2018 Sportlots purchases: it's so cold in the D

In what has to be a first in my combined time at the University as a student and then staff member, the school closed up shop for two days (today and tomorrow) due to the ridiculous wind chill courtesy of the globally climate-changed polar vortex.  That's almost as rare as the number of honest bones in Urban Meyer's body!

This evening's post's title refers both to an infamously bad song that can be viewed on YouTube (NSFW language warning) plus the side of the ball on which has been the traditional strength at Michigan.

Let's have a look at six of the team's defensive greats in the form of Sportlots pickups!

Hey!  It's Ala--

#alanbranchkillsQBs

-n Branch!  I was able to target and score a nice number of Michigan uni cards throughout this purchase and was extremely successful when it came to the monster DT--a 100% hit rate!  Everything you see is from 2007 with the first four made by Press Pass and the last by SAGE.  They're all quite nice to look at, if you ask me, but the numbered Reflector parallel and base SAGE are my favorites.  In fact that's likely my favorite design in the latter's run, though I should try comparing them all side-by-side at some point.

This five-spot bumps Branch up to 60 cards.

Player #2 is CB Leon Hall.  It doesn't look like there's much to celebrate with just this pair but they ended up being significant as the put him at exactly the century mark, the 15th of my football PCs to reach 100.  On the left is SAGE's Aspire base from '07, and while I don't love the design as much as anything above I still appreciate the use of a nice home action photo.  The other is a 2011 Score Glossy parallel, which is not the most exciting of inserts, but is new to his collection and therefore useful.

Four of today's players came to the NFL in the ridiculously talented 2007 draft class that really should have won more but didn't for a variety of reasons.  The third of that quartet is tackling machine David Harris, a guy who enjoyed 11 productive seasons in the league (as much as anyone can "enjoy" spending most of their career with the Jets).  New to his collection today are Score Glossy parallels from 2008 and 2011 and base cards from 2008 Select and 2012 Prestige.  Again, nothing too exciting--and no college cards--but I'm always glad to add to his PC, which now stands at 75.  I have a few interesting additions from COMC that will follow soon!

Former DB Marlin Jackson (who's always fun to search for--"NO I didn't want Marlins players named Jackson!") breaks up the '07 party as a 2005 draftee.  I was glad to find a college-themed set offering of his, the '05 SAGE HIT you see first.  Then I dug up a couple second-year base cards:  2006 Select and Topps Heritage.  The scan makes it obvious that I need to try to clean up the Select card a bit if I can!  As usual Heritage looks quite nice.

Thanks to this trio Jackson one-upped Branch by reaching a new count of 61 items.

Break's over, we're back to 2007!  I split my finds of Steelers star DE/LB LaMarr Woodley between that year--his rookie season--and 2009.  To rep the former he brings back SAGE HIT once more with that fantastic base design plus a Blue parallel of the Playmakers insert.  A Bowman Draft Orange insert (yeah, it doesn't look "orange" in-person either) leads the cards made two years later, and then we get a throwback pair with UD's Philadelphia and Topps Mayo.  The group of five you see here bumps one of my smaller football PCs up to 55, and I'll keep adding to it as I can find new stuff.

And here we have every Michigan fan's dream:  11 Charles Woodsons!  The GOAT DB is the old man of this group but he continues to outpace everyone else in my football PCs because he's a rare defender that got lots of cardboard.

This first scan starts with his second year in the pros, 1999, in the form of one of his two Playoff Prestige EXP base issues plus the loud and proud Revolution by Pacific.  That brand's Omega kicks off a 2000 quintet that includes another Prestige base plus Topps Collection, and UD's Encore.

This scan opens with a familiar photo but this time it's from UD's Gold Reserve.  Then we jump ahead to 2002 and that manufacturer's Piece of History insert called National Honors, a card that notes Woodson's surprise '97 Heisman win.  Suck it, Peyton!  The last three are a bit of a grab bag:  '05 Prestige, 2010 Finest, and another 2011 Score Glossy appearance.

The guy with the biggest bunch of additions to the biggest of my football PCs also gets to celebrate the biggest milestone today, crossing the 300 mark to 307!

