2018 COMC purchases: QB Club

It's been far too long since I posted here, and it's only thanks to Jeff that anything got put up in April.  But I still have some 2018 COMC pickups to show off before I can move on to some other stuff, so here we go!

Today is all about the QBs with three of the most notable field generals in Michigan history:

Up first is national champ Brian Griese on a nice mix of inserts and hits.  The Collector's Edge offering combines acetate plus some yellow and blue (more like purple, I guess) making for a fun insert.  The other three are numbered:  the same year's Leaf Rookies and Stars Ticket Masters (with former star RB Terrell Davis), a Player's Private Issue parallel from 2000 Topps Gallery (#227/250), and finally a die-cut 2001 Pacific Dynagon Big Numbers insert that highlights his jersey.

The hits portion is also solid thanks to jersey swatches from 2001 SP Game Used Edition and '05 Rookies & Stars, the latter a Ruby parallel numbered 093/199.  These cool additions give Griese 192 total cards (almost milestone time!) and exactly 20 hits (actual milestone time!).

Coach Jim Harbaugh is up next with a pair of this post's most interesting pickups bookending some other fun adds.  Insert number one of four is from 1996 Select Certified and is called "Thumbs Up".  See that pattern in the background?  The back (which I've included here) helpfully explains that what you're seeing is a reproduction of his thumb print.  What they didn't do in the 90s!  The other vertical card is a 1997 Topps Gallery insert called Critics Choice.  It features a great shot of a determined competitor, plus I just love Gallery in general.

Going horizontal we have Jim's 1996 Skybox SkyMotion base, which was a fun alternative to Sportflix.  I'm not sure if I can spot Harbaugh on this card but the cheerleaders sure do stand out!  And speaking of horn dogs, sloppy drunk jackass Joe Namath got his name on a '96 Topps insert called Broadway's Reviews where he opined on a number of stars at the position.

And lastly we have one of my favorite cards in the whole order, a 1997 Pinnacle Inscriptions auto (#1590/1975).  These acetate cards are fantastic and it sure doesn't hurt that Harbaugh has a very nice signature.  I don't think he has many certified autographs from his playing days so I was thrilled to make this my second (the other is from '96 Laserview Inscriptions) of the Michigan legend.

Adding these gives me 137 cards of the coach, two of which (the ones I already mentioned) are autographed.

Last up today is one of the most electric players from the sport, Denard Robinson.  Shoelace came up twice in my shopping cart courtesy of this 2013 Topps Triple Threads pair.  He had a couple variations of his Rookie Autograph Relics jersey/auto and I scored the base of the first (#06/99) and Emerald parallel of the second (#047/50).

Denard joins Griese in nearing a milestone with 98 cards to his name in my PC, and a crazy 41 of those are in the hits collection!

That's all for today but hopefully soon I'll finish up this series with what looks to be three more posts.  Stay tuned!

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!

2018 COMC purchases: whateva, I'll do what Avant!

It's been a few weeks between posts, so today I'm finally getting around to showing off the first bunch of pickups from my COMC purchases near the end of last year.

Tonight is all about sure-handed possession receiver Jason Avant.  I'm not sure why things worked out this way but he's one of my top football guys in terms of quantity and quality.  Click on his name in the first sentence of this paragraph to see what I mean.

Speaking of quantity of quality, here's 10 great new hits for his collection:

First up is a five spot of vertical cards:  four autographs and a jersey relic.  The signatures hail from sets produced during his draft/rookie year of 2006 and include:

• Bowman Chrome Rookie Autographs Blue Refractor (#75/75), my third in the autograph rainbow
• Donruss Classics Significant Signatures Gold (#020/100), a fine example from that product
• Select Autographs Red (#02/25), a nice combo of foil and the color red
• 2006 Ultimate Collection RC (#247/275), a relatively cheap pickup from a high-end product

Meanwhile the jersey is one of his three versions of a 2011 Topps Triple Threads Unity Relics Emerald parallel (#01/18).  I thought I had others of Avant from this set but got him confused with Steve Breaston.

Next is a fun trio of horizontal stuff, all from 2006.  The first two are from Panini's fairly confusing Gridiron Gear product where a bunch of the variations on the cards were numbered to 50, making them hard to differentiate.  Fortunately I was able to deduce that the two you see are a Rookie Jerseys Combos Prime Autographs dual jersey auto (#21/50) and Rookie Jerseys Jumbo Swatch Autographs jersey auto (#035/150).  The "prime" pieces look great with the sticker 'graph on the first, and the signed pull-out swatch on the latter is a fun feature.

