My latest pickup is this 2006 San Diego Chargers away jersey of Malcom Floyd that was worn in 7 games. Although it was on the pricier end of my collecting range, it was undersold and is definitely worth more than I paid for it.

This jersey spoke to me because I watched a lot of Chargers games on TV when Floyd played and he had an impressive career. The seller advertised it as being from the 2004 season because a 2004 tag is sewn into the collar. The problem is, Malcom Floyd wore #13 in 2004 and spent 2005 on the practice squad.

I fired up the image searches and found photos of Floyd from multiple games in 2006 that feature distinctive characteristics on the jersey. I sent the seller an offer that was accepted and I received the gamer in the mail today.

With the jersey in my hands for closer evaluation, I was able to photomatch it to 6 games from the 2006 season, with an assumed 7th game in between those dates.

Floyd put in some serious work in those games, catching 9 balls for 170 yards and 2 TDs (the 2nd and 4th TDs of his career). He also registered his first career 100-yard game in a wild shootout against Cincinnati that saw nearly 1,000 yards of total offense. The metric that puts it over the top for me is that Floyd wore this jersey during two highlights featured on “NFL Primetime,” one which even warranted Chris Berman to give Floyd a “whoop!” after he shook some defenders. All in all, I’m thrilled to have it in my collection.

9/11/06 at Oakland

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10/1/06 at Baltimore

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1 reception, 31 yards, TD

10/15/06 at San Francisco

No photomatch

10/22/06 at Kansas City

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1 reception, 19 yards

11/12/06 at Cincinnati

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5 receptions, 109 yards, TD

11/19/06 at Denver

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1 reception, 7 yards

12/3/06 at Buffalo

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1 reception, 4 yards

I recently nabbed this gem mint copy of the 1991 Upper Deck Vikings checklist card featuring a Vernon Wells painting of Herschel Walker.

Some of my earliest memories involve opening packs of 1991 Upper Deck football and leafing through my partial set in binder pages. I’ve seen many of those cards enough times that I can describe them from memory. This has always been a top-10 card for me and now I can say I have a perfect copy in my collection. Life is good.

This might be the most satisfying jersey match I’ve ever performed.

Last week I saw that a seller listed a bundle of Middle Tennessee football jerseys on eBay for $35 each. The jerseys had no information as to the year they were worn and all nameplates had been removed.

Mysterious jerseys with no provenance from a random school? Challenge accepted.

I pulled up a list of NFL players and draft picks who played for Middle Tennessee in the past decade and a few names came up. I used the school’s yearly rosters to find their numbers then searched the seller’s listings for those jersey numbers. One of the hits that came up was #30, which was worn by Darius Harris (2015-2018) and Jakobe Thomas (2021-2023). The jersey showed a lot of use, with paint transfers and ripped seams. Interesting.

I zoomed in closely on the seller’s photos and noticed a very faint outline of a captain’s patch on the right shoulder. I also noticed that the C-USA patch was sitting overtop the outline of a larger patch that was previously removed. I did some photo searching and noticed that graduate players wore a special C-USA patch that was larger than the normal one.

More searching found that Darius Harris was a redshirt senior in 2018 and was also named a captain that year. I scoured the internet for photos of him from his college days and although I found multiple with the same jersey style, the nameplate on the back was much more narrow than the nameplate stitch outline on the jersey for sale.

After a couple hours of searching I said screw it, the jersey is only $35, just buy it and resume the research when it arrives. I don’t love buying a jersey before I’ve photomatched it but that price is solid even for a generic game-used college jersey.

It arrived in the mail today and I got back to work. I hit some dead ends in my photo searching (surprisingly enough, major media outlets don’t send many photographers to Middle Tennessee games), but then I realized the clue was sitting right in front of me. In Jakobe Thomas’ 2022 team photo, I could clearly see the same outline of the removed C-USA graduate patch, along with a couple matching paint transfer scrapes on the shoulder. Business just picked up.

I performed Google image searches to determine the games in which Middle Tennessee used this jersey style in 2022. One of the hits was a showdown against Western Kentucky. Thomas had a big game, logging a bunch of tackles. I found the game posted online and scrubbed through the footage, watching the defensive plays closely. At one point the camera zoomed in on Thomas after he made a play and I could clearly see the swooping dark paint transfer on the front #3, along with matching paint transfers on the shoulders.

Boom. I turned nothing into something. Pure sweat equity. That’s why I love this hobby.

I’ll never know for certain, but if I had to guess, the team intended the jersey as an alternate for Darius Harris, which is why the jersey had the graduate logo and captain’s patch at one point. They probably didn’t put his nameplate on the back, and after he graduated they removed the patches to get the jersey back into circulation, ultimately repurposing it for Jakobe Thomas.

Thomas went on to join Miami in 2025 after leaving Middle Tennessee, playing a key defensive role in the Hurricanes’ run to the National Championship game. He was drafted by the Vikings in the 3rd round in April. Wherever he goes from here, he has at least one supporter.

No need to rub your eyes - the “King of Rock and Roll” didn’t return to play quarterback for the Panthers in the 1990s. Apparently Kerry Collins liked to moonlight as an Elvis impersonator, as captured in this 1997 Pinnacle Trophy Collection card. I became aware of this card’s existence last weekend, and I doubt Kerry could’ve played “Hound Dog” in the time it took me to purchase it.

Side note: This is the place on the Venn Diagram where my collection (junk wax football parallels) overlaps with @cardsforchrist’s collection (all things Elvis). Gotta love Mantel.

I recently acquired this game-used Western Kentucky University football jersey of linebacker Chris Bullard, dated to either 2009 or 2010.

I picked up this jersey for a few reasons. First, it shows great signs of use. Bullard was a linebacker despite the low jersey number, and his playing intensity shines through the holes and scrapes and tears. Next, I got it for a solid price. Most importantly, the guy who wore this jersey has enjoyed an impressive life journey.

Bullard played both football and baseball in college, totaling 50 tackles across 11 games for WKU his senior year then turning around and slugging .500 on the diamond the following spring. Even better, he was drafted by the Braves in the 34th round of the 2011 MLB draft. He put up decent numbers for the Rookie-league GCL Braves but his Major League dreams faded. He then joined the Army and looks to be off doing big things. Kudos to him.