Tis the season for Shyrone Stith cards (the 3rd of 4 COMC posts)

So I showed off a Seneca from Ebay, and then the randomness from COMC and my Rod Smart from COMC.  You can rightfully assume that there were no Seneca Wallaces that I needed on COMC (there never are...*sniff sniff*), so that leaves Quad Jersey pick ups and Shyrone Stith pick ups.

Today I feature the Stiths...and HOLY COW are there a ton of them.  I think I count 22 in all.

So in no particular order...

I love these Crown Die Cut cards now that I am an adult.  As a kid I hated them - it was way too easy to ding them up and "ruin" the card.  But now the alternate shape is pretty neat.  This one is the Dract Picks version /499.

Next is a gorgeous card from eX:

Yes it is semi-translucent, and it is also /1500.  Remember when I used to collect translucent cards and serial #'d cards?  That seems so long ago, but I still do appreciate getting both of those features on a single card.

A graded card...that is not in its shell:

The encased versions were always pricier, and I pull stuff out of cases anyways to binder them, so I decided to just buy this guy already freed.  It is out of /1325, and is a reminder of how nice a limited edition subset can look when done right (even if it does have all those wacky futuristic squares and junk).

A slightly crooked sampling of "Greats of the Game:"

Kind of a weird set name - you're labeling rookies and so-so vets as greats, which is so far from true.  But /1500, a nice looking card, and I love the little write-up on the left about James Stewart being gone and Fred Taylor looking injury prone.  It turned out Taylor shed that label in ensuing years, but I can definitely remember when it seemed like injuries were never gonna led poor Fred live up to his potential.

Here is a card from 2001, a rarity for Stith cards since the bulk (like 90%) are from 2000:

I grabbed the /55 premiere date version of this pretty recently...this is just a parallel /1000.

Omega...

This guy is /500, and looks dangerously similar to a few Private Stock cards you will see below, minus the green tint.

This one is one of my favorites, from Playoff Prestige:

Prestige always makes a pretty nice looking card, and this one is /2500.  I have mentioned before that I also love when they show draft picks on the back - I recognize a few of these names but who the heck is Joey Chustz?

Here is (are) the Private Stock cards I mentioned.  The backs are so much like the Omega, but the stock is...private-r:

/650 numbered on the back, /95 (premiere date) numbered on the front.  Both really nice looking cards - they do feel slightly higher end than your typical Pacific entry (not that that is hard to do lol).

Finally we get some Rookies and stars, a set I always love!

This is a little before they did the jersey cards with all the cutout windows, but I love the /1000 numbering, and I just always have dug that Rookies and Stars logo.  Decent little writeup too.

Here we have a fancy schmancy auto:

This guy is /50, the platinum edition.  The shine on the scanner is weird, but in person this card looks amazing!  I got it pretty cheap for a /50 auto as well, which is never a bad thing!

Here's another card I came to love - the Score Scorecard edition:

This one is just /2000, but I think it looks fantastic, albeit with a weird pic of a football on the back.  Score still does Scorecard cards, and the print runs can get REAL low (like /6, /10, /20) but the prices are always love as well.  I know people hate artificial scarcity, but I really dig some of the looks of these cards so I am always surprised they don't command more of a premium.

Speaking of commanding a premium, here is Stith's base SPX card from 2000, which always tends to be a higher end set:

It is /1350, and oh so golden.  The /25 version has been on Ebay, but the guy wants $9.99 for it, and I don't think it's even worth that much personally.  Maybe I will spring for it eventually though.

Next we have a few Fleer Tradition autos.  These two actually finish off my set, as I recently grabbed the rarest one, which was /50:

Just a great looking card, and you really can't beat an on-card auto like that!

The last auto of the post comes from Sage Hit, and I believe it is the Emerald version:

There is an Emerald, Emerald Die Cut, Diamond, and Diamond Die Cut.  They don't label them, so it is always hard to tell the difference, but I would say this is Emerald based on coloring at least.

Here's a nice little Fleer Focus card to go with the /750 I already have:

This one is the "base" version, /2499.

Then we have the only jersey card of this post...I have been waiting for a patch but this was so cheap and patch-ish that I had to grab it:

The white piece is thicker than your normal piece, so I like to think it came from something patch-y, even though it looks fairly regular.

Here we have a dual with Rondell Mealey of the Packers:

Mealey, like Stith, was a free agency fixture in Madden '04.  He was ranked a bit higher though, likely due to his two career TD's in three seasons with Green Bay (2000-2002).

Last three cards, and the first two are similar.  They are both from the MVP set, a personal favorite of mine as well, with one being the Silver Script edition:

I actually busted a ton of late 90's MVP baseball as a kid, as the nice stock and decent write-ups really appealed to me back then.  It also reminds me of the look of the Major League Lacrosse cards that came out around that time - I would not be surprised if the MLL was inspired by these simple but stunning cards for their inaugural (and really only ever) set.

Last but not least, a Fleer Mystique Gold card:

I know it is Gold because it says so under the numbering.  Thank you Fleer for doing this back in 2000 - why can't more card sets do this?