Joining those is one of the more mundane cards this evening (along with the Triple Threads above), a 2006 Leaf Rookies and Stars Longevity Target Sapphire Parallel jersey (#042/249).  That's an absolute mouthful from another one of those often confusing products (is it the regular Rookies and Stars Longevity parallel or the set named Longevity itself?).  The blue (you can call it "sapphire" all you want) looks great, though the Eagles' green kind of gets in the way.  Not bad for $0.88!

Last up tonight is not just one but two 1/1s, my first of the former Wolverines WR.  Up top is an autographed plate, the Cyan version, from Jason's 2006 SAGE Autographs.  A quick count tells me this is just the 13th of my 117 1/1s to be signed, and it's a Michigan uni card!

I was also stoked to grab Avant's Black plate from 2012 Topps since it's nice to have something more "mainstream" to pair with the college-only SAGE version.

Nine of these 10 cards came from one seller who was either a big collector of Avant or an Eagles fan at one point.  All but the R&S Longevity jersey came to me for a bit over $28, and I feel pretty good with paying an average of $3 per card for what you see here!

Before this post Avant sat on the cusp of a milestone at 49 hits so I was glad to get him over that hump and up to 59.  That jumps him to sixth place overall and makes him the ninth player to make it to 50.  Denard Robinson is likely to be the player that will get the club membership into double digits so keep an eye out for that!

As for his overall PC, I now count 112 different cards, more than half of which are hits.  I wasn't kidding about that quantity of quality, guys!

Next time I'll have more COMC football purchases, though I haven't decided which group to post yet.

3/2/19 show report: March "M"adness

The calendar has flipped over to March and once again Michigan fans are looking forward to the NCAA tournament, though a regular season rematch with Michigan State and the Big Ten Tournament await.  Until then let's have a look at the cards I picked up at yesterday's show.  Yes, yesterday!

This is about as topical as it gets right now.  It's not often that I buy any basketball card, let alone one that cost $2, but it fit right in with my purchase from the awesome seller I see each month.  My third hit (all relics) of former Wolverine cager THJ is a 2013-14 Panini National Treasures NBA Rookie Materials jersey (#57/99).  It's a somewhat interesting swatch with a bit of stitching so I was glad to add another card of the two-time Knick who was swapped to the Mavs with fellow alum Trey Burke back in January.

The rest of my TMM haul wasn't large but I was still pretty excited when I pulled a few of these out the boxes I was searching.  Biakabutuka opens the group with a Gold version of his 1996 Donruss Elite appearance (I have the regular version already), a card numbered 1590/2000.  Speaking of inserts I hadn't seen one of the die-cut 2015 Panini Contenders ROY Contenders cards until I happened upon the Funchess above.  If you can't tell from the scan the cutting is around the right half of the "ticket".

Besides Touchdown Tim I came away with two other cards for player collections.  One is the so-Pacific-it's-an-ocean 1994 Prisms base of Jim Harbaugh you see above.  Sorry in advance (too late?) for any damage to your monitors and eyeballs!  Blog favorite QB Chad Henne also makes the cut with a 2010 Score Scorecard parallel (#091/499).  I doubt anyone else would be excited finding that in a quarter box but I let out a quiet but audible "wow", so you know where I stand.

Last up is about a different pair as you'll probably see today.  Recent do-everything guy Jabrill Peppers appears on a 2018 Contenders Draft Picks issue in full Michigan regalia.  Then there's NFL HOF DE Len Ford on a 1994 Topps Archives 1957 card that reprints his only Topps base issue, made in 1957.  That was his only mainstream card from his career besides his '55 Bowman RC (which I own!).  I'll have to try to find the Gold version of this card at some point.

Until next month's show, GO BLUE!

2018 Sportlots purchases: Harb Marb Superstarb

The big finish on the TMM side of this Sportlots series covers cards starring the player for whom I scored the most cards this time, and good news:  it's not a running back!  It does happen to be the other prominent backfield position and a guy that's well known to NFL and college fans alike:  current Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh:

We'll start with a scan that includes cards from 1991-95 and features many of my favorite brands.  Stadium Club is represented three times--1991, '92, and '94--while SP doubles it up with its first two releases, made in '93 and '94.  Action Packed ('93), Sportflics and UD ('94), and Finest ('95) offer one representative each here.  And yes, if you know me pretty well you already guessed that the Sportflics card is my favorite!

