2024 trade package #2: Scribbled Ink

My next trade package from January arrived courtesy of another longtime buddy of the blog, Paul, who can be found on Twitter now that he no longer blogs as Scribbled Ink. This one was just full of surprises and, well, just check it out:

It wasn't long after Christmas that the envelope showed up in my mailbox so I'd say the little Tigers helmet was still appropriate for the season. It looks great and has a perfect little olde English "D," and I may decorate a small tree late this year with all my sports-related ornaments.

Paul also included an unopened 2023 team set of his local minor league team, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. The sets you can get starring these teams are very cool, period, and I'm always glad to add more whether I've seen the team or know any players on them. This set includes last year's roster of AA players working their way up Toronto's system and the subject I'm most familiar with is a favorite of Paul and his son, Orelvis Martinez. The slugging Dominican infielder popped 28 HR in his first full minor league season, 2021, then added 30 and 28 more the two subsequent seasons, working his way up to AAA Buffalo. He's a top 100 prospect and I hope his fans get to enjoy his Major League debut soon!

The MLB stuff starts with some '96 Topps Tigers, and the less said about the teams back then, the better, though the players seen here are of higher quality than the average guy on those 90s squads. Cronenworth's start to the '24 campaign gets Gold Stars from me in addition to Topps. That Griffey Topps insert is deceiving because it's actually a green version and numbered /299! And a couple late 90s Cals lead into just a few more in the next scan.

Seven's just a few, right? The couple recent Topps and Donruss parallels are great--orange really goes well with Baltimore's unis, of course--but those 90s cards are outstanding. 1997's design is one of my all-time favorites from Topps, and Chrome makes it look even better, plus the photo they went with on this one is easily a top-10 Ripken for me. The horizontal Zenith is simply a work of art depicting the HOFer at bat. And the others are excellent too!

Paul even managed to sneak a Verlander (just one!) into this package, a Rainbow Foil from last year's Topps flagship product and one of a small number I own that show him with the Mets.

And last up for baseball, Paul was nice enough to snag one of the last two 1997 Score Hobby Reserve base cards I needed to re-complete my set. It's been a few years since I discovered that while most of my complete set included cards with the "HRxx" numbering on the back, a handful of the cards were the wrong version lacking numbering like that. I chipped away at the set until I got down to just two cards: the Nagy that he picked up and shipped to me, and the Andruw Jones Goin' Yard subset card you see above, which I bought myself on Sportlots last year. So, once again for the first time, I'm the proud owner of the full 1997 Score Private Stock/Hobby Reserve base set. w00t!

And we'll end on a strong note with some football and hockey. The latter is made up of a pair of UD All-Star related cards from the early 90s starring a couple Wings favorites from the team's 90s/2000s dynasty, Fedorov and Yzerman.

And the second football item is quite nice: a triple jersey of former UM QB and current (for now, given his arrest earlier today for OWI) staffer Denard Robinson, my 57th of Shoelace.

But SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP, what is that leading off this scan? Are you kidding me, Paul? An Aidan Hutchinson printing plate AUTOGRAPH?

Yep, sure is! That's an unexpected late Christmas gift if I've ever seen one, and a very, very, VERY generous one at that! Hutch could be found in Leaf's 2022 Ultimate Draft football product and this plate, which is indeed signed, was used to create Aidan's autographs found therein.

This is just my third Hutchinson hit and somehow all three include his signature, but it's going to be extremely difficult to top a signed 1/1.

Paul, sorry for the super belated post but thank you again for the incredible stuff above, truly a great mix that lives up to your reputation for sending a good variety every time. I don't have anything remotely close to the quality of some of this but will be able to hit you back relatively soon, which I can hopefully do now that the shock of the contents of this package has worn off!

This post wraps up January's blogger trades so next I'll either move on to one from the following month or recap some shows or something. We'll see relatively soon.

2024 trade package #1: My Sports Obsession

Ok, I'm finally caught up on 2023 so let's look at new cards that joined my collections in 2024. To begin with, we'll go with a trade package I received way back in early January. Jeff of My Sports Obsession hit my mailbox with this mailer not too long before we met up in Kalamazoo for a show he and his cousin were doing (details in a future post). It was stuffed with Tigers, some of my favorite bigger PCs, a few Wolverines, and more!