I have something like five posts left in this series, so keep an eye out for those, plus hopefully some card show pickups from this coming weekend.

2018 Sportlots purchases: LH + CW = 2DB

Just 15 days are separating my Wolverines from their 2018 season opener and it's getting hard to remain patient.  Further pumping me up for the return of college football is the fact that I got to go on a tour of Michigan Stadium as a work thing earlier this week, including hanging out in the locker room and running around on the field.  I made a quick dash from endzone to endzone, though I certainly didn't set any stopwatches on fire.

Anyway, let's see if I can finish up showing off all of my football Sportlots pickups before that night game against Notre Dame.  Today I went with an all time pair of Michigan cornerbacks, Leon Hall and Charles Woodson:

I'm showing off 15 new Hall cards today and only three of them don't include college photos, which is a huge win for me.  This first group is 100% Press Pass and SAGE, brands that were college-friendly for years.  Press Pass represents the first seven, including its flagship product, Legends, and SE.  Inserts include a Blue Reflectors parallel (kind of useless, as parallels sometimes are), a couple versions of SE's Insider Insight--regular and Collectors Series--and a Marquee Matchups card pairing Hall with OSU's Ted Ginn Jr.  Ginn's Buckeyes got the better of Hall's team in a close loss, one of the best games in the series, and both guys were 2007 first-rounders that have had solid NFL careers.

As for SAGE, this might be my favorite design of their yearly HIT product.  It has something like a cardboard feel to it and a very pleasing design both front and back.  I should try to track down the other Wolverines from the set (Breaston and Woodley) for that very reason.  They Playmakers insert--Blue here and Silver to lead off the next scan--isn't nearly as interesting but that's not a big deal thanks to the extra nice base version.

Joining the cards above and the aforementioned second Playmakers insert are two other 2007 offerings.  A fantastic looking Topps Draft Chrome Black parallel provides another look at one of my favorite Topps products whose absence I felt long before the Paniniopoly; black and chrome go well together with the maize & blue!  That's joined by Hall's only horizontal issue today, a 2007 Aspire Century Club insert.  The back lists his key measurables and compares him to Ronde Barber.  While it doesn't look like he'll live up to that comparison, Hall's had a very respectable career.

Much of that career, nine of 11 seasons so far, was spent with the Bengals, and I grabbed three cards of him with that team:  2008 Select and Topps' Mayo, plus 2010 Certified.  Those gave me a pair of second-years and a very nice design from his fourth.  And overall these additions put Hall's collection on milestone watch at 98 cards!

And now we'll move on from one of the greats to the GOAT, Charles Woodson.  We'll start with a sextet of second-years in the form of 1999's Paramount, Playoff Momentum SSD, Playoff Prestige EXP, SP Authentic, Stadium Club Chrome, and Upper Deck Encore.  There's lots of designs I like here, but Topps' Stadium Club Chrome was, in my opinion, a winner at the time, and a look that passes the test of time.  It should at least be brought back as a standalone product for baseball at least!

Then a trio of 2000s follows.  Chuck was included in Bowman Chrome's Rookie of the Year set for winning the defensive version in '98, just one of his many accolades.  I also found him in Fleer Tradition's Glossy factory set (which, yes, is as curved as they usually are) and Ultra's die-cut Gold Medallion parallel.

I hope you're ready for a big jump in time because now we move all the way on up to 2008 and Score Select plus UD's Draft Edition.  Then there's a pair of 2009s--Bowman Chrome and Topps Mayo--and 2010s--Score Glossy and SP Authentic.  The college-friendly SPA is one of two Michigan uni-fied Woodsons today and therefore one of my favorites.  Those are followed by 2011 Certified and a pair of 2012s:  Panini's Momentum and Prizm.  This is a nice bunch of Chuck on the Packers, the team I associate him with more than the Raiders thanks to his Super Bowl victory in 2010.

