My Unofficial Goodwin Champions Collection Vol. 5: Goudey Greats!

Time for the final installment in my Goodwin Champions PC series!  This one is all about that Goudey goodness.

CP Munk (look it up)!

Starting things off with my third most expensive card from Goodwin Champions, CM Punk at his most Wolverine-est!  I want to say WolverPunk was right around $9.

Some race car man..

Goudey was Upper Deck's first answer to Topps' Allen & Ginter.  It ran as its own brand from 2007-2009 and it was... mostly good.  Year one were entirely the small square size of original 1930s Goudey, and had a weird duality gimmick to them.  2008 was the best version, though like with any artsy set, there were a few Dick Perez specials.  2009 had a serious flaw in that much of the set looked like horrifying waxy, plasticy abominations of nature, but if you can get past it, it was still as fun a rip as any other.

Later years used the original Goudey/Sport Kings size for minis.  I don't know for sure if they were one-per-pack in 2008, but I vaguely recall them being every other pack in the blaster of 2009 I picked up a few years back.  I dunno though.  I'd love to bust some more of the original run someday, but I haven't come across any since that blaster.

Former Blackhawk great Jeremy Roenick..

Goudey likely would have continued as its own brand had Topps not ruined the entire card industry forevermore by nabbing an exclusive license to lord their boring garbage products over the rest of us with.  Now pretty much every sport except soccer (& maybe hockey still?) are exclusively produced by a single company and, pardon my language, but well... it fucking sucks.

Non-autos? So that's just like inserts then..

Fortunately, UD was eventually able to find a place for the brand within Goodwin Champions line.  I'm not sure, but I might not actually have that Miesha "Flukiest Champion in the History of Sports" Tate anymore.  I might have sent it to the currently hiatusing(?) Raz in the package I sent him in July.  If not, and I can find it, it'll go to him next time.  I think it's fair to say I don't think much of her as a fighter.

One more 2016 insert..

And a 2017..

While I like the simplicity and colorfulness of 2016's Goudey inserts, I love the look of 2017's.  It's better to me in every way.  This looks like it could be the base set design for a standalone Goudey product, and I am feeling it.

So much MMA!

Here it is in autographed form, with professional asskicker Amanda Nunes.  I like that the brand/nameplate and space for the autograph take up considerably less room, and that they used fuller body photographs in this iteration.

Mo' 'Manda..

Finally, an important aspect of the original Upper Deck Goudey run was the Sport Royalty subset, which was a part of the run of shortprints.  As the name implies, it featured stars from other sports.  I tried to complete the 2008 set, but I didn't make it too far.

Presidents, certain base legends, black & white photos, and Heads Up cards made up the rest of the shortprint run over the brand's lifespan, but I think Sport Royalty may have been the only consistent SP'd subset across all three years.  You could also pull the SPs in mini form in all the various hues of parallel.  I'm not sure about relics, but I'm certain it was possible to pull autos of at least some of the subjects.

That puts a bow on this series for now.  But once September's shipment arrives and gets scanned & edited into bite-sized chunks, I will likely have the means to produce at least two more installments in this series.  So look forward to that.  Or don't.  The flake-out is inevitable, after all.  Thanks for stopping by though.  I really do appreciate it.

Until our next...

My Unofficial Goodwin Champions Collection Vol. 4: The Hottest Hits of 2017

Back to the series posts! Here's part four of my Goodwin Champions collection!  We're getting into the home stretch of... oh, let's call it "season one" of this series (I will have the stuff for at least three more episodes on down the line).  This post is all about my hits from last year's set.  Here we go.

Scooped! Suck it, Topps!

This is the second most expensive card in Goodwin Champions collection, weighing in at a cool $9.49.  That is the cheapest I've seen Bouchard sell for, so I admittedly got very lucky with her (heh).  It's nice that I won't have to fret over never being able to afford her Allen & Ginter auto from this year's set.

Quincy returns..

The photo selection seems to have gotten better over the years, but sometimes the backgrounds are super distracting.  They sorta remind me of driving scenes in old movies & cop shows with obvious fake footage scrolling in the background.

Xue Chen x2..

I got two of these when they at were way below what they typically are on the site.  One was for me, and the other was for a certain volleyball collector I've been needing to send stuff since the Obama administration, which was, if my calculations are correct, 139 years ago.  But anyway, it turned out they were likely so cheap because they both had dinged corners.  They're still plenty presentable, but that was a bummer.  There was no condition notification on them (I've mentioned on multiple occasions elsewhere about how wildly inconsistent they are about that on COMC).

