you all know I'm very strict about going straight alphabetical--but yeah, here's your other two hockey Mikes!  Former Red Wing Knuble is on the left out of a product you could tell was Zenith without needing a closer look.  Throwing it back to one of my all-time favorite baseball inserts it's from the 2010-11 and called Mozaics Materials, and features cameos from his former Caps teammates Eric Fehr and Alex Ovechkin, who I was happy to see finally get his Cup the other day.  That's just my fifth hit of Knuble, by the way.

Moving on to an even rarer player to find in my hockey PC we have Mike #3, former Leaf/Canadien Komisarek on the very cool multi-swatch 2009-10 Black Diamond Jerseys Quad.  The two-year Wolverine is pictured with Montreal but listed with Toronto, his second-to-last NHL destination (a stint in Carolina marked the end of his career).  I really like getting multiple jersey pieces like this, especially with a bit of variety thanks to the Canadiens red.  I mentioned that Komisarek was relatively hard to find in my collection, and the fact that this is just my third hit of his is proof!

This foursome is also great.  Doug is largely, if not entirely, responsible for my collection of seven very nice hits of Vegas D-man Jon Merrill, five of which are now of the auto/relic variety.  The other two are a plain ol' autograph and a plate, so it's one of the stronger collections in the group!  This 2013-14 Select jersey auto RC (#195/199) obviously fits in very nicely.

I decided to make it a point to get some nice cards of recent Michigan stars like former Blackhawks draftee Tyler Motte--who had a fantastic junior year in Ann Arbor--and then Doug went ahead and chipped in an autograph (my first) and jersey in this very package.  The former is from 2016-17 SP Game Used and is a Blue parallel of his auto/RC.  I like his signature which includes his jersey number here.  The jersey, from 2016-17 Upper Deck's Rookie Materials, is my second such card and it looks great as well, giving me three cool hits of Motte all of a sudden!

Last up is probably my favorite Michigan hockey player to collect, the previously-seen Turco.  Doug's been my main accomplice as I've accumulated 36 hits of the two-time college champ goalie who's in no danger of losing his crown as king of my hockey collection.  Even so he still managed to surprise me with a new type of relic card; while I have something like 22 jerseys and even a stick piece, this is the first time I've owned a piece of a goalie's trapper glove.  It's a fun first and great way to close out the hockey portion.

That covers all the sports but we're not quite done yet because Doug wasn't quite done with the surprises.  Among the piles of great new additions was the first lady to join one of my hit collections, in this case "Other Sports, etc.":

Janet Guthrie is 80 years old this year and can look back fondly on a solid auto racing career highlighted by being the first female to drive in both the Indy and Daytona 500 races, plus being inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.  So what's her relevance here?  Doug was keen enough to realize that she's also a Michigan alum, in fact an aerospace engineer, if you already weren't impressed.  So naturally he nabbed this 2007 Press Pass Legends Blue autograph (#376/385), making her just the fourth member of the "Etc. Club" and first woman on a hit in my collection.  I hope to be able to add to that number, especially with multiple softball and ice skating stars to hail from my school, not to mention those from other sports.

Once again, Doug, I'm not worthy of such a crazy great bunch of stuff that I really enjoyed, but I'm hard at work putting together some cards to thank you for the great effort you always put in!

4/7/18 card show report: hold on to your Butts!

Welcome to a recap of the most recent show I attended, a couple weeks ago in Taylor (a.k.a. the usual spot).  As I did on TMV this evening I want to highlight my largely updated Player Collections Page as I did lots of work to make it (hopefully) easier to look at, plus I added a bunch of new collections:

Baseball:  Brett Adcock, a Michigan alum in the Astros organization.  I don't have anything of him yet though I hope to rectify that soon.

Football:  Jason Avant, Steve Breaston, Brian Griese, Leon Hall, Chris Perry, David Terrell, Anthony Thomas, Amani Toomer.  All of these guys are near the top of my football hits collection plus I already had a bunch of inserts and RCs of each.  After adding in loose base cards and what I had in complete sets each guy is in the range of ~80-100 cards which made them prime candidates for their own albums.  Plus I scored new cards of a few of them at this past show!

Hockey:  Dylan Larkin and Brendan Morrison.  I don't have many of the former but what I do have is worth showing off, plus his album might serve as a good reminder that I collect him and lead to him showing up a bit more in trade packages!  As for Morrison I've been meaning to do an album for him and finally got around to it, likely motivating me to fill it in more as I'm trying to do with fellow hockey guy Marty Turco.

Ok, now on to the new cards:

This scan begins and ends with a pair of rookies of 2017 DTs--Taco Charlton of the Cowboys and Chris Wormley from the Ravens.  Charlton's Donruss Optic is my fourth of his while I now have a pair of Wormleys.

