12/5/25 card show report: Christmas show-ping

Welcome back to another show recap as I near the end of my collecting from 2025. As you can tell by the date this was early in December, and I headed to my usual monthly show in Taylor.

I got a nice amount of Christmas card shopping done here, spending a yearly high of $153. $20 of that went toward some vintage Topps SPs for a deserving TCDb member, and the rest was at the tables of my usual seller.

First up is a bit of trade bait, which I hadn't come home with for a while:

I decided these were a pretty good value for the prices, which I think were generally $2 and under. As always, please drop a comment if you want to work something out!

And now for my keepers:

Baseball was well represented with a Purple paralle of Cronenworth, Donruss-related base of Griffey, Maddux, and Ripken (no Gwynn this time, sorry!), a Kinsler parallel, and a cool Griffey insert from UD's awkwardly-named HoloGrFX. With 630 bombs, Ken certainly earned his Longball Legacy!

As I've done a few times recently, I went through the seller's boxes of unpriced stuff that he hadn't put out yet, and I came up with a few including the two biggest cards you see here. He gave me a price I thought was great, so I was happy to take home a couple '84 Tigers hits! First is a 2005 Donruss Classics Stars of Summer jersey of Gibby. Numbered /250 on the back, it's my seventh relic of the '84 World Series hero (who may have appeared in one other one?) and I love the photo of him wearing the old-school uniform.

Joining him is another 1984 hero, Jack Morris, on a 2005 Donruss Leather & Lumber Leather Cuts signature card. This was one of a number of products that made things interesting by having players sign swatches of real or manufactured stuff like baseballs, wood, leather, and more. Black Jack's autograph looks excellent on a manu-leather piece, and of course I love seeing him pictured with the Tigers instead of one of his other teams as well. I now own four cards with Jack's signature, and this one is numbered /128 on the back.

When it came to basketball it was all about some cheap colorful stuff. THJ, Jett Howard, LeVert, and Poole all got new items added to their collections for what I think was less than a quarter each.

As for football, a Kwity Paye Prizm parallel was the only non-hit, but that's ok because I found a couple relics to boost that collection's numbers. First is a 2023 Contenders jersey relic of transfer (to UCLA) RB Zach Charbonnet, representing my third hit of my favorite half of Seattle's running back duo. Unfortunately his excellent season ended in the Hawks' win thanks to a torn ACL, so he won't get to appear in a hypothetical Super Bowl.

He's joined by a nice bold red jersey swatch of former Michigan also-transfer (Tennessee) QB Joe Milton, pictured with his former team that drafted him--the Patriots. He's currently with the Cowboys and stuck behind another entrenched starter, but if he can keep earning paychecks as a backup, that's not exactly the worst case for a guy not known to be accurate enough to be a starter. By the way, this is relic number two for the gunslinger's PC.

I'll be back soon with a few eBay pickups from the second half of '25, and in the meantime I'll be rooting for Indiana to cap off their magical NCAA football season with their first title. Go Hoosiers!

2025 trade package #29: Scribbled Ink

Tonight's trade package, the final one of 2025, came from Paul of the erstwhile blog Scribbled Ink (plus he also ditched Xitter as cool people are wont to do). He and I don't trade all that often anymore as he's been busy with family and other stuff, but fortunately we do get together for the occasional deal. I sent him some cards around Christmas and then of course he sent the above BOX my way, which usually indicates insanely awesome goodies (spoiler alert: it contained some insanely awesome goodies).

Seriously, Paul's basically the Wes of the north when it comes to what he sends me these days from his estate sale purchases. Here's what my former fellow Michigander sent me late in December:

This complete boxed set of 1993 Pinnacle Cooperstown is a great place to start. Not only does it include the box portion, but it comes with an attached panel featuring a good look at the front and back of Cal Ripken Jr.'s card:

Also, box sets with printed checklists on them are awesome. Also also, boxed sets are awesome. This is a great looking set from when the Pinnacle brand really got its design juices flowing. The checklist is excellent and it includes PC guys Ripken, Gwynn, Griffey, Larkin, and Fielder, plus the rest of the lineup isn't exactly chopped liver. For taking a stab at who'd make the Hall back then, they did a pretty good job. Of this bunch, only these guys haven't been selected: Murphy, Mattingly, Bonds, Clark, Clemens, Gooden, Carter, Gonzalez, Fielder, and McGwire. Out of that group, you've got a few "not quites" along with PED-adjacent names. So, yeah, great start!