This last scan opens with one more 2012 card, a Rookies and Stars Statistical Standouts insert that notes his league-leading seven picks in 2011 (one of two occasions where he led all comers).  A 2017 Playoff insert called Gridiron Force is the penultimate vertical card and notes that Woodson picked off a pair of passes from Heisman runner-up and fivehead-having Papa John's lover Peyton Manning for the first time in 2015.  Then we come to probably my favorite Woodson addition today, his 2018 Panini Contenders Draft Picks base, which once again comes with a fantastic design and photo.  Chuck looks like he's ready to grab another gravity-defying one-handed interception against the Spartans!

Finally there's a trio of horizontal offerings to check out.  1999's Omega is another second-year Pacific offering of the two-time Raider, and a very cool one at that.  Then we have 2007's Ultra on a typically solid design of the Fleer product  Last up is an insert from last year's Panini flagship product, one called Decorated, which mentions Woodson's 2009 DPOY award, one he earned by going for league-leading (and career high) totals of nine INTs and three TDs.  His 179 return yards were also a career best, plus he force four fumbles.  GOAT GOAT GOAT!

Speaking of leads this huge bunch allows Woodson's collection to overtake Chad Henne's for tops in the football bunch with 296, also putting him within easy reach of his own milestone.

Despite my desire to get all the football stuff done before game 1, my next post should be focusing on three of my hockey PCs, so stay tuned!

2018 COMC purchases: PC partying like it's 1999 in red, white, and blue

It's time for the big finish in this latest series of COMC pickups, and I promise you the meaning of the title will soon be clear.

This time I managed to score at least one card of all of my football PC guys except for Tom Brady, since his prices are never reasonable and you guys send a nice amount of his stuff in trade packages because you're awesome.

Here's the results of a couple more months of COMC digging:

Just one Adrian Arrington this time, a 2008 Leaf Limited Silver Spotlight (#55/99) parallel, but that's great since it knocks another card off his checklist (79/370).  I now have 80 unique cards of the former WR.

You already saw those top two Jason Avant cards in my RC post from a few weeks ago, and I'll remind you that they were the last two of his first-years I needed, so that was an exciting development.  To those I added a 2006 Triple Threads Red triple jersey/auto, also from his rookie year, to one of my highest quality player collections of football hits, one that includes two other cards from that year's version of Topps' high-end offering.  Hit #49 of the possession receiver and American Ninja Warrior contestant is my 92nd overall Avant.

One of my PCs that benefited most from this latest shipment is a third of four straight WRs (out of seven in this post), Steve Breaston.  First I found a couple numbered parallels:  2007 Playoff NFL Playoffs Gold Metalized (#021/149) and 2010 Panini Plates and Patches Silver (#010/100).  Then I had even better luck in finding him on signature cards four times:  2007 Playoff NFL Playoffs Signatures Red (#014/100), 2007 SP Rookie Threads Rookie Exclusive Autographs (#083/100), 2007 Leaf Limited auto RC (#34/99), and 2009 SP Threads Stitch in Time Autographs.  Between the uniform and ink I even came up with a couple patriotic cards for the holiday!

These new additions give me 31 hits of the former Cardinal and 99 total cards in his collection.

I promise I'll get to other positions in a minute, but alphabetically this is where we are with our fourth receiver in a row, Braylon Edwards.  No hits today but plenty of numbered insert goodness!  The first two are Elite Series inserts from 2007 Elite:  Black (#334/400) and Gold (#0130/1000) versions.  Next is a 2007 Topps Chrome White Refractor (#391/869) that calls back to my previous inserts post where I showed off a few more of those.  A 2008 trio includes Donruss Threads Retail Blue (#339/350), Topps Triple Threads Emerald (#120/149), and 2008 Leaf Limited Bronze Spotlight (#038/125).  Last up is a 2009 Donruss Classics Timeless Tributes Silver (#067/100) parallel.  Those Elite cards are great but I have to give the nod to the White Refractor today!

The productive college receiver sits comfortably among my player collections with a new total of 243 cards.

Here's our first non-WR of the day.  QB Brian Griese certainly made the most of his quartet of cards if you ask me.  A super cool acetate/die-cut insert called Star Studded from 2000 Fleer Focus leads things off, and it has to be one of my top five cards from this whole purchase.  It's followed by the last example of 2000 Quantum Leaf's Double Team insert (#0779/1500) from this purchase, one where Griese understandably plays second fiddle to HOF RB Terrell Davis, whose 1997 and '98 campaigns were legendary.