The first half dozen cards you see here represent six of the the eight '95 Pinnacle Club Collection cards I needed to finish Harbaugh's nine-card run in the set.  That product was done up in a very binder-friendly arrangement of nine cards each of 29 QB Club members, and I completed Jim's bunch with these and two more you'll see below in horizontal form.  And even then we're still not done with 1995 thanks to SP Championship (which wasn't just a baseball product!), Stadium Club again, and a very nice looking Ultra design.

Scan #3 is probably my favorite of the eight here today because of the cool mix of brands from 1996-97 (in addition to the '95 UD card that begins the group).  Bowman's Best makes quality appearances from both of those years and a '96 Donruss base reminds me I already have the Press Proof version.  That Topps-branded trio down the middle is my favorite of the post (with a close second coming up soon) thanks to beautiful looks from Finest, Chrome, and Laser.  The following year's Donruss Preferred and Flair Showcase add their own shine to the proceedings.

Sticking with 1997, Pacific's Invincible is a goofy way to keep things moving while a Pinnacle Inscriptions duo makes for a fun reminder of what they could do with design.  Another solid Topps trio follows in the form of flagship, Chrome, and an extremely nice Gallery piece worth framing.  A die-cut Team Mates insert and '98 Black Diamond Rookies base (that spawned a number of great looking parallels) are strong contributions from Upper Deck.

1998 brings more repeats--in a good way--from Bowman's Best, Finest, Stadium Club, and Ultra on some very nice pieces, and all of those surround my second favorite group of three:  all the base versions of Jim's appearances in that year's Flair Showcase.  That brand was going strong before Topps even thought to release their (well done) copycat Gold Label product, which I'm glad got made.  Topps never had an answer for the higher-end E-X2001, though!

There's plenty of variety to like here too as we look at some '99s and 2000s.  That first pair is a mix of some stuff we saw earlier:  Donruss Preferred + Quarterback Club.  Stadium Club continues a very nice day with base cards from both years, the latter being among my favorites.  Quantum Leaf's debut makes yet another cameo in this series, and you'll get to see the follow-up in the next scan.  SPx's 2000 design feels decidedly different from its norm, but it still looks pretty good.

Here we have the last three verticals, all from 2001:  my favorite Pacific flagship design, Quantum Leaf part 2, and one of Ultra's best offerings.  The first of the horizontals is Stadium Club card #8, hailing from the '93 product.  Next to that is one of the many, many looks Playoff used, this one produced in 1994.  This scan finishes up with the other two '95 Pinnacle Club Collection cards I already mentioned.

There's still a bit more fun to be had here with a sextet of sideways stuff.  Pinnacle offers a pair of fun 1996 pieces thanks to the holographic Laser View (which didn't scan as well as I'd hoped) and die-cut Mint.  1997 offers two excellent UD-branded issues in the form of SPx (again, probably the best football version, as seen previously in this series) and UD3.  I'm very familiar with the baseball version of the latter but haven't seen all of the subset designs in the pigskin edition and need to see if any other Wolverines are present.  Speaking of UD, this post and the series end with flagship base cards from 1999 and 2000.

I added a buttload of cards to my various PCs throughout this series and none benefited more than James J. Harbaugh, who launched all the way from 63 to 130 items, meaning 18 of my 25 current football PCs have now crossed the century mark.  Hooray for Sportlots!

With these out of the way I hope you're not too sick of purchase posts since I have some very nice stuff from COMC to cover, plus a probable show run this coming weekend!

2018 Sportlots purchases: running it back a couple more times

I didn't plan on posting cards of four running backs over three consecutive posts--that's just how they worked out this time.  In what amounts to my penultimate write-up of this latest series we'll look at two more Michigan RBRBs--record-breaking running backs!

As of this post, former Heisman runner-up Chris Perry ranks 7th in career rushing yards and tied for 6th in running TDs.  For whatever reason my options didn't abound this time, but five new cards is still a decent number, especially when two of those were fun college issues.  A SAGE HIT base from his rookie year of '04 is joined by Press Pass' always fun Big Numbers (in this case the Collectors Series version) produced the same year.  The die-cut versions of the latter are especially cool and I continue to add them as I see them.