Here's the rest of the card portion, plus a bonus 2024 schedule for Paul's current home team, the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, who play Double-A ball in the Blue Jays organization.

Switching over to football for a minute, Paul included a RC of HOF DB Ty Law, plus Michigan uni autos courtesy of Panini Contenders Draft Picks of FB/TE Khalid Hill and S Tyree Kinnel. Hill was an outstanding blocker who could occasionally catch a pass while Kinnel played in Ann Arbor from 2015-18 as a solid contributor in the defensive backfield.

So what other kinds of ridiculousness did Paul get up to this time? Let's start with this:

Go ahead, get all of your plate jokes out of the way. This roughly 8" plate features some great artwork of the Iron Man throughout his career, and of course it was made to celebrate Cal standing alone as the leader in consecutive games played.

The back has four different write-ups on the outer edge while the inside is useful for identifying it--and making it known you should not be eating off of this thing! I'm not sure who else was part of this series distributed by the Bradford Exchange other than Lou Gehrig and Mark McGwire. Regardless, it's a great looking showpiece and Paul did a great job getting it to me in ONE piece.

Next, if this ball looks familiar, that's because you saw one like it in a trade package from Kerry last year. The main difference is that this one has a different photo, and a black & white one at that, on one of the panels. All I can say is that great minds think alike because this one is just as cool as the one Kerry was nice enough to send me (also in a box!).

That's already some very nice stuff, but we haven't gotten to the true ridiculousness yet. I'll give you a hint: the Ripken ball above wasn't the only one in this package:

As soon as I pulled these out, I immediately DMed Paul and asked him if they were what I thought they were: baseballs (ROMLBs, in fact) signed by Griffey and Ripken. While he couldn't offer a COA from either, the previous owner of them (Paul acquired them through an estate sale) was considered a "reputable" collector. Considering I have zero interest in ever giving these up, that's more than good enough for me to consider them to be authentic. So, one more time, autographed official MLB balls of two of my all-time favorite HOF PC guys of all time: Griffey and Ripken. Now do you see why I'm saying Paul's ridiculous?!

In all seriousness this was just another example of Paul's extreme generosity (you know, the same guy that sent me separate shipments including a Mickey Tettleton signed bat and then a Dean Palmer game-used one) which I assure you I completely appreciate and don't take for granted. I have no idea how to get him back for these but I'm currently scheming away so I can return the favor at some point.

Until then, thank you so much, Paul, for another incredible box of greatness! Your mailings remain undefeated and you've more than earned your place on the hobby Mount Rushmore of generosity with Wes. This was a fantastic way to close out my year in blogger trades and I'm still picking my jaw up off the floor from you sending me those two baseballs. Readers, please show Paul some love in the comments!

I'll try to be back a bit sooner for the next few posts which will close out 2025 for me. I would expect those to be: the December show, eBay pickups, and one or two posts recapping TCDb trades from July-December. Then I'll be able to move on to 2026 with this month's show and two blogger trades I've already been fortunate enough to receive!

2025 trade package #28: Sport Card Collectors

Happy New Year, friends! Happily I'm only a bit behind as I'll need five or six posts to cover last December and then start on this month (which already includes a show and a blogger trade package!).

I received two trade packages from blogger buddies in December just after Christmas, on the same day, actually. One of those was a PWE from excellent enveloper Matt of Sport Card Collectors (and other blogs). By my count I believe this was the fifth time he sent cards my way in 2025 and as always I appreciate his generosity.

