2018 eBay purchases: is there Henne chance I can finish this in five minutes?

Yep, I'm doing the five minute post thing over here too because, why not?  I'm betting if I allow myself to be ok with shorter posts I'll write more often.

And anyway this is a good time for it since I have a single card to show off, my only eBay purchase so far this month, which I won for a bit under $12 shipped:

This here is a 2014 Prestige Cyan Plate of my favorite football PC guy, Chad Henne.  I'd had my eye on it for quite a while before giving myself the green light as the seller also had a card I was chasing for a trade package.  I didn't win that one and its free combined shipping bonus, but I was still very happy to add another Henne 1/1 to my collection.  That's #7 (hey, his jersey number!) and leads my football collection by a lot since he's the only guy for whom I've nabbed more than two.  It also represents hit #120 (also a huge lead) and my 113th total plate/one-of-one.  I also noticed as I was updating my PC page that Henne continues to creep closer to Charles Woodson for the #1 spot in terms of my football player collections.  I mean, he may as well top all the lists, right?

Showing a Henne card is particularly relevant this week as Michigan prepares for the annual battle with Michigan State.  Chad was partly responsible for the insane triple-OT comeback win against the Spartans during his true freshman season of 2004.  He also tossed three TDs in another overtime victory in '05, three more in a three-score blowout in '06.  Henne finished his Michigan career against MSU with a game-winning pass to Mario Manningham in the 2007 matchup in East Lansing, one four he tossed in the four-point victory.  Yep, he never lost to the couch-burners!

It's definitely been more than five minutes, but once again at least that got me to post!  I'll leave you with a scan of the base version of this card as well as the Yellow Plate which I also own.  Half the plates are mine!

2018 eBay purchases: Henne given Sunday

After finally eclipsing the $1000 mark on card spending this year in September I went back and took a look at my monthly spending going back to 2012 (the first year I started keeping track) and noticed that since 2018 my overall spending is way down from what it was prior.  And I think that's a good thing, because I'm still picking up things I like and growing my collection while cutting the fat and leaving some to spend on other frivolities.

So 2018 has been another year of good collecting value for me, and a great example of that is my most recent eBay pickup:

The card:  a 2013 Panini Contenders Cyan Plate of blog favorite QB Chad Henne.  The cost:  a measly $6.49 delivered.  Hell, the tree fiddy shipping cost more than the card itself!  It's a plate version of this typically solid Contenders base card:

Henne's actually no longer with the Jags as he signed on with KC for a couple years this past offseason.  Jacksonville sure loves them some Jortles, let me tell you.

Of course he's unlikely to see much--if any--playing time this year thanks to the red hot play of sophomore QB Patrick Mahomes.  So I don't know when Chad will next see the field, but fortunately there's still lots of his cardboard to chase.

As for what I do have, that amounts to 282 total cards including six 1/1s as part of a football collection-leading 119 hits.  This new addition also marks my 112th 1/1, a number that boggles my mind every time it increases.

Until next time, JOOOORRRRRTLES!

2018 eBay purchases: "Booty and the Shoelace" is my new morning radio show

I'll start showing off my Sportlots stuff over here next time but first I wanted to make sure I posted a couple eBay cards I scored from a seller who had a pair of cards I sent in my latest trade package for Doug.  After all, combined shipping rules!

Enjoy this cool pair of football hits:

First up is my third autograph (and fourth hit overall) of star TE Jake Butt, one I scored for about $3.  This one comes from last year's Panini Contenders product and is his base auto RC version, not to be confused his other base auto, #253, or Contenders Draft Picks, for that matter.  As usual it's got a nice design going for it including the usual ticket motif.  Since card backs don't usually get much love I like that some of his key info is right up front, such as his hometown of Pickerington, Ohio, a place that produced his teammate Taco Charlton among other former Wolverines.

Here's hoping for a healthy year for J-Booty after a 2017 lost to injury.

As for co-host #2 on a radio show that totally needs to happen, that would be Denard Robinson.  The former spark plug QB recently joined former teammate Devin Gardner in the CFL and I hope he gets to show off his many talents there.  Going back to his former NFL dreams here he is on an autographed version of Panini's Rookies and Stars Slideshow (#41/91) from his rookie year of 2013.  Of course I love adding an autograph of one of my favorites but even without the ink I'd be a fan of this one having enjoyed the origin of the Slideshow name way back in the 90s with Leaf.  It's a great way to make a card stand out with so many autographs out there, and I'd say it's a pretty nice compromise between on-card and sticker autographs.

A bit more than $4 was enough to let me add this, card #85 and hit #39, to Shoelace's collection, with a few more on the way from Sportlots.

And speaking of that site, watch for lots of posts covering those pickups soon!

2018 eBay purchase: the New Math: 82=2000

Five years ago I had a great milestone day on this here blog by hitting the 200-card marks in my Michigan Baseball hits and Rich Hill collections.  But I also celebrated an even larger number that day: 1000 Michigan Sports (and others) hits.  That's significant enough that I went back and fixed the broken links to the post's scans in case some of you decide to have a look at the significant moment in my collecting career.

