2014 Sportlots purchase: more Michigan PC guys

Last month I put together another nice bunch of purchases on Sportlots, and while I still need to post my set wantlist additions over on TMV, I also wanted to show off five Michigan PC pickups I grabbed from one of my more reliable suppliers of such cards:

Red Berenson 1969-70 Topps

Back on Wednesday I showed off a couple new Reds and mentioned that I was the proud owner of his regular OPC/Topps run from '69-70 to '78-'79, but hadn't yet posted his '69-'70 Topps issue.  Well here it is!  It's tied with the OPC version as the oldest in my Berenson collection for now, and of course this one's in much better shape.  I'm just a card shy of 50% at 27/55 in his run.

Steve Boros 1986 Topps Traded Tiffany

For some reason Sportlots seems to be a pretty good source for Tiffany cards--two of today's scores, including this Boros, came from a seller there, and I've landed a number of others before as well.  This '86 Traded Tiffany was an exciting addition because it leaves me needing just one to complete Steve's collection, and that's the '84 flagship Tiffany, oddly enough.  I should be celebrating having Boros' run completed very soon, but for now this is card #15/16.

Dave Campbell 1974 O-Pee-Chee

Moving on to an even more exciting card for me, here's another vintage OPC of Dave Campbell, which was a sight for sore eyes as far as I was concerned because I now own 100% of Campbell's PC!  Sure, it's only 10 cards, but it's still fun to have completed another Michigan guy's collection, and Dave is the 6th to earn that distinction.  That group includes Topps cards in 1969 and 1970, then OPC/Topps versions from 1971-74.

Chris Getz 2013 Topps Update Wal Mart Blue Border

Next up is the most modern card in the bunch, another entry in the rainbow of Chris Getz from 2013 Topps Update.  As a matter of fact, it happens to be the final card I needed to complete that project as the 9th in the group.  I'll make sure to show off the rainbow in a future post, but for now this card featuring a great photo of Getz sliding is my 72nd of his 106 entries to-date.

Scott Kamieniecki 1991 Topps Traded Tiffany

Finally we have the other Tiffany card I found this time (from the same seller that had the Boros) in the form of this very young Scott Kamieniecki from '91 Traded.  As you can imagine I was happy to find both from one seller since that saved me a bit on shipping.  This was the last I needed in terms of Kam's 1991 cards (he has six of them), and I continue to make steady progress on his collection which now stands at 84/90.  With a bit of luck I may dig up his tougher-to-find '98 Pacific Online Web and Winners cards before the end of the year, and that would put me in a good position to close out his run as well.

With these posted I'll likely be moving on to new COMC purchases shortly, with another eBay win to mix things up a bit.

2014 Sportlots purchase #1: the old guys

With this weekend's show purchases covered I'm back to some recent internet pickups.  Earlier this month I hit up Sportlots to complete one baseball set plus a couple from football.  As usual, while I was at it I added some stuff for my player collections.  I decided to split that haul into two posts--today's covers three of my older PCs, and the other will include the rest.  So enjoy this look at 10 new cards added to my Maddox, Roberts, and Sizemore collections:

Elliott Maddox 1975 O-Pee-Chee

Maddox is the latest player whose '75 OPC/Topps/Mini run I've completed.  Here he is on a spring training card whose only proof of its O-Pee-Cheeness is the back.

Elliott Maddox 1981 O-Pee-Chee

Not only does the '81 OPC version include the brand on the front AND the position in French, this one is also different from the Topps by including a floating "Now with Yankees" message.

And, oh, look at that:  I have 23/23 Maddox cards, so that's another PC down!  He joins Rick Leach, Matt Miller, and Geoff Zahn in that exclusive club.  Check out his entire collection here if you're interested.  Hooray completed projects!

Leon Roberts 1981 Donruss

I still can't help but laugh when I see some of these older Mariners uniforms, but that's partly because I really do like some of the newer versions.  Once again this is a solid entry from Donruss' first set.

Leon Roberts 1981 Topps Traded

Besides Willie Horton, a couple other notable players were sent with Roberts from Seattle to Texas late in 1980:  21-year pitcher Rick Honeycutt (who I remember most from his Oakland days) and "guy that has an infamous benchmark named after him" Mario Mendoza.

Leon Roberts 1982 O-Pee-Chee

Just for fun, I looked up the meaning of "voltigeur," the French word OPC uses for "outfielder."  Merriam-Webster includes a pair of definitions:  "a member of any of various French organizations of light infantry; often :  a sharpshooter in the French army" and "leaper."  I think "sharpshooter" and "leaper" combine to capture the position pretty well!

Leon Roberts 1983 O-Pee-Chee

Again, the OPC version includes a note, "Now with Royals," that the Topps card doesn't, but then again, Topps actually produced a Roberts Royals card in that year's Traded set.  Not that I mind that there's no such thing as OPC Traded--I've got enough to collect as it is!

Leon Roberts 1984 Topps Tiffany

This is the second of Leon's pair of Tiffany cards, and I had already grabbed the '85 card, so I'm all set there.

Although I can't claim to have completed his collection yet, I now own 26/28 of his cards, good for about 93%, and I have one of the remaining two on the way, so it may not be much longer until he joins Maddox and the rest of the completed club.  Check out what I have here.

