2018 trade package #8: Scribbled Ink

Last Sunday I hit up my first monthly show in Troy with (birthday boy plus one day) Paul from Scribbled Ink (who lives very, very close to the venue), making him the third blogger I've met in-person.  You can check out his show haul here as well as the stuff I brought with me for him in this post.  You'll have to wait a bit longer to see what I picked up since I haven't covered any of the shows I've gone to this year yet.

But while Paul had already mailed me some great stuff in January and I hadn't reciprocated, he also brought new cards for me to the show.  Let me tell you, it was a PC party!  Here's a look at everything he brought:

The only non-PC card was more than acceptable, this 2017 Panini Prizm Orange parallel of Miguel "S. Pumpkins" Cabrera (#179/399).  Numbered parallel of a Tigers star?  Yes please!  Any queeesssstions?

Here's a trio of Jimmy Abbott on three different teams--his '89 Topps RC is with Michigan, the '91 UD shows him bunting (in a Spring Training shot?) with his most well-known team, the Angels, and then he's with the White Sox on a '95 Upper Deck base.

Paul managed to hit my Griffey collection twice thanks to this pair.  The first is card #25 from the 2016 Topps Tribute to the Kid set and he's pictured as a member of the Reds.  The other almost looks like a Photoshop special but the image is taken from Junior's great performance in the 2006 WBC.  That one can be found in the base set of Panini's 2017 USA Baseball Stars and Stripes product.

There as a surprising amount of Tony Gwynn stuff in this package, and I was even more surprised by how many I didn't have.  The nice mix of years and brands starts with early versions of Leaf and Ultra before moving on to the late 90s with a Pinnacle Plus duo and Ultra (at the wall!).  Nice designs from UD flagship and Vintage plus a beautiful Topps Gallery represent the early aughts, then there's a big time jump to 2014's Panini Classics.  We finish horizontally by going back to '97 and Pinnacle's gimmicky X-Press brand.  This was a very productive bunch for me!

The quickest way to my collecting heart may be through my Rich Hill PC so take notes, everybody:  sending me this many of his cards gets you an easy "A".  This group begins and ends with a pair from 2006--his first year on cards besides 10 from 2002 Bowman Draft and UD Prospect Premieres--out of Topps and Upper Deck.  The latter looks great with a horizontal photo of the future Dodgers ace (that's right, I said it!  Clayton who?) signing for fans.  The others are much more recent Topps issues:  2016 and 2017 flagship plus 2017 Archives.  Somehow I only have three cards of Rich with L.A. but I'm sure that'll change this year.

And now it's time for the Reds portion of this post--the next three players were part of the Ann Arbor-to-Cincinnati pipeline  First is a guy that joined Griffey in the Hall, Barry Larkin.  Thanks to all of you that keep sending me his stuff I'm nearing 700 of his cards like these two.  On the left is a 1990 Fleer League Standouts insert, and to its right, from 22 years later, is Barry's card from Topps' Golden Moment set.  Annnnnd now I feel old again.

If I was pleased by the number of Gwynns Paul brought I was even more impressed at getting this many cards of one William Harold Morris.  It was especially nice getting this much help toward one of my supercollections.  This first group of nine starts with the second year Hal appeared on cardboard, 1990, and after that quartet there's another four-spot of '91s.  Pinnacle's 1992 debut is the only entry from that year.

1993 brings Donruss, the always excellent Stadium Club, and one of my favorite photos via Upper Deck, which makes a repeat performance from the following year.  After '95 Topps we get a pair of Royals issues from 1998--Pinnacle Plus--and his sunset year of cards, 1999 (Fleer's Metal).  That's 10 years of cards in two scans.

While Morris checked in at 17 cards his former teammate Chris Sabo led all comers with 19, which was great since he's another supercollection guy.  This 1988-90 group includes a couple Glossy versions of Fleer cards from 1988 and '89 (cards #1 and 3) that were helpfully noted by Paul or someone else.  While I tend to be able to distinguish stuff like that myself I'm still glad when folks do it because it can be easy to flip past it without realizing it and missing out on a rarer issue I might need.

This scan takes us into the early 90s with a quartet of '91s (two each from Donruss and UD) plus two each from '92 and '93 (Pinnacle/Studio and Donruss/Fleer).  Clearly the goggles game is strong here.

Here's the two that put Sabo past Morris:  a horizontal base and a mini.  The former is the lone Orioles card and can be found in Upper Deck's 1994 flagship product when its design went up a notch in quality.  He may be seen with a different team but the goggles are still there!  It's joined by an '89 Topps Mini Leaders, whose back shows that Chris was #3 in the NL with 40 doubles and tied for fourth with 46 steals in 1988.  Those numbers helped him to be named the league's Rookie of the Year as well as an All-Star for the first of three occasions.  He'd have two other seasons approaching his career-high 5.1 bWAR that year:  1990 (4.2) and '91 (5.0).  Those account for the majority of his productivity.

Getting back to the non-Michigan PCs, here's a card of a guy who won't be with the Tigers to open the season for the first time since 2005.  World Series champ Justin Verlander-Upton hopped in the box of cards with one of the bunch of 2007 Topps Generation Now cards of his I needed, giving me seven of his 17 in the set, each representing a win. 

This one covers his fourth win (which made him 4-3 on the season) in a May 10, 2006 6-3 win at Baltimore.  JV got 19 outs and struck out four while allowing all three of the Orioles' runs, and he got help from fellow rookie sensation Joel Zumaya and Todd Jones to preserve the lead.  Curtis Granderson hit his sixth HR in a four-run 7th inning that put Detroit up for good.

I've bought a few of these but also have been lucky enough to get some sent my way as well thanks to nice traders like Paul.

Once again thanks, Paul, for another great haul (sorry for the rhyme) and I look forward to seeing you at future shows, especially the one in Taylor in a couple weeks if you can make it!