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My Favorite Sports Card Pick Ups from 2022

Michael Sommer December 28, 2022

2022 was a good hobby year for me.

The business side of WaxPackHero had its best year ever, and that means I was able to take my concept of a self-sustaining hobby to a whole new level.

I was able to use my profits from sales to pick up a bunch of new cards for my PC! I thought it would be fun to wrap 2022 with a post highlighting 11 of my favorite additions to the collection. All of them were paid for from the sales of other cards, so my true out of pocket cost was $0. Well, actually, eight of them were purchased, two were gifts from fellow collectors, and one was acquired via trade.

1986 Topps Thad Bosley in person auto

The ‘86 Bosley has been highlighted in the blog before. Actually it was the focus of the first ever post.

Back in April, I had Eric Mace on the podcast to discuss his Von Hayes Super Collection. He knew the story behind my love of this card and a few months later he surprised me with a Bosley auto signed directly to me!

Eric is working on a complete set of signed Topps cards and added this card into his request from Thad. Thanks again Eric, I love it!


2000-01 Tyrone Nesby Fleer Ultra Platinum Medallion

I did a lot of thinking this year about experiences from my past. I started to think more and more about finding ways to document and anchor these memories so I don’t forget all things I’ve had a chance to do in my life.

Being a finalist in the Illinois High School Three Point Contest as a junior in high school was one of the most fun accomplishments in my sports career. While I was there, I had a chance to meet Tyrone Nesby when he was a senior in the slam dunk contest. I also found an interview he did where I mentioned being asked for his autograph at the high school dunk contest, and I realized I may have been that kid who got one of his first autographs!

I decided to start buying all the Nesby cards I could, and this Platinum Medallion is the lowest serial number card I’ve been able to find of him so far. I’m still looking for some of his rare and hard to find cards so if you have any, I’m your guy!


2001 Fleer Stone Cold Steve Austin Signature Moves Auto

Wrestling Cards were a whole segment of cards that came more in focus for me this year. When I think about some of my favorite moments of my college years, they revolve around watching Monday Night Nitro and RAW with my friends. The following three cards all tie to those memories!

First up is the 2001 Fleer Stone Cold Steve Austin auto. This card was limited to 500 copies and I was able to pick one up on eBay. This was actually the first card I purchased that went through the eBay/CSG authentication process. One thing to keep in mind if you are interested in finding one of these is that there is another “backdoored” version of the card which is still signed, but is not serial numbered. They are rumored to be backstock/replacement copies which were either sold during the Fleer bankruptcy or removed by employees prior to the sale.


1999 Topps WCW Norman Smiley Auto

Norman Smiley was the target of another super collection I started this year. After talking with Zhan Mourning and a few other wrestling card collectors about my difficulty in getting into modern wrestling cards, they said why not just focus on the guys you have a connection to? I thought “Duh”. I share that concept all the time when I discuss collecting the “big four” sports, but for some reason I wasn’t thinking that way about my wrestling card collection. That meant I was going to dig into the 80s and 90s era wrestlers and Smiley was one of my favorites. He wasn’t a big name, but my friends and I got a kick out of his signature Big Wiggle.

This 1999 Topps auto from the WCW set isn’t easy to find and I was happy to be able to pick it up from a fellow collector I met through Twitter!


1998 Comic Images The Rock Auto

The 1998 Comic Images Rock Auto is the most expensive card I’ve ever purchased on eBay. I also have to say, the authentication program made me more comfortable spending that kind of money. With PSA authenticating that their own slab was legit, I could be pretty confident that everything was on the up and up.

We don’t know exactly how many of these autos are out there, but it seems like it probably isn’t very many. At the same time, there seems to always be at least a few available on eBay at any given time. They may not be reasonably priced, but they are available. I wanted to buy one “big” card of The Rock, and this is the one I landed on. He is right up there with Stone Cold and Norman Smiley as one of my favorite wrestlers from the attitude era.


1994 Press Pass Portraits Jeff Gordon in person auto

Over the last few years I’ve had the opportunity to getting to know Val, Jason, and Logan from Nascard Radio. Earlier this year I joined them for a podcast interview and we were discussing some of the NASCAR autos I had in my collection. They asked me if there were any autos I still wanted to get and I mentioned that someday I wanted to pick up an auto of Dale Earnhardt and Jeff Gordon.

Well, a couple weeks later a package arrived at my house and inside was a t-shirt, some stickers, and an in person auto of Jeff! Val and Logan are the go to resources for racing card info and they have built a huge collection of NASCAR in person autos. I can’t thank them enough for sharing a piece of their collection with me!