This one was an all Tigers six-pack, and here's what he sent this time:

Greene is most certainly a Star of the MLB as 2025 saw him post career highs in runs, hits, HR, and RBI, plus he was named to the All-Star team for the second straight season. Jobe could find himself a regular at the ASG if he can return to health and keep himself that way.

Maeda ended up being a misfire free agency signing before the '24 season as he posted awful numbers and negative WAR before being released last year. However, his '25 Topps Confetti parallel (assuming I correctly IDed it) looks quite nice. Topps (and, to be fair, Panini also) releases WAY too many parallels, but at least some of them look nice enough and aren't extremely redundant.

On a more positive pitching note, Skubal won his second straight AL Cy Young Award last season, which was fun to see. His impending free agency spells doom for Tigers fans, but we'll enjoy him while we have him. He joins teammate Riley Greene as a two-time All-Star and his first card above is a Chrome insert (with a Refractor finish, but that's still the "base" version) noting his appearance in the '24 ASG. Tarik pitched the second inning for the AL and was perfect in the junior circuit's 5-3 win. His other card is a '90 Topps All-Star insert (of the Red variety) throwing it back to that set. Skubal started the '25 ASG and gave up a pair of runs in a game that was decided by a swing-off to break a 6-6 tie.

Lastly, Tork hasn't made an ASG yet but he did have a career season in '25, and a very nice bounce-back campaign compared to 2024. Since the theme today seems to be '25 Topps cards, he fits right in with a Heritage Chrome Silver Sparkle Refractor (again, I believe I got that right), one that also uses a throwback Topps design. The pattern somewhat reminds me of the old Panini foil stickers I loved to pull to fill the yearly album as a kid.

Matt, thanks once again for this post-Christmas present! I'm looking forward to your reaction to what I sent you for the holiday while I work on restocking for your next mailer.

Stay tuned for one more belated Christmas gift that you'll have to see to believe!

11/8/25 card show report: a triple "J" meetup

For what will likely be my final post of 2025 (man, the year went by so fast!) I'm going to close the book on my collecting for November by covering the show I went to the weekend after the one I just covered.

Thanks to a bye in Michigan's football schedule I was able to head out west to Portage, not far from Kalamazoo, for a show held in a school gym. I made the 1.5 hour-ish trek out there because I'd get to hang out once again with John, Jeff, and Jason (plus his fiancee Samantha). You just don't pass up opportunities like that! John lives nearby and I was able to pick him up, Jeff's about a half hour closer than I am, and Jason's drive was just a little longer than Jeff's.

Of course I mention all three of these guys here and then didn't think to get a picture of all of us together while we were at the show. At least I got one of John and me when I dropped him off before heading home:

Anyway, just like I enjoyed hanging out with Angus at the show the week before, I had a blast with these folks. I ended up spending a bit of time with each of them, including Jeff before he took off (he beat us all there), but not before handing me the stuff I posted in this trade recap. I then stopped at a few tables where Jason and Sam were looking before they headed out. Then I closed out the show looking at a few other tables with John before we got out of there.

It was really nice seeing all of them in person and I greatly appreciate that they all took the time to hang out for a bit. I'm grateful for all the cool people I know through this hobby and here I was surrounded by a bunch at once, truly a treat.

I ended up spending $79, every last dollar in my wallet but one, apparently, and scored some cool items that went in Christmas card packages. I also came home with a few keeper items for myself, but thankfully not so many that I'll need to spend a lot of time going over them.

This 73-card boxed set focusing on Mr. Tiger, Al Kaline, was actually the very last thing I bought. I noticed it on a table way in the back and made sure to come back for it before I left. It's fairly low-end as far as production value goes, but for $5 I couldn't just leave it.

Here's a look at some vertical fronts. If the design isn't much to write home about, the photography choices are still very cool. The cards span Kaline's playing career and life beyond the field. There's a mix of orange and black borders not to mention black & white and color images.

 
There were some fun horizontal images too so I included a scanner bed worth of those as well. 

The backs are about as simple as the fronts but the write-ups are solid. You'll notice the first card is numbered "1A" and there's a "1B" as well, and then the rest of the numbers go up to 72.