Law's college-themed 1995 Classic Five Sport is the lone base card here.  The set focuses on the four major sports plus auto racing(?) and includes fellow Wolverines Jimmy King, Derrick Alexander, Todd Collins, and Tyrone Wheatley.

There were a few nice inserts in the bunch including parallels of Thomas Rawls on a 2016 Panini Phoenix Adrenaline Rush Orange (#237/299) and retired great LaMarr Woodley on rookie-year 2007 Playoff Prestige Draft Picks Light Blue (#163/999) and Topps Draft Picks and Prospects Chrome Bronze.  College uni cards rule!

The other three guys are all PCs:  Anthony Thomas 2001 Vanguard Prime Prospects Bronze, Amani Toomer 1999 Collector's Edge Masters HoloSilver (#2050/3500), and Charles Woodson 2003 Ultra Gold Medallion.

New PC guy Brian Griese kicks off this group of horizontal inserts with a subtle-for-the-brand 2000 UD Ionix Sunday Best issue.  Thomas and Toomer then make repeat appearances on 2002 Pacific Exclusive Advantage and 2005 Absolute Memorabilia Tools of the Trade Red (#072/250) inserts.  Tools of the Trade is one of those sports cards names I've always associated with good things be it an insert like Toomer's or the relic and autographed versions.

The dollar box ended up being kind to my football hits collection with this pair of 2012 Leaf Army All-American Bowl autos, adding two new names to that group.  On the left is LB Royce Jenkins-Stone (one of many recent Wolverine hyphenates!) who had a solid career after arriving as a four-star recruit.  Magnuson, meanwhile, was a slightly higher rated OT who had a pretty good four years in Ann Arbor before being signed as an UDFA with the 49ers; he appeared in a few games last year so we'll see what the future holds for him.  Their additions (plus the next one) give me 212 total members of the football collection.

And here's my other big hit when I flipped through the seller's higher-end box.  Like the Verlander, I thought I'd have to pay a bit of a local premium for this sweet autograph (2017 Panini Unparalleled Rookie Autographs Yellow auto (#063/149)) of recent Wolverine's star Butt, but again I got a very nice bulk price.  So I was stoked to make this colorful signature my first hit of the talented Broncos TE, who's hopefully healthy and ready to contribute this year.

Before I end today's post there's one more card to get to as I'm ending, as is often the case, with hockey.  A quarter certainly wasn't too much to ask for this 2000-01 Topps Premier Plus RC of PC guy Marty Turco.  It features a great photo of the two-time NCAA champ and is somehow just the second rookie of his I've tracked down.

Now that I'm finally caught up on my show pickups it's on to a trade post before a couple focusing on new eBay stuff!

2/3/18 card show report: Winter sport Wolverines

My first 2018 card show was a fairly productive one as usual, as you probably saw over on TMV.  In terms of landing some new Wolverines the year started out a bit slowly, though it definitely got better as you'll see in upcoming show recaps.

Here was my small Michigan haul from February's Taylor show:

The football group comprised a nice mix of base, inserts, and a rookie.  Breaston's 2012 Certified Mirror Red (#015/250) parallel, with the former WR pictured with the Chiefs, opened up the inserts, and it's joined by another parallel, Taylor Lewan's 2014 Topps Chrome Orange Refractor from his rookie year, and a new addition to my Denard Robinson PC, a super thick issue from 2014 Panini Father's Day Rookies.

Cowboys rookie sensation Taco Charlton was a fun RC find as I don't pick those up from dime and quarter boxes too often.  Rookie #2 of the beastly DL hails from Panini's 2017 Prizm product, which is why it took me a while to realize it was a base version and not a parallel.

Last up are the base cards, and those represent three pretty well-known Wolverines.  First is QB and current coach Jim Harbaugh from his Colts days out of a 1996 Fleer one-off product called Ultra Sensations.  Then I found 2000 Leaf Limited cards of WRs Desmond Howard (#0986/5000) and Amani Toomer (#0387/3000).  That this set's base cards are numbered and home to many such RCs, including Tom Brady's, makes tracking some of these down at reasonable rates difficult, so it was fun to grab them even though they're "only" base cards.

I also scored a pair of Marty Turco inserts as I continue to build up his PC.  First is 2009-10 Upper Deck Draft Day Gems, another card noting that the two-time NCAA champ was drafted low as he was chosen before his freshman year in Ann Arbor.  The other is a 2010-11 Donruss offering called Donruss Boys of Winter, playing on the baseball version, of course.  If this one, featuring him with the Blackhawks, looks familiar to you then congratulations on remembering that I have a prime jersey version!

Stay tuned for at least three more shows' worth of posts including two from March as I continue to catch up on my 2018 pickups.

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!