Another COMC 100 - PC Baseball Stuff and a New Printing Plate has me feeling ex-Choo-berant

Alright, so the pun is bad, but the plate is so cool!

This marks my first Indians plate of Choo, and I now have one from his time with the Reds, one from the Indians, and three from the Rangers.  If I can find a Mariners one somewhere I'll have one from every team the guy has played for which would be cool beans.

I picked up a non-plate of Choo as well - this real nice looking chrome card from Choo's Reds days:

Real shame that Choo priced himself out of the Reds' budget.  Great American played well to Choo's strengths and it was really fun watching him play for the one season it was here.

While I was grabbing up Choos and other PC needs, someone listed a cheap Deduno Bowman card.  So I snatched that up REAL quick for the collection:

Amazing, as always.

I also grabbed a bunch of Elizardo Ramirezes.  First a nice Gold rookie of his:

Then this shiny Heritage card:

And finally a beautiful Bowman Chrome card that shines so nicely:

I tend to put my Griffey Jr. collection on the backburner since there's so many cards of his to get, but this Bowman's Best card was pretty cool.  It actually started with me, then moved to Dennis, and then back to me in a trade:

And after grabbing one Griffey, I decided I might as well grab this oddball Jam Pac card too.  COMC had it in a weird Marked to Return bucket because they couldn't find a description for it.  I made an offer so it'd be returned with me:

Last but not least, a little mini Brayan Peña Gold /63:

I have a mini printing plate of this card too, so it's neat to be able to see the plate and the card side by side.

Just a few more COMC posts left - all football PC stuff and a lot of it is pretty cool!

Trade with TMM Part 2: BASEBALL!

Today you get a small smattering of the (non Mike James/Deduno Bowman) baseball stuff that Dennis of TMM sent my way recently.  He really boosted 3 of my PCs while also adding a 1/1 to my collection, so all of these cards were much appreciated!

First we have a few cards of Chris Colabello, former Worcester Tornado.  I still don't own any of his Worcester cards, so this 2013 Topps base is now the oldest Colabello in my collection:

The other additions were all Topps as well.  Here's his 2015 Topps base, which is my newest Colabello:

And then two 2014 cards, his Topps Chrome base:

and his 2014 Topps update base:

Dennis collects this next guy (any self respecting blogger out to collect Ken Griffey Jr.), but he sends me extras sometimes which is uber cool.  Speaking of uber cool, this Award Winners card with an embossed little medal in it is pretty sexy for an insert:

The other Griffey he sent me is a checklist.  I love how Griffey can even make a checklist look cool:

Dennis seems to always send me Billy Hamiltons along with his Griffeys.  This lot was no different, and I ended up with the oldest Hamilton in my collection (by several years) with this 2011 Bowman's Best:

He also sent a 2015 Topps Chrome, and this has to be one of my favorite cards in the package.  The scan doesn't do it justice - this is one shiny, amazing card.  The color scheme is fantastic:

And the last Billy Hamilton is serial numbered - it's a "Career Stat Line" card which gives some stat and then has numbering.  This one is /395:

Saving the best for last with this post, Dennis was able to procure an Elizardo Ramirez printing plate, which is pretty amazing as it is the first for my PC!  My Elizardo collection was recently (unofficially) named my most random PC, so it means a lot to finally have my first plate for it.  Here it is in all its glory, a black plate from 2007 Topps:

The best thing about this plate?  This is the year where Elizardo had two base cards in the Topps set.  So I'm excited to chase all eight plates from this ridiculous set.  Consider this the first of many!

One last post for this trade to come - all the football cards will be shown on Thursday of this week!

Trade with TMM Part 1: ALL THE MIKE JAMES plus Dedunos

Dennis of Too Many Manninghams and I like to keep the trade train rolling, so recently another package from him came into my life.  It was filled with loads of PC needs of mine, including something like 15 Mikes James, so i chose to break it up into three posts to spread out the awesome.  

I'll start with the Mike James(es).  Not all of them, since there were a gazillion, but a good cross-section to give a slight hair style retrospective of Mike James the baseball player, as it changed a bit over the years.