One other thing to note is that the set was made with both black and red borders on the back, and mine obviously has the latter, which is a bit less common.

Overall I thought this was a great value for just $5 and it allowed me to add more than 70 cards to Al's PC!

I believe the rest of my cards, all but one of which were of the football variety, came from three different tables. First up is my sixth relic (13th hit overall) of Sauce Castillo. I'm pretty sure this came from a younger guy, probably a teenager, who was wearing a #2 Michigan Football jersey, so I was happy to give him a sale.

The cheapest football card here is a SAGE base of Michigan/Bengals DB DJ Turner. And then I found three very nice hits from the sport. One is my 12th autograph of TE Jake Butt, out of 2017 Spectra and numbered /75 on the back. #2 is a large multi-colored jersey swatch (with stitching) of RB Hassan Haskins from 2022 Panini XR, which is limited to just 25 copies. And last up, I overpaid a bit for the auto you see of Iowa/Michigan/Lions QB Jake Rudock, but it just looks so cool! It's a 2016 Panini Black Gold card, and I'd already scored the "White Gold" version (numbered /99, as opposed to 199 here) so now I have its twin. The signature and player image areas being enhanced by acetate make this a big winner for me in addition to the black background with gold foil. Besides the other auto I mentioned, I have a plate of Rudock as well and therefore three hits of him overall.

Thank you again to John, Jeff, and Jason & Sam for a nice meetup at this show. I hope we can set up something similar in 2026 depending on when these shows are scheduled!

This should be it for me for 2025. I'll mostly be spending tomorrow watching Michigan face Texas in the Citrus Bowl as my fellow fans and I look forward to a new coach next year, plus I've been putting in some effort cleaning up and updating my trade bait on TCDb. I should be back early in 2026 (maybe as soon as Thursday? We'll see!) to recap this month, which brought a couple more blogger trade packages, plus I have the December monthly show and rest-of-year looks at my eBay purchases and TCDb trades to get to.

So Happy New Year to all of you, and GO BLUE!

10/31 and 11/2/25 card show report: a November to remember

Now that I'm caught up on November trades, let's take a look at what I came home with after spending two days at that month's Taylor Town show.

First, I went on Friday as usual, which was actually Halloween, but for all intents and purposes, that was the first day of the November show so that's how I'm treating it here. Also, as is often the case, I spent all of my time and money at the tables of the seller I usually see since he's only there on Fridays and Saturdays. I dropped $60 there and was happy with what I got, including these keepers:

90s(ish!) inserts rule when it comes to the Gwynn and Maddux cards I picked out. Mr. Padre is from a 2000 UD insert named Cooperstown Calling, which wasn't exactly a reach for the legendary hitter, and the shiny rainbow foil and overall design really grabbed me. Mad Dog's insert is from the same year's Stadium Club Chrome product, and it's an acetate chase card called Clear Shots that very much lives up to its name.

The other baseball item was a 2020 Absolute Black autograph card of Tigers C Jake Rogers. These manuball inserts are perfect for signatures and the price was right when I factored this into my total cost. I know Rogers has pretty much given way to Dillon Dingler as the future of the franchise at the position, but I still appreciate the stability Jake brought behind the plate. Plus the card just looks cool!

As for football, I scored a Topps Resurgence RC of Michigan (via Indiana) TE AJ Barner (who caught another TD for Seattle today), a Prizm parallel of Devin Bush, and my first autograph of Josh Uche, which is a 2020 Panini Contenders Draft Picks card and therefore features a college action photo. Uche put up some nice defensive numbers in his junior and senior years (2018-19) and got himself selected in the 2020 second round, #60 overall, by New England. He had a career year in '22 with 11.5 sacks for the Pats, and has since bounced to KC and now Philly. As it turns out his signature is fairly legible by today's standards!

I then headed back on Sunday afternoon to meet up with Angus of Dawg Day Cards as I explained in this trade post.