Seeing double..

I mentioned in the previous Goodwin Champions post that pink swatches don't happen enough, and the same goes for purple.  They are less important to me, but more solid orange and green swatches would be cool too.  And for as many teams that wear it, I don't feel like I see enough solid blue swatches either.  It's always pinstripes.  Ugh...

Still seeing double..

Here is the other hilariously high-numbered, hand-numbered inscription auto.  I am happy to have it.  This is another one with a very distracting background.

Cookie Monster..

It's all MMA for the rest of this post.  For the nice little collection of MMA ladies I've built up, you'd think I'd have watched more fights, but alas, you'd be very wrong.

Seeing double again..

Honestly, I've barely even watched any of the major team sports the past couple years.  I haven't had a TV in years, I can't afford to pony up for a season pass to anything, and I've never found any sustainably reliable illegal streams, so I've mostly gone without.  I feel occasionally feel a mighty need to get back into to it, but honestly, I don't often find myself missing it all that much.  It's just... the best background noise you can get most of the time.

Okay I'm done..

It says model on Chrissy Blair's cards, which is true.  But if you know her name at all, you'd likely know it due because she's an Octagon Girl with UFC.

Sick-ish patch, bro..

I'm not exactly sure what this "Premium Series" relic is from, but despite the card itself being super thicc, the swatch itself just feels like a regular swatch of average thickness.  It's probably just a piece of shirt that happened to have lettering on it.  Still a nice addition though.

Base auto..

Winding it down with this sweet trio of my girl Felice.  The background on these are quite distracting too, but also kinda... relaxing?  Odd...

And the inscription..

Seriously, I have picked up so many Felice Herrig's from this set, you guys!  This ain't even all of them.  Check back in October if I haven't flaked out by then, because there's still one more of note in my collection worth posting about.

That's all for now.  Just one more post left in this series (though there could be more later)!

Until our next...

My Unofficial Goodwin Champions Collection Vol. 2: Red vs. Blue

2016 Royal Red Aly Raisman & Stefanie Johnson..

The second part of my unofficial Goodwin Champions PC series is all about the parallels.  There isn't much extra going on with the base set, but 2016 & 2017 featured photo variations, shortprinted black & white high numbers, and the red and blue parallels I'm here to give you the good word on today.  So strap in because, the formatting is about to get hella wonky! 😆

Royal Blue Xue Chen, Carla Esparza, & Wu Minxia..

Told ya!  There wasn't much rhyme or reason to the direction of how I scanned things, and there won't be much rhyme or reason to where they go in this post.

Paige Selenski horizontal...

...and vertical!

Because of my editorial laziness, I don't even have enough blues to switch the colors on & off.  Oh well...

Royal Blue Quincy Davis B&W & color, and Eugenie Bouchard..

I do like the blues a lot more than the reds though.  The reds are actually kind of painful to look at, while the blues are much more welcoming, despite still being a fairly bright shade.  Also, Eugenie is in Allen & Ginter this year, after being in Goodwin Champions in 2017.  Topps got scooped!

Royal Red Kaylyn Kyle & Melissa Baker..

But why are they all women, you seem to be asking.  And to that I would answer, why not?

Vertical Aly & Melissa..

Most of these ladies are world class women of sport, but Melissa Baker is a model.  Thus is the mystery and wonder of Goodwin Champions.

CLB..

You can find all manner of athletes, celebrities, historical figures, politicians, random animals... It's one of those sets, and I am grateful for its delightfully strange and borderline incoherent existence.

2016 Royal Red Haley Anderson..

I hope to have a supplemental installment of a page worth of the aforementioned random animals to show you somewhere on down the line.  Athletic beauties and exotic animals are pretty much all anyone need in life, tbh.

2017 Royal Blue Felice Herrig..

One last blue to close it out, and that does it for episode two of my Goodwin Champions collections series.  Thanks for stopping by!

Until our next...

Blog Bat Around- What I Collect

I am a walking disaster.  I don't particularly want to be, but I don't seem to have much say in the matter.  I rarely wake up with more than maybe 50% of an average person's energy levels (usually more like 30%), and usually little-to-no ability to focus that extremely limited energy on things that actually need to be done.  When combined with all the other numerous mental health issues I deal with on any given day, things often fire off in strange and unusual ways.  The most mundane things can turn into a ridiculous adventure with me.