Here's what trade package #1 of 2024 contained for me:

Baddoo started out hot and has actually had what I'd call above-average success for a rule 5 pick, put right now he's playing for a pretty stacked AAA squad in Toledo. Jeff also really boosted my collection of el Mago, and even cooler, everything has him in a Tigers uniform. His tenure in Detroit has been less than ideal and we'll find out eventually if he's one of the guys that gets booted out of my Tigers box, but for now, I appreciate the thought while I wait to see if he can still bring anything to the team.

I wasn't joking about the Baez boost! I also really appreciate the trio of chrome-y Cabreras. As a reminder, the Tigers legend played 16 of his 21 MLB seasons in Motown, so this is the first year since 2007 that fans won't see him at the plate wearing the olde English "D." Switching teams (and fandoms, over to Michigan), Cronenworth is a guy both Jeff and I collect, and I love having more than 100 cards of the St. Clair, Michigan product. After scuffling a bit last season he's had a pretty decent start for the Padres in '24, and I hope he can get his numbers back up to their All-Star levels of '21 and '22.

Speaking of scuffling a bit, Greene's bat could use a wake-up call, but he's far from the only Tiger you could say that about right now. At least he's still out there making highlight reel plays in left, and I know his bat will warm up as we (eventually) say goodbye to the snow. Jeff also treated me to some cool items of the first two guys in my big PC quartet, Griffey and Gwynn. Ginter and Topps Chrome Platinum pop up quite a bit in this post and I'm guessing he was generously thinking of me while sorting through card shop boxes as he does.

After a couple more Gwynn items we go back to a Wolverine in Hill. I can't tell you how many copies of that card I've received through blogger and TCDb trades but it's up there! Kaline and Kell are forever linked in my mind as Tigers legends and broadcasters so it's only natural they get paired up here. Another common collection for Jeff and me is Larkin, who also gets the multi-Chrome treatment on a cool pair. Maddux is the third of the "big four" PC guys and there's even more of him in the next scan! He also appears on a TCP card here and another in the next scan, plus one of the others below depicts him as a youngster with the Cubs.

Right down the middle here we have a cool present/near-ish past/distant past trio of Tigers pitchers. Mize looked a bit rusty in his first MLB game since '22, but the Tigers picked him up against the hapless Mets. Morris and Newhouser are both here courtesy of, yep, TCP! I don't know if Mize will join them in the Hall but he's one of a few talented hurlers the Tigers employ who could get there someday. I believe Cal is our final shared baseball PC guy of the post and was happy to see the fourth of the "big four" as I always am. And how about one more TCP for the road, Ted "Simba" Simmons? He's another ex-Wolverine for whom I've piled up 100+ cards since I started collecting him.

The baseball portion closes out with five many Verlanders, whose PC count continues to climb thanks to trades like this one. The Finest Throwbacks card is interesting to me because I'm such a fan of the '96 set it's honoring, though the border color is all wrong for bronze or gold. Either way, it's fun to get more cards of him as a Met considering his 16 game tenure with them last year, not unlike Mike Piazza's famous five games with the '98 Marlins before being flipped to, oddly enough, the Mets!

Flipping over to football, it's taken me a while to get my first UM or NFL card of transfer RB Zach Charbonnet (I just got one at a show this past weekend), but I'm hold onto others folks send me all the same, just not counting them towards his collection. Heisman winner Desmond Howard cleaned up nicely for a Classic Four Sport issue. And I love that two of the three cards Jeff sent me of recent star Aidan Hutchinson are college issues.

Nothing wrong with seeing him as a Lion since he's been a huge part of their turnaround, but you all know where my loyalties lie! And I continue to enjoy seeing past stars like Law, Toomer, and Woodson in more recent products like Mosaic, Prestige, and Select. Hutch, Law, and Toomer all played on teams just a year or two away from national titles but of course GOAT DB Charles Woodson won it all in '97, just like this past season's squad (if I hadn't mentioned it).

Jeff, thanks for such a great envelope to start the year! I have a pretty nice stack of stuff for you and will likely just hold onto it for now because if the likelihood that I'll see you at another show in just over a month.

I believe my next few posts will continue to be trade recaps but may also mix show summaries and other stuff in there if I feel like it. Lots more to come!

2023 COMC purchases: check out my last post for 2023

That's right, this post will finally wrap up 2023 for me. At least it only took a third of 2024 to get there!