Base cards from 2005 and '06 Score and Topps' 2005 Chrome Draft comprise the rest of the quintet.  While that year's Draft product didn't excite me as much as the previous two versions I was still glad to score something from a product I admired, and a Chrome version at that.

Chris' PC moves up to 114 cards and counting, with a fun little addition from COMC soon to be posted here.

The A-Train put up even loftier numbers than his eventual successor in the backfield.  Thomas left Ann Arbor in 2000 atop the record books in career rushing yards, though he'd eventually be topped by Mike Hart and Denard Robinson.  He also holds a strong grip on second in career rushing scores at 55, second only to all-time great Willie Heston from the turn of the 20th century and "three yards and a cloud of FORWARD PASSES AREN'T ALLOWED" in the rulebook (a crazy 72 TDs).

In a fun twist Thomas also managed to one-up Perry on the score sheet here with six new cards, though none of the Michigan uni variety.  Donruss Elite base issues from 2002 and '03 bookend a trio from the former year filled with variety:  Pacific's Exclusive (seen elsewhere in this series), SP Legendary Cuts, and Ultra.  You may remember me describing that last card's design as very Stadium Club-like.  And if you thought Exclusive was typical Pacific, don't forget 2002's die-cut Atomic, a look I sure wouldn't mind seeing these days in place of the same old, same old.

That gives A-Train a new count of 147 cards with a mini milestone looming, though no immediate help is forthcoming.

Might I actually go according to plan and finish up by the end of the month?  Stay tuned here over the next few days for one last post starring the player with the biggest PC jump of the bunch.

2018 Sportlots purchases: Wheatley can't be beatly

This evening I'm back with another back:  RB Tyrone Wheatley.  The former Wolverines great starred for the Giants and Raiders over his career and we'll see the new Morgan State head coach with all three of those teams on a huge bunch of cards today!

Scan one is a mostly Michigan affair with seven of nine (insert Star Trek: Voyager joke) depicting Wheatley in his college duds on cards issued in '95 and '96.  Those all hail from Classic and Superior Pix brands and feature a fun mix of designs and home/away shots.  Meanwhile, the other two could be found in packs of '96 SP and Ultra Extra (a.k.a. series 2).

In terms of quality, scan #2 might be the tops (other than my biased choice of the Wolverine uni-centric #1, of course) as it stars so many designs I really, really like.  The '96 trio of Topps Chrome and Laser plus UD Silver looks really sharp.  Then 1997 ups the ante with a very strong Topps run of Finest, Stadium Club, flagship, Chrome, and Gallery.  It looks like that year was a great one for the manufacturer, who'll hopefully use these for inspiration in their bland-at-best baseball products one day.  Also from that year we have the first iteration of Ultra's neon sign design, one that held up for quite some time.

Speaking of Ultra it's back here in its 1998 and 2000 (card #8) versions.  There's also other brand repeats of Finest and Stadium Club, plus the first of multiple appearances of Playoff Contenders, Quantum Leaf, Topps Collection, and flagship Upper Deck (all from 2000).  They're mostly outshined (I see you, Quantum Leaf!) by UD's 1999 Encore product.  As has been the case in this series, football's versions of Stadium Club continue to impress me on average a bit more than those from the baseball world.

It's not a huge surprise that there's barely any brand overlap here when it comes to what you saw in the previous three scans; After all, we were spoiled for choice back in 2001!  Absolute Memorabilia makes for a strong start, and Bowman's Best, Donruss Classics, Fleer Showcase, and Leaf Certified Materials join it among higher-end brands I really liked.  There's also yet another example of my favorite football flagship (say that three times fast) version of Pacific, followed by the lone repeat, Contenders.

That's a huge difference from this final scan of vertical cards, though the odds were against us at this point.  The first five continue the 2001 run and are all sets we've seen so far except for the vintagey goodness of Heritage.  2002's lone newbie is Pacific's 100% on-brand Exclusive.  That year's Ultra design interests me because I get more of a Stadium Club vibe every time I see it.

