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!