Gold at the End of the Rainbow

Three years ago, I announced the completion of my Brad Sorensen refractor rainbow. I was still two cards shy of actual completion, but since I had never once seen the gold refractor (/50) or 1/1 superfractor for sale, I didn't have much hope of ever finishing it off.

This is a short, simple post to announce: there is indeed "gold" at the end of this rainbow. Last month, I found a long-sought-after gold refractor on COMC and I pounced. Now I can call it done. I have zero expectation that I will ever find the superfractor, though I do wonder where it is.

In order, base, refractor, x-fractor, prism refractor, red, pink, orange, GOLD, camo, blue wave, blue, purple, sepia, black. DONE.

And here is how it looks in pages (and then onto the flagship base on parallels).

And this will probably be the only rainbow I ever chase.

Still the #1

I know we're halfway through January, but I'm still working on my yearly updates for 2020. Today we'll see the new additions to my Brad Sorensen collection. Last year when I did this update, I had a completed rainbow to show off. I don't have anything of the sort this time around, but even though new Sorensen cards are getting harder for me to pick up, I'm still not relinquishing my grip on the Sorensen collector title.

Now this represents only those collections that are on TCDB. But I think it's fair to say that not many other people out there are interested in matching me.

As always most of my Sorensen acquistions came from COMC this year.

These nine came from COMC. One downside to collecting an obsure player who only had cards in his rookie season is that today's rookie market is all about the auto. I have every base card of Sorensen, but there are still almost 200 cards that I still don't have. Most of those are autos. I already own over 40 Sorensen autographs. How many do I need? But that's what is out there if I want to pick up all of his cards.

The only other Sorensen I picked up that was not from COMC came from a Sportlots box order. I'm telling you, he's hard to find. I've never once traded for a Sorensen card because no one seems to have him. 

So if you have any Brad Sorensen cards lying around, send 'em my way. I may still be the #1 collector, but my collection is only 30% done and my wells are running dry.

Why Are There So Many Songs About Rainbows?

I've gotten in the habit of doing a yearly recap of my Brad Sorensen additions. As of now, I own at least one copy of 80 different Brad Sorensen cards, good for roughly 27% of the total number of cards he has, per Trading Card Database. This is where my collection ranks:

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm probably the only person in the world building a Brad Sorensen collection.

My most recent COMC order added to my collection.

The challenge with collecting someone like Brad Sorensen in this era is that only a couple of companies made base cards of him. His cardboard footprint is mostly autographs. I was able to pick up a couple of really nice auto cards this time around, with the Leaf Trinity Pure being awesome and one of my favorite cards. It's acetate and thick, about 1/8" thick. Plus, it's hand-numbered, which is cool. Where the ink looks smeared, it's not. That's the refraction through the thick plastic causing that effect.

The highlight of my new Brad Sorensen pick-ups was the Topps Chrome Red Refractor. With that card, I've just completed my first rainbow!*

*Well, as complete as it will probably get. I'm still missing the Superfractor and the Gold Refractor, numbered to 50. The Red has a lower print run (25) than the Gold, but I've never seen the Gold version anywhere. It has never been on COMC and eBay shows no current listings and no past sales. So I'll hold a spot in the binder for it, but I'm not holding my breath. The Red was hard enough to track down; this was the first copy I've seen in four years and I snatched it up.

It's not the most exciting photo to make up a rainbow. Essentially, it's a balding guy throwing a pass at the Combine. But he's my T-Birds' quarterback, a Walter Payton Award finalist in 2012. Now that I've finished my Rainbow Connection, I can say what's on the other side. Mostly, it's serial-numbers! In this case, ranging from 499 down to 25.

Trying a Sportlots Box

Not too long ago, I placed my first order through Sportlots with their new box shipping method.  In case Sportlots isn't your thing, or you just haven't been up on it, Sportlots has enabled sellers to offer box shipping.  This means sellers can ship all of their orders to a central Sportlots location, where all of your (the customer's) orders can be grouped together in one package and shipped to you all at once.  The idea is that sellers can offer shipping discounts if they can ship to one location, and the customer saves some money.  In practice, I'm not entirely sure that it saved me all that much money in the end.  I can attest that the per seller shipping cost was far less than it has been in the past.  However, the cost to get my box from Sportlots to me was over $10, and that may have negated the savings from the individual sellers.  Truthfully, I don't know.  I didn't pay enough attention to the numbers to say that for sure.  Next time I'll make that comparison.

The impetus for this purchase came from the temptation to pick up a box of 2013 Crown Royale football for cheap, in hopes of finding some Brad Sorensen parallels I needed.  In the end, my better judgment ruled as I realized that I wasn't interested in the rest of the set, so I would be better off just buying the singles I wanted.  The rest of the purchase was the result of me spending the money that I would have spent on the boxes I didn't really want on cards that I selected myself.

