2017 JustCommons purchase: just Trammells

Previously:  Jim Abbott, Kirk Gibson, Barry Larkin, Hal Morris, Chris Sabo

Back in late May I made my largest JustCommons purchase yet:  around 330 cards for about $57.  That total included a few things heading into trade packages, but overall I added almost 300 new cards to some of my baseball PCs.  Over something like seven different posts I'll cover those new cards, player by player!

It's been an interesting few days of Tigers new and old, with Justin Wilson and Alex Avila heading to the World Champion Cubs for prospects, plus former catcher Ivan Rodriguez (2004-08), also the owner of a ring, getting enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Speaking of former Tigers (and players that most definitely belong in the Hall), my penultimate JustCommons post features one of the greats:  SS Alan Trammell.

My Trammell collection is half decent, though admittedly more sparse than it should be since I'm such an avid Detroit collector.  This purchase went a long way toward righting that wrong, and an impending Sportlots buy could further bolster what may quickly turn into a nice pile of cardboard.  For now, let's focus on the former, where Tram was the big winner out of the 10 PCs I hit.  Spanning 1982 all the way up to 2014, here's tons of Trammells!:

To start things off, we're going waaaaay back to the year before I was born--1982--and the second year of Donruss, on a pretty good design.  As in Kirk Gibson's post, you'll see a nice amount of O-Pee-Chee today, including cards #2, 3, 7, and 9 in this scan representing, respectively, the years 1983-86.  The others are 1984 Topps, 1985 Leaf and Fleer, and 1986 Leaf.  As you can see, I was able to fill in a number of early gaps in terms of the Canadian counterparts to Topps and Donruss thanks to this purchase.

Next we jump ahead to a 1987 trio of Donruss Highlights, Fleer Glossy, and O-Pee-Chee.  1988 is surprisingly similar with Donruss Baseball's Best, Fleer Star Stickers, and--you guessed it!--O-Pee-Chee.  In a nice bit of symmetry, the final three cards are all from 1989, with a repeat of Donruss Baseball's Best, then base cards from Score and Topps.  Yes, I still sometimes need '89 Topps cards (and I think I don't even have everything of Trammell's from that set!).  That's just two pages from the 80s, but I don't suppose that's a surprise considering the explosion of products the following decade brought us.

This scan starts with our fourth straight trio from one year, in this case 1990, and Donruss Best AL, O-Pee-Chee, and Topps.  We then start to get a hint of things to come with a six card bunch of '91 stuff:  Classic II, Fleer, O-Pee-Chee Premier (n00b #1), a pair from Score, and Studio (n00b #2).  Nothing terribly interesting here, though as usual I appreciate the first version of a product I'd really come to enjoy in Studio.

Card #1 here finishes off 1991 with another debut, Ultra, and a photo that makes it look like Tram is about to get blown over.  Everything else is from 1992, part of a 10-card run that bleeds into the next scan.  The group of eight here includes:  Donruss, Fleer, Leaf (and a great turn-two photo that includes a Mark McGwire cameo), O-Pee-Chee and Premier, Pinnacle (debut #4), Score, and Topps.  The fielding shots in this bunch are pretty interesting, including a potential stolen base situation on the Donruss and a rundown from a very cool perspective from Score.

Now we can complete the 1992 run with the maiden voyage (#5) of Donruss' Triple play, plus the much better second year of Ultra.  Then a quicker jaunt is in the cards (sorry) for 1993, which includes Donruss, Leaf, Pinnacle, Score, and Triple Play again.  Two reps from 1994--Donruss and Pacific (second year, close!)--finish things up.  Card #1 wins worst photo in my book with a blurry 3B blocking a chunk of the view, but the '93 Donruss a couple cards over also includes a curious choice.

Here we continue on with 1994 as we get nearer to the end of Tram's career.  First up is one of my favorite parallels, Pinnacle's Museum Collection, and that's followed by base from Score, SP (year two), Triple Play (got 'em all right this time!), and Ultra.  Then we jump to 1995 with base releases of Donruss, Score, Upper Deck Collector's Choice, and Ultra.  Not only did I get the CC card wrong as usual, but I even put it before Ultra, which would have been wrong if I was thinking of it as Upper Deck Collector's Choice!

Four more cards polish off the vertically-oriented standard size group.  From 1996 I grabbed Collector's Choice, which includes a cool "tribute" logo to honor Tram's career, then Leaf and Pacific.  Then we take a huge leap forward to 2014 Panini Prizm, and it makes me glad to see that Panini realizes this is a guy that's still relevant to many collectors.

Now we have some odd stuff to look at, beginning with the oversized 1994 Fleer Extra Bases, which you've seen a few times in this series.  Below that is a 1984 Fleer Sticker, and you'll get another look at a Tiger from that set next time.  Finally, I grabbed both of Tram's Topps Micro cards from 1991 (.  Those are definitely fun to scan in the same group as standard sized cards plus an example from Extra Bases!

Finally, here's a fun group of horizontal cards, some of which take advantage of the format with some nice photos.  1991 includes the second year of Leaf's standalone product (and a Devon White cameo!) and the excellent debut (#6!) of Stadium Club.  1994 includes a cool fielding/hitting photo combo from Score's sophomore release of Select, plus what I'd assume is a spring training shot (from Tatooine?) with a Marlins cameo.  Skipping a couple years, we go to a close-up photo on a Score '96 base, and then a Detroit Stars commemorative uni from '97 Pinnacle.  Last up is one more debut (#7), the first of three years of the slightly oversized Topps Big, with a big headshot of a very.  Serious.  Trammell.

In all, some 69 new Alan Trammell cards made it from JustCommons' inventory to my collection, putting me within spitting distance of a fun milestone at 198 cards.

Stay tuned to one more (much shorter!) post to close out this series soon; you may just get to see one or more cards of a certain former teammate of the guy above....