What does my damage have to do with my collection, you may be wondering?  The answer is everything.  The way I collect is directly tied into how wildly unstable my mental health and energy levels and total inability stay on target or handle structure in any meaningful way.  My least structured collections are the ones I enjoy and indulge in the most, even though I would likely would have finished many of the more structured ones by now if I were able to concentrate the bulk of my energy on them.  But anyway, with all that tediously said, these are the things I collect.

 SKETCH CARDS

Yes, sketch cards are pretty much my favorite thing in the world.  I want to own them all!  Somehow, even with my horrible budget restrictions and the wide net my collection casts, I've still managed to to accumulate somewhere around 300 keepers over the years, and I don't plan on stopping anytime soon.  It's just pure fun, even with the growing amount of structure I continue to impose on this collection.  They also look absolutely phenomenal in a binder.  That doesn't hurt.

Nico Minoru (Runaways) by Stefanie Battalene..

My primary collections are Raven & Starfire from DC Comics and She-Hulk & Rogue from Marvel, but there are many other specific things I'm interested in (several other comic characters, video game, cartoon, & anime PSCs, sports, Star Wars, a page from specific sets, etc...), and like I said, I am open to just about anything if I like it enough.

Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) sketch card drawn by yours truly..

I also make art myself and am open to commissions or trades (art trades or for cards in general), but as noted above, energy, focus, and (in this case) confidence are often problems, so it may take a long time for me to get anything done.  I have dozens and dozens of finished sketch cards of available if you want something from me but don't wanna wait on a commission though.

Lara Croft 9x12" pinup..

I'm known to pick up larger pieces of original art on occasion when I can find them cheap enough during lulls in the never-ending hunt for more sketch cards.  There are some absurdly good deals on truly fantastic art by criminally underappreciated talents out there on the interwebs, due to the gross inequality and general lack of appreciation of art and/or artists that afflict our world.  The above Lara Croft pinup was one of a half-dozen wonderful works of art I picked up from a single seller that combined to average out to around $7.50 apiece.

And one more sketch card, just because..

MISCELLANEOUS NON-SPORT/OTHER SPORT HITS

2000 Press Pass Rage Tara Dakides Graffiti Autograph..

I considered this to be primarily a non-sport collection until fairly recently.  The Olympic stuff & Goodwin Champions hits have really started to pile up in recent months though, so I figured I'd just lump it together here, for simplicity's sake.

Never watched Idol, but I had a Jtv/Twitter friend who knew her, so...

I don't really go in with a plan with this collection, even less so than with the sketches, where I do have some specific character wants.  Here it's mostly just a matter of finding someone I like, or at least recognize, and if I the price is right, I'll pick it up.  Heck, if it's cheap enough (or if they're pretty enough), I don't necessarily even need to recognize them.

Blue is the best color parallel. Don't @ me..

SINGLE PAGE SENSATIONS

The start of one of my newest player pages..

Exactly what it says on the tin. Nine cards.  One page.  For anyone I like enough to want to collect, but not enough to want to bother with a full PC.  They might also just be too expensive, lacking enough cardboard, or some combination (or all) of the above.

Quite possibly the single greatest photo variation of all-time..

Collecting like this allows me to collect more of the players I like and allows me to bling those collections out a bit more than would be possible with full collections.  I feel it's the best possible quality over quantity solution, though I admit, the sheer volume of stuff I collect does noticeably dilute things (moreso in speed than overall quality, but the quality probably does take a small hit).  I also do this with sets I like a lot too, because I don't have the focus (or space) to be a set collector.

My page of random non-baseball A&G autos is coming along nicely

I think I have *at least* 55-60 baseball Single Page Sensations, not even counting my Cubbies (which is probably another 20 or more), and the number seems to go up by a few more every season, over 30 basketball (there are no additional full collections or teams to worry about though), and 25-ish football, with at least a dozen more Bears on top of that, and a handful of current and former Blackhawks from their dynasty of the past decade.

Gold refractor /50..

There are also a few soccer players, several wrestlers, MMA ladies, Star Wars & comic characters (mostly the same ones I have dedicated sketch card collections of).

One of the MMA ladies I collect, even though I barely watch it..

FULL COLLECTIONS

An amazing custom from a couple Christmases ago by mah boi Gavin..