For the horizontal stuff we mostly linger during Ty's Giants years.  The angle of the photo on his '96 Pinnacle base plus a player in the background makes Wheatley look like a heckin' chonker, though he comes off as more svelte on UD's debut of SPx from that same year.  UD3 is another Upper Deck product that I believe originated with baseball and then came to the gridiron, but regardless of the order I think Tyrone's '97 card looks fantastic.  '98 comes with an interesting pair:  Playoff's cel-in-a-shield-shape Absolute Hobby and Pacific's busy (in a good way, IMO) Omega.  And UD gives us one last look at Wheatley's Raiders days in 2001.

That works out to exactly 50 new cards, continuing a bit of a trend from this purchase of being super productive towards multiple PCs.  In Wheatley's case his total nearly doubled and did manage to cross the century mark to 106 cards!

Now I'm down to just two posts--will I get them done before March?!--featuring two more RBs and a QB.

2018 Sportlots purchases: Tim bits

I may not have 313 cards of today's subject--one for each of his rushing yards against Ohio State in 1995--but I still managed to grow my Tim Biakabutuka collection by a huge amount thanks to Sportlots.  Here's a look at a ton of new cardboard of "Touchdown Tim"!

Scan one of six today is all about 1996, the year I turned 13 and Biakabutuka was drafted in the first round by Carolina.  Inserts from Bowman, Pinnacle (Trophy Collection, a.k.a. Dufex!), and Ultra are the pro uni cards here, but as I do when I can, I went college-heavy thanks to Classic, Collector's Choice, and Press Pass.  I don't quite like the Paydirt cards as much as regular Press Pass, but there's no bad choices here.  Still, the Trophy Collection parallel (my third version of his '96 Pinnacle issue) is my favorite.

The second group opens with a bit of a 'tweener as Score Board's All-Sport PPF is listed as a 1996-97 product.  I still need to figure out if I've acquired all the Wolverines found within.  The next four are beauties made in 1997 with great designs brought to you by Donruss Preferred, Stadium Club, and Topps/Chrome.  The '97 Topps flagship design for the baseball set is one of my favorites and once I saw what the football version looked like I was hooked.  Ultra looked great as (almost) always in '98.  And 1999 starts out strong with a super cool Absolute SSD clipboard/acetate base card, plus a couple Bowman-branded pieces.

Scan #3 keeps up the blistering pace with lots more quality, including a 1999 trio of Finest, Stadium Club, and UD.  There's a reason certain brands keep repeating, and that would be that I think they're amazing.  I'd even go so far as to say that I think in general Stadium Club's football offerings looked better than baseball, though both have been fantastic.  Dipping into 2000 there's lots more shiny thanks to Elite, Finest, Fleer Showcase, and the debut of Quantum Leaf (done up in a very nice blue), plus solid looks thanks to Fleer's Focus and, once again, Stadium Club!

This fourth scan begins with one of the least interesting cards I picked up, a base card from 2000's Topps Collection.  However, the run of good stuff thereafter from 2001 restores any lost momentum. An excellent example of a Bowman's Best design I enjoy combines with a fun Fleer trio to offer plenty of pop, joined by my favorite football version of Pacific's flagship product, the always enjoyable Playoff Contenders, and Quantum Leaf Part 2:  Electric Blue-galoo.

Having reached the fifth scan we're through all of the vertical cards, but there's still plenty to take in here.  One more Stadium Club issue pairs up nicely with Gallery to put up as strong a one-two punch as any other duo here, with both hailing from 2001.  Ultra and UD, from the same season, bring strong photography and good looks.  Check out Tim coming out of the backfield for a pass!  Another blue-hued card from '01's Vanguard by Pacific is a nice way to close these out.

Last up is this fun little quartet of horizontals.  If you liked UD's second-year SPx outing as a baseball fan then you'll feel right at home when it tackles the gridiron, as on the '97 card that kicks things off here.  Ultra makes one last cameo with a base/Gold Medallion pair from '99 that sees the RB fighting for a couple more yards after contact.  And lastly, we close on a fun (and fierce!) note with Pacific's 2001 Prism Atomic, a die-cut base card that seems to work well with just about any team logo.

The 47 cards I showed off this evening aren't the most I picked up for one player--a couple guys you'll see in upcoming posts topped that mark--but they still made a huge impact for my Biakabutuka collection as it sailed over the century mark to 118 items.  After putting together his album last year and getting an idea of where I was at quantity-wise it feels great to have crossed one milestone for him already.  Now to do the same with the other PC players languishing under 100!

But before then, watch for three more posts highlighting four more players.  GO BLUE!