Not only did I have a great time meeting him for the first time in person and swapping some cards, plus having a like-minded person to flip through boxes with, but spending a second day at the show gave me an opportunity to look around at the other tables I rarely see. I think my purchases were split up between something like five or six other sellers, so I can thank Angus for getting me back out there to the benefit of my collections (in addition to the time he put in driving over from Canada).

You'll see a few cards from my favorite vintage seller who I do make sure to stop by when he's around, plus a mix of a few others. Oddly enough, I spent another $60 exactly on day two. Here's what I grabbed:

Four of the cards in this image were courtesy of the guy who specializes in vintage (plus one more in the last scan), though one of them will surprise you. First is the '63 Topps League Leaders card which includes former Tiger Jim Bunning, whose 19 wins in '62 were the fifth best behind the other four on the card who all had 20+. Harvey Kuenn may be in a Giants uni but like Bunning I'll collect him regardless, and he's seen on the fun '63 Post design. Below him is a '70 Fleer World Series card of the '07 Fall Classic, just the fourth played, in which the Cubs defeated Detroit (the first of three straight Tigers pennants that ended in defeat for them). And lastly, the '23 Topps Museum Collection jersey of future HOFer Max Scherzer came from one of his boxes as well, one that often has some more modern odds and ends, though usually not hits like this. I probably would have grabbed it even with him on another team, but the large swatch of the Detroit star grabbed my eye and I knew I had to have it.

Meanwhile I grabbed a few cheapies elsewhere including an '86 Sportflics six-player card where Tiger Darrell Evans was one of the bunch (most AL HR) along with Wade Boggs, Don Mattingly, Willie McGee, Dale Murphy, and Dave Parker. Henneman is a '94 SP Die-Cut, Magglio is a 2006 Bowman Gold, Scherzer (again) is a 2019 Finest Refractor, and JV is from 2021 Topps 70 Years of Topps.

I think one of the last tables we stopped at had one or two tubs of very random things that were something like a buck each or six for $5. Angus and I both grabbed shrink-wrapped stacks of Fleer Stamps which you probably saw on Night Owl's blog since we each sent some to him. I scored a few other items for collecting pals too, but kept one for myself: this unopened box of 12 1990 Collect-A-Books. You can see on the back that the bunch includes Griffey, who I already have, but I thought it would be fun to keep this unopened and maybe try to find the other two boxes. Also, the other 11 players are solid to fantastic, and you can't beat that for a buck!

The lone basketball single I picked up was a Ruby Wave Prizm of Duncan Robinson, whom I may have mentioned once or twice is now with the Pistons.

As for football, my second signature of FB Ben Mason hails from '21 Contenders, and it's a bit goofy as he's pictured with Baltimore but noted as having been signed by the Pats. Considering his position it's a bit surprising that he was drafted at all but Baltimore took him in round 5 in 2021, and he got into one game with them a couple years later in the midst of bouncing around various practice squads. His signature isn't bad and this is my first pro uniform auto of him, so that's cool.

He's joined from the sport by a legendary name in Elroy Hirsch. "Crazy Legs" of course is a HOF multi-position guy who played for both Wisconsin and Michigan, and he suited up for the Chicago Rockets and LA Rams in the 40s and 50s. I love finding vintage stuff of him such as the '57 Topps you see above, which is simply a classic design. It's my second oldest card of Hirsch as I already have his '56 base, but I still need his Bowman issues from 1950-54, including his RC.

And we'll close out with hockey. A dime (or maybe cheaper?) box turned up 24-25 Artifacts base cards of Hobey Baker winner Adam Fantilli plus Owen Power, and then I spend a couple bucks on my 11th relic and 16th hit of Jack Johnson, this one from 2007-08 UD.

Clearly I had a great (and productive) time spending a couple days at this show, including one with Angus. And happily the in-person show hangouts didn't end there since I got to do another one the following weekend, which I'll cover next time.

Until then, I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday, including those of you who received cards from me, and that some of you are getting some days off of work like I am!

2025 trade package #27: Wes Moore

It's getting later on Christmas Eve but I'm still up for giving some thanks to another cool person who sent me cards in November (and getting a post up before the holiday official hits).