Last up for the inserts is a 2003 Topps Chrome Black Refractor (#351/599) that notes Griese heading home to play for the Dolphins in 2003, the same team his father led for his whole NFL career.

Those cool new additions are joined by Brian's fantastic signature (and number inscription!) on a 1999 Donruss Private Signings auto card.  The design's a bit simple (and I could do without the purple) but NFL penmanship doesn't get much better than that!  Griese's hit total moves up to 17 and his overall PC now stands at a healthy 124.

Stud CB Leon Hall accounts for half of the Michigan uniform cards I have to show off today, though you already saw those--2007 Donruss Elite and Ultra--in the rookies post.  Those are joined by a couple more rookie-year cards: a pair of parallels.  First is a Contenders Playoff Ticket (#33/99), giving me another example of that fun insert in my collection.  Sometimes it's nice not to have to chase 20 different versions of a card!  Speaking of cards with lots of parallels, I paired that with yet another 2007 Topps Chrome White Refractor (#156/869), the last one I came up with.

These four put Hall's total up to a respectable 83 with some help from Sportlots incoming.

Don't call it a Hart attack because the only Mike Hart I picked up this time was his 2008 Upper Deck Icons RC you previously saw.  That's card #122 of the former Colts RB.

It was another good package for hits leader Chad Henne, if not for Hart.  Just one insert leads off this group, a 2008 Bowman Chrome Rookies Bronze (#195/329) parallel that looks a bit more like orange in the scan.  Then hit #1 is one of the best cards in the entire purchase, a 2014 Totally Certified Awesome Autographs Blue auto (#04/15).  I showed off the Gold version back in May and that one's numbered to 5 while this school colors-appropriate variation is a bit less rare, but all the more patriotic for it.  USA!  USA!

Hit number two is a 2008 Donruss Gridiron Gear dual jersey/ball (#18/25) that was a last-minute addition as I missed shipping a few cards in my original package and decided to fill out a smaller one.  It's my fifth hit from a brand with some cool cards that year.

The other two are a couple more examples from the plethora of variations out of 2008 SPx.  As it turns out the top card ("Star and Position Dual 149", #045/159) was new to me as I'd believed but the other ("SPX Dual 199") was already in my collection.  That's easy to do when you have 11 cards from the same confusing product!

No worries, Henne still leads the way with 118 hits, though the missed opportunity at another addition keeps him in second place overall at 271 total cards.

Henne's college/pro teammate Jake Long popped up twice in this package.  The first was his previously seen 2008 UD Masterpieces rookie while I also came up with an autograph from the same year's SP Rookie Threads SP Authentics (#025/244).  The sticker auto is my 77th hit of the former #1 overall pick, and 118th card in his collection.

Let's keep this 2008 draft class run going with blog namesake Mario Manningham!  Our fifth WR today previously appeared in the RCs post thanks to the cards bookending this scan, hailing from 2008 Donruss Classics and Ultimate Collection, ending my search for his 23 RCs.  To those I added a 2008 Finest Moments Black Refractor (#88/99).  This parallel of the regular insert highlights Super Mario's excellent game-winning catch with a couple minutes remaining in the rivalry game at Michigan State in 2007.

With this new trio I'm nearing 200-many Manninghams with a new total of 193.

My Chris Perry haul was anything but, but that doesn't mean he got completely shut out this time.  Here's Chris on another Playoff Contenders Playoff Ticket insert (#04/99), this time from the 2008 iteration of the product.  And that's not the last one you'll see today either!  Before we get there, this is card #87 in my Perry collection, and I'm looking forward to getting him over the century mark with some incoming Sportlots items.