In 1991, Mike James was a AA pitcher just trying to make his way in the world.  He had barely there side burns and a nifty little mustache:

A year later, he went with a very straight-laced look as he still was trying to make the majors as a starter:

The Angels must've seen that 1991 Line Drive card with his hair sculpting potential, because in 1993 they then traded Reggie Williams (an OF/PH with 88 games played over parts of four seasons) for James straight up.  And California immediately benefitted, not only statistically (as James was 3-0 with one save in 46 games in 1995 as a reliever) but also hairwise, as James started letting his flow grow in back:

He had identical records of 5-5 in 1996 and 1997, and though his ERA was better in 1996, his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) mark was better in 1997 at 3.49.  James was on the up and up, and his hair was at an all time best (as a bonus he's got a cup card here!):

Expectations were high for James in 1998 as a key member of the bullpen, and he started well with a 1.93 ERA in 11 games.  But injury knocked him out for the rest of the year, and out of the Angels plans forever the following September.  Which is a shame because his sideburns game was really on point at the time:

But fear not - the league would get to see James and his awesome hair a few more times.  The Cardinals picked up James in late 1999, and he had a nice little comeback in them in 2000.  2001 was less awesome, so the Cardinals cut him, but the Rockies picked him up and let him have one last season in 2002.  Which resulted in this last Topps Total card where James' sideburns are tired, but not beaten, like the man himself:

So there, in a nutshell, is the career of Mike James, MLB pitcher.  But Dennis threw a couple cards of Mike James, NFL RB, in as well, so you get to see those too.

The first is a Yellow Printing Plate from 2014 Score, which is AMAZING because I love plates:

It's also amazing because it's my second James plate from 2014 Score.  I bought the cyan on COMC after Dennis pointed it out many months ago, so now I have 2 of the 4 which is neat.

The other Mike James he sent is easily the most "valuable" card of this bunch.  It's a Crown Royale die cut autograph /20:

It's a nice crisp little card, and I love a good die cut these days after kicking them all out of my collection as a kid.  It's amazing how you can reconsider a card type when you gain the ability to take better card of your cards.

Last but not least - Dennis sent Dedunos!  YAY!  Since buying all but two (crazy overpriced) Dedunos on COMC, I feel like my mini-collection of his Bowman card has been kind of stagnant.  So it's awesome to up my total Dedunos to 40 with these newest additions!

He sent one new Bowman base, which brings my total there to 16:

And then he sent 4 Chrome Dedunos, which puts me at 11:

They are as awesome as ever, and I simply cannot get enough of this card.  Too amazing.

Stay tuned for the baseball goodies in a post on Tuesday!

Mike James continued...where did those cards come from?

So a few days ago I posted that I'm collecting all the Mike James (literally all of them - if you have a card of a guy named Mike James, send it my way).  I figured it might be nice to let you know where the first few cards came from!

The two base Mike James (basketball) came from Bo of Baseball Cards Come to Life in his big old basketball lot, and pretty much singlehandedly kick started the collection:

The James (football) auto and James (baseball auto) both came from Dennis of the Too Many blogs, after he mentioned the baseball guy:

(Doesn't the baseball guy have an awesome sig?  Shame that's the only card that ever used it...)

And then the James (football) plate and James (basketball) serial #'d card were bought by me on COMC.  After Dennis pointed out that the plate was available:

And so it goes.  Hopefully many more Mike James to come!

I Choo-Choo-Choose You: My first four Choo printing plates

So a while back, Dennis mentioned that he was bidding on some stuff for me on Ebay.  He mentioned he won a pretty big lot of Shin-Soo Choo plates (which was amazing!) and that there were a few others still around too.  The end result was me getting 4 Shin-Soo Choo plates in the span of like thirty Ebay minutes.  Insane, right?  I'll show them all of here.

The first is the one plate Dennis didn't get.  When he said some were still around, I quickly sorted Choo plates by time left, and found this one with a few minutes to go.  It was a decent price, and it's got Choo featured on the Reds, which is how I prefer to remember the guy, so it's definitely an awesome get!

All that said, his eyes are REALLY CREEPY here.  It kind of cracks me up.  I love the yellow band here up at the top too - it really shows that used quality which is cool to see in plates.

The back is your typical looking back for a plate:

I love when they detail the set like that - always a plus.  I do wonder about the "Online Exclusive Trading Cards" piece, because I didn't realize there was a regular vs. online difference.  If so I guess there would be 8 mini plates?  Can anyone shine any light on that weirdness?