I'm going to take a quick run through the cards I picked up for myself so I can get ready to finally get started with 2024 stuff. Here's what I scored this time around the Black Friday weekend:

90s inserts rule! Three numbered Gwynns? Don't mind if I do! The first is "limited" to 3000 copies and you'll see the back in a bit. The other two had just 5000 copies made of each. As a reminder, that seems pretty high these days, but these were still pretty rare back then, way before today's era of "absolutely garbage boring insert or one of 200 parallels."

Tigers PCs Dean-o and Phillips each get a tougher parallel for their collections, and I splurged a little for the UD Amazing Greats Ripken, a definite top 10 insert for me since I pulled my first one way back then.

One insert I went all-in on was '97 Pinnacle Inside's Dueling Dugouts. You've seen at least one of these here, but basically the double-sided cards feature two players with a wheel you can spin that will show those players' stats in a given year. These four of some of my favorite player collection guys leave me short just Griffey's card (shared with Andruw Jones) in terms of what I want to collect.

And here's a few backs for you. Gwynn's paired up with the solid Brian Jordan. The other three are guys I really don't care for: Jeter (Ripken), Clemens (Maddux), and A-Rod (Ripken). One-time Pirates prospect Jose Guillen was on the flip side of Gwynn's "Great X-Pectations" insert, and the back of Cal's Amazing Greats (a fun pun of a title to go along with an elite design) is also worth a look.

They don't make 'em like they used to but there's still so much 90s greatness to chase that I may never have to worry about the absolute nosedive inserts took after the 2000s.

And now it's time for the (mostly) hits! I don't count manurelics as I consider those inserts for the purposes of my collection, but they're still fun to pick up on the cheap. My second Blomgren auto is another Michigan uni special and it's die-cut too. Brewer joins the hits collection with his first auto. I now have five signatures of Criswell after picking up a cheapie Heritage Minors auto. How could I pass up a large Granderson swatch? Framed Ginter cards still look miles better than the regular ones, and the signed cards are even better, so I scored my fifth sig of pitcher Tommy Henry. Kauffmann also gets his fifth auto on a great looking Elite Extra card. Larkin's manurelic is a reminder that he was a nine-time Silver Slugger as a SS, and that bat relic is pretty cool too.

No, I'm not going all-in on Rogers as Detroit's catcher of the future, but including the last card in the previous scan, I found three signatures of his that I really liked: Diamond Kings with a couple of swatches plus the top-notch Stadium Club design and the Chrome version. Stewart is also a newbie to the Michigan PC, a rare Michigan State-to-Michigan (grad) transfer drafted by the Angels in the 9th round in 2022

One of my two basketball pickups, which unfortunately didn't scan well, is my first autograph of "Sauce Castillo" himself, Nik Stauskas. While I owned 10 hits including a crazy five plates of the ex-Wolverine, I hadn't scored a signature until now.

And now it's time to talk about football stuff I picked up before the team beat Alabama and Washington to become National Champions. Anthony transferred to Oklahoma for the 2023 season but spent 2021 and '22 in Ann Arbor, highlighted by a six-catch, 155/2 TD performance against his hometown Spartans in the suspect '21 loss. The Darboh is my 49th hit, all but 15 of which are signed, but I wasn't passing up a cheap one! Eubanks was a fun TE who bounced around the NFL the past few years after going undrafted. Kinnel played DB from 2015-18 and appears to be out of the league now. LB Cam McGrone played in 2019 and '20 for Michigan and was drafted by the Pats, though so far he's only appeared in NFL games with the Colts.

Cade was the guy that somewhat rescued Michigan during that weird/hapless 2020 season, bringing the team back from the brink of a terrible loss to Rutgers. He transferred to Iowa and said some stupid stuff, and there are rumors he gave successor at QB JJ McCarthy the could shoulder while they were teammates, but he was a key part of the 2021 Big Ten champs who defeated Ohio State, so I'm happy to have him in my collection. Nordin was a huge big-legged kicking prospect and Jim Harbaugh famously slept over at his house during his recruitment. He could be as inconsistent as any other kicker, booming some and missing easy ones, and he kind of had a Rickey Vaughn vibe. I thought the multi-piece Toomer jersey looked badass even if I don't really have any love for the Giants these days. And I finally scored a certified auto of Vaughn, the RB/FB who bravely spoke out about the sexual assault he and many of his teammates suffered at the hands of team doctor Robert Anderson. I continue to commend his courage in coming forward despite his trauma to make people aware of this monster's horrible acts and how the athletic department did nothing.