MGoBlog's brief celebratory 4th of July post includes a fun highlight video of our next player, Denard Robinson, which reminded me once again of how Shoelace remains the most electric player I've witnessed in-person in any sport.  It's no wonder I keep collecting his stuff like this pair of 2013 hits.  On the left is a Panini Prizm Autographs auto, and like a fine wine that's paired with a Limited Rookie Jumbo Jerseys RC Logo Autographs dual jersey auto (#78/99).  This shiny pair came in at a paltry $3 total and gives me 82 total Denards, 38 of which are hits.

Since you can't have one without the other I'll handle David Terrell and Anthony Thomas together.  Also you already saw all four of these cards in the football rookies post.  Terrell's 2001 Pacific Dynagon Retail puts him at 87 cards while the A-Train rides again with 2001 Fleer Focus, Private Stock, and Upper Deck Rookie FX over the century mark to 101.

Today's penultimate player is the final WR, Amani Toomer.  I turned up four very attractive parallels of him, starting with my favorite, a 2000 Bowman's Best Acetate Parallel (#239/250).  It's hard to tell by the scan but these live up to their names and are see-through, which makes them look fantastic.  I love when searching for new PC additions introduces me to nice looking stuff I didn't know about!

Joining that one from the year 2000 is a Topps Chrome Refractor, done up in a nice shade of blue.  We've definitely got all the colors of the flag today and those colors don't run!  That includes a very red 2001 E-X Essential Credentials (#190/299) parallel.  I recall the name and multiple versions from E-X's earlier iterations, and this one is a great example.

Last up is a 2004 Playoff Contenders Playoff Ticket (#137/150), which is an old enough version that it's numbered to 150 instead of the more common 99.  Toomer's Giants didn't reach the playoffs in 2003 but he did place second in TD receptions with 5.  And speaking of numbers I now have 104 different cards of Toomer.

Last up as usual is the GOAT, Charles Woodson.  You can see here that I finished my run of Playoff Tickets with the legendary DB in the form of this 2015 version (#031/199), which also carries different serial numbering.  The design is perfect for his Raiders uniform after his return to the team that drafted him.  And though it's just one card it ends up being important as it puts him alone at the top of my football PCs with 272 cards!  Not today, Chad Henne....

Once again I had a blast hunting down and scanning all of these new additions to show off, and the work paid off handsomely as I'm sure you saw over the course of this series.  With today's additions my football hits total 1297 so I have another fun milestone coming up, plus one I originally thought I'd hit today until my lack of attention led to a Chad Henne double:  2000 hits in my entire Michigan PC.  That's right, with the 13 football items I added today I'm now sitting at 1999 cards out of the four major sports plus a few miscellaneous areas.  No worries, though, as I have something fun to show off soon to hit that mark, so stay tuned!

Besides that you can look forward to my latest huge haul from Sportlots once everything is in and ready.  Until then I hope everyone has a safe and happy Independence Day!

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!

3/18/18 card show report: working hard for Wolverines

As I explained on TMV this evening the second show I hit up last month was a bit different--different location, different sellers.  While that ultimately meant that what I took home was less than usual, I still found a few Wolverines to add to the ol' collection.  This time it was a 100% football affair.  Check it out:

First up is a pair of 2017 RCs:  Denver TE Jake Butt from Donruss and Cleveland...I dunno, LB/DB?...Jabrill Peppers out of Prizm.  That's my third of Butt (that's right, I've almost got a Dr. Mephisto special!) and second of Peppers, and I have to say I was surprised to find the latter in a box of relatively cheap stuff!

It also came as a bit of a shock to me to find this insert of a guy who's both a Michigan alum and current Detroit Lion.  Evoking images of '94 Finest baseball Here's backup QB Jake Rudock on a 2016 Donruss Optic Red and Yellow parallel, which probably also could have been called "Primary Colors".  I hope the Lions let him go and he gets a chance to start somewhere since the franchise continues to think highly of Matthew Stafford.

My other insert pickup was this Charles Woodson 2005 Playoff Honors Class Reunion that pairs the school's upcoming commencement speaker (I might have to try to make it to that!) with 2018 HOFer Randy Moss.  Both were drafted in 1998's first round with Woodson, who'll join Moss soon, going fourth overall, and the enigmatic but talented Marshall WR lasting until the 21st pick.  Moss is the first from that draft to be enshrined but won't be the last with Woodson and Peyton Manning sure to follow.