Now onto the full collections, of which there are few enough I can probably just list off.  These are the most tedious collections, even with soft capping them off at 100 ala mah boi Gavin.  I should have probably completed at least half of them by now.  I just can't maintain my focus on them very well because they are big and unwieldy.  I'm terribad about trying to make them as blingy as Single Page Sensations when that isn't really their purpose as well.

Bling..

Anyway, here are the full PCs.  I prefer to fill the sports ones via trades because that's the easiest way for me to do it without getting all hung up on things to the point where I mostly just ignore them.

A photo from the archives..

Cubs: Javier Baez (maybe), Ernie Banks, Kris Bryant, Starlin Castro, Andre Dawson, Kosuke Fukudome, Fergie Jenkins, Aramis Ramirez, Anthony Rizzo, Ryne Sandberg, Kyle Schwarber (maybe), Sammy Sosa, & Billy Williams.  I guess Yu Darvish belongs on this list instead of the non-Cubs list now too.

The rare mid-tier insert from recent years that has retained its value..

Other Baseball: Jose Abreu, Robinson Cano, Nomar Garciaparra, Vladimir Guerrero, Frank Robinson, Ichiro Suzuki, & Frank Thomas.

My only Matt Forte autograph..

Bears: Matt Forte, Devin Hester, Alshon Jeffery, Thomas Jones, Kyle Orton, Walter Payton, Gale Sayers.

Star Rubies used to be a hyuuuge deal..

Other Football: Jamaal Charles, Warrick Dunn, Randy Moss, & LaDainian Tomlinson.

My latest of my queen..

Pro Graps: AJ Lee, Booker T, Eve Torres, Sarita/"Dark Angel" Sarah Stock.

A higher end base card of the Jade Giantess #'ed /225..

Comic/Star Wars: Rogue, She-Hulk, & Ahsoka Tano.

So many Ahsokas..

OTHER COLLECTIONS

He was great, but wasn't around long enough to get attached..

There are some things I don't have any specific use for, or really actively seek, but I like to hang onto when they find their way to me anyway.  I have binders for some of the nicer miscellaneous Cubs, other baseball, Bears, other football, basketball, hockey, and "girlie" cards, as they've been dubbed (because most card bloggers apparently fund their operations by being of old-timey private detectives and/or radio hosts and/or barkeeps from the first half of the 20th century).  Soccer and non-sport, certain non-hit items featuring dudes are also under varying degrees of consideration.

If they have cardboardy backs, I needs 'em..

I'm also chasing a Buyback Frankenset (+ "inserts" & hits!) that I can turn into a massive repurposed sketch card set.  I don't think I even have more than 20 cards to put towards it right now, so if anyone can help me out with that, I would appreciate it very much.

Pokemon cards have gotten crazy looking since I was a kid..

The last thing I'm after at the present time is one of every Pokemon from the TCG (and maybe a few more key character cards while I'm at it, since I already have a couple in secret rares in Misty & Team Rocket).  This is another one I'm struggling with wanting to be as blinged out as possible, since just about every card has at least a reverse foil parallel these days, so even the common as heck weaklings get the chance to be shiny these days.  I'm a little further along on this goal, but it's already pretty close to the same size as the buyback frankenset, and will only grow hugerer as new generations add more new mons for me to chase.

Epic Misty..

THINGS I'M NO LONGER COLLECTING

Sorry Charly. Also, you have a huge hole in the side of your dress..

There are a couple sizable collections I've built up that I'm no longer interested in pursuing.  Really they are probably mostly being dropped more out of lack of resources than lack of interest.  So with that said, I'm no long chasing anything just because it's NXT-related.  I never got far with this anyway, but it did produce the odd gem here & there.

Not sure if this Cooks RC has actually turned up yet or not..

A far more fruitful, but ultimately doomed pursuit, was my RC collection.  Another great looking binder of randomness, I'm extremely reluctant to drop this one.  There are a few I'll hang onto (Payton, Rice, Trout, maybe a Posey since I accumulated three or four different ones somehow, and maybe some team & player collection RCs), but the vast majority will be available, for sale preferably.  But if you come at me with an offer I can't refuse, I might be willing to trade something from the roughly 350 RCs & prospects (there are some inserts, parallels, & a couple scrub relics in the boxes too) I've dug up so far.

So yeah, that's the whirlwind of madness that is my collection right now.  Thanks for having a look around.  If you wanna do some wheeling & dealing, feel free to drop me a line.

Until our next...