Last up in this scan is a lone hockey player joining the collection, center Cooper Marody. A native of nearby Brighton, the three year Michigan icer was drafted by the Flyers in 2015 and got a couple very small cups of coffee with Edmonton, though he's mostly toiled in the AHL since leaving school.

And last up we have the horizontals. Like I said, if they're cheap enough, I'll pick up the occasional manurelic like the Larkin above. Mo Taylor is the other new basketball auto I added this time and it's from back when those cards could look really cool (no surprise it's from Bowman's Best). I don't know if two counts as this kind of volume, but I scored more bunches of Funchess in the form of a jersey auto and sick five-piece relic card. Those put him at the 25-card mark, so, not bad! My third hit of Buckeye-destroyer Hassan Haskins is a cool patch (or prime jersey) auto. And last up, I believe the last card I added before shipping everything was one of the best looking Jake Longs in his (currently) 97-card collection of hits: a true patch/auto.

And with these I'll call it a year on 2023. As always I had a blast trading with so many people, getting out to shows, buying elsewhere where I could, and sharing stuff for those of you who are nice enough to follow me here.

I'll also take a brief moment to celebrate a big milestone I hit at some point last year even with some reshuffling of categories: 2500 Michigan sports hits! My official count appears to stand at 2570 and includes

• 38 baseball subjects
• 32 from basketball
• 248 representing football
• 61 hockey folks
• 4 from other sports

You might be able to tell from how I described my haul above that I put more effort into guys I'm missing in my hits collection with a special focus on trying to get at least one certified autograph of as many as I can. Once again, thank you to all who've contributed to this chase, one I'll be happy to continue for however long I keep collecting, which I expect to be a long time!

I'll try to be back soon to get started on 2024, for which I believe I already have something like four blogger trades received (and a bunch from TCDb too), a few shows, one eBay purchase, and two cool Facebook Marketplace buys. Thanks to those who've stuck around while I've dragged my feet on posting, and I hope to be back with more soon to keep everyone interested.

A super 2023 TCDb trade roundup, part 2

As is sometimes the case I have a lot of non-card stuff going on right now, hence my posting even less than usual, and that includes needing to temporarily move my collection and other things in my house for carpet installation. Still, I'm trying to sew up my 2023 pickups, so let's blast through the rest of the trades/PIFs I received from TCDb friends last year.

I specifically grouped these together because these items came from four of my closest friends on the site, some of whom I talk to just about every day, discussing checklist updates/fixes, fun new pickups, and anything else we feel like.

First up is Shawn, a.k.a. corky. The former Washington resident (now in Arizona) hangs out on the site once in a while and does great work when he's around, plus he's an excellent trader.

He sent me some very cool Griffeys, including a '96 Ultra promo, plus an oddball of another former Mariner I collect in Putz. And former UM CB Dave Brown is included on a sweet Seahawks card which stars another well-known Seattle guy in Largent.

Thanks, Shawn!

Next, Wisconsinite Brian (firesnbeers) sent me a bunch of stuff throughout the year in PIF form. The 2023 TCDb Member of the Year--and very deservedly so given his hard work and generosity on the site!--went to the National, so some of what you'll see below came from there, plus some came from a card shop not too far from him.

These came from a PIF about a year ago. That Conlon card is Vick's lone cardboard issue listed on TCDb, and it's now part of my Michigan Baseball PC. He played baseball and football for the Wolverines in the late 1910s/early 20s, apparently liking positions starting with a "C": catcher and center. Though his MLB career, 57 games over four seasons with the Cards, was short, he did win a ring with the '26 champion St. Louis squad, though he didn't actually appear in the Fall Classic.

There was a good bit of football content in that mailing as well, including the QB-heavy group above.

I can also often count on Brian to send me a nice bunch of Packers stuff since that comes with his territory, and he's especially reliable for getting oddball-ish stuff like police issues. Hence the additions to my Des and Woodson PCs from the group above.

The next bunch of scans came from a big August '23 mailing that included some National pickups, interesting stuff from his card shop, and lots more. Sweet Miggy cards here!

Gwynn, former Tigers, and a Rich Hill, excellent!

Hell yeah, even more of yesterday's birthday boy Dick Mountain, and in numbered form in a couple cases! More Tigers and another Michigan Baseball alum too.

Former Tigers in the wrong uniforms start off this scan but there's other cool stuff, including even more Hills! And one of the top cards in the whole package is the second oldest George Kell in my collection, out of 1955 Bowman. Wow!