But if you just feel like staying here that's fine because you're about to witness history repeating itself:  with the card I'm about to show off I've duplicated that feat and reached the 2000 mark!  Here's the milestone card:

Well naturally it's a Manningham, right?  For a surprisingly low $11.50 delivered I nabbed this 2017 Panini National Treasures Signatures Printing Plates Black auto of this here blog's namesake.  Though 1/1s are no longer a rarity for me--I now count 110 in my collection--this is only my 11th that also includes an autograph, not to mention the first the represents football.  And speaking of numbers, this is my 82nd Manningham in that collection, equal to the jersey number he wore in the NFL:

There he is making his now famous sideline catch that saved the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI.  I love that this card's back mentions both his awesome middle name--Cashmere--and that he put up big numbers in the 2011 playoffs for the eventual champs.  And that was with gumpy-ass QB Eli Manning throwing to him!  I also appreciate that Manningham's relatively brief NFL career still made him worthy of inclusion in this high-end product.  A plate/auto of a Super Bowl hero is a super way to reach the 2K mark, and I look forward to 1000 more.

As I always do when I hit big marks like this I'd like to thank everyone who enabled my college-collecting obsession by contributing to this collection over the years.  For those of you who are interested for some reason here are my counts by sport:

• Baseball:  358
• Basketball:  81
• Football:  1298
• Hockey:  259
• Other:  4

Barring anything new and unexpected arriving in my mailbox I plan on getting to my huge Sportlots order next, so get ready for lots of low-end!

2018 eBay purchase: Totally Chad

I suppose this probably won't top the new printing plate I showed off on TMV this afternoon but I'm happy to be posting something that at least rivals it over here.  We all know 1/1s are tough (even when there's four, as is the case with plates), but what about cards numbered to 10 or fewer copies?  Have you ever noticed that people really ask an arm and a leg most of the time?  I'll let you know if that was the case with this high-end hit:

The newest addition to my Chad Henne PC is this 2014 Totally Certified Awesome Autographs Gold auto.  Stickerphobes may shy away but I think this looks pretty cool, though I'm excited about it regardless as another hit of the former Michigan QB, my 115th overall (still way in the lead in the football collection!).  The Certified name has long been associated with nice color parallels and the gold here fits in nicely.  You might just see another version of this in a future post (spoiler:  not just 'might', you will see it because I got one on COMC).

So what's the big hubbub about the numbering?  This one is #4/5, making it just a bit more common than a printing plate set.  Fortunately the price wasn't crazy because I didn't really have to fight lots of other bidders off to win--my total was a bit under $9 delivered.  Where I begin to consider the price to be "crazy" is a starting price of $20 more more, basically more than most common printing plates should start at to say nothing of a card with five or more copies in existence.  So I was ultimately satisfied with my winning bit and another cool Henne!

2018 eBay purchase: Michigan memories

And once again I'm back after another random hiatus.  Besides the singles you saw somewhat recently I grabbed a couple complete sets on eBay, one I could show off on each blog.  I'm very excited about this one because it's all Michigan unis!

So what we're looking at here is a set that's apparently referred to as simply 1991 Michigan.  Put out by a company named Collegiate Classics (ok, name checks out) in--you guessed it--1991, it features 56 cards (plus an informational card) starring 58 former Wolverine greats from the following sports:  baseball, basketball (men's and women's), football, hockey, tennis, and softball.  Two women make the cut in a group otherwise dominated by football (26 cards) and the other major sports.  That's no surprise given the program's success, so design-wise it's the only sport that gets a different logo (the old block "M" is used otherwise) in the form of the signature winged helmet.

While we're talking design, the fronts are mainly white with maize trim.  A large outlined blue "Michigan" sits up top with "Wolverines" inset in much smaller letters.  The player name at the bottom is also blue along with the aforementioned logos, position, and years in Ann Arbor.

The backs start with maize surrounding a much lighter blue section that contains the write-up.  A maize block "M" sits in the upper-left corner, and an inset box repeats the name, position, and college year info.  These cards are not numbered and are sorted alphabetically by last name.

Besides being filled with football greats this set is cool because it gives me nice oddball additions (again, in Michigan uniforms!) to seven of my baseball PCs plus one hockey guy:  Jim Abbott, Barry Larkin, Hal Morris, Chris Sabo, Ted Sizemore, Lary Sorensen, Gary Wayne, and Red Berenson.  (Former pitcher-turned-superagent Casey Close is also in the mix, and if I can find more cards of him I'll consider creating an album.)

With all that in mind I didn't consider the $11+ price tag too steep.  It's not like it's super easy to find for sale as a set and it doesn't make sense to piece it together.

Here's all 56 cards, front and back:

That's all for this bunch, but stay tuned to TMV for a baseball boxed set that I think many of you will appreciate.