1928 Ogden’s Cigarettes Don Bradman

In 2021 there were two individuals who turned me on to how fun collecting an obscure sport could be. I guess I should say, an obscure sport in the US. Cricket is super popular world wide, but it doesn’t carry the same weight here.

A local collector brought a few cricket cards into the shop to show me. He started educating me on who some of the notable cricket players were. To put in it more familiar terms, he told me Don Bradman was the “Babe Ruth of Cricket” and that Sachin Tendulkar was the “Michael Jordan of Cricket”.

At the same time, Ryan Nolan (Breakout Cards) started discussing cricket cards on a couple videos that he did. I had a chance to connect with him and was able to learn even more!

Well this 1928 Ogden’s card is considered by many to be a Don Bradman rookie. There is another more rare card produced right around the same time that is also a possible RC. Either way, I was thrilled to pick this up for a great price from a collector in Australia. It took months for it to finally show up and at one point, I wasn’t sure it was actually going to come. But it finally showed up and I went ahead and got it graded by SGC.


1996 Futera World Cup Warriors Sachin Tendulkar

As I mentioned above, many consider Sachin Tendulkar to be the “Michael Jordan of Cricket”. Ryan Nolan pointed me to the two Sachin 1996 Futera cards as the cards to own. Specifically, this World Cup Warriors card is serial numbered to 2,000.

Since none of these cricket cards were produced in the US, and because it isn’t a popular sport here, it can be hard to find info about the history of these cards and players. Some consider these 1996 Futera cards to be his rookies since they were included in packs and were widely distributed. He does have older cards, but they seemed to be more promotional in nature. Does that really matter? That’s debatable, but this Futera card is still one of the most sought after Tendulkar cards. I picked up two on eBay from a collector in Australia and was lucky enough to have it come back as a 10 when I submitted it to SGC. As of now, it is the only SGC 10 in existence.


1967 Topps Tom Seaver Rookie

By far, the vast majority of baseball cards I’m buying for the PC are vintage. I’m focusing in on building vintage sets and this year I was able to knock out the 1967 set. This Tom Seaver Rookie was the last card I need to finish it and I was able to pick it up on eBay earlier this year.

I love these vintage sets. The history of the game and the stories these cards can tell is just awesome. When it comes to vintage, I don’t really care too much about condition. I just want the cards to be authentic. So if I can pick up a card like this in a lower grade (or even raw if I know the seller) I’m good.

I’ve now got the complete set run back through 1967 and am getting close on the 1960 and 1961 sets. Maybe the final pieces of those will be on my “Best of 2023” list!


1986 Topps Garbage Pail Kids Adam Bomb UK Mini

Non-Sports were also a focus for me in 2022. Vintage Star Wars and Garbage Pail Kids were the priority in 2022. I was able to complete the full run of vintage Topps Star Wars card sets and picked up a huge collection of the Original Series GPK cards.

If I have to narrow it down to my favorite single card I bought, it was this UK mini Adam Bomb which is an SGC 9. I still have a lot to learn about these cards, and I am trying to find a comparison of the print runs of the Series 1 US release and these UK mini cards. If any of you out there know of a good GPK print run resource, let me know! I may be adding a US Series 1 Adam Bomb SGC 9 to my wish list for 2023.


Michael Jordan Autographed Basketball

My favorite pickup from 2022 is this Michael Jordan autographed basketball. It was originally sold and authenticated by Upper Deck and I acquired it from another LCS here in town. I think the part I love about it the most is that I was able to get it entirely through trade where my cost was far lower than the actual value of the ball.

Back in 2016 I was buying collections and one of them contained a Giannis Antetokounmpo Prizm rookie. I had it hanging out in a binder over the last few years, but earlier this summer I decided to have it graded. It came back an SGC 10 and it became a key piece of this trade. I turned basically .50 plus the grading fee into about half the value of this ball. The rest of the trade was all sealed Topps wax which I had purchased at cost and had appreciated significantly. All in all, my actual out of pocket cost for my part of the trade was about 1/3 of the actual value of the ball.

I love this item and will be holding onto it forever!


There were a ton of other non-sports, wrestling cards, vintage baseball, football, and basketball cards and sets that I added. My enthusiasm for my collection was re-energized this year by focusing in on cards that help me reminisce about some great past memories. I hope you enjoyed reading about some of my favorites!

If you enjoyed this post, I’d like to invite you to check out the podcast where I share similar stories! You can find it at the podcast link at the top of the site or on your podcast app of choice!

In Industry, Memories Tags Personal Collection, Michael Jordan, Vintage, Non-Sports, Cricket Cards
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