He picked out these Topps Mini Pink parallels from the National after finding a nice deal on them and I thought that was very cool, though I did make sure to send the Jones to Paul as he still collects JaCoby.

A few more very interesting items here. The two columns of '79 Topps cards are from a box or uncut sheet or something, I forget which, but I thought it would be fun to add because of the presence of Bergman, another former Tiger in Corcoran, and of course the Maris/Aaron combo. Northrup is a '71 Topps Super and represents my first piece of that odd but great product's run. And last up is an Al Kaline mini record that was also made in 1971 by Mattel. That quickly became one of the most unique items in my collection!

There was plenty more football in this package as well, and a really nice mix of players to boot.

More football and more recent guys in Michigan unis. SAGE even managed their usual level of QC by calling former Michigan star DB Hill "Draxton" instead of Daxton.

And the last of the football and this package overall. A couple Topps Total multiplayer cards feature ex-Wolverines, a Score Red Siege parallel of former WR Chris Calloway looks great, and backfield bowling ball Leroy Hoard is high-steppin' on an extra tall Fleer GameDay card.

And now we're into the last PIF Brian sent me which was back in October. The first of two baseball scans offers more Miggy, three quarters of my Griffey/Gwynn/Maddux/Ripken quartet (don't worry--Cal's included in the next scan), and, oh yeah, just another vintage HOF card: Al Kaline's '71 Topps. Awesome!

There's the Ripken I was referring to, along with Gwynns big and, uh, normal, and another Maddux.

And lastly, Brian made a big trade with another member and arranged to acquire cards for a few folks, which was very nice of him. I took advantage of his offer by picking up all of these needs for my '94 Finest and Pinnacle and '95 Finest sets.

Thanks again for a bunch of amazing PIF cards, especially the vintage and oddball stuff, Brian!

Next we have my fellow Michigander Jason (jasongerman9), the first of this group that I've met in-person, which I'll detail more in a future show recap. Jason's a baseball coach at a college near where he lives close to the Michigan/Indiana border, and it's easy to find stuff he can use as he has a huge wantlist of Reds and other PCs. He sent me a few nice sized PIFs last year broken down like this:

PIF #1 last February included a fun mix of baseball, basketball, and football stuff. If that Mosaic Kaline isn't emblematic of today's Panini, I don't know what is! I knew Jason was sending me the two IP/TTM autos of NCAA champ Glen Rice but they were still fun to get all the same.

There was even more football to enjoy but the top highlights by far were the super vintage mini RCs of Albert "Ox" Wistert and John Greene out of 1948 and '50 Bowman, respectively:

Albert was one of three brothers (Francis, a.k.a. "Whitey," and Alvin a.k.a. "Moose") to suit up for Michigan (but not at the same time) and all of them were OTs. This one played in Ann Arbor from 1940-42, then was selected by the Eagles, with whom he earned a selection to the first ever Pro Bowl plus a pair of pre-Super Bowl Championships. His #11, worn by all three of the brothers, is one of six to be retired by Michigan. He joins a few other ex-Wolverines in the '48 Bowman and/or Leaf sets as a rookie and represents a tie with Bob Nussbaumer from the same set as the oldest card in my Michigan PC!

Meanwhile, the '50 Bowman RC of ex QB/OL/other and wrestler Greene is just one of two cards in his name cataloged on TCDb, with the other being a 1986 reprint of this exact card, which hails from the same set as that of HOFer Elroy Hirsch's first year. He played in Ann Arbor in the early 40s before being drafted by the nearby Lions where he was basically a TE from 1944-50.

These two very early RCs are incredible and I can't thank Jason enough, probably because I owe him even more thanks for...

...this super cool custom jersey of my favorite former Michigan RB...

...Mike Hart! It turns out that Jason had a connection that could make something like this and asked me what name/number combo I'd want if such a thing was possible. I thanked him profusely for getting this made for me and was glad to wear it a few times last season during the team's national championship run with Hart guiding the running backs. Sadly, Hart is no longer with the team apparently for personal reasons, but I'll always be thankful for his contributions on the field and the sidelines (and to Jason for my favorite Michigan jersey in my entire wardrobe!).

Moving ahead to July, he sent me a Tigers-filled PWE with some great looking stuff in it. I was especially happy to get more Miggy stuff during his sunset season, but the Orange Refractor of Castro is quite cool as well.

These are limited to just 25 copies and this one was fairly close to being a Christmas card!