Just as I did on the baseball side of things I added a solid hit to tie things up nicely.  In this case it was a 2006 Donruss Elite Passing the Torch Autographs auto (#22/99) of PC guy Braylon Edwards, my 72nd hit of the outspoken WR.  This is the solo version of Braylon's signature but of course the famed Passing the Torch set features dual cards as well, and Edwards was paired up with another former first-round WR for Cleveland, Paul Warfield, which kind of sucks since he played at Ohio State!  Then again, Warfield had twice as much success as Edwards in terms of years played and TD receptions, so there's that.  Anyway, it's a fun new autograph on one of my favorite designs, so I was happy to end my day by adding it to my purchase.

And now stay tuned for one more show recap covering the one from earlier this month, one that was a bit kinder in quantity.

2017 COMC purchases: too many Manninghams! (and more)

It's taken me until we're almost 100 days into 2018 but once I hit the Publish button on this post I'll have finally wrapped up 2017!

Today is all about my football player collections; rookies, inserts, hits, it's all there.  I hit eight of the nine (I left Tom Brady out since I don't really buy his stuff that often--he shows up in trade packages frequently enough!) and ended up with 66 cards including 22 hits.  Let's have a look at them so I can finally move on to stuff from this year!

We'll start alphabetically with Adrian Arrington, currently the lone supercollection of my football PCs.  I tracked down three of his inserts from Panini-related brands:  2008 Donruss Threads Bronze Holofoil (#131/250) and 2008 Score Gold Zone (#193/400), plus 2009 Donruss Threads Pro Gridiron Kings Framed Red (#072/100).  The theme of my Michigan Football purchases besides hits is "Numbered, shiny, Refractor, or all of the above" and these fit well.  I'm now at about 20% of AA's 370 cards

Braylon Edwards' stuff is plentiful on COMC so I had no problem finding a stack of cool cards of his.  In this first scan you can see more items that fit the description I mentioned above.  In fact everything I found of him is serial numbered as well.  That includes a Playoff Contenders insert from his 2005 rookie year, Topps Triple Threads base cards from 2006, '07, and '09 (plus a Sepia parallel from '06), a 2008 Donruss Gridiron Gear parallel, plus more 2009 fun that comprises a numbered Finest Refractor plus parallels from Leaf Rookies and Stars and Topps Unique.

The last of the vertical inserts can be seen here--a Gold 759 parallel (guess what it's numbered to) from Topps' 2010 Unrivaled, plus a really nice insert from 2011 Panini Gold Standard called Golden Anniversary.

The horizontals begin with another 2005 Contenders insert that pairs Bray-Bray with fellow first-round WR Troy Williamson (definitely the lesser of the two).  That's followed by yet another numbered base card, this one from Panini's 2010 Plates and Patches.  Then that year's Topps Unrivaled makes a second appearance with a numbered chase card set called Veterans.

I also turned up a decent hit of Edwards, a Prime Cuts jersey (#49/50) from 2009 Donruss Rookies and Stars.  It met my usual cheapo price range for relics and comes with two colors, making it a solid addition to my Braylon Hits, now at 71 (and 235 cards overall).

As much as I love getting anything new of Mike Hart it's harder than it should be to find good prices for him when it comes to COMC inventory.  I at least tracked down this fun pair of 2008 Topps-branded parallels:  Kickoff Silver Holofoil (#0399/1349) and Letterman Refractor (#95/99).  Though I've been chasing the Letterman rookies of my guys I wasn't aware they had Refractor versions so that was a very nice surprise.  The Kickoff card, football's version of Opening Day, was a fun pickup too.  Together this pair jumps me up to 120 different Hart items.

Hey, it's blog favorite QB Chad Henne!  The new KC Chiefs backup found his way into my cart a good few times on some numbered inserts, plus one that's just plain ol' shiny.  He shares a 2008 Leaf Rookies and Stars insert you'll see again shortly with another PC guy, then goes solo on the rest:  2010 Crown Royale Blue (#049/100) and Playoff Contenders Playoff Ticket (#24/99), 2011 Rookies and Stars Longevity Parallel Silver (#211/249), and 2014 Panini Hot Rookies Showcase (#68/79).  The only non-numbered card is the horizontal one, 2011 Prestige Prestigious Pros Red.  It may not be the Michigan hue, but I sure do like the blue that the Score parallel is rocking!