Tonight's cards came from Alabama native and former Pancake King, Wes Moore. I think most people who follow me here are aware of Wes's legendary trade war exploits and a sense of generosity that would put him in the Olympus of traders if one existed. In case anyone reading this hasn't heard of him (or the Pancake King story) before, just search his name on some of your favorite blogs to be amazed.

Anyway, it had been quite a while since either of us sent the other anything, I think, but his joy for giving certainly wasn't rusty when he sent me a nice bubble mailer last month. This one was filled with mostly Tigers, but also some football Wolverines--mighty kind of an Alabama fan towards one whose school was trying to poach the football coach from his!

Here's a look at what I found inside:

I have to say, the guy is still a pro, and the case these came in protected them perfectly.

Just in time for Christmas, this scan of Tigers includes silver and gold, and other colors too! There were enough Refractors in this envelope that I used the insert's name as a tag for this post. Former Tigers Avila and Castellanos fit the bill here while Bondo, Coke, and Big Daddy bring the gold. Fielder also represents silver, like the bells, with an Electric Diamond parallel from '94 UD.

Hey, more color! I still remember the hype around '90s Select Certified and its rare mirror parallels, which is somewhat similar to the more recent appreciation for that era's Precious Metal Gems. Fulmer and AJax bring more Refractor heat while All-Star Riley Greene bucks the Christmas colors trend with Sky Blue. No Refractors for Manning but the colorful effect is essentially the same on Prizm and Topps Rainbow Foil inserts. Nokes is a great throwback to one of my favorite 80s Tigers plus the fun stuff we got back then like stickers and boxed sets. And Magglio looks cool on a throwback Topps insert.

Will the Tigers stop pinching pennies long enough to give Skubal (and his fans) the gift of a new contract? I'm not holding my breath, but it's not impossible. Panini didn't have this festive season in mind when they made the parallel Tork appears on, which is more suited for another holiday. The Stadium Club Super Team card is my favorite in the package because I haven't found them easy to acquire and this one includes two of my Tigers favorites in Alan Trammell and Tony Phillips. Turley's another Refractor but I didn't recognize his name, which can happen as Bowman products sometimes include 16th round picks like the ex-Baylor P. And speaking of Refractors, how about a Negative version of a player who was fairly positive for Detroit, Justin Upton?

Last up tonight, the closest to gold these Michigan Football cards come is the maize they're wearing, but there's some silver to be had. And more importantly all nine cards feature college photos, which is very cool!

I'm not a big Leaf fan these days, but I have to say that Trinity Steel card of Blake Corum looks quite nice, partially because of the cool lava pattern in the background (in addition to the cool shot of him running hard as always). His '23 backup and lightning to Corum's thunder, Donovan Edwards, gets four cards added to his collection thanks to college stalwart SAGE. The fourth card is from their Artistry product, but I haven't found a checklist for that yet to get added on TCDb and will have to work on it when I have time.

Defensive backs Will Johnson and Makari Paige join the Don out of this year's SAGE product, and the latter represents my first card of Makari that isn't a Valiant Michigan issue. Ex-#1 WR Greg McMurtry, a five-year NFL vet, looks good on his '90 Score RC. And Colts LB Kwity Paye looks ready to bring the pain on a Wild Card Matte issue.

Wes, thanks for thinking of me once again, and I appreciate your trademark generosity and ability to get nice cards into the hands of others. I don't know if I can find anything you might need but if I do, rest assured I'll work on returning the favor. For now I'll happily thank you for this perfect Christmas present.

I'll be taking tomorrow off, of course, and then plan on returning with a couple show posts next on the docket. Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas, y'all!

2025 trade package #26: the Collector

With Christmas just a couple days away let's have a look at the penultimate trade envelope I received in November. This one was actually a pair of PWEs from Chris, the Collector, who apologized for the lack of baseball but made up for it with some "Michigan" and "hoops and hockey" stuff. As always I was happy to receive anything, especially new stuff, from someone as generous as Chris.