This is what the box looked like when it arrived.  The Sportlots people just took all of the individual packages from the sellers and put them in one medium flat rate box.  I was somewhat surprised, not expecting to see everything in its original packaging from the seller.  It's not a bad thing at all, just different from what I expected.

All of you baseball-only people will probably lose interest after this. This is the extent of the baseball buying I did in this order.  All of these are set needs.

Set needs on the football side came in this form.  You know, for a lower-end product like 2016 Panini was meant to be, I've really had a hard time tracking down some of the no-name rookies in the set at a price I am readily willing to pay.  Kenyan Drake was one of the better rookies of the class, and was cheaper than some of the other guys people had for sale.  The Unsung Heroes insert set from Absolute of the same year is one of my favorites and is now almost done.

Yes, I found some Packers I needed.  All of these are from a special Shopko set issued in 1997 following the Pack's Super Bowl victory.  I had heard of the set, but had never owned any of it.  Now I do.  I still always forget that Andre Rison was a part of that team.  I will never grow tired of Desmond Howard cards on the Packers.

As great as Brett Favre was for that team, my favorite Packer of the era was LeRoy Butler.  I'm not sure there has ever been a better blitzing defensive back.  One of these cards is evidence--Butler is sacking Trent Dilfer on his 1997 Stadium Club card.

Butler was a somewhat under-recognized member of the 1990s All-Decade Team.  Mostly because of their positions, these guys were too.  These cards are very 90s.  Skybox Thunder and Topps Gilt Edge (modeled here by Larry Allen and Mark Stepnoski) in particularare uniquely 90s.  I have to say, I don't understand why a set called "Gilt Edge" has some kind of tribal islander theme.  It makes no sense.  And what would the 90s be without an early Bowman's Best and some Pacific (Tony Boselli and Bryant Young)?

 A parallel universe!  Or at least some cards that are parallels.  Check out that mid-oughts Kansas City offensive line.  Priest Holmes and Larry Johnson may have been great running backs in their own right, but having these guys in front of them didn't hurt matters.

Inserts ranging from the mid-90s Stadium Club to last years Panini Unparalleled.  All of these players, with the exception of the Boz, go into my All-Decades collection.  Poor Bosworth.

The order wasn't all 90s love, though.  Here are some stars of the 80s on cards from the late 70s and early 80s.  Gotta love two HOF DBs on one leaders card here.

Progressing through the 80s here.  I may be biased here, but I love the 1989 Score John Anderson.  Anderson is a Packer great who is way underrepresented on cardboard.  The action shot on this card, of Anderson and Tim Harris swallowing up a Bills runner is awesome.

 

This lone 1980 card may seem important because it includes a picture of Walter Payton.  However, I wanted it for a different reason.  This happens to be the rookie card of one Len Walterscheid, the first Southern Utah State College player to go on to the NFL.  This makes this the first card of any one of my fellow alumni.  Walterscheid wasn't drafted, though.  The first draft pick didn't come until 2013.  Walterscheid's son, Justin, also played for SUU during the time I attended school.  Justin is currently the offensive coordinator at SUU, since 2015.

And, finally, stickers!  I don't actively pursue many stickers, but when I'm trying to round out my collection of 80s era safeties and linemen, they do a great job of filling slots on a page.  From top left: Dave Butz, Kenny Easley, Nolan Cromwell, Brian Hansen, Kenny Easley, Carl Banks, Dwight Stephenson, Dwight Stephenson, and Eric Dickerson.

Speaking of Eric Dickerson, I'll end with three inserts.  I'm pretty Jon will like the first one.  In fact, he may have already shown it on his blog recently.  Maybe?  It's a nice-looking set that I've enjoyed from his COMC purchases, and this is one of a few that I own as well.

In all, the Sportlots box turned out to be a better purchase for me than 2 boxes of Crown Royale.  And what about the Brad Sorensen cards that sparked the purchase?

Yeah, I found a few.