And what would a post with Henne be without adding on to his football collection-leading hits total?  The first one is a mouthful:  2008 Absolute Memorabilia Rookie Premiere Materials AFC/NFC Spectrum Prime dual jersey/ball (#12/25) (sorry, Gavin!  Find me another one and you're welcome to this one.).  I've got a bunch of Henne's stuff (and other Wolverines too) from this product and am always happy to add to it.  Here the draw for me was the nice pair of "prime" jersey swatches.

Speaking of "I already had a bunch of these", how about another addition to my 2008 SPx haul?  I did a quick count and this dual jersey card with the cut out area in the shape of the "SPX" name seems to be my 11th from that product (against seven of the Absolutes).  They look nice enough and usually don't go over $1.50 so they're well within my range).

But why don't we put a nice cherry on top of this sundae with my fifth Henne plate?  Already my third from 2014 alone, this one's a Cyan version from that year's Rookies and Stars set (the others are Prestige and Score if you were interested).  It's always a good day when you can add this many cards to your favorite PC and an even better one when one of those is a plate!  That's 114 hits of Chad, 266 cards overall, and 98 1/1s.

It happens to be good timing to be posting cards of the LT that protected Henne at Michigan and in Miami, former #1 overall pick Jake Long.  That's because he finally recovered from multiple injuries and surgeries to the point that he was able to to run for the first time in 18 months.  Football obviously takes a toll regardless, but nobody deserves that much pain!

For his collection I grabbed three cards from the 2008 Leaf Rookies and Stars Studio Rookies insert:  the Combos card you saw above with Henne (#413/500) plus his solo card (#0899/1000) and the Gold version of that (#304/500).  Then I tacked on yet another Gold card, this one the parallel from 2014 Topps (#0756/2014).

Happily I also didn't come up empty when it came to hits of the big guy.  Like his former teammate I came up with this '08 SPx dual jersey card whose version is described as "SPx Rookie Materials Star and Position Dual 149" (#023/149).  The nomenclature may be a bit ridiculous but at least you know what you're getting!  And what I got was five new Longs to reach 75 hits (just the second player to claim that many) and 115 cards overall.

There's still plenty to come in this post but we're now at the main course:  too many Marios!  Mr. Manningham led all comers in cards and it wasn't even close--wait until you see what I have in store!

Let's begin with this bevy of inserts.  The first two rows include 2008 inserts from Donruss Gridiron Gear and Leaf R&S (the previously seen Studio Rookies) plus Topps parallels:  a Chrome Refractor and Gold from flagship.  The horizontal pair next to them hail from 2008 Absolute and 2010 Prestige.  Everything is numbered except the Refractor, not that it needs that feature to be awesome.

Then the bottom trio includes two parallels from the fine looking 2011 Timeless Treasures set: Silver (#74/99) and Gold (#06/49).  A Gold Topps parallel from 2012 rounds out the inserts.  But we're just getting started, oh yes indeed.

Let's start with a perfect page of eight landscape hits.  The first two are from UD's fantastic 2008 SP Rookie Threads product, the one responsible for my all-time favorite Lettermen cards.  On the left is a dual patch (#46/75) the its partner in crime is a dual jersey/auto (#10/50).  Regarding the latter I was like "'RT'?  He's a wide receiv--ooooh, 'Rookie Threads'".

Then there's a four-spot of the very familiar 2008 SPx rookie materials:  Football Shape Dual 119 dual jersey (#077/119), SPX New Logo Dual 75 dual jersey (#14/75), SPX Dual 199 dual jersey (#091/199), and SPX Triple 99 triple jersey (#49/99).  I'm secretly building my own Giants jersey, y'all!