Here's what he sent:

The lone baseball item was a '24 Heritage card that paired up 2012 MVPs Miggy and Buster Posey. Buster's Giants swept Cabrera's Tigers in the World Series, and both should have plaques in the HOF when all is said and done.

Hoops-wise, three players got boosts to their PCs while a fourth makes his debut tonight. A LeVert Prizm base puts him at 70, good for 6th in my collection. Poole's Topps Holiday base is perfect for this time of year. Franz has more cards in my collection than his older brother by a factor of almost three because he appears in trade packages so often, like the Prizm Monopoly card above.

And Yale transfer F Danny Wolf joins the collection thanks to a '25-'26 Topps 1980-81 insert that throws it back to that year's design. After playing his first two seasons for the Bulldogs, Wolf headed to Ann Arbor for the '24-'25 season and was productive enough to get selected #27 overall by Brooklyn earlier this year. Chris pulled this card himself and was nice enough to include it here when I asked if it was available.

As I mentioned, Chris did indeed include some football cards. GOAT QB Tom Brady stars on a 2017 Absolute base with a design that feels like a bit of an anomaly for the brand, though not at all in a bad way, especially since it wasn't split into hobby/retail versions that year. WR Steve Breaston's 2010 Panini Contenders is much more typical of that product's look, and one I tend to enjoy. Prestige has been pretty consistent too, like WR Devin Funchess' 2017 card above, especially when it comes to RCs with college photos that I like to collect. LB David Harris was in just his second season when the '08 Topps card above was made, and he'd go on to pile up over 1100 combined tackles in 11 years, all but one with the Jets (Patriots, his 2017 swan song). And you all know Henne as one of my absolute favorite QBs. The KC playoff hero can be seen above on his 2010 Panini Epix base that came out a couple years before he'd suit up for Jacksonville.

I'll get to Michigan Hockey stuff in a minute, but there was also a pair of non-Wolverwings in the envelopes. There was a group of five pretty cool UD inserts in this shipment and one of them is the UD Portraits card of young star defenseman Mo Seider, whose productive play has helped Detroit show vast improvement this season. He's joined by fellow D-man Jake Walman, a guy Steve Yzerman spent a second-rounder to dump on the Sharks last year, only to see San Jose flip him to Edmonton earlier in '25 for a first round pick. 

And lastly we have the hockey Wolverines, with a nice bit of red indicating a couple Wolverwings! That's the case for C Andrew Copp as seen on last year's UD design. The recently traded Quinn Hughes (Minnesota) and fellow traded defenseman Jacob Trouba (2024, to Anaheim) also hail from that set that offers superb photography. Hughes also appears on a '24-'25 UD insert called "Gaming XP" that notes how long its subjects have been in the league. I'll add that this appears to be a "Speckle" parallel of that insert, which is a tougher pull and therefore even better!

Along with the four portrait cards is a quartet of landscapes. Kyle Connor's Sizzle Reel insert from this year's UD looks fantastic, especially in-hand, and the rainbow foil brings to mind 90s inserts from brands like Select. Wings captain Dylan Larkin gets two very appreciated additions from this year's UD, the very shiny "Compositions," and last year's "Gaming FOV," (I inadvertently flipped them when scanning). As you can see, the '24 product liked the "gaming" theme, which surely was an appeal to a certain younger generation of collectors, and the FOV card has a cool look to it, if you ask me. By the way, I now have 77 cards of #71.

Last but certainly not least is another base card from Upper Deck's base set a year ago, starring third-year RW Mackie Samoskevich. The young Panther appeared in four playoff games last season and tallied an assist in Florida's successful quest to repeat their win over Edmonton. Oddly enough this card is also his debut in my collection, and he appears to be the 98th subject to join that PC.

Chris, as always I appreciate you thinking of me and sending me cards of my favorite players and teams. I'm glad you enjoyed your Christmas Cards as a quick break from the Topps advent calendar rip. I'm looking forward to more trading between us next year and reading more interesting features on your blog. May you and your family have a peaceful Christmas together.

I plan on being back tomorrow, Christmas Eve, with the final trade package of November '25. Season's greetings to you all!