And here's the rest of the Tigers from that envelope highlighted by two guys I hope to see remain in the rotation throughout 2024 without any injuries, Manning and Skubal.

And finally in December he sent me some really nice Christmas cards. This scan features a lot of shiny stuff which I'm always a sucker for, and it's mostly Tigers plus a Cronenworth I didn't have. Sparky's Topps Chrome Platinum parallel is called a Platinum Toile Cream/Fuchsia Atomic Refractor (Topps and Panini parallels have long since jumped the shark) and is numbered /100. Meanwhile, I'm still a fan of Topps Tribute base cards I can get on the cheap or in trades because they look so premium.

TCP pops up in scan #2 as well and we're not even done yet after these! Remember when Grossman was a Tiger for a minute there? The two parallels you see of him are a Blue Mini-Diamond Refractor (/199) and a Black and White Mini Diamond Refractor. IF prospect Jack Lopez looks to appear on a similar version to the first Grossman but that's actually a Platinum Toile White/Blue Refractor numbered /199. OBVIOUSLY. Anyway, they look cool and that's a plus. Also, I've received so many copies of that Heritage Hill I don't know what to do with all of them!

And here's an exciting way to close out this group. Tram's sweet looking issue is a regular old (but plenty appreciated) Refractor. Charley Maxwell's 1962 Post Cereal card, just my third item of his, was one of two huge surprises in this envelope. The other was a 2009 SAGE HIT Cyan Plate of ex-Wolverine Tim Jamison! The Michigan DE played between 2005-08 and therefore saw the end of the Carr era and the beginning of the RichRod experience. He put up a reasonable 18.0 sacks and 28.5 TFL before appearing in a solid 56 games over six seasons with the Texans as an UDFA. I'm excited to have such a nice piece for my small collection of him!

Thanks for your generosity last year, Jason--that was some really impressive stuff you sent my way, and I look forward to more trading and hopefully meet-ups this year!

And last up tonight is a nice stack of stuff I got from longtime member Dan (vrooomed) to go with all of the other great items he sent me earlier in the year that I already covered. This was kind of a combination of a trade with a few surprises thrown in.

Dan threw in some newer Tigers to go with some Fielders I picked out, plus he included a cool STAR promo (and a shiny Miggy too). For those that don't know, he worked for the STAR company back in the 80s and therefore knows a good amount of what goes into producing cards. Also he had quite a few extras from those sets over the years to clear out, which you'll see more of in a bit.

Big and small, I trade for them all! Former Wolverine Ignasiak is another STAR card I'm sure I wouldn't have found otherwise. Keller joins my '91 Swell Greats set chase. And the minis of Bergman, Henneman, and Parrish join others in all three PCs!

I mentioned that Dan had lots of STAR cards to offer, and that included these nine minor league team sets that all included at least one PC guy I collect. Here's a quick list of the sets:

• 1988 Charlotte Rangers, Florida State League All-Stars, Ft. Lauderdale Yankees, Lakeland Tigers
• 1989 Burlington Braves (missing a few at the end of the checklist), Cedar Rapids Reds, Hamilton Redbirds (Cardinals)
• 1990 Elizabethtown Twins, Memphis Chicks (Royals)

I ended up with 10 player collection needs which was great, including two new Dean Palmers. Wolverines P Greg Everson got three new cards added to his total (including one in the next scan where he's referred to as "Chuck" on the front) and I now have five of his eight issues. Kamieniecki's well known enough, I think, and I've mentioned the late Powell a few times. However Karasinski (Braves P who didn't make the bigs) and Morse (Twins 2B, same) are making their collection debuts; Lata also gets a second card to his name.

I'm going to keep all of the sets intact because why not? Since I needed to scan the third Everson as the 10th card in the bunch, I thought I'd pull a few other stars that caught my eye. Juan Gon and Sosa joined Palmer in a star-studded '88 Charlotte set, Felipe Alou was a coach for the '88 FSL All-Star Game, and Conine was the best card found in the '90 Memphis Chicks set featuring future Royals.

Dan, once again, thank you for some super fun trading throughout 2023 and your generosity in sending some very useful items my way!

And thank you once again to all four of these guys for being awesome friends and fellow TCDb members! The site is better with all of you actively trading, handling IRs, and providing advice, and I appreciate all that you do!

Lastly, thanks to everyone who doesn't care that I post like once a month sometimes. I'll be back at some point with my final 2023 post recapping my COMC Black Friday pickups.