eBay Wins #227

Here's another random penny basketball card, I picked up, and it's an insert no less. I really like Fleer Ultra's baseball designs, and this basketball insert set looks pretty good too. The highlighted circle is slightly embossed, a hallmark of late 90s cards.

1996-97 Fleer Ultra - All-Rookies #8 Kerry Kittles

As I've said before, the NBA definitely gets the short end of the stick when it comes to my sports fandom. There's only so much time to watch games, after all. If you gave me a "real or fake" test with some NBA players names and put Kerry Kittles in there, I might well have said fake. But I looked him up, and he had a 9 year NBA career. I'd certainly recognize any baseball player who played that long during my sports-watching lifetime, and probably any football or hockey player too. I'd have assumed that the reason for my lack of recognition was that the Nets never made the finals while he was on the team, but they actually did two seasons in a row, 2001-02 and 2002-03. I've just got a blind spot for basketball I guess.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	4051
Total Spent	$56.18
Per Card	1.387 cents
Change	0 cents

eBay Wins #225

I'm not a huge basketball collector, partially because I've never really had a home team, but I have a few cards here and there. As a baseball collector, I especially like the cards that mimic the baseball sets from the same year and manufacturer. I can tell just by looking that this card has the same design as 1995 Topps. I wasn't sure if that made it a 94-95 or 95-96 though.

1994-95 Topps #56 Glen Rice

Most of my NBA-watching centered around Michael Jordan, so in my mind this is framed as Jordan's first comeback season, and I don't really have the near-encyclopedic knowledge of every other team like I sometimes seem to in baseball. For example, I knew Glen Rice played for the Hornets, but I didn't know he had several years with the Miami Heat first.

eBay Bargain Tracker
Total Cards Bought	4036
Total Spent	$56.10
Per Card	1.39 cents
Change	0 cents

A Rodney Hampton Contest Win, Part II

I'm falling a little behind on posting due to several days a week of NFL projections and NCAA Football Power Rankings, so now's the time I start catching up. I won this contest back in September, by guessing how many Rodney Hampton cards were in a lot purchased at Sport Card Collectors.
[Part 1]

1989 Donruss #182 Kirby Puckett
1989 Donruss #193 Mike Schmidt
1998 Donruss #40 Wade Boggs
2001 Fleer Futures #2 Manny Ramirez
2002 Donruss #39 Bernie Williams
2015 Topps - Gold #404 Tanner Scheppers #0528/2015

1989 Donruss is one of those junk wax sets I seem to always have plenty of, but with many of those, I'm often missing the big stars. So the Mike Schmidt card actually fills a gap in my collection. I did have a copy of the Kirby Puckett card already. One of these years I'm going to collect a full parallel set from Topps, like the Gold set of this Tanner Scheppers card.

1995-96 Topps
#277 Michael Jordan
#278 Patrick Ewing
#283 David Robinson
1997-98 Topps
#118 Keith Van Horn
#125 Tracy McGrady

I don't have a whole lot of basketball cards, but these are right in my wheelhouse. I rooted for Michael Jordan during his heyday with Chicago. It's hard to believe his comeback was now over 20 years ago.

1992 Elvis Collection
#23
#90
#167
#207
#247
#346
#397
#437
#457

1992 Elvis Collection
#473
#480
#525
#552

1992 Elvis Collection
#34
#54
#58
#110
#172
#174
#245
#251

1992 Elvis Collection
#425
#520
#603

I got two unopened packs of this 1992 Elvis Collection set as part of my prize pack. They're all new to me, as my non-sports collection is pretty small. I was happy to see the cards didn't have the dreaded melted sticky gloss, as many older unopened packs of cards do. They're all in good shape. There's a good mix of black and white and color images, and images from concerts, movies, and Elvis's life. I'd say my favorite is #425, featuring his white studded jumpsuit from a concert.

That's it for the prize package. Thanks again to Sport Card Collectors for the contest!

My Favorite Sets

Fuji asks another question, via The Daily Dimwit: What are your all-time favorite products to collect in each sport?

I only really collect baseball actively, but I've come into some cards from other sports along the way, and I figure, I have enough to pick a favorite of each. Here they are from least favorite to favorite sports.

Basketball

Since there's no team in St. Louis, my interest in the NBA peaked with Michael Jordan's success with the Bulls, and quickly dwindled as that dynasty ended. Even so, I have a few basketball cards, so let's see my favorite:

1990-91 NBA Hoops #308 Phil Jackson

I mostly love this one because it's such a cheesy shot. Phil looks like someone dared to call a foul on Michael! Thus, 1990-91 NBA Hoops wins this prize.

Football

I love watching football, but never got into the cards much. I'd say my favorite product would have to be the 1993 McDonald's GameDay set. Of course, the fact that a "pack" (really an uncut sheet) of cards yielded nothing but superstars probably made it seem pretty great. For some reason the cards weren't regulation-sized though. I remember collecting points on their products, which peeled off much like the monopoly game, but the pieces would be worth 6 (TD), 3 (FG), or 1 (PAT) points. I think it took 10 points for a sheet, and I must have managed to get 30. Usually when it came to McDonald's giveaways, I'd get some bonus pieces from my Grandpa when he'd come to our house to sneak in his unhealthy lunch on Saturdays when my Grandma wasn't aware. But, I digress. Also, I remember worrying they may not let me turn in 3 FGs and a PAT, because how could you have a PAT without a TD?

1993 McDonalds GameDay Sheet A

1993 McDonalds GameDay Sheet B

1993 McDonalds GameDay Sheet C

I actually went and borrowed a Junior Seau scan from CheckOutMyCards as I was drafting this post, but then found these in my basement. I forgot I had the complete set. I never cut the sheets because I had no idea what I would keep the cards in.

Hockey

Hockey is a new collection to me, but I've won several cool cards via SportsCardInfo's contests, and some others. I steal from Fuji on this one and choose a newer version, 2010-2011 Panini Zenith, because I won this nice 5x7:

Which, as you can see, I tore into. And I found this:

An autographed rookie of the #1 draft pick, no big deal or anything.

Baseball

This is the only one that really has a well-considered answer. The others were mostly "what's the neatest thing I've got in this sport?" I decided it needed to be a set that I bothered to complete, which led me to 1997 Studio.

I don't think I actually completed the base set, but I did get all 24 of the 8x10s. These make for a pretty cool binder to flip through, and these are the only cards I keep in a binder. I bought many packs of this product, as this was right around the heaviest of my card buying. The packs were awfully awkward since they had an 8x10 in each one. Eventually I purchased the remaining 8x10s at a Flea Market and 2 local card shops. I found 3 McGwires in my binder, so I really wonder if I lucked into my favorite player from the set, or bought multiples on purpose.

So there you have it, my favorite sets in the Big 4 sports. Also, if there were an "other" category, I'd say the TMNT cartoon cards, but I couldn't find mine anywhere to scan.