So that shipped straight to me quickly.  The other plates shipped to Dennis first, then he sent them my way - and now they are here in all their beauty.  They are:

Red

Cyan

and Yellow

plates from 2014 Topps Triple Threads.  Which means this is the first plate set ever where I have 3 of the 4 plates (only missing the black).  The backs look really cool together too:

Obviously getting 4 plates in one day is huge for my Choo collection, and once again I have Dennis to thank for it!  Thanks man, and hopefully I can track down that black Threads plate someday to make this awesome collection whole!

Dennis sends awesomeness my way - Part 1 of 3 featuring sweet patches, Aaron Hernandez, and multiple 1/1's!

Dennis of the Too Many blogs and I have a good thing going.  I find him Michigan stuff on COMC, he finds me goodies at shows and on other card sites.  Sometimes we then swap those piles.  It's basically the most beautiful relationship that has ever existed between someone from Michigan and someone from Ohio.

This package was even more awesome than usual, if that's even possible.  I was able to handpick some of the items for it that Dennis grabbed at nice prices, but other stuff was a complete/amazing surprise, so that was great too.  But let's just get right into it!

First the obligatory Aaron Hernandez mention on Dennis' Index card.  Of course...and reassuring to know that my blog is finally safe!

Related to that, somewhat, is this sweet patch card of Deion Branch.  Related, you see, because Branch is one of the best Patriots of all time:

He was a Seahawk here, but man that is one helluva patch.

Nice numbering too!  This is one of those Christmas card type cards as Baseball Card Breakdown always puts them - 12/25.  Sadly you probably won't be getting this one sir, but you are free to gaze upon its awesomeness!

Next is a whole bunch of cards - a trio of Thaddeus Lewis Sage Hit cards, and then stickers of Billy Hamilton and Chris Ogbonnaya:

I collect Billy Hamilton, but this sticker will go on my binder rather than in my collection.  As for Ogbonnaya, I have fond memories of him briefly breaking out in Cleveland a few years back, so I will definitely add his sticker to my binder too!  And as for the Thads, I swear that Dennis has 4,000 copies of every card in that 2010 Sage Hit collection, and somehow I always end up needing them.  Someday he may as well just send the whole shebang to me since it'll inevitably end up here anyways piece by piece!

That wasn't the only card of "The Champ" featured.  The package also included this EPIC O's auto, /25:

I already grabbed another auto /25 on the cheap, so to have 2 /25 autos this soon is amazing!  The proof is in the serial numbered pudding:

5/25 - hey that day's coming up soon!

Moving on - this card is just an awesome relic.  I have a cool patch/relic collection, and Dennis found this for cheap at a show.  I think it's well worth inclusion:

I count 6 stars on the football, plus like a third of a seventh.  Easily the most stars I've ever seen in a single football relic card.  In other words...it's awesome!

Getting near the end of this first post, Dennis was able to snatch up another scrambly QB card, this B.J. Daniels auto:

I LOVE how crisp this looks.  And it's /49, which is pretty darn neat.

The back is really fancy too - I love all the gold highlights to make this somewhat of a classy set.

You know what kind of gold I love even more?  GOLDEN Deduno!

Five more added to the set, which puts me at eight now.  Man I love this card.  It literally never gets old for me.

But I saved the best for last.

When Dennis and I were first discussing this package, there were three printing plates of one of my new guys on Ebay.  I told Dennis that if he could grab any of them, that'd be awesome.  He was able to get 2 of the 3 (the third one went for like $20, which is way too much!).

Here are the two Brayan Peña plates, marking my first two 1/1's for his collection!

The card on the left is technically the mini version - it's just blown up here.  But in general it's very cool - one version represents 2014 Topps, and the other represents 2014 Topps update.  Here are the backs:

Told ya the cyan one was a mini!  As usual I love the backs of printing plates.  I also think it's kind of neat that the cyan one has some pink on the back too.  Makes it sort of a magenta-plateish type thing.  Can't ever hate on that.

So that does 'er for the first post - the next two will introduce two guys whose collections I'm just getting started.  So stick around for all sorts of other goodies in the next few days!