Brad Sorensen Additions: 2018

Anybody who reads this blog knows that I collect BYU players.  It has become a bigger and bigger focus for me over the past couple of years.  However, I don't claim BYU as my alma mater.  Yes, I do hold a degree from BYU, but it's a graduate degree and I took all of my courses off-campus.  If anybody asks where I went to school, the answer is Southern Utah University.  During my time there, SUU had no football program to speak of.  Well, there was a program.  What they lacked was wins.  A small school with a team that can't beat anybody even at its own level doesn't generate much gridiron excitement.  It wasn't until after I graduated that things started to pick up.  Just six years ago, the school had its first NFL draft pick: QB Brad Sorensen.  So even though everybody sees the BYU accumulations on here, its easy to forget that one of my greatest hobby prides is that I'm probably the only Brad Sorensen collector out there.  No COMC order is complete without a Brad Sorensen included and his name is the only saved search I have on ebay.  The problem is that he doesn't have too many cards.  If I wanted, I could keep buying the same cards over and over, but that's not my style.  As it stands, I currently own 59 unique Sorensens, of 305 cards listed on the Trading Card Database.  I have a ways to go, certainly, before I can call my collection complete.

Here are all of the unique Brad Sorensens I added this year.

I picked up some parallels.  With the pink refractor addition, I'm only two away from the rainbow.  I need the gold refractor, numbered to 50, and the red numbered to 25.  I guess there are three remaining if you count the superfractor, but I have no hope of ever seeing that one.

And more parallels.  The Fleer Retro Showcase Legacy Collection card on the right is a mouthful to say, but a beautiful piece of cardboard.

Obviously, autos are easier to come by than other cards at this point.  Actually, I've found that to be the case with many smaller name players in recent sets.  Those players typically get rookie cards with tons of parallels and autos, and then are never seen on cardboard again.  There autographs and parallels of autographs galore.  Meanwhile, he has eight non-auto base cards.

This one might be my favorite Sorensen card.  It's shiny and metallic in-hand, and the auto is on-card.  It really is beautiful.

I used my ebay bucks at some point in 2018 to pick up the first printing plate in my collection.  This one is the yellow plate from Panini Black.

I'm pretty sure most of you don't have Brad Sorensen cards lying around, but if you do, I'll take them on if we can work out a trade.

How I Spent My Christmas Break

In my last post, I wrote that I was finished with cards for the year.  I had two weeks off of school and I made the decision that I would refrain from spending any time with my cardboard collection.  In the meantime, I planned to spend some time with one of my other hobbies, namely building stuff.  Like P-Town Tom a few weeks back, I pulled out my trusty Kreg Jig and my miter saw and set to work building a window seat/storage bench for our upstairs loft. 

This is what a two week break from cards will get you.  Child not included.  It's all finished now except for the painting, but that's my wife's job.  I saved a little time and money when I lucked into some dresser fronts in Ikea's scratch and dent corner.  All I had to do was frame it in, attach the facades, and build the lids.  Next project: a built-in bookcase to the left of this picture to complete our kids' reading nook.

Though I vowed to keep myself away from cards, the cards didn't stay away from me.  Since this is a card blog, I'll take this opportunity to show off some cardboard that came in the mail over the break, which I glanced at and tucked away in the closet until I could scan and file them.

First, there was a small PWE trade with Nachos Grande.  We swapped some Topps Gallery.  He is working on the set, and I just saw some guys I collect on his trade list.  The top two are base cards.  The Addison Russell on the bottom is an Artist Proof parallel.  Eric Hosmer is shown on a Masterpiece insert, which I really think is the best-looking set of the year.

Right before Christmas break, I made a purchase on ebay.  This Leaf Valiant card is quite pretty in-hand.  It's a shiny on-card auto, representing the 7th Brad Sorensen autograph in my collection.  And it only cost me $1.29 shipped.  I'll take that all day long.

It was good two weeks off, but I'm glad to be back at it now.  I am referring to both work and cards, of course.  I hope all of you had a good holiday season and have started the new year off on the right foot.

A Sportlots Order to Ease the Pain

It has been a rough October for me, sports-wise at least.  There are three sports entities that I vehemently cheer for: the Green Bay Packers, the Chicago Cubs, and the BYU Cougar football team.  After last night's NLCS clincher, I can safely say that there has been a net loss for my teams this month.  While it was nice to have the Cubs playing in October, there was never really sense that they would get too far this year.  Kershaw made sure of that.  The Packers may have a winning record for the month so far, but there is one loss that will be difficult to overcome: the loss of Aaron Rodgers to injury.  And BYU football this has been nothing short of abject failure.  Last year, they managed a record of 9-4 with the four losses coming against good teams (Utah, UCLA, West Virginia, and Boise State) by a grand total of 7 points.  This year the record stands at 1-6, with the only victory coming against FCS Portland State.  This is worst start to a season since before LaVell Edwards became coach in 1972.  Wilson has them at #120 in his Power Rankings, and to those of us who have watched them play, that feels too high. 

