The universe wanted me to collect Shyrone Stith

So I had decided to collect Seneca Wallace, Michael Bishop, and Rod Smart.  Shyrone Stith was in the also ran category but not being collected, and that was that.  I went on like this for about a week, and it was pretty nice finding some cool Michael Bishop cards, but I quickly realized that collecting Rod Smart was gonna be tough.  To start, he only has 19 cards that aren't 1/1's.  In addition, of those 19 a bunch haven't been mentioned online in forever.  So...difficulty level high with Mr. Hate Me.

So I had Seneca mostly stalled, Smart mostly stalled, and Bishop going.  But I added two guys to have two guys be kinda fluid to start so I went back to a few guys to see if I wanted to change my mind.  Woody Dantzler, Jermaine Wiggins, Aveion Cason...and Shyrone Stith.

For Stith, I went to COMC to see the lowest print run stuff available, as it's always nice to know the best cards on the market for a guy right away.  There were a few cards /50 as the lowest runs, which isn't terrible, and so I made a mental note.  About a half hour later my decision was made...Stith was pretty awesome and seemed like a good guy to collect...and so I went with Stith.  Good choice me!

An hour later I come back to COMC...and it's still sorted by print run...but now this supercedes the /50 cards:

Shyrone Stith has 5 1/1's listed in Beckett's database.  This is one of them.  How nuts is it that it was listed for sale on COMC within an hour of my decision...one I hadn't even publicly stated at that point.  Truly bizarre, and a sign from somewhere that this collection was meant for me lol.  It's a base Fleer Tradition card but one that was stamped at the 2001 National.  I have one of these stamped /5 of Seneca Wallace too...kinda weird cards but also pretty cool!

I'm sure we'll see a lot of this card, as it has a few parallels to it too.  Stith's write up here is pretty neat, but I also look forward to learning more about this T.J. Slaughter cat.


So that's pretty awesome, beginning a PC with one of five 1/1's in hand.  But COMC gets better.  A few days later I'm looking for cards to add to my shipment so it's worth shipping my way, and what should pop up but a Donruss Elite parallel /62:

It's not the /1 and it's not the /38 status version, but this still usually goes for a pretty penny and I got it for a couple of bucks.  Elite is incredibly every year and this card is no different, fantastic design with a lot of shine...I can dig it!

I like that this card lists his height at 5'8."  Other cards say 5'7"...guess it's all in how you look at it!

I also think it's kinda crazy how they put the serial number logo thing on the back bottom of these even though the serial number goes on the front.  It bugs me a bit, looks like an incorrect proof or something when really it's just like "crap what do we put in this empty space" design work.  I wonder if we'll notice that on the other Elite Stith cards.  Only one way to find out I guess...COLLECT THEM ALL!