Ted Sizemore 1973 O-Pee-Chee

This ended up being an OPC kind of day for Ted, which makes sense since that's all I have left of his collection to nab.  The centering on this one is pretty terrible, but I've said a lot that I'm not that picky about it, especially since I wasn't interested in paying much for these.  Fortunately it wasn't one of the harder-to-get high-numbers from some of the other 70's OPC sets, which are gonna set me back a pretty penny.

Ted Sizemore 1979 O-Pee-Chee

Here's an interesting difference between the OPC and Topps cards:  the former has him pictured with the Phillies but notes his February '79 trade to the Cubs, and even labels him as a member of that team; the Topps version is 100% Phillies.  There's still no such thing as a card of Sizemore in a Cubs uni, though.

Ted Sizemore 1980 O-Pee-Chee

Ted was included in both Topps and OPC for his final issue with his last team, the Red Sox.  Unfortunately, the front doesn't provide any insight to OPC's choice for the French translation of "2nd baseman."

With these three additions I now have 20/23 cards in Sizemore's run, with the remainders being the rarer 1971, 1972, and 1974 O-Pee-Chee issues (plus he also has a 1/1 I've never seen).  I'm not sure how quickly I'll be able to find them at a price I like, but I still hope to have his collection finished by the end of the year.

One PC done and two above 85% was a nice way to end the day, but check out my second post from the series soon as that also touches on several newer collections!

2013 COMC pickups #18: back again with Drew Henson's inspiration

I'm back with my first new COMC pickup post in a few weeks!  I intend to mix these in with my SportLots PC pickups once everything arrives; I'm just waiting on one more package from them.

I thought I'd start with one of my newest PCs:  Michigan QB-turned-Detroit Tiger Rick Leach.  Leach is a native Ann Arborite who went down as one of the greatest Michigan quarterbacks in the school's illustrious history; how do four-year totals of 48 passing and 34 rushing TDs sound to you?  The Broncos took a stab at getting Rick to stick with football, drafting him in the 5th round, (a couple rounds before his future teammate, some Michigan State WR named Kirk Gibson) but the allure of playing for his hometown(-ish) Tigers, who chose him 13th overall (three picks ahead of fellow Wolverine Steve Howe) was too much.

He would go on to play in 799 Major League games over the course of 10 seasons.  While he stuck with the Tigers from '81-'83, the team released him before the '84 season, meaning he missed out on the Tigers' most recent World Series title.  The Blue Jays picked him up that year, and he would stay in Toronto through '88.  The following year he signed with Texas, and his final season played out in San Francisco, where he apparently earned a suspension for substance abuse.  The OF/1B finished his career with a .268 AVG and 18 career HR, and considering what his NFL career might have been, it's easy to draw comparisons between Leach and former Michigan QB Drew Henson.  Still, it's important to respect the choices of each player as they ostensibly went with the sport they enjoyed the most.

So all that said, I decided to pursue Rick's entire PC, which at this point looks to be at 61 cards, including one 1/1 (a 2012 Leaf buyback insert).  It's not a huge challenge mainly because he played during the era of overproduced junk wax, before the excess of the 90s and on.  And I actually already had a decent number of his cards in my complete sets (plus a couple from trades), which gave me a great start.  I have yet to scan a lot of those, but that's on my to-do list.

In the meantime, I picked up a nice chunk of his collection on SportLots and COMC, and the cards you see below hail from the latter:

Rick Leach 1984 Topps Tiffany

Today's gonna be a bit of a shiny day because I already have a decent number of Rick's base stuff and decided to focus my efforts on his "rarer" stuff.  I mean, there were only like 5000 or so of these, right?  How great is that corner shot of Leach looking angrily/disinterested to his right?

Rick Leach 1987 Fleer Update Glossy

Fleery eventually jumped on the shiny train themselves, and the result is this Glossy set, which is definitely shinier than Topps', for what that's worth.  I'm not really sure why Leach was included in this set that year since he'd been with the Jays for three years, but I'm happy to have two (including the base) more of his cards for this PC!

Rick Leach 1988 Topps Tiffany

'88 Topps may feature one ugly-ass design, but Leach looks happy to be there with his big ol' first baseman's mitt.  By the way, the back of this card is a nice eye-popping shade of orange; you could almost call it "Motown" orange....

Rick Leach 2012 Leaf Memories 90 Leaf Buyback Gold (#1/5)

Rick Leach 2012 Leaf Memories 90 Leaf Buyback Silver (#19/20)

I couldn't believe my luck when I was able to land each of these separately for a total of under $7, especially considering the scarcity of each.  The concept of buying back old cards and stamping/numbering them is a bit goofy, but then again, at least the person who pulled these didn't have to land a bunch of code cards, enter them into a site that isn't available on its go-live date, then pay out the ass for shipping!  I now just need the 1/1 Red version to sew up the trio, though I don't know if that's even been pulled yet.

Today's quintet puts me up to 21 Leach cards in my possession, some of which are actually scanned!  I have quite a few more left to show you thanks to SportLots, and will do so eventually.  In the meantime, please have a look at his PC on my Player Collections page.