As a consolation, I'll just have to turn to some new BYU acquisitions from Sportlots to remember better days past.  In January, I stated that my 2017 collecting goal was to work on my BYU collection.  I had never considered focusing on collecting BYU players, even as much I love the team, but now I realize that recalling old players and great players from the past has been a good bonding mechanism between me and older family members, and I now want it to be the same with my sons.  I like to pull out the cards when I'm talking sports to my kids, so I decided to ramp up my BYU collection this year.  I started 2017 with a mere 105 cards of former Cougars, but I've been able to more than double that number so far this year.  Remembering that this program has actually won more games than all but 5 other programs since the Edwards era began makes this season a little bit easier to take.

One of the first great QBs to play in Provo was Gifford Nielsen.  He was the first in a string of over a decade's worth of future NFL quarterbacks that gave the school the nickname QB U.  Yes, I know other school's have the same nickname, but with 4 Davey O'Brien winners in 12 years, it certainly fit BYU in the 1980s.

Jim McMahon was the first of those Davey O'Brien winners.  He went on to a long NFL career with five NFL teams. 

I didn't pick up any Steve Young in this order, so we have to skip to the next Davey O'Brien winner, Ty Detmer.  Of course, it's really fun to look back on Ty's playing days.  But his association with this current squad is tough to take.  He is the offensive coordinator of a truly anemic offense that has produced an average of 11 points per game.  Contrast that with Detmer's own Heisman winning season, when the team put up over 40 points per game, and I'm ready to look at some more cards.

John Walsh succeeded Ty Detmer at BYU and probably would be better remembered had he followed someone different.  He played well enough as a sophomore and junior to leave school early and enter the 1995 draft, where he was drafted by the Bengals.  This is one of few autographs I picked up on Sportlots for cheap.

Steve Sarkisian followed Walsh and was actually much better than Walsh, but I have never seen a card of him.  The team ran through a couple of forgettable quarterbacks after that before Brandon Doman took the reins as the first quarterback in the post-LaVell Edwards era.  His 2001 season was outstanding as the team rode him and Doak Walker Award winner Luke Staley to a 12-0 start before falling inexplicably to Hawaii, a loss that killed BCS hopes and sent the Cougars to a disappointing Liberty Bowl, where they lost in uninspiring fashion to Louisville.  Doman, for his part, went on to an NFL career with the 49ers and eventually went into coaching.

Since Sarkisian in 1996, John Beck has been my favorite Cougar quarterback.   He won over BYU fans with some unforgettable wins against arch-rival Utah.  There has only been one since he graduated.  He went on to become a 2nd round draft pick of the Dolphins, where he never fit in with new head honcho Bill Parcells.  He was eventually sent to the Redskins, who gave him several chances to start, but he never could hold on to the job.

Of course, not every BYU great has been a QB.  Jamal Willis was the school's career leading rusher when he graduated.  Austin Collie was on his way to a solid NFL career when a series of scary concussions cut it short.  Reno Mahe had few years as the Eagles' return specialist.  He is now BYU's running backs coach.  He lives in my city and ran for city council last year.  (No, I didn't vote for him, but I've been less than satisfied with the current city council, including those I helped elect.  I have no one to blame but myself.)

Here we have a couple of great BYU tight ends.  I find it interesting that Itula Mili is wearing three different numbers in three different cards here.  These are my first cards of both of these players, as they both played during the period I wasn't collecting.

Here we have a whole bunch of cards of unsung heroes, the players who make their living under the radar.  Some of these guys, like Bart Oates, John Tait, Ryan Denney, and Kurt Gouveia had very long NFL careers.  Ziggy Ansah is almost a household name for his sackmaster abilities, and Brett Keisel became well-known for his beard.  Of these players, Shawn Knight, John Tait, Rob Morris, and Ansah were all NFL 1st Rounders.  These are my first cards of Evan Pilgrim and Ryan Denney.

I also used this Sportlots order to fill in my Brad Sorensen collection.  Sorensen is also a former Cougar, technically, but he transferred to SUU because he was buried at fourth on the depth chart.  He is now Exhibit A in the criticism of ex-BYU coach Bronco Mendenhall's inability to handle quarterback talent.  In the two years Sorensen spent at SUU, he flourished into a Walter Payton award finalist and became the school's first ever draft pick.  BYU's quarterback situation was an utter disaster as fans watched the #1 QB recruit in the country be benched in favor of a guy who was prone to throw the ball in the dirt and every quarterback on the roster struggled until Taysom Hill came in and grabbed the starting position.

As a finale of my Sportlots order, I was able to step closer to completing a couple sets, and I finished 1995 Collector's Choice (after only 22 years of working on it!), 2013 Panini Prizm, and 2014 Contenders.

Good luck to everybody's teams this weekend.  I'll be choking down 1-6 BYU taking on 1-6 East Carolina.  At least they might win this one.  But, then again, they might not. . .