Finally Landed Him!

Every year after the draft, I try to land an autograph of every Giants rookie to add to my collection. Last year it took me the full season but I was able to pull most off all but one. Which that one shouldn't be too hard to land despite his great season so far this year.

However, in the 2023 draft, the season is halfway over and so far I have only added one of their picks which was Deonte Banks, their first-round corner and that was only recently.

The one I have been wanting the most was their fast WR in the third round in Jalin Hyatt. I have been watching his cards for months and months and months stay at $40 or so average. I felt that was a little too steep especially for a guy that hasn't made much of an impact or much of an opportunity to do so with poor quarterback play. He also doesn't seem to be on the field much.

I guess a few days ago my patience finally paid off as I not only finally landed a Hyatt auto, but also landed Eric Gray's who is the Giants backup running back they drafted in the fifth round.

 

The card is from Leaf Vivid and is numbered to 5/8 and looks beautiful. The only problem I have with it is that it doesn't feature the players in their big blue. That's the problem with buying non-NFL licensed cards. But, it's at least an autograph for now. I can always upgrade later.

There are still others from this year's draft I need to land and add to my want list for Giants autographs. I will hopefully add that tab back sometime on here.

In the meantime, I am keeping my eyes open for the next addition.

Rare Browns

I run a 90's Twitter account where I post 90's topics or inserts and parallels occasionally from my collection.

And sometimes I get replies with cards I hadn't seen before.

One of those were from 1998 in 1998 Pinnacle Inscriptions. These extremely rare cards were unreleased autograph cards that were sent out to players to be signed but were given out to fans or forgotten in someone's basement. This is according to @majeansson who posted about these to me. 

I immediately spied a Dave Brown in his picture and being both big 90s collector and obvious Giants fan, I needed one. That's when he mentioned there were three variations also of the card to.

So, I hit up eBay looking for any copy of the card and found a seller who was willing to sell me two of the three variations for $1 each.

 a

Purple variation.

 

Green variation.

I still need the Gold Variation. If any of you spy it, let me know!

Thanks again to @majeansson for the heads up on these.

Hopefully I can track down the last one soon. Who knows, maybe this leads to a Dave Brown PC now. You never know how my mind works.... (I may have already checked into this and also noticed that TCDB does not list these cards which is how rare they are)

As The Season Draws Near....

 As football season finally is coming, I get more amped about adding new Giants cards to my collection.

Like this NEW Rueben Randle Bowman Chrome Blue refractor.

 

Or my first Hodgins Giants autograph. I do have other Hodgins autograph cards, but this is my first Giants one. He only has two Giants autographs that I am aware of. This one and a Panini Instant playoff card from last year. I really like him as a player so hoping he can step it up again like last year and hopefully gets some playing time with a somewhat loaded Giants WR core.

 

And other than Saquon, this guy will be the main reason the Giants offense will thrive if it does. He is such a massive weapon for Daniel Jones and they have been dangerous so far in camp. Hopefully that translates to the season as well.

Thoughts on my latest pickups welcomed in comments!

My Isaiah Hodgins PC Thus Far

He wasn't the biggest name of the 2020 NFL Draft when the Buffalo Bills drafted him, but he made a big impact on the 2022 NY Giants.

Isaiah was drafted in the 6th round by the Bills in 2020 but never caught on with the team that was already loaded at WR. He was waived on November 1st and grabbed by the Giants on November 2nd. He hauled in 4 touchdowns in the final 5 games with the Giants helping them on their run. Then in the playoffs against the Vikings, he hauled in 8 catches for 105 yards and a touchdown. He had the flash of a number one guy for Daniel Jones.

I caught on with Hodgins in the first few games he had with the Giants and decided I wanted to chase his cards.

I don't have a lot yet, but here is what I have so far,

2020 Sage Hit base

Sage Aspire Bronze Autograph

Leaf Gold autograph

2020 Prizm Draft Autograph

2020 Score Autograph

2020 Score Green Autograph

 

2020 Luminance Red Ink autograph

Not a bad start, especially in the autograph department. But, there is a long way to go. 

I have begun to add my collection to TCDB, so if you have any I don't, let me know!

Thoughts on Hodgins or my collection so far welcomed in comments.

Let's Talk About Dre

In the 4th round of the 2014 NFL Draft, the NY Giants select Boston College Running Back Andre Williams.

The Giants seemed to had found their guy in Williams later in the draft or at least thought they had. Williams played well his rookie season finishing with 721 yards and 7 touchdowns and I thought his momentum would carry over to his sophomore year....but it didn't. He had 88 carries for 257 yards and one rushing touchdown. The following the year he was cut by the Giants and landed mainly on the Chargers practice squad before getting injured and not playing football again until he played one season in the cancelled 2020 XFL season.

His career didn't last long with the Giants, but my collecting of him did. For some reason or another I hooked right onto Williams his rookie year and have continued to add to my collection ever since. What most collectors would call junk cards I actually consider great.

I recently added some cool, and cheap cards.

The patch on this one had me, the autograph was just a bonus and the /10 part was the bonus of the bonus.

Topps Field Access never gets the credit it deserves. Great photography and a deep autograph checklist.

Breast Cancer Awareness arm band swatch.

2014 Topps Fire, the Inagural year of the product, is still to me the best looking of the group.

/44 Crown Royale autograph.

 

/15 Crown Royale autograph.

I am hoping to chase more of these autos. I really like the silhouette die-cut look and the shine behind the player.

Some solid additions for that PC. I really need to get this collection up on TCDB so I know where I stand and what I need.

Thoughts on my latest additions welcomed in comments!

The Score 2022 Autograph Chase

It was nice to see this year's Score football release come out a little later so the rookies can be featured in their NFL uniforms as opposed to college ones which is the typical thing for Score.

Which made me like this year's product even more than usual. Not too mention, it included a ton of Giants autographs on its checklist.

So, when I saw that Jashaun Corbin was apart of that checklist,I had to have it. I didn't have his autograph yet and he was a part of the Giants 2022 rookie class.

Next up, even though Kyle Rudolph was not great for the Giants, he still played for them, and I still wanted his autograph in blue. Well, Score had one for me.

Both of these autographs combined I paid less than $10 for.

After landing both though, I had a crazy idea. What if I chased all of the Giants base autographs from Score? How cool would that be?

So here is what I would have to chase if I decide to continue,

Azeez Ojulari
Daniel Jones
Eli Manning (has only a base red zone /20)
Evan Neal (rookies signature green)
Jashaun Corbin
Kyle Rudolph
Kayvon Thibodeaux
Kenny Golladay
Michael Strahan
WanDale Robinson (rookies signature green)
Xavier McKinney

Here is what I would have left after today's post,

So here is what I would have to chase if I decide to continue,

Azeez Ojulari
Daniel Jones
Eli Manning (has only a base red zone /20)
Evan Neal (rookies signature green)
Jashaun Corbin
Kyle Rudolph
Kayvon Thibodeaux
Kenny Golladay
Michael Strahan
WanDale Robinson (rookies signature green)
Xavier McKinney

A lot of these won't be easy if I decide to continue such as Eli Manning and WanDale Robinson. 

I want to also admit before I finish up today's post that I do have two more done off the list I will save for another day's post. Stay tuned for that.

If any of you have any of them to trade to me, just let me know in comments or send me an email at sportcardcollectors@hotmail.com. I always have plenty to trade.

Thoughts on my possible project welcomed in comments.