Moving on to the bottom row I grabbed a 2009 Prestige Rookie Review Materials Prime jersey (#14/50) with a nice two color/stitching combo, and this post's other Manningham autograph, 2016 Panini Plates and Patches Pivotal Marks (#63/99).  That one correctly highlights his extremely important catch in Super Bowl XLVI that led to the winning points.  If that's not pivotal I don't know what is!

Now let's pad that hit total a bit more.  We'll go back to 2008 and begin with a huge jersey swatch/rookie from the fantastic Leaf Certified Materials (#203/599), another product that was quite friendly towards some of my favorite draftees from that year.  Then a decent Dress For Success jersey from R&S (#050/250) leads into another highlight-worthy card from SP Rookie Threads:  a Rookie Numbers Holofoil Patch (#51/75) with the cutout done in the shape of Super Mario's pro number.  Sticking with 2008 one final time I came up with a cheap (and accordingly tiny) jersey card from Icons (#178/199), which has never been high on my list.  Then Manningham goes out in style thanks to that 2014 Elite Throwback Threads Prime jersey (#19/49), which is on par with the Prestige card from above.

How about some numbers for the guy they called "the New Math" in Ann Arbor?  22 new cards, 13 of them hits, for 190 overall and the silver medal as the new #2 in my football PC with 81 hits!  Long and Edwards are left behind eating his dust, at least for now.

Now we're done with the cards I was the most excited to post, but I still have two more players to get to, and some nice stuff of them at that!  First is Denard Robinson, the most recent Michigan QB I've seen play live.  You all got to see the card on the left, his 2013 Absolute RC, a few posts ago, and to that I added a 2015 Certified Mirror Silver (#116/499).  I'm glad to see the Certified Mirror name has stuck around for 20+ years!

And the hits kept coming for Shoelace too.  Finding his hits at reasonable prices on COMC is like shooting fish in a barrel, which is fun for a collector like myself.  It's so easy I scored these three relic/auto cards for under $6 combined.  All are from his rookie year of 2013 out of Panini brands:  his Limited jersey/auto/RC (#264/299), Momentum Rookie Signatures triple jersey auto (#053/199), and Totally Certified Red Signatures jersey auto (#050/299).  Autographs are still my favorite hits to pick up but the Limited and Totally Certified issues came with very nice swatches too!

Oh yeah, and for a bit more than the price of those three--just $6.50--I landed my first 1/1 of the quick QB:  a 2016 Donruss Cyan plate from Plates and Patches.  I think you all know I'm a big fan of the classic Donruss look, and I'd say Panini's treated it well over the years.  It certainly looks nice here in plate form, if you ask me.  By the way, that's 1/1 #99, so we'll be celebrating a fun milestone very soon!  For now I'll enjoy four new Denard hits for a new count of 36, and 78 items overall.

And now I can say farewell to 2017 in style thanks to a quintet of cards starring my alma mater's upcoming Spring Commencement speaker, Charles Woodson.  You already saw the first two cards, rookies from 1998, in my Rookie Blue post a couple weeks ago, so you know how I feel about those (reminder:  Playoff Momentum gets a biiiiiig thumbs down).  To those I added a fun trio of inserts. 

First is a Pewter parallel (#120/199) from the retail version of 2015 Crown Royale.  These die-cut cards already look nice enough but pewter makes for a good alternate version.  Next is what's somehow the only Michigan uni card in the entire post, a gorgeous Stained Glass insert from 2015 Panini Prizm Draft Picks.  It's easily one of those "I saw it and I had to have it" kind of purchases and I bet I get at least one identical comment about it when this goes up.  Last is one final parallel, the Jumbo version of Chuck's Gold Zone (#44/99) from 2016 Score.  I don't think Panini should have made different versions of these, but at least the numbering helps you differentiate them.

It wasn't a huge haul for Woodson but he remains the player collection leader for now with 269 cards, three more than Henne.

And this super fun sendoff to 2017 bumped me up to 1266 football hits (up from the easier to remember 1234!).

Now that I'm finally, finally done,

I can say thank you to everyone who made 2017 another great year of collecting for me, and here's to 2018!  Maybe I'll even get most of my pickups from this year posted before next March....