Too Many Manninghams? More like Too Many Griffeys!

As I mentioned in my last post, COMC has started to be good to me again, and as a result I've been able to pick up more cards on the site lately.  Some for me, some for others, and as is typical of the others part, it means more trades for me and Dennis!  I sent him some stuff recently, and he returned the favor with some great cards, especially a few nice Griffey Jr. cards for my budding PC. 

The card of the package, for me, is this Pinnacle Mint gold coin card of Griffey.  It is SO HEAVY!

Also, it looks amazing.  I'm not 100% sure what to classify it as (I'm sure Junior Junkie would know), but the card has a die cut area for the coin and then this coin appears to be the gold version since it has Griffey's face on it.  Bronze and silver seemed to have other things on them when I looked around online.  There's a ton of varieties in general though, including some 1/1s that are solid gold rather than gold plated.  Seems like a cool parallel set to chase for someone with a lot of cash to throw around!

He sent me two other Griffeys that I really dug too.  The Measures of Greatness insert is from 94 Topps, and the Interleague Showdown card is a silver proof parallel from 97 Donruss:

I liked "The Big Cat" Andres Galarrga quite a bit growing up, so it's cool that he's paired with Griffey on a card.  I also love the way Donruss used to do their parallels with the shininess and their logo in the background - it's a little messy in scans sometimes but it makes for one helluva card design in person.

Speaking of shiny/crazy backgrounds, Dennis also sent a "Cream of the Crop" blue wave parallel of Billy Hamilton from his SS playing days:

It's /250, and is a really fantastic looking mini.  The back is a little sad though - it rates the Reds top 5 prospects with Billy as #1, Robert Stephenson as #2, Tony Cingrani as #3, and a few meh pitchers in the 4 and 5 spots.  Cingrani himself is a reliever now and Billy obviously isn't hitting yet, so it's really all Robert Stephenson in terms of prospect hope from that list now for the Reds.  He did look decent in his spot start this season, so I guess we'll see!

Dennis likes to help out my random patch collection, and I guess especially so with Vince Youngs, as this is the second cool VY swatch he's sent my way:

A quick COMC search reveals that this set is straight up patchtastic, so I may have to grab another card or two from the Playoffs set over time.

Dennis also hit a few of my football PCs, with a Gold Jarrett Brown parallel auto and a nice little Mohamed Massaquoi rookie relic:

I kind of think of the T's in Brown's signature as little football laces, which makes it especially cool.  Dude is a model of signature consistency for sure.

And last but not least, it wouldn't be a TMM package without a little MIKE JAMES!

I kind of love the way that my James collection is shaping up - lots of 90s commons with the baseball pitcher, some cool lower numbered parallels with the basketball player, and then pretty much all autographs of the NFLer.  Makes for some interesting variations over time which I really dig!

Thanks for the great stuff as always Dennis!  I'll get those Shoelaces to you eventually!